Dan allowed his eyes to pass lingeringly around the table from face to face.
"I dunno," he said at last, "they look sort of queer to me."
"For God's sake cut this short, Dan," pleaded Tex Calder in an undertone. "Let them have all the rope they want. Don't trip up our party before we get started."
"Queer?" echoed Jacqueline, and there was a deep murmur from the men.
"Sure," said Dan, smiling upon her again, "they all wear their guns so awful high."
Out of the dead silence broke the roar of the sandy-haired man:
"What'n hell d'you mean by that?"
Dan leaned forward on one elbow, his right hand free and resting on the edge of the table, but still his smile was almost a caress.
"Why," he said, "maybe you c'n explain it to me. Seems to me that all these guns is wore so high they's more for ornament than use."
"You damned pup—" began Sandy.
He stopped short and stared with a peculiar fascination at Dan, who started to speak again. His voice had changed—not greatly, for its pitch was the same and the drawl was the same—but there was a purr in it that made every man stiffen in his chair and make sure that his right hand was free. The ghost of his former smile was still on his lips, but it was his eyes that seemed to fascinate Sandy.