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 perhaps thinking of boards of another kind than the fresh pine ones under his large, wedge-shaped feet.

Bill Dunham was bewildered by this gathering of people in a land that had the appearance of being so unproductive of the species, but cheered by the sight of so many children. He always had felt, since his very first hour in Pawnee Bend, that people came to the short-grass country full grown, served their time, died and passed out of review, to be replaced by mature ones from the reservoirs of that indefinite region spoken of as the East. It might be Dodge City, or Wichita, or Kansas City, or Illinois.

While he knew there were children somewhere in Pawnee City, having heard them at a distance when he stood on the station platform on his first arrival, the sight of them now in such hearty abundance made him glad. He felt patriarchal and benign. He could have blessed them all.

MacKinnon and Garland, with a number of cattlemen Dunham never had seen before, pressed around the wagon as Moore drove into the square. They were so friendly and eager to shake hands with him that Dunham's quickly raised apprehension of trouble cleared away at once. Major Simmons came down from the platform to add his hearty greetings and congratulations on Dunham's recovery.

Moore was one of the big lights of the occasion, due to his financial standing and general prominence in public affairs. He was to sit on the platform with the rest of the county's leading citizens.

"Gentlemen, we'd better take our places," Major