Roy resented the implication. His voice came with new strength, almost snarling.
“Give the devil his due! He’s quick, all right. I didn’t mean to use a gun. I chased him in the dark down there, and came up to him. I was watching for a chance to jump him, when, somehow, he knew that I was there. I don’t know what could have given him a hint. I didn’t even guess that he had any suspicion. He fired two shots in a flash. I didn’t see him so much as pull the gun. With the first shot, he put out the lantern, which was a little way off from him. The second got me.”
“But—in the dark!” David’s exclamation was incredulous.
“In the dark!” Roy repeated, weakly.
“Some class to that shooting,” David admitted, with manifest reluctance.
Billy Walker sniffed loudly.
“Nonsense!” he exclaimed; and the bourdon tone went reverberating afar. “You should exercise your reasoning powers, my dear David—if you have them—the enemy had the devil’s own luck, that’s all.”
“In the dark!” David repeated, disputatiously.
“Exactly—in the dark,” Billy conceded. “Why was the place in darkness? Because Masters shot out the light. Why did he shoot out the light? In order to be invisible to Roy, and so to avoid being killed himself. He didn’t wish to serve as a mark to the other man. That means, he wasn’t at all sure of hitting the other man. He chanced it, and he had the luck—better luck than he expected.”
Roy’s expression lightened greatly, as Billy presented this view of the matter. It took something from the hurt to his pride sustained in the encounter.