The young man grinned. "Well, I swear if I didn't come near forgettin' Clem Miller!" he said. "If you hadn't spoke up then, I reckon you wouldn't have been in on this deal. An' so she told you she'd studied her dictionary! Now, I'd call that news. Some one'd been tellin' me that she'd asked you the meanin' of the word 'evaporate.' An' when you couldn't tell her she told you to do it. Said that when you got home you might look up a dictionary an' then you'd know what she meant. "An' now Leviatt's hangin' around over there," continued the youth. "He's claimin' to be goin' to see Ben Radford, but I reckon he's got the same kind of sickness as the rest of us." "An' you ain't sayin' a word about what she said to you," observed Miller. "She must have treated you awful gentle, seein' you won't tell." "Well," returned the young man, "I ain't layin' it all out to you. But I'll tell you this much; she said she was goin' to make me one of the characters in that book she's writin'." "Well, now," said Miller, "that's sure lettin' you down easy. Did she say what the character was goin' to be?" "I reckon she did." "An' now you're goin' to tell us boys?" "An' now I'm goin' to tell you boys," returned Skinny. "But I reckon there's a drove of them characters here. You'll find them with every outfit, an' you'll know them chiefly by their bray an' their long, hairy ears." The young man now smiled into his plate, while a chorus of laughter rose around him. In making himself appear as ridiculous a figure as the others, the young man had successfully extracted all the sting from his story and gained the applause of even those at whom he had struck. But now a sound was heard outside, and Leviatt came into the room. He nodded shortly and took his place at the end of the table. A certain reserve came into the atmosphere of the room. No further reference was made to the subject that had aroused laughter, but several of the men snickered into their plates over the recollection of Leviatt's connection with the incident. As the meal continued Leviatt's gaze wandered over the table, resting finally upon Ferguson. The range boss's face darkened. Ferguson had seen Leviatt enter; several times during the course of the meal he felt Leviatt looking at him. Once, toward the end, his glance met the range boss's fairly. Leviatt's eyes glittered evilly; Ferguson's lips curled with a slight contempt. And yet these men had met but twice before. A man meets another in North America--in the Antipodes. He looks upon him, meets his eye, and instantly has won a friend or made an enemy. Perhaps this will always be true of men. Certainly it was true of Ferguson and the range boss. What force was at work in Leviatt when in Dry Bottom he had insulted Ferguson? Whatever the force, it had told him that the steady-eyed, deliberate gun-man was henceforth to be an enemy. Enmity, hatred, evil intent, shone out of his eyes as they met Ferguson's.