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 ripple of cold up his backbone and out of his long nose, and a rising of high pride in him at this sudden realization that he had made his place in the short-grass country and stood among them a sufficient and acceptable man.

He was sensible of the honor the county was offering him, for there was an honor in the shrievalty in those immense new counties on the Kansas frontier—some of them have been split into four since then—that scarcely dignifies the office now. Much was expected of a sheriff there, and much was accomplished beyond the strict confines of his statute obligations. He was the biggest man in the community, overtopping lawyers and judges, among whom the notable sheriffs of those days stood like giants.

Still, Dunham didn't know what to do about it. He sat there feeling a tingling exaltation, the hot and cold running around and around his nervous system, up his backbone and out at the end of his nose. He didn't want to refuse, he didn't want to throw that honorable distinction slap in the faces of the hundreds of unknown friends who were conferring it, but he couldn't budge a muscle to draw himself up and take the oath.

Garland settled the matter for him by pulling him upright the way a sheriff ought to stand.

"We've drafted you because we need you, Bill. You can't go back on us now," Garland said.

Dunlam managed to lift his right hand and bow his head in solemn affirmation when the judge bound him to uphold the constitution of the United States and the state of Kansas. The judge shook hands with him