to take a job with some outfit on the range later on.
Dunham admitted ambitions in that direction, Garland proposing at once that he take a job of quarantine guard, or trail-rider, with the assurance that he, himself, would give him a place when frost came and the guards would be needed no longer. The pay was fifty dollars a month, ten dollars more than cow hands were being paid on the range that summer, provisions, arms and ammunition supplied.
Garland said Bill would have to talk fast, for he was due to leave for the border in a few minutes. He had spent the day scouting for men, but had not found any he was willing to invest with the responsibility until he met Dunham.
A man need not be experienced with cattle for that job, Garland said. Cow hands in plenty could be hired, for they were anxious to jump their jobs on account of the adventure trail-riding promised, as well as for the better pay, but cow hands were needed on the range that time of the year, where they could do their country a whole lot more good, benefits to themselves out of consideration.
All right, said Dunham; he was willing to try it on. If they didn't like him they could fire him, and if it didn't suit him he'd feel free to quit. That was fair, Garland said, and a bargain was made.
So it came that Bill Dunham, late of Schoonover's nursery, with a fast-growing fame as a gunman without peer, took horse for the southern border of Kansas before the sun went down on his eventful day. He was
