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 was going to be a difficult matter to live down that joke. Moore was right; he couldn't fight the whole country.

It might be the wiser thing to travel on to the next town and start over, but it was a long way between towns in the short-grass country, and his suitcase weighed around forty pounds. Tramping it was not to be considered. On the other hand, his appearance in Pawnee Bend would be equal to the arrival of a circus. Everybody would cut loose at him with their humorous jibes. He'd hear that fool cowboy's indignant question fired at him from every door as he passed.

Kellogg's attitude was to be considered, also. Kellogg would take it that he had left town once on his command. Going back would appear to be an open defiance and a bid for trouble. There wouldn't be a shadow of lawful defense on his side in such case, Dunham feared. It was a hard country to break into; it looked as if they had the door locked against him, for a fact.

Dunham left the road after two or three miles, shy of meeting anybody coming from town, oppressed by the dread that is at least as painful to sensitive innocence as any recriminations of conscious guilt. He wanted to sit down in a hollow, somewhere out of sight, and think out the answer to his problem.

There was plenty of room for solitary meditation in that country, even close as it was to the railroad and town, neither of which was in sight. He drew away from the road a safe distance, shaping his course with a sort of subconscious intention toward the railroad track. Here the country was unpastured; the gray