Blair paused. "I reckon I might mention a man that he didn't kill," said a man who lay near Blair. "An' he wanted to, mighty bad." "We're wantin' to know," returned Blair. "He must have been a high-grade gun-slinger." The man nodded toward Randerson, who apparently was not listening to this conversation. There was a subdued chuckle from the man, and grunts of admiration or skepticism from the others. Owen's gaze was fixed on Kelso; he saw the latter's eyes gleam wickedly. Yes, that was it, Owen saw now; the recollection of his defeat at Randerson's hands still rankled in the gunman's mind. Owen saw him glance covertly at Randerson, observed his lips curl. One of the other men saw the glance also. Not having the knowledge possessed by Owen, the man guffawed loudly, indicating the gunman. "Dorgan ain't swallerin' your yarn about Randerson puttin' a kink in Kelso," he said to Blair. Randerson turned, a mild grin on his face. "You fellows quit your soft-soapin' about that run-in with Kelso," he said. "There ain't any compliments due me. I was pretty lucky to get out of that scrape with a whole hide. They told me Kelso's gun got snagged when he was tryin' to draw it." So then, Randerson _had_ been listening, despite his apparent abstraction. And Owen sat rigid when he saw the gunman look coldly at Randerson and clear his throat. Plainly, if Kelso had been awaiting an opportunity to take issue with Randerson, it was now! "Yes," he said, "you was mighty lucky." There was a sneer in the words, and malevolence in the twist of his lips as his voice came through them. A flat, dead silence followed the speech. Every man held the position in which he had been when the gunman had spoken; nothing but their eyes moved, and these were directed from Randerson to the gunman and back again, questioningly, expectantly. For in the hearts of the men who had been talking until now there had been no thought of discord; they had spoken without rancor. But hostility, cold, premeditated, had been in the new man's speech. Randerson moved his head slightly, and he was looking straight into Kelso's eyes. Kelso had moved a little; he was now sitting on his saddle, having shifted his position when Blair had begun to talk, and the thumb of his right hand was hooked in his cartridge belt just above the holster of his pistol. Randerson's face was expressionless. Only his eyes, squinted a little, with a queer, hard glint in them, revealed any emotion that might have affected him over Kelso's words. "Yes, Dorgan," he said gently, "I was mighty lucky." Kelso's lips curved into a slow, contemptuous smile. "I reckon you've always been lucky," he said. "Meanin'?" "Meanin' that you've fell into a soft place here, that you ain't fit to fill!"