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 of the better citizens would come to his assistance. He could not believe that the solid interests of the town, as MacKinnon had described them, were in the crowd; it was impossible to conceive such a quick shift of public sentiment against him. Only three days ago they had asked him to take the office of city marshal, grateful to him then, it seemed, for ridding them of a man-destroying oppressor whom they feared.

Kellogg had not been a friendless man, however. There were certain shady characters who found a safe harbor in Pawnee Bend under his protection, who had followed him in his shifting from town to town. Some of these were thieves and sharpers of the vilest type, who now found themselves standing out naked, as it might be said, before an unfriendly world.

These men could not entrench behind the law any longer; there was no other frontier open to their trade. Horse-thieves and bank-robbers, these men were, cattlerustlers and the gentry who plied blackjacks on the heads of drunken cowboys at night.

There were a few crooked gamblers and pimps among them, outlawed and despised even in that free-going society. Wolfish people, who clung together in a slinking pack, an under-current of the town of which Dunham knew nothing. These were vicious in their desire to avenge the death of their protector and friend, and Bill Dunham was the last man they wanted to see in his place.

It does not matter what the beginning of such a crowd may be, there always are plenty of men, respectable enough in their ordinary lives, ready to rush in and take