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 father, who was president of the Kansas cattlemen's organization.

These guards must be trustworthy men of the highest integrity, cool men in the face of danger, inflexible men in their duty. They were having trouble finding men, as few were unemployed on the range at that time of the year, those few out of jobs generally being undesirable for the stern duty of quarantine patrol.

"Mr. MacKinnon recommended you," she said.

"He don't know any more about me than you do," Dunham told her.

"I know you're a man that will stand up for his rights, and you were willing to fight Ford Kellogg. That's recommendation enough for me, and I know it will be for my father."

"I don't know that it always pays a man to stand up too strict for his rights," he said gloomily, the question of his justification in the affair of the cowboy rising up to accuse him.

"When a man goes after his gun you've got to do something," she said, surprising him by her ready interpretation of his thoughts. "I wouldn't worry about that man. He'd 'a' got you if you hadn't beat him to it."

"Maybe," Bill granted, considerably comforted and relieved.

She was a wise one, he thought; she was as wise as they made them. And he was ready to bet his last dollar she was as straight as a plumbline.

They walked on out of town, which took no great stretching of the legs to accomplish, giving the road