"What d'you mean?" asked the cowpuncher. "I've packed that gun for
pretty nigh eight years!"

"Sorry," said Dan passing on, "but I can't work right with a top-heavy
gun."

The next weapon he handed back almost at once.

"What's the matter with that?" asked the owner aggressively.

"Cylinder too tight," said Dan decisively, and a moment later to
another man, "Bad handle. I don't like the feel of it."

Over Jim Silent's guns he paused longer than over most of the rest,
but finally he handed them back. The big man scowled.

Dan looked back to him in gentle surprise.

"You see," he explained quietly, "you got to handle a gun like a
horse. If you don't treat it right it won't treat you right. That's
all I know about it. Your gun ain't very clean, stranger, an' a gun
that ain't kept clean gets off feet."

Silent glanced at his weapons, cursed softly, and restored them to the
holsters.

"Lee," he muttered to Haines, who stood next to him, "what do you
think he meant by that? D' you figger he's got somethin' up his
sleeve, an' that's why he acts so like a damned woman?"