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 around her wrist. Her face was in shadow; Dunham could see her features only sketchily, but she was young, and his gratitude for her defense was guaranty to him that she was lovely.

"Look at my winder!" the merchant appealed. "Who in the hell's goin' to pay for that?"

"Well, I ain't, if you mean me," the city marshal replied.

This rejoinder won a laugh, more the tribute of sycophants than the expression of mirth, for Kellogg was a mighty man in his place.

"Who in the hell was hintin' at you?" the irascible hardware man wanted to know. "But if you'd 'a' been attendin' to your duty instead of guzzlin' booze it wouldn't 'a' happened."

It was nothing to the hardware man that a human life had been cut off before his door, at least very little in comparison with the value of his window pane.

"It was only a joke," one of the unfortunate man's companions said, in tone of complaining injury. "That ain't no way to rair up and shoot a man over a joke."

"That man had his gun out before this gentleman ever made a move to pull his," the girl said indignantly.

Dunham was certain she was beautiful, indeed, above all her kind.

"He ort to swing for it!" the cowboy insisted.

"There's no case against him, I tell you, Kellogg," the merchant said with authoritative emphasis, seeing the marshal indecisive in his course. "Let this man go."

"You don't need to git up on your high horse about