Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/164

 "I picked up a good man in Pawnee Bend yesterday. Did he get here?"

"If you mean a kid by the name of Dunham, he got here, all right. But went on ag'in, like the Irish section boss's train."

Moore had to have a laugh at his own wit and the recollection of Dunham's reception in that camp.

"Why? What happened to him?" Garland inquired, looking around queerly.

"Oh, some of the boys took exceptions to his new boots and splashed dirt on 'em," Moore explained, in the casual, careless way of a man who discusses a trifle.

Garland asked for particulars, that queer puzzled look in his face that made the situation all the funnier to Moore. It was as if Garland had trusted a stranger with his pocketbook and couldn't quite get it through him when he came back and found the fellow had hopped. Moore supplied details with zest; he related with loud mirth the comical incident in Bill Dunham's history that had set the range laughing.

"Yes, I heard about that," Garland said, unmoved.

"The damn fool was layin' for Ford Kellogg that night, just before my train got in. My girl Zora got him out of that and saved his fool hide by tellin' him I'd give him a job ridin' trail. She had to do something; she hated to see the fool boy killed. But I told him—hell—I told him he wouldn't no more do for a quarantine-line guard than he would for president of the Santa Fé railroad. Him layin' for Ford Kellogg with that blame little toy gun he's packin' around!"