"I was wonderin'--Holy smoke! It's a phony holster, fixed on the gun to look like the real thing! An' swung from the belt by the trigger guard! Lord, man! Did you know?" "That Dorgan was Kelso?" said Randerson, with a cold smile. "I reckon. I knowed him the day he asked for a job. An' I knowed what he come for--figurin' on settlin' that grudge." Randerson and Owen started toward the gunman, to determine how badly he had been hit; they were met by Blair. There was amazement and incredulity in the man's eyes. "He's goin' to cash in--quick," he said. "You got him, pretty nearly proper--just over the heart. But, but, he says he's Watt Kelso! An' that that eastern dude, Masten, sent him over here--payin' him five hundred cold, to perforate you!" Randerson ran to where Kelso lay, gasping and panting for breath. He knelt beside him. "You talkin' straight, Kelso?" he asked. "Did Masten hire you to put me out of business?" "Sure," whispered Kelso. "Where's Masten stayin'?" "With Chavis--in the shack. He's been there right along, except," he finished, with a grim attempt at humor, "when he's been rushin' that biscuit-shooter in Lazette." Five minutes later, standing near one of the wheels of the chuck-wagon, gazing somberly at the men, who were carrying Kelso away, Randerson spoke grimly to Owen, who was standing beside him. "Pickett an' then Kelso! Both of them was sure bad enough. But I reckon Masten's got them both roped an' hog-tied for natural meanness." He turned to Owen. "I reckon I had to do it, old man," he said, a quaver in his voice. "Buck up, Wrecks!" Owen slapped him on the shoulder, and turned toward the men. Randerson watched him, but his thoughts were elsewhere. "I reckon she'd have wanted it different," he said to himself. CHAPTER XIX READY GUN AND CLEAN HEART Uncle Jepson understood the cow-punchers because he understood human nature, and because he had a strain of the wild in him that had been retained since his youth. Their simplicity, their directness, had been his own; their frankness and generosity, their warm, manly impulses--all reminded him of the days before age, with its accompanying conservatism of thought and action, had placed a governor upon them. They understood him, too, recognizing him as their kind. Blair, especially, had taken a fancy to him, and therefore it was not many days after the shooting of Kelso that Uncle Jepson got the story, with all its gruesome details, from his lips. The tale was related in strictest confidence, and Uncle Jepson did not repeat it.