Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/53

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justification, mainly, shadowy justification at times, but he invariably killed. There were no cripples along his sanguinary road.

Kellogg was a man of no great stature, a compact, muscular man, who appeared rather compact and bunchy around the shoulders, probably from his habit of wearing a coat in all weather, let it blow as hot as Tophet in the summer days. He dressed invariably in dark blue, police-looking cloth, which he had tailored to him nicely, making by far the trimmest appearance to be encountered in town. He was a dark man, with a hint of Mexican about him, his small mustache a reddish brown, his eyes light and mottled in that peculiar breaking up of color common to people who stand on the line between a white race and a dark.

Marshal Kellogg usually woke to activity with the town after dark, his days being dedicated to sleep in the back room of the calaboose, which seldom contained a prisoner. Kellogg had the old-time officer's prejudice against prisoners; they were such troublesome people to have around. A coroner's inquest was soon over and out of the way, but a prisoner had to be fed and watered like a horse.

Kellogg was strolling past the Family Hotel, prying beeksteak out of his teeth with a goose-quill in the most genteel fashion, when Dunham started out to take his first look at Pawnee Bend by what the pioneers used to call arly candlelight. He gave Dunham a curious look, seeing him with his coat all buttoned around a gun that way, and passed on. He looked back every few steps as he sauntered in the luxurious