questionable adornment so greatly favored by cattlemen and sheriffs of that period, a heavy, long mustache, which he had a habit of roaching up from his mouth with a backward rubbing of the hand, until it stood away from his lips, giving his mouth the appearance of being cleared for action with either words or teeth, as the occasion might require.
Dunham approached him after he had turned the messenger over to the boys to be regaled at his own table, and asked him about the job. Moore looked him over with humorous eye, and grinned.
"You heard what I told the kids," he said. This is men's business; we don't want any boys along. Kid, it's all over the range by this morning the way you shot that feller up at Pawnee Bend last night. You'd hear 'em yellin', "Who in the hell said I was dead!' from here to Nation if you was to take a little sashay around to-day."
Dunham felt that sense of insufficiency, that impression of being a speck in the vastness, that had made his resolution falter when he first looked at that country from the station platform at Pawnee Bend. He had no argument to make for his case; he realized he'd only make it worse by saying he was glad the poor cuss wasn't dead, or that it was not an unprecedented thing for a good shot to miss a man at eight feet, sometimes when he needed to hit his mark above all things in the world.
An old Texas ranger had told him once how he had missed a man five times, starting at not more than a rod away, closing up to six feet, finally picking up a
