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 of the outfit that his name was Hughes. There was a carriage of authority, a careworn wariness, about the man that made it unnecessary to inquire whether he was owner of the herd or boss of the outfit. Like Garland, he was the type of man whose actions were not determined by somebody else.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Dunham?" he inquired, civilly enough, but coldly, as the leader of one hostile force addressing the emissary from another.

"I don't hardly know how to get at it, Mr. Hughes," Bill confessed, bending his head cogitatively, to look up presently with a timid grin. "But I guess I might as well tell you first as last that one man hired me in Pawnee Bend yesterday to ride this quarantine line of theirs along here, and when I got down here to-day another one fired me. I'm out scoutin' for a job."

Hughes looked him over silently, but with no offense in his grave measurement, his exact weighing, as it appeared to be. He was a man well past fifty, broad in the shoulders, straight, hard-muscled, brown. He wore a mustache clipped close t6 his lip, which added to the naturally stern lines of his features.

Not an unkindly man in appearance; unmistakably a firm one. His coat was unbuttoned, showing his pistol carried in shoulder holster; a weather-beaten, broad-brimmed hat that once had been white, was settled firmly down to his ears. The crown of it was pushed up to its full height, every wrinkle and dent smoothed out of it with meticulous care, it seemed.

"If they've sent you over here to find out how many men I've got, bud, I'll tell you, and you can trot on