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 thought Dunham had come back for a settlement, and he knew he never could get his gun out in time to do him a bit of good. He let it hang where it was.

Dunham lifted his right hand to indicate his peaceful disposition, legs doubled against his horse's sides to keep the water from overflowing his boot-tops. The current ripped along there in a narrow channel with great rapidity and force, although the water was only a little more than belly-deep to a horse. As Bill cleared the ford and lowered his feet, Moore rode down a little way to meet him.

"Hello, Bill," Moore greeted, his voice hearty but his grin sort of weak and flickering, "where you been keepin' yourself all this time?"

Dunham returned the greeting without going into particulars of his last night's lodging-place; spoke to Garland cordially, and gave the others a blanket greeting in a "Good-morning, gentlemen," although he was certain he had stretched the noun until it cracked.

Taking them as they ran, they were about the toughest-looking collection he ever had faced. He wondered if Moore and Garland had sifted the range and picked the scoundrels, or if the crowd was a fair representation of the human stock that frequented the Kansas range.

Garland looked at him questioningly, as if to ask him if he had been associating with those outcasts from south of the fever line.

"Everything all right with you, Dunham?" he asked, more to fill an awkward chink in the openly embarrassing situation than to elicit information.