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 this unassuming stranger who had accomplished a feat so incredible. Ford Kellogg was as well known to them, in his far-reaching notoriety for putting men out of the world, as Jesse James.

"I didn't want you to think I was travelin' around to advertise it," Dunham replied, looking down in the habit that had made more than one person take him for a thick-headed slow fellow before that day.

"How does it come Moore and them fellers let a slick gun-slinger like you leave 'em?" Hughes asked, accusation of duplicity and low designing in his words.

"You've got me wrong," Dunham protested almost indignantly, looking frankly into Hughes's eyes. "I never slung a gun on but one other man before in my life."

"I don't see why a man that could beat Ford Kellogg to his gun would stand still and let a bunch of cowboys shoot dirt all over him, or why they'd have the nerve to try it if they knew how handy he was with his iron."

"They didn't know it, Mr. Hughes," Dunham assured him gravely. "The man that hired me—you must have heard him offer me a job if you were at the hotel with the crowd?" Dunham appealed suddenly to Bob Hughes.

"Yes, I heard him say he could give you a job and saw you walk away with him," Bob honestly admitted.

"He was to meet me down here—his name's Hal Garland—but I arrived ahead of him. The news of my—of that—business with Kellogg hadn't got down that far. I could 'a' stopped them boys peggin' at my