warm and friendly toward them all for their respectful restraint, that he laughed with them, more comfortable and at home among them than he had felt anywhere since coming to the land of short grass.
"I was so blame glad," he resumed when the gale of laughter passed, "to hear that dang fittified man wasn't dead, I made up my mind right there I'd never lose my temper and hit the first lick over anything like that again. That's why I let 'em go to the end of their string."
This frank recital of his adventures appeared to put Dunham on better standing with Hughes, who asked him how many men were gathered on the other side of the river. Twenty-five or thirty, Dunham said, but more were coming. It was their intention to assemble a hundred men, Garland had told him. Let 'em come, Hughes said; he was bound to go on to Pawnee Bend and load his cattle even if they assembled the whole male population of the state to stop him. Bob had been to Pawnee Bend to order the cars, which were to be on the siding, with engines to pull them, five days from that day.
He had to get his cattle to Pawnee Bend by that time, Hughes said, or lose heavily in demurrage on the cars and head tax to the Indians if he kept his cattle in the Cherokee Nation. Under the arrangement by which cattle were allowed to pass through these Indian lands the herd must move toward its destination at least ten miles a day. Hughes had only one more move; his time would be up to be clear of the Indian country the day after tomorrow morning.
