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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20712-8.txt b/20712-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ecbf395 --- /dev/null +++ b/20712-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9965 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Trail's End, by George W. Ogden, Illustrated +by P. V. E. Ivory + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Trail's End + + +Author: George W. Ogden + + + +Release Date: February 28, 2007 [eBook #20712] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAIL'S END*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/c/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustration. + See 20712-h.htm or 20712-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/1/20712/20712-h/20712-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/1/20712/20712-h.zip) + + + + + +TRAIL'S END + +by + +G. W. OGDEN + +Author of +The Duke of Chimney Butte, +The Flockmaster of Poison Creek, +The Land of Last Chance, Etc. + +Frontispiece by P. V. E. Ivory + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Morgan, grim as judgment, stood among the crowd of +wastrels and women of poisoned lips (Page 229)] + + +Grosset & Dunlap +Publishers New York +Made in the United States of America + +Copyright +A. C. McClurg & Co. +1921 +Published September, 1921 +Copyrighted in Great Britain + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I The Unconquered Land 1 + II The Meat Hunter 11 + III First Blood 23 + IV The Optimist Explains 36 + V Ascalon Awake 54 + VI Riders of the Chisholm Trail 65 + VII A Gentle Cowboy Joke 77 + VIII The Atavism of a Man 87 + IX News from Ascalon 101 + X The Hour of Vengeance 111 + XI The Penalty 124 + XII In Place of a Regiment 141 + XIII The Hand of the Law 157 + XIV Some Fool With a Gun 165 + XV Will His Luck Hold? 176 + XVI The Meat Hunter Comes 187 + XVII With Clean Hands 199 + XVIII A Bondsman Breathes Easier 216 + XIX The Curse of Blood 223 + XX Unclean 234 + XXI As One That Is Dead 241 + XXII Whiners at the Funeral 245 + XXIII Ascalon Curls Its Lip 259 + XXIV Madness of the Winds 277 + XXV A Summons at Sunrise 290 + XXVI In the Square at Ascalon 299 + XXVII Absolution 315 + XXVIII Sunset 325 + + + + + +TRAIL'S END + +CHAPTER I + +THE UNCONQUERED LAND + + +Bones. + +Bones of dead buffalo, bones of dead horses, bones of dead men. The +tribute exacted by the Kansas prairie: bones. A waste of bones, a +sepulcher that did not hide its bones, but spread them, exulting in its +treasures, to bleach and crumble under the stern sun upon its sterile +wastes. Bones of deserted houses, skeletons of men's hopes sketched in +the dimming furrows which the grasses were reclaiming for their own. + +A land of desolation and defeat it seemed to the traveler, indeed, as he +followed the old trail along which the commerce of the illimitable West +once was borne. Although that highway had belonged to another +generation, and years had passed since an ox train toiled over it on its +creeping journey toward distant Santa Fé, the ruts of old wheels were +deep in the soil, healed over by the sod again, it is true, but seamed +like scars on a veteran's cheek. One could not go astray on that broad +highway, for the eye could follow the many parallel trails, where new +ones had been broken when the old ones wore deep and rutted. + +Present-day traffic had broken a new trail between the old ones; it +wound a dusty gray line through the early summer green of the prairie +grass, endless, it seemed, to the eyes of the leg-weary traveler who +bent his footsteps along it that sunny morning. This passenger, afoot on +a road where it was almost an offense to travel by such lowly means, was +a man of thirty or thereabout, tall and rather angular, who took the +road in long strides much faster than the freighters' trains had +traveled it in the days of his father. He carried a black, dingy leather +bag swinging from his long arm, a very lean and unpromising repository, +upon which the dust of the road lay spread. + +Despite the numerous wheel tracks in the road, all of them apparently +fresh, there was little traffic abroad. Not a wagon had passed him since +morning, not a lift had been given him for a single mile. Now, mounting +a ridge toward which he had been pressing forward the past hour, which +had appeared a hill of consequence in the distance, but now flattened +out to nothing more than a small local divide, he put down his bag, +flung his dusty black hat beside it, and stood wiping his face with a +large turkey-red handkerchief which he unknotted from about his neck. + +His face was of that rugged type common among the pioneers of the West, +lean and harsh-featured, yet nobly austere, the guarantee of a soul +above corruption and small trickery, of a nature that endures patiently, +of an anger slow to move. There were bright hues as of glistening metal +in his close-cut light hair as he stood bareheaded in the sun. + +Sheep sorrel was blooming by the wheel tracks of the road, purple and +yellow; daisy-like flowers, with pale yellow petals and great wondering +hearts like frightened eyes, grew low among the short grass; countless +strange blooms spread on the prairie green, cheering for their brief day +the stern face of a land that had broken the hearts of men in its +unkindness and driven them away from its fair promises. The traveler +sighed, unable to understand it quite. + +All day he had been passing little sod houses whose walls were +crumbling, whose roofs had fallen in, whose doors beckoned in the wind a +sad invitation to come in and behold the desolation that lay within. +Even here, close by the road, ran the grass-grown furrows of an +abandoned field, the settler's dwelling-place unmarked by sod or stone. +What tragedy was written in those wavering lines; what heartbreak of +going away from some dear hope and broken dream! Here a teamster was +cutting across the prairie to strike the road a little below the point +where the traveler stood. Extra side boards were on his wagon-box, as +they used to put them on in corn-gathering time back in the traveler's +boyhood home in Indiana. The wagon was heaped high with white, dry +bones. + +Bones. Nothing left to haul out of that land but bones. The young man +took up his valise and hat and struck off down the road to intercept the +freighter of this prairie product, hoping for an invitation to ride, +better pleased by the prospect of resting living bones on dead dry ones +than racking them in that strain to reach the town on the railroad, his +journey's end, on foot before nightfall. + +The driver's hat was white, like his bones; it drooped in weather-beaten +limpness about his ears, hiding his face, but he appeared to have an +hospitable heart in spite of the cheerlessness of his pursuit. Coming to +the road a little before the traveler reached the point of conjunction, +he drew the team to a stand, waiting his approach. + +"Have a ride?" the freighter invited, edging over on the backless spring +seat as he spoke, making room. + +The bone-wagon driver was a hollow-framed man, who looked as if he had +starved with the country but endured past all bounds of hardship and +discouragement. He looked hungry--hungry for food, hungry for change, +hungry for the words of men. His long gray mustache hung far below his +stubble-covered chin; there was a pallor of a lingering sickness in his +skin, which the hot sun could not sere out of it. He sat dispiritedly on +his broken seat, sagging forward with forearms across his thighs. + +"Footin' it over to Ascalon?" he asked, as the traveler mounted beside +him. + +"Yes sir, I'm headin' that way." + +"Come fur?" + +"Well, yes," thoughtfully, as if he considered what might be counted far +in that land of unobstructed horizons, "I have come a considerable +little stretch." + +"I thought maybe you was one of them new settlers in here, goin' over to +Ascalon to ketch the train," the bone man ventured, putting his inquiry +for further particulars as politely as he knew how. + +"I'm not a settler yet, but I expect to try it here." + +"You don't tell me?" + +"Yes sir; that's my intention." + +"Where you from?" + +"Iowa." + +The bone man looked his passenger over with interest, from his feet in +their serviceable shoes, to his head under his round-crowned, +wide-brimmed black hat. + +"A good many of 'em used to come in here from Ioway and Newbrasky in the +early days," he said. "You never walked plumb from there, did you?" + +"I thought of stopping at Buffalo Creek, back fifteen or twenty miles, +but I didn't like the country around there. They told me it was better +at Ascalon, so I just struck out to walk across the loop of the railroad +and take a close look at the land as I went along." + +"You must be something of a walker," the bone man marveled. + +"I used to follow a walking cultivator across an eighty-acre cornfield," +the traveler replied. + +"Yes, that'll stretch a feller's legs," the bone man admitted, +reminiscently. "Nothing like follerin' a plow to give a man legs and +wind. But they don't mostly walk around in this country; they kind of +suspicion a man when they see him hoofin' it." + +"There doesn't seem to be many of them to either walk or ride," the +traveler commented, sweeping a look around the empty land. + +"It used to be full of homesteaders all through this country--I seen 'em +come and I seen 'em go." + +"I've seen traces of them all along the railroad for the last hundred +miles or more. It must have been a mighty exodus, a sad thing to see." + +"Accordin' to the way you look at it, I reckon," the bone man reflected. +"They're comin' to this country ag'in, flocks of 'em. This makes the +third time they've tried to break this part of Kansas to ride, and I +don't know, on my soul, whether they'll ever do it or not. Maybe I'll +have more bones to pick up in a year or two." + +"It seems to be one big boneyard; I saw cars of bones on every sidetrack +as I came through." + +"Yes, I tell folks that come here and try to farm that bones was the +best crop this country ever raised, and it'll be about the only one. I +come in here with the railroad, I used to drive a team pickin' up the +buffaloes the contractors' meat hunter killed." + +"You know the history of its ups and downs, then," the young man said, +with every evidence of deep interest. + +"I guess I do, as well as any man. Bones was the first freight the +railroad hauled out of here, and bones'll be the last. I follered the +railroad camps after they built out of the buffalo country and didn't +need me any more, pickin' up the bones. Then the settlers begun to come +in, drawed on by the stuff them railroad colonization agents used to put +in the papers back East. The country broke their backs and drove 'em out +after four or five years. Then I follered around after _them_ and picked +up the bones. + +"Yes, there used to be some familiar lookin' bones among 'em once in a +while in them times. I used to bury that kind. A few of them settlers +stuck, the ones that had money to put in cattle and let 'em increase on +the range. They've done well--you'll see their ranches all along the +Arkansaw when you travel down that way. This is a cattle country, son; +that's what the Almighty made it for. It never can be anything else." + +"And there was another wave of immigration, you say, after that?" the +passenger asked, after sitting a while in silence turning over what the +old pioneer had said. + +"Yes, wave is about right. They come in by freight trainload, cars of +horses and cattle, and machinery for farmin', from back there in Ohio +and Indiany and Ellinoi--all over that country where things a man plants +in the ground grows up and comes to something. They went into this +pe-rairie and started a bustin' it up like the ones ahead of 'em did. +Shucks! you can turn a ribbon of this blame sod a hundred miles long and +never break it. What can a farmer do with land that holds together that +way? Nothin'. But them fellers planted corn in them strips of sod, +raised a few nubbins, some of 'em, some didn't raise even fodder. It run +along that way a few years, hot winds cookin' their crops when they did +git the ground softened up so stuff would begin to make roots and grow, +cattle and horses dyin' off in the winter and burnin' up in the fires +them fool fellers didn't know how to stop when they got started in this +grass. They thinned out year after year, and I drove around over the +country and picked up their bones. + +"That crowd of settlers is about all gone now, only one here and there +along some crick. Bones is gittin' scarce, too. I used to make more +when I got four dollars a ton for 'em than I do now when they pay me +ten. Grind 'em up to put on them farms back in the East, they tell me. +Takin' the bones of famine from one place to put on fat in another. +Funny, ain't it?" + +The traveler said it was strange, indeed, but that it was the way of +nature for the upstanding to flourish on the remains of the fallen. The +bone man nodded, and allowed that it was so, world without end, +according to his own observations in the scale of living things from +grass blade to mankind. + +"How are they coming in now--by the trainload?" the traveler asked, +reverting to the influx of settlers. + +"These seem to be a different class of men," the bone man replied, his +perplexity plain in his face. "I don't make 'em out as easy as I did the +ones ahead of 'em. These fellers generally come alone, scoutin' around +to see the lay of the country--I run into 'em right along drivin' livery +rigs, see 'em around for a couple or three weeks sometimes. Then they go +away, and the first thing I know they're back with their immigrant car +full of stuff, haulin' out to some place somebody went broke on back in +the early days. They seem to be a calculatin' kind, but no man ain't +deep anough to slip up on the blind side of this country and grab it by +the mane like them fellers seems to think they're doin'. It'll throw +'em, and it'll throw 'em hard." + +"It looks to me like it would be a good country for wheat," the traveler +said. + +"Wheat!" + +The bone man pulled up on his horses, checking them as if he would stop +and let this dangerous fellow off. He looked at the traveler with +incredulous stare, into which a shading of pity came, drawing his +naturally long face longer. "I'd just as well stop and let you start +back right now, mister." He tightened up a little more on the lines. + +There was merriment in the stranger's gray eyes, a smile on his homely +face that softened its harsh lines. + +"Has nobody ever tried it?" he inquired. + +"There's been plenty of fools here, but none that wild that I ever heard +of," the bone man said. "You're a hundred miles and more past the +deadline for wheat--you'd just as well try to raise bananers here. +Wheat! it'd freeze out in the winter and blow out by the roots in the +spring if any of it got through." + +The traveler swept a long look around the country, illusive, it seemed, +according to its past treatment of men, in its restful beauty and secure +feeling of peace. He was silent so long that the bone man looked at him +again keenly, measuring him up and down as he would some monstrosity +seen for the first time. + +"Maybe you're right," the young man said at last. + +The bone man grunted, with an inflection of superiority, and drove on, +meditating the mental perversions of his kind. + +"Over in Ascalon," he said, breaking silence by and by, "there's a +feller by the name of Thayer--Judge Thayer, they call him, but he ain't +never been a judge of nothin' since I've knowed him--lawyer and land +agent for the railroad. He brings a lot of people in here and sells 'em +railroad land. He says wheat'll grow in this country, tells them +settlers that to fetch 'em here. You two ought to git together--you'd +sure make a pair to draw to." + +"Wouldn't we?" said the stranger, in hearty humor. + +"What business did you foller back there in Ioway?" inquired the bone +man, not much respect in him now for the man he had lifted out of the +road. + +"I was a professional optimist," the traveler replied, grave enough for +all save his eyes. + +The bone man thought it over a spell. "Well, I don't think you'll do +much in Ascalon," he said. "People don't wear specs out here in this +country much. Anybody that wants 'em goes to the feller that runs the +jewelry store." + +The stranger attempted no correction, but sat whistling a merry tune as +he looked over the country. The bone man drove in silence until they +rose a swell that brought the town of Ascalon into view, a passenger +train just pulling into the station. + +"Octomist! Wheat!" said the bone man, with discount on the words that +left them so poor and worthless they would not have passed in the +meanest exchange in the world. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE MEAT HUNTER + + +There was one tree in the city of Ascalon, the catalpa in front of Judge +Thayer's office. This blazing noonday it threw a shadow as big as an +umbrella, or big enough that the judge, standing close by the trunk and +holding himself up soldierly, was all in the shade but the gentle swell +of his abdomen, over which his unbuttoned vest gaped to invite the +breeze. + +Judge Thayer was far too big for the tree, as he was too big for +Ascalon, but, scholar and gentleman that he was, he made the most of +both of them and accepted what they had to offer with grateful heart. +Now he stood, his bearded face streaming sweat, his alpaca coat across +his arm, his straw hat in his hand, his bald head red from the +parboiling of that intense summer day, watching a band of Texas drovers +who had just arrived with three or four thousand cattle over the long +trail from the south. + +These lank, wide-horned creatures were crowding and lowing around the +water troughs in the loading pens, the herdsmen shouting their +monotonous, melancholy urgings as they crowded more famished beasts into +the enclosures. Judge Thayer regarded the dusty scene with troubled +face. + +"And so pitch hot!" said he, shaking his head in the manner of a man who +sees complications ahead of him. He stood fanning himself with his hat, +his brows drawn in concentration. "Twenty wild devils from the Nueces, +four months on the trail, and this little patch of Hades at the end!" + +The judge entered his office with that uneasy reflection, leaving the +door standing open behind him, ran up his window shades, for the sun had +turned from the front of his building, took off his collar, and settled +down to work. One could see him from the station platform, substantial, +rather aristocratic, sitting at his desk, his gray beard trimmed to a +nicety, one polished shoe visible in line with the door. + +Judge Thayer's office was a bit removed from the activities of Ascalon, +which were mainly profane activities, to be sure, and not fit company +for a gentleman even in the daylight hours. It was a snubby little +building with square front like a store, "Real Estate" painted its width +above the door. On one window, in crude black lettering: + + WILLIAM THAYER + ATTORNEY + + NOTARY + +On the other: + + MAYOR'S OFFICE + +The office stood not above two hundred feet from the railroad station, +at the end of Main Street, where the buildings blended out into the +prairie, unfenced, unprofaned by spade or plow. Beyond Judge Thayer's +office were a coal yard and a livery barn; behind him the lots which he +had charted off for sale, their bounds marked by white stakes. + +Ascalon, in those early days of its history, was not very large in +either the territory covered or the inhabitants numbered, but it was a +town of national notoriety in spite of its size. People who did not live +there believed it to be an exceedingly wicked place, and the farther one +traveled from Ascalon, in any direction whatever, the faster this ill +fame increased. It was said, no farther off than Kansas City, that +Ascalon was the wickedest place in the United States. So, one can image +what character the town had in St. Louis, and guess at the extent of its +notoriety in Pittsburg and Buffalo. + +Porters on trains had a holy fear of Ascalon. They announced the train's +approach to it with suppressed breath, with eyes rolling white in fear +that some citizen of the proscribed town might overhear and defend the +reputation of his abiding-place in the one swift and incontrovertible +argument then in vogue in that part of the earth. Passengers of +adventurous nature flocked to the station platform during the brief +pause the train made at Ascalon, prickling with admiration of their own +temerity, so they might return home and tell of having set foot in the +wickedest town in the world. + +And that was the fame of Ascalon, new and raw, for the greater part of +it, as it lay beside the railroad on that hot afternoon when Judge +Thayer stood in the shade of his little catalpa tree watching the Texans +drive their cattle into the loading pens. + +Before the railroad reached out across the Great Plains, Ascalon was +there as a fort, under another name. The railroad brought new +consequence, new activities, and made it the most important loading +place for Texas cattle, driven over the long route on their slow way to +market. + +It was a cattle town, living and fattening on the herds which grazed the +vast prairie lands surrounding it, and on the countless thousands which +came northward to its portal over the Chisholm Trail. As will have been +gathered from the scene already passed, agriculture had tried and failed +in that land. Ascalon was believed to be, in truth, far beyond the limit +of that gentle art, which was despised and contemned by the men who +roamed their herds over the free grass lands, and the gamesters who +flourished at their expense. + +Not that all in Ascalon were vicious and beyond the statutory and moral +laws. There was a submerged desire for respectability in the grain of +even the worst of them which came to the front at times, as in defense +of the town's reputation, and on election day, when they put in such a +man as Judge Thayer for mayor. With a man like Judge Thayer at the head +of affairs, all charges of the town's utter abandonment to the powers of +evil seemed to fall and fade. But the judge, in reality, was only a +pillar set up for dignity and show. They elected him mayor, and went on +running the town to suit themselves, for the city marshal was also an +elective officer, and in his hands the scroll of the law reposed. + +Now, in these summer days, there was a vacancy in this most important +office, three months, only, after election. The term had almost two +years to run, the appointment of a man to the vacancy being in the +mayor's hands. As a consequence there was being exerted a great deal of +secret and open pressure on the mayor in favor of certain favorites. It +was from a conference with several of the town's financial powers that +the mayor had returned to his office when you first beheld him under his +catalpa tree. The sweat on his face was due as much to internal +perplexity as outward heat, for Judge Thayer was a man who wanted to +please his friends, and everybody that counted in Ascalon was his +friend, although they were not all friends among themselves. + +No later than the night before the vacancy in the marshalship had +fallen; it would not do to allow the town to go unbridled for even +another night. A strong man must be appointed to the place, and no fewer +than three candidates were being urged by as many factions, each of +which wanted its peculiar interests especially favored and protected. So +Judge Thayer was in a sweat with good reason. He wished in his honest +soul that he could reach out and pick up a disinterested man somewhere, +set him into the office without the strings of fear or favor on him, and +tell him to keep everybody within the deadline, regardless of whose +business prospered most. + +But there were not men raining down every day around Ascalon competent +to fill the office of city marshal. Out of the material offered there +was not the making of one side of a man. Two of them were creatures of +the opposing gambling factions, the other a weak-kneed fellow with the +pale eyes of a coward, put forward by the conservative business men who +deplored much shooting in the name of the law. + +How they were to get on without much shooting, Judge Thayer did not +understand. Not a bit of it. What he wanted was a man who would do more +shooting than ever had been done before, a man who would clean the place +of the too-ready gun-slingers who had gathered there, making the town's +notoriety their capital, invading even the respectable districts in +their nightly debaucheries to such insolent boldness that a man's wife +or daughter dared not show her ear on the street after nightfall. + +Judge Thayer put the town's troubles from him with a sigh and leaned to +his work. He was preparing a defense for a cattle thief whom he knew to +be guilty, but whose case he had undertaken on account of his wife and +several small children living in a tent behind the principal +gambling-house. Because it seemed a hopeless case from the jump, Judge +Thayer had set his beard firmer in the direction of the fight. Hopeless +cases were the kind that had come most frequently his way all the days +of his life. He had been fronting for the under pup so long that his own +chances had dwindled down to a distant point in his gray-headed years. +But there was lots of satisfaction behind him to contemplate even though +there might not be a great deal of prosperity ahead. That helped a man +wonderfully when it came to casting up accounts. So he was bent to the +cattle thief's case when a man appeared in his door. + +This was a tall, bony man with the dust of the long trail on him; a +sour-faced man of thin visage, with long and melancholy nose, a lowering +frown in his unfriendly, small red eyes. A large red mustache drooped +over his mouth, the brim of his sombrero was pressed back against the +crown as if he had arrived devil-come-headlong against a heavy wind. + +Judge Thayer took him for a cattleman seeking legal counsel, and invited +him in. The visitor shifted the chafed gear that bore his weapon, as if +to ease it around his gaunt waist, and entered, removing his hat. He +stood a little while looking down at Judge Thayer, a disturbance in his +weathered face that might have been read for a smile, a half-mocking, +half-humorous expression that twitched his big mustache with a catlike +sneer. + +"You're the mayor of this man's town, are you, Judge?" he asked. + +As the visitor spoke, Judge Thayer's face cleared of the perplexity that +had clouded it. He got up, beaming welcome, offering his hand. + +"Seth Craddock, as sure as little apples! I knew you, and I didn't know +you, you old scoundrel! Where have you been all these years?" + +Seth Craddock only expanded his facial twitching at this friendly +assault until it became a definite grin. It was a grin that needed no +apology, for all evidence was in its favor that it was so seldom seen by +the eyes of men that it could be forgiven without a plea. + +"I've been ridin' the long trail," said Seth. + +"With that bunch that just arrived?" + +"Yeh. Drove up from the Nueces. I'm quittin'." + +"The last time I saw you, Seth, you were butchering two tons of buffalo +a day for the railroaders. I often wondered where you went after you +finished your meat contract." + +"I scouted a while for the gover'ment, but we run out of Indians. Then I +went to Texas and rode with the rangers a year or two." + +"I guess you kept your gun-barrel hot down in that country, Seth?" + +"Yeh. Once in a while it was lively. Dyin' out down there now, quiet as +a school." + +"So you turned back to Kansas lookin' for high life. Heard of this burg, +I guess?" + +"I kind of thought something might be happenin' off up here, Judge." + +"And I was sitting here frying out my soul for the sight of a full-sized +man when you stepped in the door! Sit down; let's you and me have a +talk." + +Seth drew a dusty chair from against the wall and arranged himself in +the draft between the front and back doors of the little house. He +leaned his storm-beaten sombrero against the leg of his chair near his +heel, as carefully as if making preparations for quick action in a +hostile country, shook his head when the judge offered a cigar, shifted +his worn cartridge belt a bit with a movement that appeared to be as +unconscious as unnecessary. + +"What's restin' so heavy on your mind, Judge?" he inquired. + +"Our city marshal stepped in the way of a fool feller's bullet last +night, and all the valuable property in this town is lying open and +unguarded today." + +"Don't nobody want the job?" + +"Many are called, or seem to feel themselves nominated, but none is +appointed. The appointment is in my hands; the job's yours if you'll do +an old friend a favor and take it. It pays a hundred dollars a month." + +Seth's heavy black hair lay in disorder on his high, sharp forehead, +sweated in little ropes, more than half concealing his immense ears. He +smoothed it back now with slow hand, holding a thoughtful silence; +shifted his feet, crossed his legs, looked out through the open door +into the dusty street. + +"How does the land lay?" he asked at length. + +"You know the name of the town, everybody knows the name of the town. +Well, Seth, it's worse than its name. It's a job; it's a double man's +job. If it was any less, I wouldn't lay it down before you." + +"Crooks run things, heh?" + +"I'm only a knot on a log. The marshal we had wasn't worth the powder +that killed him. Oh-h, he did kill off a few of 'em, but what we need +here is a man that can see both sides of the street and behind him at +the same time." + +"How many folks have you got in this man's town by now, Judge?" + +"Between six and seven hundred. And we could double it in three months +if we could clean things up and make it safe." + +"How would you do it, Judge? marry everybody?" + +"I mean we'd bring settlers in here and put 'em on the land. The +railroad company could shoot farmers in here by the hundreds every month +if it wasn't for the hard name this town's got all over the country. A +good many chance it and come as it is. We could make this town the +supply point for a big territory, we could build up a business that'd +make us as respectable as we're open and notorious now. For I tell you, +Seth, this country around here is God Almighty's granary--it's the wheat +belt of the world." + +Seth made no reply. He slewed himself a little to sweep the country over +beyond the railroad station with his sullen red eyes. The heat was +wavering up from the treeless, shrubless expanse; the white sun was over +it as hot as a furnace blast. From the cattle pens the dusty, hoarse +cries of the cowboys sounded, "Ho, ho, ho!" in what seemed derision of +the judge's fervent claims. + +"A lot of us have staked our all on the outcome here in Ascalon, we +fellows who were here before the town turned out to be the sink-hole of +perdition that it is today. We built our homes here, and brought our +families out, and we can't afford to abandon it to these crooks and +gamblers and gun-slingers from the four corners of the earth. I let them +put me in for mayor, but I haven't got any more power than a stray dog. +This chance to put in a marshal is the first one I've had to land them a +kick in the gizzards, and by Jeems River, Seth, I want to double 'em +up!" + +"It looks like your trick, Judge." + +"Yes, if I had the marshal with me the two of us could run this town the +way it ought to be run. And we'd keep the county seat here as sure as +sundown." + +"Considerin' a change?" + +"The folks over in Glenmore are--the question will come to a vote this +fall. The county seat belongs here, not away off there at Glenmore, +seven miles from the railroad." + +"What's your chance?" + +"Not very heavy right now. We can out-vote them in town, but the +country's with Glenmore, all on account of our notorious name. Folks +hate to come in here to court, it's got so bad. But we could do a lot of +cleaning up between now and November, Seth." + +Seth considered it in silence, his red eyes on the dusty activities of +his late comrades at the cattle pens. He shifted his dusty feet as if +dancing to his slow thoughts, scraping his boot soles grittily on the +floor. + +"Yes, I reckon we could, Judge." + +"Half the people in Glenmore want to come over to the railroad. They'd +vote with us if they could be made to feel this was a town to bring +their families to." + +Seth seemed to take this information like a pill under his tongue and +dissolve it in his reflective way. Judge Thayer left him to his +ruminations, apparently knowing his habits. After a little Seth reached +down for his hat in the manner of a man about to depart. + +"All right, Judge; we'll clean up the town and part its hair down the +middle," he said. + +Judge Thayer did not give vent to his elation on Seth Craddock's +acceptance of the office of city marshal, although his satisfaction +gleamed from his eyes and radiated from his kindly face. He merely shook +hands with his new officer in the way of men sealing a bargain, swore +him in, and gave him the large shield which had been worn by the many +predecessors of the meat hunter in that uncomfortable office, three of +whom had gone out of the world with lead enough in them to keep them +from tossing in their graves. + +This ceremony ended, Seth put his hat firmly on his small, reptilian +head, adding greatly to the ferociousness of his thirsty countenance by +his way of pulling the sombrero down upon his ears. + +"Want to walk around with me and introduce me and show me off?" he +asked. + +"It'll be the biggest satisfaction in ten years!" Judge Thayer +declared. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +FIRST BLOOD + + +Judge Thayer had completed the round of Ascalon's business section with +the town's new peace officer, introducing him in due form. They stood +now in front of the hotel, the plank awning of which extended over the +sidewalk breaking the sun, Judge Thayer about to go his way. + +"We've got to change this condition of things, Seth," he said, sweeping +his hand around the quiet square, where nothing seemed awake but a few +loafers along the shady fronts: "we've got to make it a day town instead +of a night roost for the buzzards that wake up after sundown." + +Seth did not answer. He stood turning his red eyes up and down the +street, as if calculating distances and advantages for future +emergencies. And as he looked there came driving into the somnolent +square two men on a wagonload of bones. + +"Old Joe Lynch; he's loadin' another car of bones," Judge Thayer said. + +"He used to pick up meat for me," said Seth in his sententious way, +neither surprised nor pleased on finding this associate of his +adventurous days here in this place of his new beginning. + +Joe Lynch drove across the farther side of the square, a block away from +the two officials of Ascalon. There he stopped only long enough to allow +his passenger to alight, and continued on to the railroad siding where +his car stood. + +Judge Thayer lingered under the hotel awning, where the breeze struck +refreshingly, perhaps making a pretense of being cooled that was greater +than his necessity, curious to see who it was Lynch had brought to town +on his melancholy load. The passenger, carrying his flat bag, came on +toward the hotel. + +"He's a stranger to me," said the judge. His interest ending there, he +went his way to take up again the preparation of his case in defense of +the cattle thief whom he knew to be a thief, and nothing but a thief. + +Seth Craddock, the new marshal, glanced sharply at the stranger as he +approached the hotel. It was nothing more severe than Seth's ordinary +scrutiny, but it appeared to the traveler to be at once hostile and +inhospitable, the look of a man who sneered out of his heart and carried +a challenge in his eyes. The stranger made the mental observation that +this citizen was a sour-looking customer, who apparently resented the +coming of one more to the mills of Ascalon's obscene gods. + +There was a cluster of flies on the open page of the hotel register, +where somebody had put down a sticky piece of chocolate candy and left +it. This choice confection covered three or four lines immediately below +the last arrival's name, its little trickling rivulets, which the flies +were licking up, spreading like a spider's legs. There was nobody in the +office to receive the traveler's application for quarters, but evidence +of somebody in the remote parts of the house, whence came the sound of a +voice more penetrating than musical, raised in song. + + With her apurn pinned round her, + He took her for a swan, + But oh and a-las, it was poor Pol-ly Bawn. + +So she sang, the words of the ancient ballad cutting through the +partition like a saw. There was a nasal quality in them, as if the +singer were moved to tears by the pathos of Poor Polly's end. The +traveler laid a finger on the little bell that stood on the cigar case, +sending his alarm through the house. + +The song ceased, the blue door with DINING-ROOM in pink across its +panels, shut against the flies, opened with sudden jerk, as if by a +petulant hand. There appeared one who might have been Polly Bawn +herself, taken by the white apron that shrouded her figure from +shoulders to floor. She stood a moment in the door, seeing that it was a +stranger, half closing that gay portal to step behind it and give her +hair that swift little adjustment which, with women the world over, is +the most essential part of the toilet. She appeared smiling then, +somewhat abashed and coy, a fair short girl with a nice figure and +pretty, sophisticated face, auburn curls dangling long at her ears, a +precise row of bangs coming down to her eyebrows. She was a pink and +white little lady, quick on foot, quicker of the blue eyes which +measured the waiting guest from dusty feet to dusty hat in the glance +that flashed over him in business-like brevity. + +"Was you wishin' a room?" she inquired. + +"If you can accommodate me." + +"Register," she said, in voice of command, whirling the book about. At +the same time she discovered the forgotten confection, which she removed +to the top of the cigar case with an annoyed ejaculation under her +breath that sounded rather strong. She applied her apron to the page, +not helping it much, spreading the brown paste rather than removing it. + +"You'll have to skip three or four lines, mister, unless you've got a +'delible pencil." + +"No, I haven't. I'll write down here where it's dry." + +And there the traveler wrote, the girl looking on sharply, spelling the +letters with silently moving lips as the pen trailed them: + + Calvin Morgan, Des Moines, Ia. + +"In and out, or regular?" the girl asked, twisting the book around to +verify the upside-down spelling of his name. + +"I expect it will be only for a few days," Morgan replied, smiling a +little at the pert sufficiency of the clerk. + +"It's a dollar a day for board and room--in advance in this man's town." + +"Why in this man's town, any more than any other man's town?" the guest +inquired, amused. + +"What would you think of a man that would run up a three weeks' bill and +then walk out there and let somebody put a bullet through him?" she +returned by way of answer. + +"I think it would be a mean way to beat a board bill," he told her, +seriously. "Do they do that right along here?" + +"One smarty from Texas done it three or four months ago. Since then it's +cash in advance." + +Morgan thought it was a very wise regulation for a town where perils +were said to be so thick, all in keeping with the notoriety of Ascalon. +He made inquiry about something to eat. The girl's face set in +disfavoring cast as she tossed her head haughtily. + +"Dinner's over long ago," she said. + +Morgan made amends for this unwitting breach of the rules, wondering +what there was in the air of Ascalon that made people combative. Even +this fresh-faced girl, not twenty, he was sure, was resentful, snappish +without cause, inclined to quarrel if a word got crosswise in a man's +mouth. As he turned these things in mind, casting about for some place +to stow his bag, the girl smiled across at him, the mockery going out of +her bright eyes. Perhaps it was because she felt that she had defended +the ancient right of hostelers to rise in dignified front when a +traveler spoke of a meal out of the regular hour, perhaps because there +was a gentleness and sincerity in the tall, honest-looking man before +her that reached her with an appeal lacking in those who commonly came +and went before her counter. + +"Put your grip over there," she nodded, "and I'll see what I can find. +If you don't mind a snack--" she hesitated. + +"Anything--a slab of cold meat and a cup of coffee." + +"I'll call you," she said, starting for the blue door. + +The girl had reached the dining-room door when there entered from the +street a man, lurching when he walked as if the earth tipped under him +like the deck of a ship. He was a young and slender man, dressed rather +loudly in black sateen shirt and scarlet necktie, with broad blue, +tassel-ornamented sleeve holders about his arms. He wore neither coat +nor vest, but was belted with a pistol and booted and spurred, his +calling of cowboy impressed in every line. + +The girl paused, hand on the door, waiting to see what he wanted, and +turned back when he rested his arms on the cigar case, clicking the +glass with a coin. While she was making change for him, the cowboy stood +with his newly bought cigar in his mouth, scanning the register. He +seemed sober enough when standing still, save for the vacant, +liquor-dead look of his eyes. + +"Who wrote that?" he asked, pointing to Morgan's name. + +"That gentleman," the girl replied, placing his change before him. + +The cowboy picked up his money with numb fingers, fumbled to put it in +his pocket, dropping it on the floor. He kicked at it with a curse and +let it lie, scowling meantime at Morgan with angry eyes. + +"Too good to write your name next to mine, are you?" he sneered. "Afraid +it'd touch your fancy little handwritin', was you?" + +"I didn't know it was your name, pardner," Morgan returned, conciliating +him as he would an irresponsible child. "Why, I'd walk a mile to write +my name next to yours any day. There was something on the book----" + +"You spit on it! You spit on my name!" the foolish fellow charged, +laying hand to his pistol. "A man that's too good to write his name next +to mine's too good to stay in the same house with me. You'll hit the +breeze out of here, pardner, or you'll swaller lead!" + +The girl came swiftly from behind the counter, and ran lightly to the +door. Morgan put up his hand to silence the young man, knowing well that +he could catch his slow arm before he could drag his gun two inches from +the holster. + +"Keep your gun where it is, old feller," he suggested, rather than +warned, in good-natured tone. "I didn't mean any insult, but I'll take +my hat off and apologize to you if you want me to. There was a piece of +candy on the book right----" + +"I'll put a piece of hot iron in your guts!" the cowboy threatened. He +leaned over the register, hand still on his pistol, and tore out the +offending page, crumpling it into a ball. "You'll eat this, then you'll +hit the road back where you come from!" + +The girl was beckoning to somebody from the door. Morgan was more +annoyed and shamed by his part in this foolish scene than he was +disturbed by any feeling of danger. He stood watching the young man's +shooting arm. There was not more than five feet between them; a step, a +sharp clip on the jaw, and the young fool would be helpless. Morgan was +setting himself to act, for the cowboy, whose face was warrant that he +was a simple, harmless fellow when sober, was dragging on his gun, when +one came hastening in past the girl. + +This was a no less important person than the new city marshal, whom +Morgan had seen without knowing his official standing, as he arrived at +the hotel. + +"This man's raisin' a fuss here--he's tore the register--look what he's +done--tore the register!" the indignant girl charged. + +"You're arrested," said the marshal. "Come on." + +The cowboy stood mouthing his cigar, a weak look of scorn and derision +in his flushed face. His right hand was still on his pistol, the wadded +page of the register in the other. + +"You'd better take his gun," Morgan suggested to the marshal, "he's so +drunk he might hurt himself with it." + +Seth Craddock fixed Morgan a moment with his sullen red eyes, in which +the sneer of his heart seemed to speak. But his lips added nothing to +the insult of that disdainful look. He jerked his head toward the door +in command to his prisoner to march. + +"Come out! I'll fight both of you!" the cowboy challenged, making for +the door. He was squarely in it, one foot lifted in his drunken +balancing to step down, when Seth Craddock jerked out his pistol between +the lifting and the falling of that unsteady foot, and shot the +retreating man in the back. The cowboy pitched forward into the street, +where he lay stretched and motionless, one spurred foot still in the +door. + +Morgan sprang forward with an exclamation of shocked protest at this +unjustified slaughter, while the girl, her blue eyes wide in horror, +shrunk against the counter, hands pressed to her cheeks, a cry of +outraged pity ringing from her lips. + +"Resist an officer, will you?" said the city marshal, as he strode +forward and looked down on the first victim in Ascalon of the woeful +harvest his pistol was to reap. So saying, as if publishing his +justification, he sheathed his weapon and walked out, as little moved as +if he had shot the bottom out of a tomato can in practice among friends. + +A woman came hastening from the back of the house with dough on her +hands, a worn-faced woman, whose eyes were harried and afraid as if they +had looked on violence until horror had set its seal upon them. She +exclaimed and questioned, panting, frantic, holding her dough-clogged +fingers wide as she bent to look at the slain man in her door. + +"It was the new marshal Judge Thayer was in here with just after +dinner," the girl explained, the pink gone out of her pretty face, the +reflection of her mother's horror in her eyes. + +"My God!" said the woman, clutching her breast, looking with a wilder +terror into Morgan's face. + +"Oh, I wish they'd take him away! I wish they'd take him away!" the girl +moaned, cringing against the counter, covering her face with her hands. + +Outside a crowd collected around the fallen man, for common as death by +violence was in the streets of Ascalon, the awe of its swift descent, +the hushing mystery of its silence, fell as coldly over the hearts of +men there as in the walks of peace. Presently the busy undertaker came +with his black wagon to gather up this broken shape of what had been a +man but a few minutes past. + +The marshal did not trouble himself in the case further. Up the street +Morgan saw him sauntering along, unmoved and unconcerned, from all +outward show, as if this might have been just one incidental task in a +busy day. Resentment rose in Morgan as he watched the undertaker and his +helper load the body into the wagon with unfeeling roughness; as he saw +the marshal go into a saloon with a crowd of noisy fellows from the +stock pens who appeared to be applauding his deed. + +This appeared to Morgan simply murder in the name of the law. That +bragging, simple, whisky-numbed cowboy could not have hurt a cat. All +desire for dinner was gone out of Morgan's stomach, all thought of +preparing it from the girl's mind. She stood in the door with her +mother, watching the black wagon away with this latest victim to be +crushed in Ascalon's infernal mill, twisting her fingers in her apron, +her face as white as the flour on her mother's hands. The undertaker's +man came hurrying back with a bucket of water and broom. The women +turned away out of the door then, while he briskly went to work washing +up the dark little puddle that spread on the boards of the sidewalk. + +"Dora, where's your pa?" the elder woman asked, stopping suddenly as she +crossed the room, her face drawn in a quick stroke of fear, her hands +lifted to ease the smothering in her breast again. + +"I don't know, Ma. He ain't been around since dinner." + +The woman went to the door again, to lean and peer up and down the +street with that great anxiety and trouble in her face that made it old, +and distorted the faint trace of lingering prettiness out of it as if +it had been covered with ashes. + +"He's comin'," she said presently, in voice of immeasurable relief. She +turned away from the door without allowing her glance to fall directly +on the wet spot left by the undertaker's man. + +Mother and daughter talked together in low words, only a few of which +now and then reached Morgan as he stood near the counter where the +mutilated register lay, turning this melancholy event in his thoughts. +He recovered the torn crumpled page from the floor, smoothed and +replaced it in the book. A man came in, the woman turning with a quick +glad lighting of the face to meet him. + +"O Tommy! I was worried to death!" she said. + +Tom Conboy, proprietor of the Elkhorn, as the hotel was called, grunted +in discount of this anxiety as he turned his shifty eyes to the +stranger, flicking them on and off like a fly. He saw the coins dropped +by the cowboy, picked them up, put them in his pocket, face red from +what evidently was unaccustomed effort as he straightened his back. + +"You seem to be gettin' mighty flush with money around this joint," he +said, severe censure in his tone. + +"He dropped it--the man the marshal shot dropped it--it was his," the +girl explained. "I wouldn't touch it!" she shuddered, "not for anything +in the world!" + +"Huh!" said Conboy, easily, entirely undisturbed by the dead man's money +in his pocket. + +"My God! I wish he hadn't done it here!" the woman moaned. + +"I didn't think he'd shoot him or I wouldn't 'a' called him," the girl +pleaded, pity for the deed in her shocked voice. "He didn't need to do +it--he didn't have to do it, at all!" + +"Sh-h-h! No niggers in Ireland, now--no-o-o niggers in Ireland!" + +Conboy shook his head at her as he spoke, pronouncing this rather +amazing and altogether irrelevant declaration with the utmost gravity, +an admonitory, cautioning inflection in his naturally grave and resonant +voice. The girl said no more on the needless sacrifice of the young +man's life. + +"I was goin' to get this gentleman some dinner," she said. + +"You'd better go on and do it, then," her father directed, gently enough +for a man of his stamp, rather surprisingly gentle, indeed, Morgan +thought. + +Tom Conboy was a short-statured man, slight; his carefully trimmed gray +beard lending a look of serious wisdom to his face which the shiftiness +of his insincere eyes at once seemed to controvert. He wore neither coat +nor vest, but a white shirt with broad starched bosom, a large gold +button in its collarless neckband. A diamond stud flashed in the middle +of his bosom; red elastic bands an inch broad, with silver buckles, held +up the slack of the sleeves which otherwise would have enveloped his +hands. + +"Are you goin' to stay in the office a while now, Tommy, and look after +things while Dora and I do the work?" the woman asked. + +"I've got to get the jury together for the inquest," Conboy returned, +with the briskness of a man of importance. + +"Will I be wanted to give my testimony at the inquest, do you suppose?" +Morgan inquired. "I was here when it happened; I saw the whole thing." + +He spoke in the hope that he might be given the opportunity of relieving +the indignation, so strong in him that it was almost oppressive, before +the coroner's jury. Tom Conboy shook his head. + +"No, the marshal's testimony is all we'll need," Conboy replied. +"Resistin' arrest and tryin' to escape after arrest. That's all there +was to it. These fellers'll have to learn better than that with this new +man. I know him of old--he's a man that always brings in the meat." + +"But he didn't try to escape," Morgan protested. "He was so drunk he +didn't know whether he was coming or going." + +Conboy looked at him disfavoringly, as if to warn him to be discreet in +matters of such remote concern to him as this. + +"Tut, tut! no niggers in Ireland," said he, shaking his head with an +expression between a caution and a threat. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE OPTIMIST EXPLAINS + + +Not more than two hours after the tragedy at the Elkhorn hotel, of which +he was the indirect cause, Calvin Morgan appeared at Judge Thayer's +little office. The judge had finished his preparation for the cattle +thief's case, and now sat ruminating it over his cob pipe. He nodded +encouragingly as Morgan hesitated at the door. + +"Come in, Mr. Morgan," he invited, as cordially as if introductions had +passed between them already and relations had been established on a +footing pleasant and profitable to both. + +Morgan smiled a little at this ready identification, remembering the +torn page of the hotel register, which all the reading inhabitants of +the town who were awake must have examined before this. He accepted the +chair that Judge Thayer pushed toward him, nodding to the bone-wagon man +who came sauntering past the door at that moment, the long lash of his +bullhide whip trailing in the dust behind him. + +"You've come to settle with us, I hear?" said the judge. + +"I'm looking around with that thought, sir." + +"I don't know how you'll do at the start in the optical way, Mr. +Morgan--I'm afraid not much. I'd advise watch repairing and jewelry in +addition. This town is going to be made a railroad division point +before long, I could get you appointed watch inspector for the company. +Now, I've got a nice little storeroom----" + +"I'm afraid you've got me in the wrong deck," Morgan interrupted, +unwilling to allow the judge to go on building his extravagant fancy. "I +could no more fix a watch than I could repair a locomotive, and +spectacles are as far out of my line as specters." + +Judge Thayer's face reddened above his thick beard at this easy and +fluent denial of all that he had constructed from a hasty and indefinite +bit of information. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Morgan. It was Joe Lynch, the fellow that drives +the bone wagon, who got me wrong. He told me you were an oculist." + +"I think that was his rendition of optimist, perhaps," Morgan said, +laughing with the judge's hearty appreciation of the twist. "I told him, +in response to a curious inquiry, that I was an optimist. I've tried +hard--very hard, sometimes--to live up to it. My profession is one that +makes a heavy drain on all the cheerfulness that nature or art ever +stocked a man with, Judge Thayer." + +"It sounds like you might be a lawyer," the judge speculated, "or maybe +a doctor?" + +"No, I'm simply an agriculturist, late professor of agronomy in the Iowa +State Agricultural College. It takes optimism, believe me, sir, to try +to get twenty bushels of wheat out of land where only twelve grew +before, or two ears of corn where only two-thirds of one has been the +standard." + +"You're right," Judge Thayer agreed heartily; "it takes more faith, +hope, and courage to be a farmer than any other calling on earth. I +often consider the risks a farmer must take year by year in comparison +with other lines of business, staking his all, very frequently, on what +he puts into the furrows, turning his face to God when he has sown his +seed, in faith that rains will fall and frosts will be stayed. It is +heroic, sometimes it is sublimely heroic. And you are going to try your +fortunes here on the soil?" + +"I've had my eye on this country a good while in spite of the dismal +tales of hardship and failure that have come eastward out of it. I've +looked to it as the place for me to put some of my theories to the test. +I believe alfalfa, or lucerne, as it is called back East, will thrive +here, and I'm going to risk your derision and go a little farther. I +believe this can be made the greatest wheat country in America." + +Judge Thayer brought his hand down with a smack of the palm that made +his papers fly, his face radiating the pleasure that words alone could +not express. + +"I've been telling them that for seven years, Morgan!" he said. + +"Hasn't it ever been tried out?" + +"Tried out? They don't stay long enough to try out anything, Morgan. +They're here today and gone tomorrow, cursing Kansas as they go, +slandering it, branding it as the Tophet of the earth. We've never had +the right kind of people here, they didn't have the courage, the faith, +and the vision. If a man hasn't got the grit and ability to stick +through his losses at any game in this life, Morgan, he'll never win. +And he'll never be anything but a little loser, put him down where you +will." + +"I've met hundreds of them dragging their bones out of Kansas the past +four or five years," Morgan nodded. "From what I can gather by talking +with them, the trouble lies in their poverty when they come here. As you +say, they're not staked to play this stiff game. A man ought to +provision himself for a campaign against this country like he would for +an Arctic expedition. If he can't do it, he'd better stay away." + +"I guess there's more to that than I ever stopped to consider myself," +Judge Thayer admitted. "It is a hard country to break, but there are men +somewhere who can subdue it and reap its rewards." + +"I tried to induce the railroad company to back me in an experimental +farm out here, but the officials couldn't see it," Morgan said. "I'm +going to tackle it now on my lonesome. The best proof of a man's +confidence in his own theories is to put them into practice himself, +anyway." + +"These cattlemen around here will laugh at you and try to discourage +you, Morgan. I'm the standing joke of this country because I still stick +to my theory of wheat." + +"The farmers in Iowa laughed their teeth loose when we book farmers at +the college told them they could add a million bushels a year to the +corn crop of the state by putting a few more grains on the ends of the +cobs. Well, they did it, just the same, in time." + +"I heard about that," nodded the judge, quite warmed up to this +long-backed stranger. + +"Failure is written all over the face of this country," Morgan +continued; "I took a long tramp across it this morning. But I believe +I've got the formula that will tame it." + +"I believe you, I believe you can do it," Judge Thayer indorsed him, +with enthusiasm. "I believe you've brought the light of a new epoch into +this country, I believe you're carrying the key that's going to unlock +these prairies and liberate the gold under the grass roots." + +"It may be nothing but a dream," said Morgan softly, his eyes fixed on +the blue distances through the open door. "Maybe it will break me and +scatter my bones on the prairie for that old scavenger of men to haul +away." + +Judge Thayer shook his head in denial of this possibility, making note +of this rugged dreamer's strong face, strong arms, large, capable hands. + +"We're not away out West, as most people seem to think," he said, "only +a little past the middle of the state. My observation through several +years here has been that it rains about as much and as often in this +part of the country as it does in the eastern part of the state, enough +to make two crops in three, anyway, and that's as good as you can count +on without irrigation anywhere." + +Morgan agreed with a nod. Judge Thayer went on, "The trouble is, this +prairie sheds water like the roof of a house, shoots it off so quick +into the draws and creeks it never has a chance to soak in. Plow it, I +tell 'em, and keep on plowin' it, in season and out; fix it so it can +soak up the rain and hold it. Is that right?" + +"You've got the key to it yourself," Morgan told him, not a little +surprised to hear this uncredited missionary preaching the very doctrine +that men of Morgan's profession had found so hard to make converts to in +the prairie country. + +"But it will be two or three years, at least, before you can begin your +experiment with wheat," Judge Thayer regretted. "By that time I'm afraid +the settlers that are taking up land around here now will be broken and +discouraged, gone to spread the curse against Kansas in the same old +bitterness of heart." + +"I hope to find a piece of land that somebody has abandoned or wants to +sell, that has been farmed a year or two," Morgan confided. "If I can +get hold of such a place I'll be able to put in a piece of wheat this +fall--even a few acres will start me going. I could enlarge my fields +with my experience." + +Judge Thayer said he believed he had the very place Morgan was looking +for, listed for sale. But there were so many of them listed for sale, +the owners gone, their equities long since eaten up by unpaid taxes, +that it took the judge a good while to find the particulars in this +special case. + +"Man by the name of Gerhart, mile and a half west of town--that would +bring him pretty near the river--offers his quarter for three hundred +dollars. He's been there about four years, wife died this spring. I +think he's got about eighty acres broken out. Some of that land ought to +be in pretty good shape for wheat by now." + +As the day was declining to evening, and Judge Thayer's supper hour was +near, they agreed on postponing until morning the drive out to look at +the dissatisfied settler's land. Morgan was leaving when the judge +called him back from the door. + +"I was just wondering whether you'd ever had any editorial experience?" +he said. + +"No, I've never been an editor," Morgan returned, speculating alertly on +what might be forthcoming. + +"We--our editor--our editor," said the judge, fumbling with it as +if he found the matter a difficult one to fit to the proper words, +"fell into an unfortunate error of judgment a short time ago, +with--um-m-m--somewhat melancholy--melancholy--" the judge paused, as if +feeling of this word to see that it fitted properly, head bent +thoughtfully--"results. Unlucky piece of business for this community, +coming right in the thick of the contest for the county seat. There's a +fight on here, Mr. Morgan, as you may have heard, between Ascalon, the +present county seat, and Glenmore, a God-abandoned little flyspeck on +the map seven miles south of here." + +"I hadn't heard of it. And what happened to the editor?" + +"Oh, one of our hot-headed boys shot him," said the judge, out of +patience with such trivial and hasty yielding to passion. "Since then +I've been getting out the paper myself--I hold a mortgage on the +property, I'll be obliged to foreclose to protect myself--with the help +of the printer. It's not much of a paper, Morgan, for I haven't got the +time to devote to it with the July term of court coming on, but I have +to get it out every week or lose the county printing contract. There's a +hungry dog over at Glenmore looking on to snatch the bone on the least +possible excuse, and he's got two of the county commissioners with him." + +"No, I'm not an editor," Morgan repeated, speculatively, as if he saw +possibilities of distinction in that road. + +"Without the press, we are a community disarmed in the midst of our +enemies," said the judge. "Glenmore will overwhelm us and rob us of our +rights, without a champion whose voice is as the voice of a thousand +men." + +"I'd never be equal to that," Morgan said, shaking his head in all +seriousness. "Is the editor out of it for good? Is he dead?" + +"They have a devilish peculiarity of seldom wounding a man here in +Ascalon, Mr. Morgan. I've wished more than once they were not so cursed +proficient. The poor fellow fell dead, sir, at the first shot, while he +was reaching for his gun." + +"I've seen something of their proficiency here," Morgan said, with plain +contempt. + +Judge Thayer looked at him sharply. "You refer to that affair at the +hotel this afternoon?" + +"It was a brutal and uncalled-for sacrifice of human life! it was murder +in the name of the law." + +"I think you are somewhat hasty and unjust in your criticism, Mr. +Morgan," the judge mildly protested. "I know the marshal to be a +cool-headed man, a man who can see perils that you and I might overlook +until too late for our own preservation. The fellow must have made some +break for his gun that you didn't see." + +"I hope it was that way," Morgan said, willing to give the marshal every +shadow of justification possible. + +"I've known Seth Craddock a long time; he was huntin' buffalo for the +railroad contractors when I first came to this country. Why, I appointed +Seth to the office not more than an hour before that mix-up at the +hotel." + +"He's beginning early," Morgan said. + +"The man that's going to clean this town up must begin early and work +late," Judge Thayer declared. "An officer that would allow a man to run +a bluff on him wouldn't last two hours." + +"I suppose not," Morgan admitted. + +"As I told Seth when I swore him in, what we want in Ascalon is a +marshal that will use his gun oftener, and to better purpose, than the +men that have gone before him. This town must be purified, the offal of +humanity that makes a stench until it offends the heavens and spreads +our obscene notoriety to the ends of the earth, must be swept out before +we can induce sober and substantial men to bring their families into +this country." + +"It looks reasonable enough," Morgan agreed. + +"Hell's kettle is on the fire in this town, Mr. Morgan; the devil's own +stew is bubbling in it. If I could induce you to defer your farming +experiment a few months, as much as I approve it, anxious as I am to see +you demonstrate your theories and mine, I believe we could accomplish +the regeneration of this town. With a man of Craddock's caliber on the +street, and you in the _Headlight_ office speaking with the voice of a +thousand men, we could reverse public opinion and draw friends to our +side. Without some such support, I view the future with gloom and +misgiving. Glenmore is bound to displace us as the capital of this +county; Ascalon will decline to a whistling station by the side of the +track." + +"I'm afraid I wouldn't care to hitch up with Mr. Craddock in the +regeneration of Ascalon," Morgan said. "We'd pull so hard in opposite +directions we'd break the harness." + +Judge Thayer expressed his regret while he slipped on his black alpaca +coat, asking Morgan to wait until he locked his door, when he would walk +with him as far as the hotel corner. On the way they met a young man who +came bowling along with a great air of importance and self-assurance, a +fresh cigar tilted up in his mouth to such an angle that it threatened +the brim of his large white hat. + +Judge Thayer introduced this man as Dell Hutton, county treasurer. +Hutton wrung Morgan's hand with ardent grip, as if he welcomed him into +the brotherhood of the elect in Ascalon, speaking out of the corner of +his mouth around his cigar. He was a thin-mouthed man of twenty-five, or +perhaps a year or two older, with a shrunken weazenness about his face +that made him look like a very old man done over, and but poorly +renovated. His eyes were pale, with shadows in them as of inquiry and +distrust; his stature was short, his frame slight. + +Hutton seemed to be deeply, even passionately, interested in the venture +Morgan had come to make in that country. He offered his services in any +exigency where they might be applied, shaking hands again with hard +grip, accompanied by a wrinkling of his thin mouth about his cigar as he +clamped his jaws in the fervor of his earnestness. But he appeared to be +under a great pressure to go his way, his eyes controverting the +sincerity of his words the while. + +"He's rather a young man to be filling such a responsible position," +Morgan ventured as they resumed their way. + +"Dell wasn't elected to the office," Judge Thayer explained. "He's +filling out his father's term." + +"Did he--die?" Morgan inquired, marveling over the mortality among the +notables of the town. + +"He was a victim of this feud in the rivalry for the county seat," Judge +Thayer explained, with sadness. "It was due to Hutton, more than any +other force, that we didn't lose the county seat at the last +election--he kept the cattlemen lined up, was a power among them, +followed that business a long time himself. Yes. He was the first man +that ever drove a herd of cattle from Texas to load for market when this +railroad was put through. Some of those skulkers from Glenmore shot him +down at his door two months after he took office." + +"I thought the boy looked like he'd been trained on the range," Morgan +said, thoughtfully. + +"Yes, Dell was raised in the saddle, drove several trips from Texas up +here. Dell"--softly, a little sorrowfully, Morgan thought--"was the +other principal in that affair with our late editor." + +"Oh, I see. He was exonerated?" + +"Clear case of self-defense, proved that Smith--the editor was +Smith--reached for his gun first." + +Morgan did not comment, but he thought that this seemed a thing easily +proved in Ascalon. He parted from the judge at the bank corner, which +was across the way from the hotel. + +The shadow of the hotel fell far into the public square, and in front of +the building, their chairs placed in what would have been the gutter of +the street if the thoroughfare had been paved, their feet braced with +probably more comfort than grace against the low sidewalk, a row of men +was stationed, like crows on a fence. There must have been twenty or +more of them, in various stages of undress from vest down to suspenders, +from bright cravats flaunting over woolen shirts and white shirts, and +striped shirts and speckled shirts, to unconfined necks laid bare to the +breeze. + +Whether these were guests waiting supper, or merely loafers waiting +anything that might happen next, Morgan had not been long enough in town +to determine. He noticed the curious and, he thought, unfriendly eyes +which they turned on him as he approached. And as Morgan set foot on the +sidewalk porch of the hotel, Seth Craddock, the new city marshal, rose +out of the third chair on the end of the row nearest him, hand lifted in +commanding signal to halt. + +"You've just got time to git your gripsack," Craddock said, coming +forward as he spoke, but stopping a little to one side as if to allow +Morgan passage to the door. + +"Time's no object to me," Morgan returned, good-humored and undisturbed, +thinking this must be one of the jokes at the expense of strangers for +which Ascalon was famous. + +Some of the loafers were standing by their chairs in attitude of +indecision, others sat leaning forward to see and hear. Traffic both +ways on the sidewalk came to a sudden halt at the spectacle of two men +in a situation recognized at a glance in quick-triggered Ascalon as +significant, those who came up behind Morgan clearing the way by edging +from the sidewalk into the square. + +"The train'll be here in twelve minutes," Craddock announced, watch in +his palm. + +"On time, is she?" Morgan said indifferently, starting for the door. + +Again Seth Craddock lifted his hand. Those who had remained seated along +the gutter perch up to this moment now got to their feet with such haste +that chairs were upset. Craddock put his hand casually to his pistol, as +a man rests his hand on his hip. + +"You're leavin' on it," he said. + +"I guess you've got the wrong man," Morgan suggested, noting everything +with comprehensive eye, not a little concerned by the marshal's +threatening attitude. If this were going to turn out a joke, Morgan +wished it might begin very soon to show some of its risible features on +the surface, in order that he might know which way to jump to make the +best figure possible. + +"No, I ain't got no wrong man!" Craddock returned, making mockery of +the words, uttering them jeeringly out of the corner of his mouth. He +blasted Morgan with the glare of his malevolent red eyes, redder now +than before his weapon had moistened the street of Ascalon with blood. +"You're the feller that's been shootin' off your mouth about murder in +the name of the law, and you bein' able to take his gun away from that +feller. Well, kid, I'm afraid it's goin' to be a little too rough for +you in this town. You're leavin'--you won't have time to git your +gripsack now, you can write for it!" + +Morgan felt the blood flaming into his face with the hot swell of anger. +A moment he stood eye to eye with Craddock, fighting down the defiance +that rose for utterance to his lips. Then he started again toward the +hotel door. + +Craddock whipped out his pistol with arm so swift that the eye +multiplied it like a spoke in a quick-spinning wheel. He stood holding +the weapon so, his wrist rather limber, the muzzle of the pistol +pointing in the general direction of Morgan's feet. + +"Maybe you can take a gun away from me, little feller?" Craddock +challenged in high mockery, one nostril of his long nose twitching, +lifting his mustache on that side in a snarl. + +"Don't point that gun at me, Craddock!" Morgan warned, his voice +unshaken and cool, although the surge of his heart made his seasoned +body vibrate to the finger tips. + +"Scratch gravel for the depot!" Craddock commanded, lowering the muzzle +of his gun as if he intended to hasten the going by a shot between the +offender's feet. + +The men were separated by not more than two yards, and Morgan made no +movement to widen the breach immediately following the marshal's command +to go. On the contrary, before any that saw him standing there in +apparent indecision, and least of all among them Seth Craddock, could +measure his intention, Morgan stepped aside quicker than the watchers +calculated any living man could move, reached out his long arm a flash +quicker than he had shifted on his feet, and laid hold of the city +marshal's hairy wrist, wrenching it in a twist so bone-breaking that +nerves and muscles failed their office. Nobody saw exactly how he +accomplished it, but the next moment Morgan stepped back from the city +marshal, that officer's revolver in his hand. + +"Mr. Craddock," he said, in calm, advisory way, "I expect to stay around +this part of the country some little time, and I'll be obliged to come +to Ascalon once in a while. If you think you're going to feel +uncomfortable every time you see me, I guess the best thing for you to +do is leave. I'm not saying you must leave, I don't set myself up to +tell a man when to come and go without I've got that right over him. I +just suggest it for your comfort and peace of mind. If you stay here +you'll have to get used to seeing me around." + +Craddock stood for a breath glaring at the man who had humiliated him in +his new dignity, clutching his half-paralyzed wrist. He said nothing, +but there was the proclamation of a death feud in his eyes. + +"Give him a gun, somebody!" said a fool in the crowd that pressed to +the edge of the sidewalk at the marshal's back. + +Tom Conboy, standing in his door ten feet away, interposed quickly, +waving the crowd back. + +"Tut, tut! No niggers in Ireland, now!" he said. + +"He can have this one," said Morgan, still in the same measured, calm +voice. He offered the pistol back to its owner, who snatched it with +ungracious hand, shoved it into his battered scabbard, turned to the +crowd at his back with an oath. + +"Scatter out of here!" he ordered, covering his degradation as he might +in this tyrannical exercise of authority. + +Morgan looked into the curious faces of the people who blocked the +sidewalk ahead of him, withdrawn a discreet distance, not yet venturing +to come on. Except for the red handkerchief that he had worn about his +neck, he was dressed as when he arrived in Ascalon in Joe Lynch's wagon, +coatless, the dust of the road on his shoes. In place of the bright +handkerchief he now wore a slender black necktie, the ends of it tucked +into his gray woolen shirt. + +He felt taller, rawer, more angular than nature had built him as he +stood there looking at the people who had gathered like leaves against a +rock in a brook. He was ashamed of his part in the public show, sorry +that anybody had been by to witness it. In his embarrassment he pushed +his hat back from his forehead, looking around him again as if he would +break through the ranks and hide himself from such confusing publicity. + +The crowd was beginning to disperse at Seth Craddock's urging, although +those who had come to a stand on the sidewalk seemed timid about passing +Morgan. They still held back as if to give him room, or in uncertainty +whether it was all over yet. Perhaps they expected Craddock to turn on +Morgan again when he had cleared a proper space for his activities. + +As for Morgan, he had dismissed the city marshal from his thoughts, for +something else had risen in his vision more worthy the attention of a +man. This was the face of a girl on the edge of the crowd in front of +him, a tall, strong, pliant creature who leaned a little as if she +looked for her reflection in a stream. She was garbed in a brown duck +riding skirt, white waist with a bright wisp of cravat blowing at her +breast like the red of bittersweet against snow. Her dusty sombrero +threw a shadow over her eyes, but Morgan could see that they were dark +and friendly eyes, as no shadow but night could obscure. The other faces +became in that moment but the incidental background for one; his heart +lifted and leaped as the heart moves and yearns with tender quickening +at the sound of some old melody that makes it glad. + +Morgan stepped back, thinking only of her, seeing only her, making a way +for her, only, to pass. That others might follow was not in his mind. He +stepped out of the way for her. + +She came on toward him now, one finished, one refined, among that press +of crudity, one unlooked for in that place of wild lusts and dark +passions unrestrained. She carried a packet of newspapers and letters +under her bent arm, telling of her mission on the street; the thong of +her riding quirt was about her wrist. Her soft dark hair was low on her +neck, a flush as of the pleasure that speaks in bounding blood when +friend meets friend glowed in her face. Morgan removed his hat as she +passed him. She looked into his face and smiled. + +The little crowd broke and followed, but Morgan, oblivious to the +movement around him, stood on the sidewalk edge looking after her, his +hat in his hand. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +ASCALON AWAKE + + +Ascalon was laid out according to the Spanish tradition for arranging +towns that dominated the builders of the West and Southwest in the days +when Santa Fé extended its trade influence over a vast territory. +Although Ascalon was only a stage station in the latter days of traffic +over the Santa Fé Trail, its builders, when it came occasion to expand, +were men who had traded in that capital of the gray desert wastes at the +trail's end, and nothing would serve them but a plaza, with the +courthouse in the middle of it, the principal business establishments +facing it the four sides around. + +There were many who called it _the plaza_ still, especially visitors +from along the Rio Grande who came driving their long-horned, +lean-flanked cattle northward over the Chisholm Trail. Santa Fé, at its +worst, could not have been dustier than this town of Ascalon, and +especially the plaza, or public square, in these summer days. Galloping +horses set its dust flying in obscuring clouds; the restless wind that +blew from sunrise till sunset day in and day out from the southwest, +whipped it in sudden gusts of temper, and drove it through open doors, +spreading it like a sun-defying hoarfrost on the low roofs. All +considered, Ascalon was as dry, uncomfortable, unpromising of romance, +as any place that man ever built or nature ever harassed with wearing +wind and warping sun. + +The courthouse in the middle of the public square was built of bricks, +of that porous, fiery sort which seem so peculiarly designed to the +monstrous vagaries of rural architecture. Here in Ascalon they fitted +well with the arid appearance of things, as a fiery face goes best with +white eyebrows, anywhere. + +The courthouse was a two-storied structure, with the cupola as +indispensable to the old-time Kansas courthouse as a steeple to a +church. The jail was in the basement of it, thus sparing culprits a +certain punishment by concealing the building's raw, red, and crude +lines from the eye. Not that anybody in jail or out of it ever thought +of this advantage, or appreciated it, indeed, for Ascalon was proud of +the courthouse, and fired with a desire and determination to keep it +there in the plaza forever and a day. + +There were precedents before them, and plenty of them in that part of +the country, where county seats had been changed, courthouses of red +bricks and gray stones put on skids and moved away, leaving desolation +that neither maledictions could assuage nor oratory could repair. For +prosperity went with the courthouse in those days, and dignity, and +consequence among the peoples of the earth. + +Hitching racks, like crude apparatus for athletic exercises, were built +around the courthouse, with good driving distance between them and the +plank sidewalks. Here the riders from distant ranges tied their jaded +mounts, here such as made use of wagons in that land of horseback-going +men hitched their teams when they drove in for supplies. + +There was not a shrub in the courthouse square, not the dead and +stricken trunk of a tree standing monument of any attempt to mitigate +the curse of sun. There was not a blade of grass, not a struggling, +wind-blown flower. Only here and there chickweed grew, spreading its +green tracery over the white soil in such sequestered spots as the hoofs +of beast and the feet of men did not stamp and chafe and wear; and in +the angles of the courthouse walls, the Russian thistle, barbed with its +thousand thorns. Men did not consider beauty in Ascalon, this Tophet at +trail's end, save it might be the beauty of human flesh, and then it +must be rouged and powdered, and enforced with every cosmetic mixture to +win attention in an atmosphere where life was lived in a ferment of ugly +strife. + +There was in Ascalon in those bloody days a standing coroner's jury, of +which Tom Conboy was the foreman, composed of certain gamblers and town +politicians whose interests were with the vicious element. To these men +the wide notoriety of the town was capital. Therefore, it was seldom, +indeed, that anybody was slain in Ascalon without justification, +according to the findings of this coroner's jury. In this way the +gamblers and divekeepers, and such respectable citizens as chose to +exercise their hands in this exhilarating pastime, were regularly +absolved. + +The result of this amicable agreement between the county officials and +the people of the town was that Ascalon became, more than ever, a refuge +for the outlawed and proscribed of other communities. Every train +brought them, and dumped them down on the station platform to find their +way like wolves to their kind into the activities of the town. + +Gamblers and gun-slingers, tricksters and sharpers, attended by the +carrion flock of women who always hover after these wreckers and +wastrels, came to Ascalon by scores. It began to appear a question, in +time, of what they were to subsist upon, even though they turned to the +ravening of one another. + +But the broad notoriety of Ascalon attended to this, bringing with the +outlawed and debased a fresh and eager train of victims. The sons of +families came from afar, sated with the diversions and debaucheries of +eastern cities, looking for strange thrills and adventures to heat their +surfeited blood. Unsophisticated young men came, following the lure of +romance; farm boys from the midwestern states came, with a thought of +pioneering and making a new empire of the plow, as their fathers had +smoothed the land in the states already called old. + +All of these came with money in their pockets, and nearly all of them, +one day first or last, became contributors to the support of Ascalon's +prostituted population. New victims came to replace the plucked, new +crowds of cowherders rode in from the long trails to the south, relays +of them galloped night after night from the far ranches stretching along +the sandy Arkansas. There was no want of grain to sow in the gaping +furrows struck out by the hands of sin in the raw, treeless, unpainted +city of Ascalon. + +And into all this fever of coming and going, this heartbreak of shame +and loss, of quickly drawn weapon, of flash, despairing cry, and +death--this sowing of recklessness and harvesting of despair--into all +this had come Calvin Morgan, a man with a clean heart, a clean purpose +in his soul. + +Ascalon once had been illuminated at night about the public square by +kerosene lamps set on posts, after the manner of gas lights in a city, +but the expense of supplying glass day after day to repair the damage +done by roysterers during the night had become so heavy that the town +had abandoned lights long before Morgan's advent there. Only the posts +stood now, scarred by bullets, gnawed by horses which had stood hitched +to them forgotten by their owners who reveled their wages in Ascalon's +beguiling fires. At the time of Morgan's coming, starlight and +moonlight, and such beams as fell through the windows of houses upon the +uneven sidewalk around the square, provided all the illumination that +brightened the streets of Ascalon by night. + +On the evening of his mildly adventurous first day in the town, Morgan +sat in front of the Elkhorn hotel, his chair in the gutter, according to +the custom, his feet braced comfortably against the outer edge of the +sidewalk, flanked by other guests and citizens who filled the remaining +seats. Little was said to him of his encounter with the new city +marshal, and that little Morgan made less, and brought to short ending +by his refusal to be led into the matter at all. And as he sat there, +chatting in desultory way, the fretting wind died to a breath, the line +of men in the chairs grew indistinct in the gloom of early night, and +Ascalon rose up like a sleeping wolf, shaking off the drowse of the day, +and sat on its haunches to howl. + +This awakening began with the sound of fiddles and pianos in the big +dance hall whose roof covered all the vices which thrive best in the +dark. Later a trombone and cornet joined the original musical din, +lifting their brassy notes on the vexed night air. Bands of horsemen +came galloping in, yelping the short, coyote cries of the cattle lands. +Sometimes one of them let off his pistol as he wheeled his horse up to +the hitching rack, the relief of a simple mind that had no other +expression for its momentary exuberance. + +Sidewalks became thronged with people tramping the little round of the +town's diversions, but of different stamp from those who had sparsely +trickled through its sunlight on legitimate business that afternoon. +Cowboys hobbled by in their peggy, high-heeled gait, as clumsy afoot as +penguins; men in white shirts without coats, their skin too tender to +withstand the sun, walked with superior aloofness among the sheep which +had come to their shearing pens, preoccupied in manner, yet alert, +watching, watching, on every hand. + +Now and then women passed, but they, also, were of the night, gaudily +bedecked in tinsel and glittering finery that would have been fustian by +day to the least discriminating eye. Respectability was not abroad in +Ascalon by night. With the last gleam of day it left the stage to +wantonness. + +As the activity of the growing night increased, high-pitched voices of +cowboys who called figures of the dances quavered above the confusion of +sounds, a melancholy note in the long-drawn syllables that seemed a +lament for the waste of youth, and a prophecy of desolation. When the +music fell to momentary silence the clash of pool balls sounded, and the +tramp of feet, and quavering wild feminine laughter rising sharply, +trailing away to distance as if the revelers sailed by on the storm of +their flaming passions, to land by and by on the shores of morning, +draggled, dry-lipped, perhaps with a heartache for the far places left +behind forever. + +Morgan was not moved by a curiosity great enough to impel him to make +the round. All this he had seen before, time over, in the frontier towns +of Nebraska, with less noise and open display, certainly, for here in +Ascalon viciousness had a nation-wide notoriety to maintain, and must +intensify all that it touched. He was wondering how the townspeople who +had honest business in life managed to sleep through that rioting, with +the added chance of some fool cowboy sending a bullet through their thin +walls as he galloped away to his distant camp, when Tom Conboy came +through the sidewalk stream to sit beside him in a gutter chair. + +The proprietor of the Elkhorn hotel appeared to be under a depression of +spirits. He answered those who addressed him in short words, with manner +withdrawn. Morgan noted that the diamond stud was gone out of the desert +of Conboy's shirt bosom, and that he was belted with a pistol. Presently +the man on Conboy's other hand, who had been trying with little result +to draw him into a conversation, got up and made his way toward the +bright front of the dance hall. Conboy touched Morgan's knee. + +"Come into the office, kind of like it happened, a little while after +me," he said, speaking in low voice behind his hand. He rose, stretching +and yawning as if to give his movements a casual appearance, stood a +little while on the edge of the sidewalk, went into the hotel. Morgan +followed him in a few minutes, to find him apparently busy with his +accounts behind the desk. + +A little while the proprietor worked on his bookkeeping, Morgan lounging +idly before the cigar case. + +"Some fellers up the street lookin' for you," Conboy said, not turning +his head. + +"What fellows? What do they want?" + +"That bunch of cowboys from the Chisholm Trail." + +"I don't know them," said Morgan, not yet getting the drift of what +Conboy evidently meant as a warning. + +"They're friends of the city marshal; he belonged to the same outfit," +Conboy explained, ostensibly setting down figures in his book. + +"Thank you," said Morgan, starting for the door. + +"Where you goin' to?" Conboy demanded, forgetting caution and possible +complications in his haste to interpose. + +"To find out what they want." + +"There's no sense in a man runnin' his arm down a lion's throat to see +if he's hungry," Conboy said, making a feint now of moving the cigar +boxes around in the case. + +"This town isn't so big that they'd miss a man if they went out to hunt +him. Where are they?" + +"I left them at Peden's, the big dance hall up the street. Ain't you got +a gun?" + +"No," Morgan returned thoughtfully, as if he had not even considered one +before. + +"The best thing you can do is to take a walk out into the country and +forget your way back, kid. Them fellers are goin' to be jangled up just +about right for anything in an hour or so more. I'd advise you to +go--I'll send your grip to you wherever you say." + +"You're very kind. How many of them are there?" + +"Seven besides Craddock, the rest of them went to Kansas City with the +cattle you saw leave in them three extras this evening. Craddock's +celebratin' his new job, he's leadin' 'em around throwin' everything +wide open to 'em without a cent to pay. 'Charge it to me' he said to +Peden--I was there when they came in--'charge it to me, I'm payin' this +bill.' You know what that means." + +"I suppose it means that the collection will be deferred," Morgon said, +grinning over the city marshal's easy cut to generosity. + +"Indefinitely postponed," said Conboy, gloomily. "I'm goin' to put all +my good cigars in the safe, and do it right now." + +"Here's something you may put in the safe for me, too," said Morgan, +handing over his pocketbook. + +"Ain't you goin' to leave town?" Conboy asked, hand stayed hesitantly to +take the purse. + +"I've got an appointment with Judge Thayer to look at a piece of land in +the morning," Morgan returned. + +"Well, keep out enough to buy a gun, two of 'em if you're a +double-handed man," Conboy counseled. + +"I've got what I need," said Morgan, putting the purse in Conboy's hand. + +"I'd say for you to take a walk out to Judge Thayer's and stay all night +with him, but them fellers will be around here a couple of weeks, I +expect--till the rest of the outfit comes back for their horses. Just +one night away wouldn't do you any good." + +"I couldn't think of it," said Morgan, coldly. + +"You know your business, I guess," Conboy yielded, doubtfully, "but +don't play your luck too far. You made a good grab when you took that +feller's gun away from him, but you can't grab eight guns." + +"You're right," Morgan agreed. + +"If you're a reasonable man, you'll hit the grit out of this burg," +Conboy urged. + +"You said they were at Peden's?" + +"First dance house you come to, the biggest one in town. You don't need +to tip it off that I said anything. No niggers in Ireland, you know." + +"Not a nigger," said Morgan. + +As he stepped into the street, Morgan had no thought of going in any +direction save that which would bring him in conjunction with the men +who sought him. If he began to run at that stage of his experiences, he +reasoned, he would better make a streak of it that would take him out of +the country as fast as his feet would carry him. If those riders of the +Chisholm Trail were going to be there a week or two, he could not dodge +them, and it might be that by facing them unexpectedly and talking it +over man to man before they got too far along in their spree, the +grievance they held against him on Seth Craddock's account could be +adjusted. + +He had come to Ascalon in the belief that he could succeed and prosper +in that land which had lured and beckoned, discouraged and broken and +driven forth again ten thousand men. Already there was somebody in it +who had looked for a moment into his soul and called it courageous, and +passed on her way again, he knew not whither. But if Ascalon was so +small that a man whom men sought could not hide in it, the country +around it was not vast enough to swallow one whom his heart desired to +find again. + +He would find her; that he had determined hours ago. That should be his +first and greatest purpose in this country now. No man, or band of men, +that ever rode the Chisholm Trail could set his face away from it. He +went on to meet them, his dream before him, the wild sound of Ascalon's +obscene revelry in his ears. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +RIDERS OF THE CHISHOLM TRAIL + + +Peden's emporium of viciousness was a notable establishment in its day. +By far the largest in Ascalon, it housed nearly every branch of +entertainment at which men hazard their fortunes and degrade their +morality. It was a vast shell of planks and shingles, with skeleton +joists and rafters bare overhead, built hastily and crudely to serve its +ephemeral day. + +In the farther end there was a stage, upon which mephitic females +displayed their physical lures, to come down and sell drinks at a +commission in the house, and dance with the patrons, at intervals. +Beyond the many small round tables which stood directly in front of the +stage was a clear space for dancing, and on the border of this festival +arena, in the front of the house, the gambling devices. A bar ran the +length of the building on one side from door to orchestra railing. It +was the pride of Ascalon that a hundred men could stand and regale +themselves before this counter at one time. + +Five bartenders stood behind this altar of alcohol when Morgan set foot +in the place intent on putting himself in the way of the riders of the +Chisholm Trail. These Texas cowboys were easily identified among the +early activities of the place by the unusual amount of Mexican silver +and leather ornamentation of their apparel. They were a road-worn and +dusty crew, growing noisy and hilarious in their celebration of one of +their number being elevated to the place of so conspicuous power as city +marshal of that famous town. It appeared to have its humorous side from +the loud laughter they were spending over it, and the caressing thumps +which they laid on Seth Craddock's bony back. + +They were lined up against the bar, Craddock in the midst of them, a +regiment of bottles before them. Morgan drew near, ordered a drink, +stood waiting the moment of his discovery and what might follow it. The +Texans were trying everything in the stock, from gin to champagne, gay +in the wide choice the marvelous influence of their comrade opened to +them without money or the hint of price. + +Morgan lounged at the bar, turning meditatively the little glass of +amber liquor that was the passport to the estate of a proper man in +Ascalon, as in many places neither so notorious nor perilous in those +times. Each of the big metal kerosene lamps swung high on the joists +threw a circular blotch of shadow on the floor, but the light from them +fell brightly on the bar, increased in brilliancy by reflection from the +long row of mirrors. + +In this sparkle of glass and bar furniture Morgan stood, conspicuous by +being apart, like a solitary who had ridden in for a jambouree of his +own without companion or friend. He wore his broad-brimmed black hat +with the high crown uncreased, and only for the lack of boots and pistol +he might have passed for a man of the range. The bartender who served +him looked at him with rather puzzled and frequent sidelong turning of +the eyes as he stood brooding over the untasted liquor, as if he sought +to place him in memory, or to classify him among the drift of men who +came in varying moods to his mahogany altar to pay their devotions to +its bottled gods. + +Morgan's hat cast a shadow over half his face, making it as stern as a +Covenanter's portrait. His eyes were on the bar, where his great hand +turned and turned the glass, as if his mind were withdrawn a thousand +leagues from the noisy scene about him. But for all that apparently +wrapt and self-centered contemplation, Morgan knew the moment when Seth +Craddock looked his direction and discovered him. At that moment he +lifted his glass and drank. + +Craddock turned to his companions, upon whom a quiet settled as they +drew together in brief conference. Presently the city marshal sauntered +out, leaving his comrades of the long trail to carry on their revelry +alone. A gangling young man, swart-faced, fired by the contending +crosses of alcoholic concoctions which he had swallowed, approached +Morgan where he leaned against the bar. This fellow straddled as if he +had a horse between his legs, and he was dusty and road-rough, but newly +shaved and clipped, and perfumed with all the strong scents of the +barber's stock. + +"Good evenin', bud. How does your copperosticies seems to segastuate +this evenin'?" he hailed, in a bantering, insolent, overriding way. + +"I'm able to be up and around and take a little grub," Morgan returned, +as good-humoredly as if there had been no insulting sneer in the +cowboy's words. + +"I hear you're leaving town this evenin'?" + +"I guess that's a mistake of the printer," Morgan said with casual ease. + +The other men in the party drew around Morgan, some of them challenging +him with insolent glances, all of them holding their peace but the one +who had spoken, who appeared to have been selected for that office. + +"A friend of mine told me you was hittin' the grit out of here tonight," +the young man insisted, putting that in his voice which seemed to admit +no controversy. "This country ain't no place for a granger, bud; +farmin's the unhealthiest business here a man ever took up, they tell +me, he don't live no time at it. Sure, you're hittin' the road out of +here tonight--my friend appointed us a committee to see you off." + +"I'm sorry to disappoint you, boys, but your friend's got the wrong +information on me and my movements, whoever he is. I'm goin' to hang +around this town some little time, till my farming tools come, anyhow. +Just pass that word along to your friend, will you, sport?" + +"You ain't got erry gun stuck around in your pants, have you, bud?" the +Texan inquired with persuasive gentleness. + +"Not the ghost of a gun." + +"Grangers burn their eyebrows off and shoot theirselves through the feet +when they go totin' guns around," the fellow said, speaking in the +wheedling, ingratiating way that one addresses an irresponsible child or +a man in alcoholic paresis. The others appeared to find a subtle humor +in their comrade's mode of handling a granger. Morgan grinned with them +as if he found it funny himself. + +One fellow stood a little apart from the rest of the band, studying +Morgan with an expression of insolence such as might well warrant the +belief that he held feud with all grangers and made their discomfiture, +dislodgment, and extermination the chief business of his life. This was +a man of unlikely proportions for a trade aback of a horse--short of +legs, heavy of body, long in the reach of his arms. His face was round +and full, fair for one who rode abroad in all seasons under sun and +storm, his teeth small and far apart. + +This man said nothing, took no part in the side comment that passed +among his comrades, only grinned occasionally, his eyes unwaveringly on +Morgan's face. Morgan was drawn to note him particularly among this +mainly trifling and innocuous bunch, uneasily impressed by the cold +curiosity of his round, tigerish eyes. He thought the fellow appeared to +be calculating on how much blood a granger of that bulk contained, and +how long it would take him to drink it. + +"You ain't got a twenty-two hid around in your pocket nowhere?" the +inquisitor pressed, with comically feigned surprise. Morgan denied the +ownership of even a twenty-two. "I'll have to feel over you and see--I +never saw a granger in my life that didn't tote a twenty-two," the Texan +declared, stepping up to Morgan to put his declaration into effect. + +Morgan had stood through this mocking inquisition in careless posture, +elbows on the bar at his back, with as much good humor as if he were a +member of the band taking his turn as the butt of the evening's +merrymaking. Now, as the young Texan approached with the evident +intention of searching him for a weapon, Morgan came suddenly out of his +lounging posture into one of watchfulness and defense. He put up his +hand in admonitory gesture to stay the impending degradation. + +"Hands off, pardner!" he warned. + +The cowboy stopped, turned to his comrades in simulated amazement. + +"Did you hear the pore feller make that noise?" he asked, turning his +head as if he listened, not quite convinced that his ears had not +deceived him. + +"He's sick, he orto have a dose of turkentime for the holler horn," said +one. + +"He's got the botts--drench him for the botts," another prescribed. + +That suggestion appealed to their humor. It was endorsed with laughter +as they pressed around Morgan to cut off his escape. + +"I was told you men were looking for me," Morgan said, estimating them +individually and collectively with calculative eyes, "so I stepped in +here where you could find me if you had anything worth a man's time to +say to me. I guess you've shot your wad, and you've got my answer. You +can tell your friend I'm stopping at the Elkhorn hotel, if he don't know +it already." + +Morgan moved away from the bar as if to leave the place. They bunched in +front of him to bar his passage, one laying hold of his arm. + +"We're fixin' up a little drink for you," this detainer said, indicating +the former spokesman, who was busy at the bar pouring something of the +contents of the various bottles into one that bore a champagne label. + +"I've had my drink, it isn't time for another," Morgan said, swinging +his arm, sending the fellow who clung to it headlong through the ranks +of his companions. + +At this show of resistance the mask of humor that had covered their +sinister intention was flung aside. The man with the wide-set teeth +stepped into action there, the others giving place to him as to a +recognized champion. He whirled into Morgan, planting a blow just above +the bridge of his nose that sent him back against the bar with a jolt +that made the bottles dance. + +It was such a sudden and mighty blow that Morgan was dazed for a moment, +almost blinded. He saw his assailant before him in wavering lines as he +guarded instinctively rather than scientifically against the fierce +follow-up by which the fellow seemed determined to make an inglorious +end of it for the despised granger. Morgan cleared out of the mists of +this sudden assault in a moment, for he was a man who had taken and +given hard blows in more than one knock-down and drag-out in his day. He +caught the swing that was meant for a knock-out on his left guard, and +drove his able right fist into the fellow's face. + +The pugilistic cowboy, rare fellow among his kind, went to the floor. +But there was good stuff in him, worthy the confidence his comrades +reposed. For a breath or two he lay on his back as he fell, twisted to +his side with a springy movement of incredible swiftness, and sprang to +his feet. Blood was running from his battered nose and already puffed +lips. The cheers of his comrades warmed him back to battle, and the +onlookers who came pressing from all quarters, drew aside to give them +room to fight. + +They began to mix it at a furious pace, both of them sledging heavily, +the advantage of reach and height sparing Morgan much of the heavy +punishment his opponent lacked the cleverness to avoid. While the fellow +doubtless was a champion among the men of his range, he had little +chance against Morgan, imperfect as he was at that game. In a few +minutes of incessant hammering, no breathing spell to break the fierce +encounter, Morgan had chopped the cowboy's face severely. Five times +Morgan knocked him down in less than half as many minutes, the elastic, +enduring fellow coming back each time with admirable courage and vigor. + +Morgan's hands were cut from this bare-knuckled mauling, but his +opponent had not landed a damaging blow on his face since the first +unexpected and unguarded one. He could see, from their crowding and +attempts to interfere, that the spirit of fairness had gone out of the +rest of the bunch. An end must be made speedily, or they would climb him +like a pack of wildcats and crush him like a rabbit in a fall. With this +menace plainly before him, Morgan put his best into the rush and wallop +that he meant to finish the fight. + +The cowboy's extraordinary resistance broke with the blow; he lay so +long like a dead man where he fell that his comrades brought whisky to +revive him. Presently he struggled to hands and knees, where he stood +coughing blood, Morgan waiting by to see what would follow. + +"Take them knucks away from him! he slugged me!" Morgan was amazed to +hear the fellow charge. + +"That's not so!" Morgan denied. "Here--search me," he offered, lifting +his arms. + +In the code governing personal encounter in those days of the frontier, +which was not so very long ago, just one tick in the great clock of +history, it was permissible to straddle one's enemy when one got him +down, and churn his head against the ground; to gouge out his eyes; to +bite off his ears; to kick him, carve him, mutilate him in various and +unsportsman-like and unspeakable ways. But it was the high crime of the +code to slug him with brass or steel knuckles, commonly called knucks. +The man who carried this reenforcement for the natural fist in his +pocket and used it in a fight was held the lowest of all contemptible +and namelessly vile things. So, these Texas cowboys turned on Morgan at +their comrade's accusation, deaf to any denial, flaming with vengeful +resentment. + +They probably would have made an end of Morgan then and there, but for +the interference of Peden, proprietor of the place, who appeared on the +scene of the turmoil at that moment, calm and unruffled, expensive white +sombrero on the back of his head, fresh cigar in his mouth, black frock +coat striking him almost to the knees. + +Peden pushed in among the cowboys as they made a rush for Morgan, who +stood his ground, back to the bar, regretting now the foolish impulse +that had led him into this pack of wolves. Peden stepped in front of +Morgan, authority in his very calmness, and restrained the inflamed +Texans. + +He asked them to consider the ladies. The ladies were in a terrible +panic, he said, sweeping his hand toward the farther end of the room +where a dozen or so of the creatures whom he dignified with the name +were huddled under the restraint of the chief fiddler, who stood before +them with fiddle in one hand, bow in the other, like sword and buckler. + +There was more curiosity than fright in the women, as the most +unsophisticated observer could have read in their kalsomined +countenances. Peden's only object in keeping them back from a closer +enjoyment of the battle was entirely commercial, humanity and delicacy +being no part of his business plan. A live lady was worth a great deal +more to his establishment than one with a stray bullet in her skin, +waiting burial at his expense in the busy undertaker's morgue. + +The cowboys yielded immediately to Peden's appeal in behalf of the +ladies, although they very likely would have resented a more obscure +citizen's interference with their plans. They fronted the bar again on +Peden's invitation to pour another drink. Two of them lifted from the +floor the man whom Morgan had fought, and supported him in a weak-kneed +advance upon the bar. They cheered him in his half-blind and bleeding +wretchedness with promise of what that marvelous elixir, whisky, would +do for him once he began to feel the quickening of its potent flame. + +Peden indicated by a lifting of the eyebrows, a slight movement of the +head toward the door, that Morgan was to improve this moment by making +a quiet and expeditious get-away. Morgan needed no urging, being quite +willing to allow matters to rest where they stood. He started for the +door, making a little detour to put a faro table, around which several +men were standing, between himself and the men to whom Seth Craddock had +delegated the business of his expulsion from the town. One of the men +supporting their defeated champion saw Morgan as he rounded the table, +and set up the alarm that the granger was breaking for the range. + +Even then Morgan could have escaped by a running dash, for those +high-heeled horseback men were not much on foot. But he could not pay +that much for safety before the public of Ascalon, despicable as those +of it gathered there might be. He made a pretense of watching the faro +game while the Texans put down their glasses to rush after him and make +him prisoner, threatening him with clubbed pistols above his head. + +The lookout at the faro game, whose patrons were annoyed by this renewal +of the brawl, jumped from his high seat and took a hand in the row. +Friends of the marshal or friends of the devil, he said, made no +difference to him. They'd have to go outside to finish their fuss. This +man, a notorious slayer of his kind, quicker of hand than any man in +Ascalon, it was said, urged them all toward the door. + +The cowboys protested against this breach of hospitality, but Peden +stood in his customary pose of calmness to enforce his bouncer's word, +hand pushing back his long black coat where it fell over the holster at +his belt. + +Morgan was in no mind to go with them, for he began to have a disturbing +alarm over what these men might do in their drunken vengeance, relieved +as they thought themselves to be of all responsibility to law by the +liberty their friend Craddock had given them. Without regard to the +bouncer's orders or Peden's threatening pose, he began to lay about him +with his fists, making a breach in the ranks of his captors that would +have opened the way to the door in a moment, the outbreak was so +unexpected and violent, if it had not been for a quieting tap the +bouncer gave him with one of the lethal instruments which he carried for +such exigencies. + +Morgan was conscious of a sensation of expulsion, which seemed swift, +soft, and soundless, with a dim sense of falling at the end. When his +dispersed senses returned to their seat again, he found himself in the +open night, stretched on the ground, hands bound behind his back. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A GENTLE COWBOY JOKE + + +As Morgan's faculties cleared out of their turgid whirl, and the stars +began to leave off their frivolous capers and stand still, he heard +voices about him in the dark, and they were discussing the very +interesting question of whether he should be hung like a horse thief or +loaded upon a train and shipped away like sheep. + +Morgan's bruised senses assembled and righted at the first conscious +grasp of this argument, as a laboring, buffeted ship rights when its +shifted cargo is flung back to place by the shock of a mighty surge. +Nature was on guard again in a moment, straining and tense in its sentry +over the habitation of a soul so nearly deserted but a minute before. +Morgan listened, sweating in the desperation of his plight. + +They had taken him away from the main part of town, as he was aware by +the sound of its revelry in the near distance. Close at hand a railroad +engine was frying and gasping; farther off another was snorting +impatiently as it jerked the iron vertebrae of a long freight train. And +these men whom he could not see around him in the darkness were +discussing the expediency of hanging him while unconscious, against the +morality of waiting for him to come to himself so he might have the +felon's last appeal of prayer. + +One maintained that it was against all precedent to hang an unconscious +man and send him off to perdition without a chance to enter a plea for +his soul, and he argued soberly, in the manner of a man who had a spirit +of fairness in him, and a little gleam of reason and morality left. To +Morgan's relief and hope this man went further as he put his view of the +case, even so far as to question their right to hang the granger at all. +They clamored against him and tried to scoff him down, moving with +drunken, scuffing feet near the spot where Morgan lay, as if to put the +sentence into immediate execution. + +"Wait a minute now, boys," this unknown, unseen champion pleaded, "let's +me and you talk this thing over some more. That kid put up a man's +fight, even if he is a granger--you'll have to give him credit for that. +I didn't find no knucks on him, and you didn't. He couldn't 'a' dropped +'em on the floor, and he couldn't 'a' swallered 'em. He didn't have no +knucks, boys--that hard-hoofed granger just naturally tore into the +Dutchman with his bare hands. I know he did, his hands is all cut and +swelled up--here, wait till I strike a match and show you." + +Morgan thought it wise to feign insensibility while this apparently +sober man among the crew struck a match and rolled his body over to show +the granger's battered hands. The others were not convinced by this +evidence, nor softened in the least. He was a granger, anyhow, a fencer +of the range, an interloper who had come into their ancient domain like +others of his grasshopper tribe to fence up the grazing lands and drive +them from the one calling that they knew. If for no other reason, he +deserved hanging for that. Ask anybody; they'd say the same. + +"That ain't no kind of talk," said the defender, reprovingly, "your +daddies and mine was grangers before us, and our kids'll have to be +grangers or nothin' after a while--if any of us ever has any. I was in +for havin' a little fun with this feller; I was in on it with the rest +of you to see the Dutchman hammer him flat, but the Dutchman wasn't a +big enough feller for the job. Where's he at?" + +"Layin' up there on the depot platform," somebody said. + +"This feller flattened _him_ out, done it like he had him on a anvil," +the granger's advocate chuckled. "That there freight's goin' to pull out +in a little while--let's look along till we find a empty car and chuck +him in it. By morning he'll be in La Junta. He's had his lesson out of +the cowman's book, he'll never come back to plow up this range." + +Morgan thought that, perhaps by adding his own argument to this unknown +friend's, he might move the rest of the bunch from their cruel +determination to have his life. He moved, making a breathing like a man +coming to his senses, and struggled to sit up. + +There were exclamations of satisfaction that he had revived in time to +relieve them of the responsibility of sending a man out of the world +without a chance to pray. The man who had championed Morgan's cause +helped him to sit up, asking him with a curious rough kindness if he +wanted a drink. Morgan replied that he did. A bottle was put to his +lips, bruised and swollen until they stood open by the rough usage his +captors had given him while unconscious. He took a swallow of the +whisky, shutting the rest out with tongue against teeth when the fellow +insisted that he take a man's dose. + +They drew close around Morgan where he sat, back against this kind +fellow's knee. Morgan could see them plainly now, although it was too +dark to trace their features. One of them dropped the noose of a rope +over his head as the one who stood behind him took the flask from his +lips. Morgan knew by the feel of it against his neck that it was a +platted rawhide, such as the Mexicans term _reata_. + +"Granger, if you got anything to say, say it," this one directed. Morgan +recognized him as the one who had opened the trouble in Peden's hall. + +Morgan had considerable to say, and he said it without whimper or +tremor, his only appeal being to their fairness and sense of justice +between man and man. He went back a little farther in his simple history +than he had gone with Judge Thayer that afternoon, telling them how he +once had been a cowboy like themselves on the Nebraska and Wyoming +range, leading up briefly, so they might feel they knew him, to his +arrival in Ascalon that day, and his manner of incurring Seth Craddock's +enmity, for which they were considering such an unreasonable punishment. + +Inflamed as they were by liquor, and all but insensible to reasonable +argument, this simple story, enforced by the renewed plea of the one who +befriended him, turned two or three others in Morgan's favor. They +probably would have set him free if it had not been for the Dutchman, +who joined them, apparently sober and bitterly vindictive, as they were +considering that step. + +The Dutchman was for vengeance on his own account, Seth Craddock out of +the consideration entirely. The granger had slugged him, he maintained; +no man that ever walked on the grass was able to lay him out with bare +hands. If they didn't hang the granger he'd shoot him, then and there, +even though he would have to throw ashes on his stinking blood to keep +it from driving everybody out of town. + +Wait a minute, the young man with the straddle suggested, speaking +eagerly, as if he had been struck by an inspiration. The freight train +was just pulling out; suppose they put the rope around the granger's +body instead of his neck, leave his hands tied as they were, and hitch +him to a car! In that way he'd hang himself. It would be plain suicide, +as anybody with eyes could see. + +The innocence and humor of this sportful proposal appealed to them at +once. It also satisfied the Dutchman, who seconded it loudly, with +excited enthusiasm. The protests of the granger's defender and friend +were unavailing. They pushed him back, even threatening him with their +guns when he would have interfered to stay the execution of this +inspired sentence. + +The train was getting under way; three of the gang laid hold of the +_reata_ and ran, dragging Morgan against his best efforts to brace his +feet and hold them, the others pushing him toward the moving train. The +long freight was bound westward. Morgan and his tormenters were beyond +the railroad station, not far from Judge Thayer's little white office +building, which Morgan could see through the gloom as he vainly turned +his eyes about in the hope of some passing stranger to whom he could +appeal. + +Luckily for Morgan, railroad trains did not get under way as quickly in +those days of hand brakes and small engines as now. Added to the weight +of the long string of empty cattle cars which the engine was laboring to +get going was a grade, with several short curves to make it harder where +the road wound in and out among small sand hills. By the time Morgan's +captors had attached the rope to the ladder of a car, the headway of the +train had increased until they were obliged to trot to keep up with it. +Not being fleet of foot in their hobbling footgear when sober, they were +at a double disadvantage when drunk and weaving on their legs. They made +no attempt to follow Morgan and revel in his sufferings and peril, but +fell back, content to enjoy their pleasantry at ease. + +Morgan lurched on over the uneven ground, still dizzy and weak from the +bludgeoning he had undergone, unable to help his precarious balance by +the use of his arms, doubly bound now by the rope about his middle which +the Texans had drawn in running noose. It was Morgan's hope in the first +few rods of this frightful journey that a brakeman might appear on top +of the train, whose attention he might attract before the speed became +so great he could no longer maintain it, or a lurch or a stumble in the +ditch at the trackside might throw him under the wheels. + +A quick glance forward and back dispelled this hope; there was not the +gleam of a lantern in sight. But somebody was running after him, almost +beside him, and there were yells and shots out of the dark behind. Now +the runner was beside Morgan, hand on his shoulder as if to steady +himself, and Morgan's heart swelled with thankful gratitude for the +unknown friend who had thus risked the displeasure of his comrades to +set him free. + +The train was picking up speed rapidly, taxing Morgan's strength to hold +pace with it trussed up as he was, the strain of the hauling rope +feeling as if it would cut his arms to the bone. The man who labored to +hold abreast of Morgan was slashing at the rope. Morgan felt the blade +strike it, the tension yield for a second as if several strands had been +cut. But not severed, not weakened enough to break it. It stiffened +again immediately and the man, clinging desperately to Morgan's shoulder +to hold his place in the quickening race, struck at it again and missed. + +There came more shots and shouts. Morgan's heroic friend stumbled, lost +his hold on the shoulder of the man he was trying to save, fell behind +out of sight. + +Morgan's poor hope for release from present torture and impending death +now rested in the breaking of the rawhide rope where it had been +weakened by that one desperate slash of the knife. He tried lunging back +against the rope, but the speed of the train was too great; he could not +brace a foot, he could not pause. There were gravel and small boulders +in the ditch here. Morgan feared he would lose his footing and be +dragged to his miserable end. + +But onward through the dark he struggled and stumbled, at a pace that +would have taxed an unhampered man to maintain, the strain of the +cutting rope about his body and arms like a band of hot iron. Should a +brakeman appear now on top of the car to which he was tied, Morgan knew +he had little chance of making himself heard through the noise of the +train, spent as he was already, gasping short breaths which he seemed +unable to drive into his burning lungs. + +How long could human strength and determination to cling to life endure +this punishment! how long until he must fall and drag, unable to regain +his feet, to be pounded at that cruel rope's end into a mangled, +abhorrent thing! + +On, the grind of wheels, the jolt of loose-jointed cars over the +clanking track drowning even the noise of the engine laboring up that +merciful grade; on, staggering and swaying, flung like a pebble on a +cord, shoulder now against the car, feet now flying, half lifted from +the ground, among the stones of the ditch, over the uneven earth, across +gullies, over crossings where there paused no traveler in the black +despair of that night to give him the help for which he perished. + +On, the breath that he drew in gasping stridulation like liquid fire in +his throat; on, the calm stars of the unemotional universe above his +head; on, the wind of the wide prairie lands striking his face with +their indefinable sweet scents which even clutching death did not deny +his turbulent senses; on, pain in every nerve; on, joints straining and +starting in their sockets; on, dragged, whipped, lashed from ditch to +ties' end, flung from rocking car to crumbling bank, where jagged rocks +cut his face and freed his blood to streak coldly upon his cheek. + +There was no likelihood that the train would stop in many miles--even +now it was gaining speed, the engine over the crest of the grade. Only +for a post that he might snub that stubborn strand of leather upon! only +for a bridge where his swinging weight might break it! + +Faster--the train was going faster! The pain of his torture dulling as +overcharged nerves refused to carry the growing load, Morgan still clung +to his feet, pounding along in the dark. He was growing numb in body and +mind, as one overwhelmed by a narcotic drug, yet he clung to the +desperate necessity of keeping on his feet. + +How far he had come, how long he might yet endure, he had no thought to +measure. He lived only for the insistent, tenacious purpose of keeping +on his feet, rather than of keeping on his feet to live. He must run and +pant, under the lash of nature that would not let him drop down and die, +as long as a spark of consciousness remained or flying limbs could equal +the speed of the train, helped on by the drag of that rawhide strand +that would not break. + +No thought of death appalled him now as at first; its revolting terror +at that rope's end had no place in his thought this crowded, surging +moment. Only to live, to fight and live, to run, unfeeling feet striking +like wood upon the wayside stones, and run, as a maimed, scorched +creature before a fire, to fall into some cool place and live. And live! +and live! In spite of all, to live! + +And presently the ground fell away beneath his feet, a swish of branches +was about him, the soft, cool touch of leaves against his face. A moment +he was flung and tangled among willows--it was a strange revelation +through a chink of consciousness in that turmoil of life and death that +swept the identifying scent of willows into his nostrils--and then he +dropped, striking softly where water ran, and closed his eyes, thinking +it must be the end. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE AVATISM OF A MAN + + +Morgan knew that the cogs of the slow machinery by which he had been +hoisted from the saddle to the professorial chair had slipped. As he lay +there on his back in the shallow ripple of the Arkansas River, the long +centipede railroad bridge dark-lined across the broad stream, he turned +it in his mind and knew that it was so. + +He had gone back in that brief time of terrific torture to the plane +from which he had risen by hard and determined effort to make of himself +a man in the world of consequence and achievement; back to the savagery +of the old days when he rode the range in summer glare and winter storm. +For it was his life's one aim and intention now to rise from that cool +bed in the river presently and go back to Ascalon, try by sound of voice +those who had subjected him to this torture, separating by that test his +heroic friend from the guilty. The others he intended to kill, man by +man, down to the last unfeeling brute. + +The water was not more than two or three inches deep where he lay, but a +little way beyond he could hear it passing with greater volume among the +spiles of the bridge. Fortune had spared him a fall into the deeper +channel, where even a foot of water might have drowned him, strengthless +and fettered as he was. Fate had reserved him for this hour of +vengeance. He turned, wallowing in the shallow water to soak the +rawhide rope, which was already growing soft, the pressure and pain of +it considerably eased on his arms. + +He drank, and buried his face in the tepid water, grateful for life, +exulting in the fierce fire that rose in him, triumphing already in the +swift atonement he would call on those wretches to make. Back again to +the ethical standard of those old, hard-riding, hard-drinking, +hard-swearing days on the range, the refinements of his education +submerged, and not one regret for the slip. + +Morgan did not realize in that moment of surrender to the primitive +desires which clamored within him how badly he was wrenched and mauled. +He tried the rawhide, swelling his bound arms in the hope that the +slipknot would give a little, but was unable to bring pressure enough on +the rope to ease it in the least. + +Eager to begin his harvest of revenge before the men from the Nueces +struck south again over the long trail, Morgan determined to start at +once in search of somebody to free him from his bonds. He could not +return to Ascalon in this shameful plight, his ignominy upon him, an +object of derision. There must be somebody living along the river close +at hand who would cut his bonds and give him a plaster to stick over the +wound he could feel drawing and gaping in his cheek. + +When it came to getting to his feet, Morgan learned that his desire had +outgrown his strength. A sickness swept him as he struggled to his +knees; blood burst from his nostrils, the taste of blood was on his +tongue. Dizzy, sick to the core of his heart, sore with a thousand +bruises, shot with a thousand pains which set up with every movement +like the clamor of harassing wolves, he dragged himself on his knees to +the edge of the water, where he lay on his face in the warm sand. + +He waited there a long time for the gathering of strength enough to +carry him on his quest of a friendly hand. Only the savage determination +to strike his enemies down, head by head, kept him from perishing as he +lay there sore and bruised, chilled to the marrow in his welling agony +even that hot summer night. + +Dawn was breaking when he at last found strength to mount the low bank +through the encumbering brush and vines. His arms were senseless below +the elbows, swollen almost to bursting of veins and skin by the gorged +blood. There was no choice in directions, only to avoid the town. He +faced up the river and trudged on, the cottonwood leaves beginning their +everlasting symphony, that is like the murmur of rain, as the wakening +wind moved them overhead. + +Morgan stumbled over tin cans at the edge of the tall grass when the +rising sun was shining across his unprotected eyes. He stood for a +little while, wondering at first sight if this were only another mirage +of the plagued imagination, such as had risen like ephemera while he lay +on the sand bar at the river's edge. He stood with weak legs braced wide +apart to fix his reeling senses on the sight--the amazing, comforting +sight, of a field of growing corn. Only a little field, more properly a +patch, but it was tall and green, in full tassel, the delicate sweet of +its blossoms strong on the dew-damp morning. + +Beyond the field he could see the roof of a sod house, and a little of +the brown wall that rose not much higher than the corn. Grass had grown +on the roof, for it was made of strips of sod, also, and turned sere and +brown in the sun. A wire fence stood a prickly barrier between roaming +cattle and this little field of succulent fodder. Morgan directed his +course to skirt the field, and came at last to the cabin door. + +In front of the house there was no fence, but a dooryard that seemed to +embrace the rest of the earth. Around the door the ground was trampled +and bare; in front of the house three horses stood, saddled and waiting, +bridle reins on the ground. It looked like a cow camp to Morgan; it +seemed as if he had come back home. A dog rose slowly from where it lay +across the door, bristles rising, foot lifted as if the creature paused +between flight and attack, setting up such an alarm that the horses +bolted a little way and stood wondering. + +A woman came to the door, lifted her hands in silent astonishment, +leaning a little to see. + +"Heavens above! look at that man!" she cried, her words sounding as from +a great distance in Morgan's dulling ears. + +Morgan saw her start toward him, running. He tried to step forward to +meet her, but only his body moved in accord with his will. The earth +seemed to rise and embrace him, letting him down softly, as the arms of +a friend. + +It was a new pain that brought Morgan to his senses, the pain of +returning life to his half-dead arms. Somebody was standing beside him +holding these members raised to let the blood drain out of them, chafing +them, and there was a smell of camphor and strong spirits in the place. + +"The rope wouldn't 'a' slipped _down_, if they was tryin' to hang him, +anyhow," somebody said with conclusive finality. + +"Looks like they lassoed him and drug him," another said, full of the +awe that hushes the human voice when one stands beside the dead. + +"Whoever done it ought to be skinned alive!" a woman declared, and +Morgan thanked her in his heart for her sympathy, although there was a +weight of such absolute weakness on his eyes that he could not open them +to see her face. + +There was a dim sound of something being stirred in a glass, and the +nerve-waking scent of more ardent spirits. + +"If this don't fetch him to," said the voice of the first speaker, the +deep pectoral tone of a seasoned man, "you jump your horse and go for +the doctor, Fred." + +Morgan shook his head to throw that obstinate weight from his eyes, or +thought he shook it, but it was only the shadow of a movement. Slight as +it was it brought an exclamation of relief in another voice, a woman's +voice, also, tuned in the music of youth. + +"Oh! he moved!" she said. And she was the one who stood beside him, +holding aloft and chafing his blood-gorged arm. + +"Blamed if he didn't! Here--try a little of this, son." + +Morgan was gathering headway out of the fog so rapidly now that he began +to feel ashamed of this helpless situation in which so many kind hands +were ministering to him as if he were a sick horse. He made a more +determined effort to open his eyes, succeeding this time, although it +seemed to call for as much strength to lift his lids as to shoulder a +sack of wheat. He saw a large hand holding a spoon hovering near his +mouth, and the outline of big shoulders in a red shirt. Morgan swallowed +what was offered him, to feel it go tingling through his nerves with +vivifying warmth, like a message of cheer over a telegraph wire. The +large man who administered the dose was delighted. He spoke +encouragingly, working the spoon faster, as a man blows eagerly when he +sees a flame start weakly in a doubtful fire. The woman with the voice +of youth, who stood on Morgan's left hand, gently put his arm down, as +if modesty would no longer countenance this office of tenderness to a +conscious man. + +"Any feelin' in your hands?" the man inquired, bending a whiskered face +down near Morgan's. + +"Plenty of it, thank you," Morgan replied, his voice stubborn as a rusty +hinge. + +"You'll be all right then, there's no bones broken as far as I can +locate 'em. You just stretch out and take it easy, you'll be all right." + +"I gave up--I gave up--too easy," Morgan said, slowly, like a very tired +man. + +"Lands alive! gave up!" said the matron of the household, who still held +Morgan's arm up to drain off the congested blood. "Look at your face, +look at your feet! Gave up--lands alive!" + +"You're busted up purty bad, old feller," said a young man who seemed to +appear suddenly at Morgan's feet, where he stood looking down with the +most friendly and feeling expression imaginable in his wholesome brown +face. + +"That cut on your face ain't deep, it could be closed up and stuck with +strips of plaster and only leave a shallow scar, but it ought to be done +while it's fresh," the boss of the ranch said. + +"I'd be greatly obliged to you," Morgan told him, by way of agreement to +the dressing of his wound. + +By the time the pioneer of the Arkansas had treated his mysteriously +injured patient's hurts, Morgan had come to himself completely. He was +relieved to know that his collapse at the threshold of that hospitable +home was due to the suffering of his bound arms, rather than any +internal rupture or concussion as he at first feared. + +Already his thoughts were running forward, his blood was pounding in his +arteries, in vengeful eagerness to take up the trail of the men who had +subjected him to this inhuman ordeal. He could not hope to repay them +cruelty for cruelty, for he was not a man who did much crippling when it +came to handling a gun, but if he had to follow them to the Nueces, even +to the Rio Grande, for his toll, then he would follow. + +The business that had brought him into the Kansas plains could wait; +there was but one big purpose in his life now. He was eager to be up, +with the weight of a certain dependable pistol in his holster, the feel +of a certain rifle in its scabbard on the saddle under his knee. + +Sore and bruised as he was, sorer that he would be tomorrow, Morgan +wanted to get up as soon as the long rough cut on his cheek had been +comfortably patched with adhesive tape. He asked the rancher if he would +oblige him with a horse to go to Ascalon, where his trunk containing his +much-needed wardrobe was still in the baggage-room at the depot. + +"You couldn't ride to Ascalon this morning, son," the rancher told him, +severely kind. + +"You'll do if you can make it in a week," the young man added his +opinion cheerfully. + +"Yes, and then some, the way it looks to me," the elder declared. + +Morgan started as if to spring from the low couch where they had laid +him when they carried him in, dusty and bloody, fearful and repulsive +sight of maimed flesh and torn clothing that he was. + +"I can't stay a week--I can't wait a day! They'll be gone, man!" he +said. + +"Maybe they will, son," the rancher agreed, gently pushing him back; +"maybe. But they'll leave tracks." + +"Yes, by God! they'll leave tracks!" Morgan muttered. + +"Don't you think I'd better send my boy over to town for the doctor?" +the rancher asked. + +"Not unless you're uneasy about me." + +"No, your head's all right and your bones are whole. You'll heal up, but +it'll take some time." + +Morgan said he felt that more had been done for him already than any +number of doctors could have accomplished, for the service had been one +of humanity, with no thought of reward. They would let the doctor stay +in Ascalon, and Morgan would go to him if he felt the need coming on. +The rancher disclaimed credit for a service such as one man owed another +the world over, he said. But it was plain that he was touched by the +outspoken gratitude of this wreckage of humanity that had come halting +in bonds to his door. + +"I'm a stranger to this country," Morgan explained, "I arrived in +Ascalon yesterday--" pausing to ponder it, thinking it must have been +longer than a day ago--"yesterday"--with conviction, "a little after +noon. Morgan is my name. I came here to settle on land." + +"You're the man that took the new marshal's gun away from him," the +rancher said, nodding slowly. "My daughter knew you the minute she saw +you--she was over there yesterday after the mail." + +Morgan's heart jumped. He looked about the room for her, but she and her +mother had withdrawn. + +"I guess I made a mistake when I mixed up with him," Morgan said, as if +he excused himself to the absent girl. + +"The only mistake you made was when you handed him back his gun. You +ought to 'a' handed it back to a corpse," the rancher said. + +"We knew that feller he killed," the younger man explained, with a world +of significance in his voice. + +"He used to live up here in this country before he went to Abilene; he'd +come back to blow his money in Ascalon, I guess," the rancher said. "He +was one of them harmless bluffin' boys you could take by the ear and +lead around like he had a ring in his nose." + +"That's what I told them," Morgan commented, in thoughtful, distracted +way. + +"You sized him up right. He wouldn't 'a' pulled his gun, quick as he was +to slap his hand on it and run a sandy. I guess it was just as well it +happened to him then as some other time. Somebody was bound to kill him +when he got away among strangers." + +The rancher, who introduced himself as Stilwell, asked for the details +of the killing, which Morgan gave, together with the trivial thing that +led up to it. The big rancher sighed, shaking his head sadly. + +"You ought to took his gun away from him and bent it around his fool +head," he said. + +"It would have been better for him, and for me, I guess," Morgan agreed. + +"Yes, that marshal was purty sore on you for takin' his gun away from +him right out in public, it looks like," the rancher suggested, a bid in +his manner for the details of his misfortune which Morgan felt were his +by right of hospitality. + +"I ran into some of his friends later on. He'd turned the town over to +them, a bunch of cowpunchers just up from the Nueces." + +The rancher started at the word, exchanging a startled, meaning look +with his son. + +"That outfit that loaded over at Ascalon yesterday?" he inquired. + +"Yes; seven or eight of them stayed behind to look after the +horses--eight with the marshal, he's one of the outfit." + +"Did them fellers rope you and drag you away out here?" Stilwell +inquired, leaning over in the tensity of his feeling, his tanned face +growing pale, as if the thought of such atrocity turned his blood cold. + +"They hitched me to a freight train. The rope broke at the river." + +The rancher turned to his son again, making a motion with open hand +outflung as if displaying evidence in some controversy between them that +clinched it on his side without another word. The younger man came a +step nearer Morgan's couch, where he stood with grave face, hesitant, as +if something came forward in his mind to speak. The elder strode to the +door and looked out into the sun of early morning, and the cool shadows +of the cottonwood trees at the riverside which reached almost to his +walls. + +"To a train! God A'mighty--to a train!" Morgan heard him say. + +"How far is it from Ascalon to the river?" Morgan asked. + +"Over two miles! And your hands tied--God A'mighty!" + +"You take it easy, they'll not leave Ascalon till Sol Drumm, their boss, +comes back from Kansas City," the young man said. "We're layin' for him +ourselves, we've got a bill against him." + +"And we've got about as much show to collect it as we have to dip a +hatful of stars out of the river," Stilwell said, turning gloomily from +the door. + +"We'll see about that!" the younger one returned, in high and defiant +stubbornness. + +"We've already lost upwards of five hundred head of stock from that +feller's trespass on our range," Stilwell explained. "That gang drove in +here three weeks ago to rest and feed up for market, payin' no attention +to anybody's range or anybody's warning to keep off. They had the men +with them to go where they pleased. Them Texas cattle come up here +loaded with fever ticks, and the bite of them little bugs means death to +a northern herd. They sowed ticks all over my range. I'm still a losin' +cattle, and Lord knows where it will stop." + +"You've been working to get a quarantine law passed, I remember," Morgan +said, feeling this outrage as if the cattle were his own. + +"Yes, but Congress is asleep, and them fellers down in Texas never shut +their eyes. I warned Drumm to keep off my range, asked him first like a +gentleman, but he drove in one night between my pickets and mixed his +poison cattle with mine out of pure cussidness. He claimed they got +away, and him with fifteen or twenty men to ride herd! It's cost me ten +thousand dollars, at the lowest figure, already, and more goin'. It +looks like it would clean me out." + +"You ought to have some recourse against him in law," Morgan said. + +"Yes, I thought so, too. I went to the county attorney and wanted to +bring an attachment on Drumm's herd, but he told me there wasn't any law +he could act under, it was anybody's range as much as mine, Texas fever +or no Texas fever. I could sue him, he said, but it was a slim chance. +Well, I'm goin' to see another lawyer--I'll take it up with Judge +Thayer, and see what he can do." + +"Drumm'll pay it, down to the last dime!" the young man declared. + +"We can't hold him up and take it away from him, Fred," the older man +reproved. "That would be as big a crime as his." + +"He'll pay it!" Fred repeated, with what Morgan thought to be admirable +tenacity, even though his means to the desired end might be hard to +justify. + +They helped Morgan to another room, where they outfitted him with +clothing to replace his own shredded garments. Stilwell insisted that he +remain as his guest until his hurts were mended, although, he explained, +he could not stay at home to keep him company. His wife and daughter +would talk his arm off without help from the rest of the family. He +would call them in and introduce them. + +"My girl's got a new piano--lucky I sent for it before that Texas outfit +struck this range--she can try it out on you," Stilwell said, a laugh +still left in him for an amusing situation in spite of the ruin he +faced. + +Morgan could hear the girl and her mother talking in the kitchen, their +voices quite distinct at times as they passed an open door that he could +not see. Lame and aching, hands swollen and purple, he sat in a +rocking-chair by the open window, not so broken by his experiences nor +so depressed by his pains but he yet had the pleasure of anticipation in +meeting this girl. He had determined only a few hours ago that the +country was not big enough to hide her from him. Now Fate had jerked +him with rough hand to the end of his quest before it was fairly begun. + +As he thought this, Stilwell came back, convoying his ample red-faced +wife, and almost as ample, and quite as red-faced, daughter. So, there +must have been more than one young lady after mail in Ascalon yesterday +afternoon, thought Morgan, as he got up ruefully, with much pain in his +feet and ankles, rather shamed and taken back, and bowed the best way he +could to this girl who was not _his_ girl, after all his eager +anticipation. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +NEWS FROM ASCALON + + +"Down here in the river bottom, where the water rises close to the top +of the ground, you can raise a little corn and stuff, but take it back +on the prairie a little way and you can't make your seed back, year in +and year out. Plenty of them have come here from the East and tried +it--I suppose you must 'a' seen the traces of them scattered around as +you come through the country east of Ascalon." + +Morgan admitted that he had seen such traces, melancholy records of +failure that they were. + +"It's all over this country the same way. It broke 'em as fast as they +came, starved 'em and took the heart out of 'em and drove 'em away. You +can't farm this country, Morgan; no man ever learnt anything out of +books that will make him master of these plains with a plow." + +So spoke Stilwell, the cattleman, sitting at night before his long, low, +L-shaped sod house with his guest who had been dragged into his +hospitality at the end of a rope. Eight days Morgan had been sequestered +in that primitive home, which had many comforts in spite of the crudity +of its exterior. His soreness had passed from the green and +superficially painful stage to the deeper ache of bruised bones. He +walked with a limp, stiff and stoved in his joints as a foundered horse. +But his hands and arms had recovered their suppleness, and, like an +overgrown fledgling at the edge of the nest, he was thinking of +projecting a flight. + +During the time Morgan had been in the Stilwell ranchhouse no news had +come to him from Ascalon. Close as they lived to the town, the Stilwells +had been too deeply taken up with their own problem of pending ruin due +to the loss of their herd from Texas fever infection, to make a trip +even to the post-office for their mail. Violet, the daughter, was on the +range more than half the time, doing what she could to drive the sick +cattle to the river where they might have a better chance to fight the +dread malady. + +Morgan's injuries had turned out to be deeper seated and more serious +than he had at first supposed. For several days he was racked with a +fever that threatened to floor him, due to the mental torture of that +terrible night. It had passed, and with it much of his pain, and he +would have gone to Ascalon for his reckoning with the men from the +Nueces two days ago if Stilwell had not argued the folly of attempting +an adjustment under the handicap of his injuries. + +Wait a few days longer, the rancher sagely advised, eat and rest, and +rub that good fiery horse liniment of his on the sore spots and swollen +joints. Even if they were gone, which Stilwell knew would not be the +case for Drumm would not have made it back from Kansas City yet, Morgan +could follow them. And to do that he must be sound and strong. + +Stilwell had put off even his own case against the Texas stockman, he +had been so urged for time in getting his sick cattle down to the shade +and water along the river. Now the job seemed over, for all he could +do, and was taking his ease at home this night, intending to go early in +the morning and put his case for damages against Drumm into Judge +Thayer's hands. + +Through Morgan's days of sickness and waiting for strength, he was +attended tenderly by Mrs. Stilwell, and sometimes of an afternoon, when +Violet came in from the hot, dry range, she would play for him on her +new piano. She played a great deal better than he had any reason to +expect of her, self-taught in her isolation on the banks of the shallow +Arkansas. + +Violet was a girl of large frame, large bones in her wrists, large +fingers to her useful, kindly ministering hands. Her face was somewhat +too long and thin to be called handsome, but it was refined by a +wistfulness that told of inner striving for something beyond the horizon +of her days there in her prairie-circled home. And now as the two men +talked outside the door, the new moonlight white on the dust of the +trampled yard, Violet was at her piano, playing a simple melody with a +soft, expressive tenderness as sweet to him as any music Morgan ever had +heard. For he understood that the instrument was the medium of +expression for this prairie girl's soul, reaching out from its shelter +of sod laid upon sod to what aspirations, following what longings, +mounting to what ambitions, none in her daily contact ever knew. + +Stilwell was downcast by the blow he had received in the loss of more +than half his herd through the Texas scourge. It had taken years of +hardship and striving, fighting drouth and winter storm, preying wolves +and preying men, to build the herd up to the point where profits were +about ready to be enjoyed. + +Nothing but a frost would put an end to the scourge of Texas fever; in +those days no other remedy had been discovered. Before nature could send +this relief Stilwell feared the rest of his cattle would die, although +he had driven them from the contaminated range. If that happened he +would be wiped out, for he was too old, he said, to start at the bottom +and build up another herd. + +It was at this point that Morgan suggested Stilwell turn to the soil +instead of range cattle as a future business, a thing that called down +the cattleman's scorn and derision, and citation of the wreckage that +country had made of men's hopes. He dismissed that subject very soon as +one unworthy of even acrimonious debate or further denunciation, to +dwell on his losses and the bleakness of the future as it presented +itself through the bones of his dead cattle. + +As they sat talking, the soft notes of Violet's melody soothing to the +ears as a distant song, the young man Fred came riding in from Ascalon, +the bearer of news. He began to talk before he struck the ground, +breathlessly, like a man who had beheld unbelievable things. + +"That gang from Texas has took the town--everybody's hidin' out," he +reported. + +"Took the town?" said Stilwell, incredulously. + +"Stores all shut up, post-office locked and old man Flower settin' in +the upstairs winder with his Winchester across his leg waitin' for them +to bust in the door and steal the gover'ment money!" + +"Listen to that!" said Stilwell, as the young man stood there hat off, +mopping the sweat of excitement from his forehead. "Where's that +man-eatin' marshal feller at?" + +"He's killin' off everybody in town but his friends--he's killed eight +men, a man a day, since he's been in office. He's got everybody lookin' +for a hole." + +"A man a day!" said Morgan, scarcely able to believe the news. + +"Who was they?" Stilwell inquired, bringing his chair down from its easy +slant against the sod wall, leaning forward to catch the particulars of +this unequaled record of slaughter. + +"I didn't hear," said Fred, panting faster than his hard-ridden horse. + +"I hope none of the boys off of this range around here got into it with +him," Stilwell said. + +"They say he's closed up all the gamblin' joints and saloons but +Peden's, and the bank's been shut four or five days, Judge Thayer and a +bunch of fellers inside of it with rifles. Tom Conboy told me the judge +had telegraphed to the governor asking him to send soldiers to restore +law and order in the town." + +"Law and order!" Stilwell scorned. "All the law and order they ever had +in that hell-hole a man'd never miss." + +"Where's the sheriff--what's he doing to restore order?" Morgan +inquired. + +"The sheriff ain't doin' nothing. I ain't been over there, but I know +that much," Stilwell said. + +"They say he's out after some rustlers," Fred replied. + +"Yes, and he'll stay out till the trouble's over and come back without a +hide or hair of a rustler. What else are they doin'?" + +"Rairin' and shootin'," said Fred, winded by the enormity of this +outlawry, even though bred in an atmosphere of violence. + +"Are they hittin' anybody, or just shootin' for noise?" Stilwell asked. + +"Well, I know they took a crack at me when I went out of Conboy's to git +my horse." + +Mrs. Stilwell and Violet, who had hastened out on Fred's excited +arrival, exclaimed in concern at this, the mother going to her boy to +feel him over as for wounds, standing by him a little while with arm +around him. + +"Did you shoot back?" Stilwell wanted to know. + +"I hope I did," Fred replied. + +Stilwell got up, and stood looking at the moon a little while as if +calculating the time of night. + +"They need a man or two over there to clean that gang up," he said. +"Well, it ain't my business to do it, as long as they didn't hit you." + +Mrs. Stilwell chided him sharply, perhaps having history behind her to +justify her alarm at these symptoms. + +"Let them fight it out among themselves, the wolves!" she said. + +Morgan had drawn a little apart from the family group, walking to the +corner of the house where he stood looking off toward Ascalon, still and +tense as if he listened for the sounds of conflict. He was dressed in +Stilwell's clothes, which were somewhat too roomy of body but nothing +too large otherwise, for both of them had the stature of proper men. +His feet were in slippers, his ankles bandaged and soaked with the +penetrating liniment designed alike for the ailments of man and beast. + +Violet studied him as he stood there between her and the moon, his face +sterner for the ordeal of suffering that had tried his manhood in that +two-mile run beside the train, where nothing but a sublime defiance of +death had held him to his feet. + +He had told her of his seven-years' struggle upward from the cowboy's +saddle to a place of honor in the faculty of the institution where he +had beaten out the hard, slow path to learning; she knew of his purpose +in coming to the western Kansas plains. Until this moment she had +believed it to be a misleading and destructive illusion that would break +his heart and rive his soul, as it had the hearts and souls of thousands +of brave men and women before him. + +Now she had a new revelation, the moonlight on his face, bright in his +fair hair, picturing him as rugged as a rock uplifted against the dim +sky. She knew him then for a man such as she never had met in the narrow +circle of her life before, a man strong to live in his purpose and +strong to die in it if the need might be. He would conquer where others +had failed; the strength of his soul was written in his earnest face. + +"I think I'll go over to Ascalon," Morgan said presently, turning to +them, speaking slowly. "Will you let me have a horse?" + +"Go to Ascalon! Lands save us!" Mrs. Stilwell exclaimed. + +"No, no--not tonight!" Violet protested, hurrying forward as if she +would stay him by force. + +"You wait till morning, son," Stilwell counseled calmly, so calmly, +indeed, that his wife turned to him sharply. "Maybe I'll go with you in +the morning." + +"You've got no business there--let them kill each other off if they want +to, but you keep out of it!" said his wife. + +"If you'll let me have a horse--" Morgan began again, with the +insistence of a man unmoved. + +"You forgot about our cattle, Mother," Stilwell chided, ignoring +Morgan's request. "I'm goin' to sue Sol Drumm, I'm goin' to have the +papers ready to serve on him the minute he steps off of the train. If +there's any way to make him pay for the damage he's done me I'm goin' to +do it." + +"There's more than one way," said Fred. "If the law can't----" + +"Then we lose," his father finished for him, in the calm resignation of +a just man. + +Morgan's intention of going to Ascalon to square accounts with his +persecutors as soon as he had the strength to warrant such a move was no +secret in the Stilwell family. Fred had offered his services at the +beginning, and the one cowboy now left out of the five but recently +employed by Stilwell had laid his pistol on the table and told Morgan +that he was the man who went with it, both of them at his service when +the hour of reckoning should arrive. Now Stilwell himself was beginning +to show the pistol itch in his palm. + +Morgan was grateful for all this uprising on the part of his new +friends in his behalf, to whom his suffering and the cruelty of his +ordeal appealed strongly for sympathy, but he could not accept any +assistance at their hands. There could be no satisfaction in justice +applied by any hand but his own. If otherwise, he might as well go to +the county attorney, lodge complaints, obtain warrants and send his +enemies to jail. + +No, it was a case for personal attention; it was a one-man job. What +they were to suffer for their great wrong against him, he must inflict +with his own weapon, like the savage Comanche whose camp fires were +scarcely cold in that place. + +So Morgan spoke again of going that night to Ascalon, only to be set +upon by all of them and argued into submission. Eager as Fred was to go +along and have a hand in the fray, he was against going that night. +Violet came and laid her good wholesome, sympathetic hand on Morgan's +arm and looked into his face with a plea in her eyes that was stronger +than words. He couldn't bear his feet in the stirrups with his ankles +all swollen and sore as they were, she said; wait a day or two--wait a +week. What did it matter if they should leave in the meantime, and go +back down the wild trail to Texas? So much the better; let them go. + +Morgan smiled to hear her say it would be better if they should get +away, for she was one of the forgiving of this world, in whose breast +the fire of vengeance would find no fuel to nurse its hot spark and +burst into raging flame. He yielded to their entreaties and reasoning, +agreeing to defer his expedition against his enemies until morning, but +not an hour longer. + +When the others had gone to bed, Morgan went down to the river through +the broad notch in the low bank where the Santa Fé Trail used to cross. +This old road was brush-grown now, with only a dusty path winding along +it where the cattle passed to drink. The hoof-cut soil was warm and soft +to his bruised feet; the bitter scent of the willows was strong on the +cooling night as he brushed among them. Out across the broad golden bars +he went, seeking the shallow ripple to which the stream shrunk in the +summer days between rains, sitting by it when he came to it at last, +bathing his feet in the tepid water. + +There he sat for the cure of the water on his bruised, fevered joints, +raking the fire of his hatred together until it grew and leaped within +him like a tempest. As the Indian warrior watches the night out with +song of defiance and dance of death to inflame him to his grim purpose +of the dawn, so this man fallen from the ways of gentleness into the +abyss of savagery spurred himself to a grim and terrible frenzy by +visiting his wrath in anticipation upon his enemies. + +Unworthy as they were, obscure and trivial; riotous, ignorant, bestial +in their lives, he would lower himself to their level for one blood-red +hour to carry to them a punishment more terrible than the noose. As from +the dead he would rise up to strike them with terror. In the morning, +when the sun was striking long shadows of shrub and bunched bluestem +over the prairie levels; in the morning, when the wind was as weak as a +young fawn. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE HOUR OF VENGEANCE + + +The proscribed of the earth were sleeping late in Ascalon that morning, +as they slept late every morning, bright or cloudy, head-heavy with the +late watch and debaucheries of the night. Few were on the street in +pursuit of the small amount of legitimate business the town transacted +during the burning hours when the moles of the night lay housed in +gloom, when Morgan walked from the baggage-room of the railroad depot. + +Few who saw Morgan on the day of his arrival in Ascalon would have +recognized him now. He had been obliged to go to the bottom of his trunk +for the outfit that he treasured out of sentiment for the old days +rather than in any expectation of needing it again--the rig he had worn +into the college town, a matter of six hundred miles from his range, to +begin a new life. Now he had fallen from the eminence. He was going back +to the old. + +The gray wool shirt was wrinkled and stained by weather and wear, the +roomy corduroy trousers were worn from saddle chafing, the big spurs +were rusted of rowel and shank. But the boots were new--he had bought +them before leaving the range, to wear in college, laying them aside +with regret when he found them not just the thing in vogue--and they +were still brave in glossy bronze of quilted tops, little marred by +that last long ride out of his far-away past. His cream-colored hat was +battered and old, for he had worn it five years in all weather, crushed +from the pressure of packing, but he pinched the tall crown to a point +as he used to wear it, and turned the broad brim back from his forehead +according to the habit of his former days. + +This had been his gala costume in other times, kept in the bunkhouse at +the ranch for days of fiesta, nights of dancing, and wild dissipation +when he rode with his fellows to the three-days' distant town. His old +pistol was in his holster, and his empty cartridge belt about his +middle, the rifle, in saddle holster, that he used to carry for wolves +and rustlers, in his hand. + +Morgan stood a moment, leaning the rifle against the depot end, to take +the bright silk handkerchief from about his neck, as if he considered it +as being too festive for the somber business before him. The station +agent stood at the corner of the building, watching him curiously. + +The horse that Morgan had borrowed from Stilwell lifted its head with a +start as he approached where it stood at the side of the station +platform, as if it questioned him on the reason for this transformation +and the honesty of his purpose. Morgan did not mount the horse, although +he walked with difficulty in the tight boots which had lain like the +shed habits of his past so many years unstretched by a foot. He went +leading the horse, rein over his arm, to the hitching rack in front of +the hotel, under the plank canopy of which Stilwell and his son waited +his coming. + +Stilwell had made it plain to Morgan at the beginning, to save his +feelings and his pride, that they were not attending him on the +expedition against his enemies with any intention of helping him. Just +to be there in case of outside interference, and to enjoy the spectacle +of justice being done by a strong hand. Stilwell's account, personally, +was not against these men, he said, although they had driven their herd +upon his range and spread infection among his cattle. That would be +taken up with Sol Drumm when he came back from Kansas City with the +money from his cattle sale. + +Morgan went to the hardware store, two doors from the hotel, from which +he presently emerged with a coil of new rope, a row of new cartridges in +his belt, and pockets heavy with a reserve supply. Tom Conboy was +standing in his door, looking up and down the street in the manner of a +man who felt his position insecure. Morgan saw that he was haggard and +worn as from long vigils and anxieties, although he had about him still +an air of assurance and self-sufficiency. Morgan passed him in the door +and entered the office unrecognized, although Conboy searched him with a +disfavoring and suspicious eye. + +In the office there was evidence of conflict and turmoil. The showcase +was broken, the large iron safe lay overturned on the floor. The blue +door leading into the dining-room had been burst from its hinges, its +panels cracked, and now stood in the office leaning against the +partition like a champion against the ropes. Conboy turned from his +watch at the street door with reluctance, to see what the visitor +desired, and at the same moment Dora appeared in the doorless frame +within. + +"Mr. Morgan!" she cried, incredulity, surprise, pleasure, mingled in her +voice. + +She paused a moment, eyes round, hands lifted, her pretty mouth agape, +but came on again almost at once, eagerness brushing all other emotions +out of her face. "Wherever in the world have you been? What in the name +of goodness is the matter with your face?" She turned Morgan a little to +let the light fall on his wound. + +Grim as Morgan's business was that morning, bitter as his savage heart, +he had a nook in his soul for sympathetic Dora, and a smile that came so +hard and vanished so quickly that it seemed it must have hurt him in the +giving more than the breaking of a bone. + +"_Mister_ Morgan!" said Dora, hardly a breath between her last word and +the next, "what_ever_ have you been doin' to your face?" + +"No niggers in Ireland, now--no-o-o niggers in Ireland!" Conboy warned +her, coming forward with no less interest than his daughter's to peer +into Morgan's bruised and marred face. "Well, well!"--with much surprise +altogether genuine, "you're back again, Mr. Morgan?" + +"Wherever _have_ you been?" Dora persisted, no more interested in +niggers in Ireland than elsewhere. + +"I fell among thieves," Morgan told her, gravely. Then to Conboy: "Is +that gang from Texas stopping here?" + +"No, they lay up at Peden's on the floor where they happen to fall," +Conboy replied. "If there ever was a curse turned loose on a town that +gang--look at that showcase, look at that door, look at that safe. They +took the town last night, a decent woman didn't dare to show her face +outside the door and wasn't safe in the house. They tried to blow that +safe with powder when I wouldn't open it and give them the money. But +they didn't even jar it--your money's in there, Mr. Morgan, safe." + +"Oh, it was awful!" said Dora. "Oh, you've got your gun! If some +man----" + +"Sh-h-h! No nig----" + +"Where's the marshal?" Morgan asked. + +"Took the train east last night. The operator told me he got a wire from +Sol Drumm, boss of the outfit, to meet him in Abilene today. He swore +them six ruffians in as deputies before he went and left them in charge +of the town." + +"Six? Where's the other one?" + +Conboy looked at him with quick flashing of his shifty eyes. "Don't you +know?" he asked, with significant shrewdness, smiling a little as if to +show his friendly appreciation of the joke. + +"What in the hell do you mean?" Morgan demanded. + +"No niggers in Ireland, now," Conboy said soothingly, his face growing +white. "One of them was killed down by the railroad track the night you +left. They said you shot him and hopped a freight." + +Morgan said no more, but turned toward the door to leave. + +"The inquest hasn't been held over him yet, we've been kept so busy with +the marshal's cases we didn't get around to him," Conboy explained. +"Maybe you can throw some light on that case?" + +"I can throw a lot of it," Morgan said, and walked out with that word to +where he had left his horse. + +There Morgan cut six lengths from his new rope, drawing the pieces +through his belt in the manner of a man carrying string for sewing grain +sacks. He took the rifle from the saddle, filled its magazine, and +started toward Peden's place, which was on the next corner beyond the +hotel, on the same side of the square. When he had gone a few rods, +halting on his lame feet, alert as a hunter who expects the game to +break from cover, Stilwell and Fred got up from their apparently +disinterested lounging in front of the hotel and followed leisurely +after him. + +Many of the little business houses around the square were closed. There +was a litter of glass on the plank sidewalk, where proprietors stood +gloomily looking at broken windows, or were setting about replacing them +with boards after the hurricane of deviltry that swept the town the +night past. Those who were abroad in the sunlight of early morning +making their purchases for the day, moved with trepidation, putting +their feet down quietly, hastening on their way. + +An old man who walked ahead of Morgan appeared to be the only unshaken +and unconcerned person in this place of sleeping passions. He carried a +thick hickory stick with immense crook, which he pegged down in time to +his short steps, relying on it for support not at all, his lean old jaw +chopping his cud as nimbly as a sheep's. But when Morgan's shadow, +stretching far ahead, fell beside him, he started like a dozing horse, +whirled about with stick upraised, and stood so in attitude of menace +and defense until the stranger had passed on. + +Conboy was alert in his door, watching to see what new nest of trouble +Morgan was about to stir with that threatening rifle. Others seemed to +feel the threat that stalked with this grim man. Life quickened in the +somnolent town as to the sound of a fire bell as he passed; people stood +watching after him; came to doors and windows to lean and look. A few +moments after his passing the street behind him became almost magically +alive, although it was a silent, expectant, fearful interest that +communicated itself in whispers and low breath. + +Who was this stranger with the mark of conflict on his face, this +unusual weapon in the brawls and tragedies of Ascalon held ready in his +hands? What grievance had he? what authority? Was he the bringer of +peace in the name of the law that had been so long degraded and defied, +or only another gambler in the lives of men? They waited, whispering, in +silence as of a deserted city, to see and hear. + +There was only one priest of alcohol attending the long altar where men +sacrificed their manhood in Peden's deserted hall that morning. He was +quite sufficient for all the demands of the hour, his only customers +being the unprofitable gang of cattle herders whom Morgan sought. True +to their training in early rising, no matter what the stress of the +night past, no matter how broken by alarm and storm, they were all +awake, like sailors called to their watch. They were improving while it +might last the delegated authority of Seth Craddock, which opened the +treasures of a thousand bottles at a word. + +The gambling tables in the front of the house were covered with black +cloths, which draped them almost to the floor, like palls of the dead. +Down at the farther end of the long hall a man was sweeping up the +débris of the night, his steps echoing in the silence of the place. For +there was no hilarity in the sodden crew lined up at the bar for the +first drink of the day. They were red-eyed, crumpled, dirty; frowsled of +hair as they had risen from the floor. + +Peden's hall was not designed for the traffic of daylight. There was +gloom among its bare girders, shadows lay along its walls. Only through +the open door came in a broad and healthy band of light, which spread as +it reached and faltered as it groped, spending itself a little way +beyond the place where the lone bartender served his profitless +customers. + +Morgan walked into the place down this path of light unnoticed by the +men at the bar or the one who served them, for they were wrangling with +him over some demand that he seemed reluctant to supply. At the end of +the bar, not a rod separating them, Morgan stopped like a casual +customer, waiting his moment. + +The question between bartender and the gang quartered upon the town was +one of champagne. It was no drink, said the bartender, to lay the +foundation of a day's business with the bottle upon. Whisky was the +article to put inside a man's skin at that hour of the morning, and then +in small shots, not too often. They deferred to his experience, +accepting whisky. As they lined up with breastbones against the bar to +pour down the charge, Morgan threw his rifle down on them. + +No chance to drop a hand to a gun standing shoulder to shoulder with +gizzards pressed against the bar; no chance to swerve or duck and make a +quick sling of it and a quicker shot, with the bore of that big rifle +ready to cough sixteen chunks of lead in half as many seconds, any one +of them hitting hard enough to drill through them, man by man, down to +the last head in the line. So their arms went up and strained high above +their heads, as if eager to show their desire to comply without +reservation to the unspoken command. Morgan had not said a word. + +The bartender, accepting the situation as generally inclusive, put his +hands up along with his deadbeat patrons. And there they stood one +straining moment, the man with the broom down in the gloom of the +farther end of the building, unconscious of what was going on, whistling +as he swept among the peanut hulls. + +Morgan signaled with his head for the bartender to come over the +barrier, which he did, with alacrity, and stood at the farther end of +the line, hands up, a raw-fisted, hollow-faced Irishman with bristling +short hair. Morgan jerked his head again, repeating the signal when the +bartender looked in puzzled fright into his face to read the meaning. +Then the fellow got it, and came forward, a vast relief spreading in his +combative features. + +Morgan indicated the rope ends dangling at his belt. Almost beaming, +quite triumphant in his eagerness, the bartender grasped his meaning at +a glance. He began tying the ruffians' hands behind their backs, and +tying them well, with a zest in his work that increased as he traveled +down the line. + +"Champagne, is it?" said he, mocking them, a big foot in the small of +the victim's back as he pulled so hard it made him squeal. "Nothing +short of champoggany wather will suit the taste av ye this fine marin', +and you with a thousand dollars' wort' of goods swilled into your +paunches the past week! I'll give you a dose of champoggany wather +you'll not soon forget, ye strivin' devils! This sheriff is the man +that'll hang ye for your murthers and crimes, ye bastes!" And with each +expletive a kick, but not administered in any case until he had turned +his head with sly caution to see whether it would be permitted by this +silent avenger who had come to Ascalon in the hour of its darkest need. + +While Morgan's captives cursed him, knowing now who he was, and cursed +the bartender whom they had overriden and mocked, insulted and abused in +the security of their collective strength and notorious deeds, the +shadow of two men fell across the threshold of Peden's door. There the +shadows lay through the brief moments of this little drama's enactment, +immovable, as though cast by men who watched. + +The porter came forward from his sweeping to look on this degradation of +the desperados, mocking them, returning them curse for curse, voluble in +picturesque combinations of damning sentences as if he had practiced +excommunication longer than the oldest pope who ever lived. In the +excess of his scorn for their fallen might he smeared his filthy broom +across their faces, paying back insult for insult, bold and secure under +the protection of this stern eagle of a man who had dropped on Ascalon +as from a cloud. + +When the last man was bound, the last kick applied by the bartender's +great, square-toed foot, Morgan motioned his sullen captives toward the +door. + +"Wait a minute--have something on the house," the bartender urged. + +Morgan lifted his hand in gesture at once silencing and denying, and +marched out after the heroes of the Chisholm Trail. Through it all he +had not spoken. + +They cursed Morgan as he drove them into the street, and surged against +their bonds, the only silent one among them the Dutchman, and the only +sober one. Now and then Morgan saw his face as the others bunched and +shifted in their struggles to break loose, his mocking, sneering, pasty +white face, his wide-set teeth small and white as a young pup's. His +eyes were hateful as a rattlesnake's; lecherous eyes, debased. + +Morgan herded them into the public square beyond the line of hitching +racks which stood like a skeleton fence between courthouse and business +buildings. People came pouring from every house to see, hurrying, +crowding, talking in hushed voices, wondering in a hundred conjectures +what this man was going to do. Gamblers and nighthawks, roused by the +very feeling of something unusual, hastened out half dressed, to stand +in slippers and collarless shirts, looking on in silent speculation. + +Citizens, respectable and otherwise, who had suffered loss and +humiliation, danger and terror at the hands of these men, exulted now in +their downfall. Some said this man was a sheriff from Texas, who had +tracked them to Ascalon and was now taking them to jail to await a +train; some said he was a special government officer, others that the +governor had sent him in place of troops, knowing him to be sufficient +in himself. Boys ran along in open-mouthed admiration, pattering their +bare feet in the thick dust, as Morgan drove his captives down the +inside of the hitching racks; the outpouring of citizens, parasites, +outcasts of the earth, swept after in a growing stream. + +From all sides they came to witness this great adventure, unusual for +Ascalon in that the guilty had been humbled and the arrogant brought +low. Across the square they came running, on the courthouse steps they +stood. In front of the hotel there was a crowd, which moved forward to +meet Morgan as he came marching like an avenger behind his captives, who +were now beginning to show alarm, sobered by their unexampled situation, +sweating in the agony of their quaking hearts. + +At the hitching rack where his horse stood, Morgan halted the six men. +He took the remainder of his new rope from the saddle, laced it through +the bonds on the Texans' wrists, backed them up to the horizontal pole +of the hitching rack, and tied them there in a line, facing inward upon +the square. As he moved about his business with deliberate, yet swift +and sure hand of vengeance well plotted in advance, Morgan kept his +rifle leaning near, watching the crowd for any outbreak of friends who +might rise in defense of these men, or any movement that might threaten +interference with his plans. + +When he had finished binding the six men, backs to the rack, Morgan +beckoned a group of boys to him, spoke to them in undertone that even +the nearest in the crowd did not hear. Off the youngsters ran, so full +of the importance of their part in that great event that they would not +stay to be questioned nor halt for the briefest word. + +In a little while the lads came hurrying back, with empty goods boxes +and barrels, fragments of packing cases, all sorts of dry wood to which +they could lay their eager hands. This they piled where Morgan +indicated, to stand by panting, eyes big in excitement and wondering +admiration for this mighty man. + +Mrs. Conboy, standing at the edge of the sidewalk before her door, not +more than ten yards from the spot where Morgan was making these +unaccountable preparations, leaned with a new horror in her fear-haunted +eyes to see. + +"My God! he's goin' to burn them!" she said. "Oh, my God!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE PENALTY + + +Whatever the stranger's intention toward the rough riders of the +Chisholm Trail who had terrorized good and bad alike in Ascalon for a +week, whether to roast them alive as they stood in a row with backs to +the hitching rack, or to inflict some other equally terrible punishment; +or whether he was simply staking them there while he cooked his +breakfast cowboy fashion, not willing to trust them out of sight while +he regaled himself in a restaurant, nobody quite understood. Mrs. +Conboy's exclamation appeared to voice the general belief of the crowd. +Murmurs of disapproval began to rise. + +One of the leading moralists of the town, proprietor of a +knock-down-and-drag-out, was loudest in his protestations that such a +happening in the public square of Ascalon, in the broad light of day, +the assembled inhabitants looking on, would give the place a name from +which it never would recover. This fellow, a gross man of swinging +paunch, a goitre enlarging and disfiguring his naturally thick, ugly +neck, had scrambled from his bed in haste at the thrilling of the +general alarm of something unusual in the daylight annals of the town. +His bare feet were thrust into slippers, his great white shirt was +collarless, dainty narrow blue silk suspenders held up his +hogshead-measure pantaloons. The redness of unfinished sleep was in his +eyes. + +"I tell you, men, this ain't a goin' to do--this ain't no town down +south where they take niggers out and burn 'em," he said. "I ain't got +no use for that gang, myself, but I've got the good of the town and my +business to consider, like all the rest of you have." + +There must have been in town that day forty or more cowboys from Texas +and the Nation, as the Cherokee country south was called. These for the +greater part were still sober, not having been paid off, still on duty +caring for the horses left behind them when the cattle were loaded and +shipped, or for the herds resting and grazing close by after the long +drive. They began to gather curiously around the fat man who had the +fair repute of Ascalon so close to his heart, listening to his efforts +to set a current of resentment against the stranger stirring in the awed +crowd. They began to turn toward Morgan now, with close talk among +themselves, regarding him yet as something more than a common man, not +keen to spring into somebody else's trouble and get their fingers +scorched. + +"What's he going to do with them?" one of these inquired. + +"Burn 'em," the fat man replied, as readily as if he had it from +Morgan's own mouth, and as strongly denunciatory as though the disgrace +of it reached to his fair fame and good business already. "You boys +ain't goin' to stand around here and see men from your own country burnt +like niggers, are you? Well, you don't look like a bunch that'd do +it--you don't look like it to me." + +"What did they do to him?" one of the cowboys asked, not greatly fired +by the fat man's sectional appeal. + +Stilwell came loitering among them at that point, a man of their own +calling, sympathies, and traditions, with the shoulder-lurching gait of +a man who had spent most of his years in the saddle. He told them in a +few feeling, picturesque words the extent of Morgan's grievance against +the six, and left it with them to say whether he was to be interfered +with in his exaction of a just and fitting payment. + +"I don't know what he's goin' to do," Stilwell said, "but if he wants to +roast 'em and eat 'em"--looking about him with stern eyes--"this is his +day." + +"If he needs any help there's plenty of it here," said a cowboy from the +Nation, hooking his thumb with lazy but expressive movement under the +cartridge belt around his slim waist. + +The fat publican subsided, seeing his little ripple of protest flattened +out by the spirit of fair play. He backed to the sidewalk, where he +stood in conference with Tom Conboy, and there was heard a reference to +niggers in Ireland, pronounced with wise twisting of the head. + +Morgan selected, in the face of this little flurry of opposition and +defense, a box from among the odds and ends brought him by the boys, sat +on it facing his prisoners and broke bits of wood for a fire. People +began pressing a little nearer to see what was to come, but when Morgan, +with eye watchful to see even the shifting of a foot in the crowd, +reached for his rifle and laid it across his lap, there was an immediate +scramble to the sidewalk. This left twenty feet of dusty white road +unoccupied, a margin on the page where this remarkable incident in +Ascalon's record of tragedies was being written. + +Midway of his line of captives, six feet in front of the nearest man, +Morgan kindled a fire, adding wood as the blaze grew, apparently as +oblivious of his surroundings as if in a camp a hundred miles from a +house. When he had the fire established to his liking, he took from his +saddle an iron implement, at the sight of which a murmur and a movement +of new interest stirred the crowd. + +This iron contrivance was a rod, little thicker than a man's finger, +which terminated in a flat plate wrought with some kind of open-work +device. This flat portion, which was about as broad as the span of a +man's two hands and perhaps six or eight inches long, appeared to be a +continuation of the handle, bent and hammered to form the crude pattern, +and the wonderment and speculation, contriving and guessing, all passed +out of the people when they beheld this thing. That was a cattle +country; they knew it for a branding iron. + +Morgan thrust the brand into the fire, piled wood around it, leaning +over it a little in watchful intent. This relic of his past he also had +retrieved from the bottom of his trunk along with boots and spurs, +corduroys and hat, and it had been a long time, indeed, since he heated +it to apply the Three Crow brand to the shoulder of a beast. That brand, +his father's brand in the early days in the Sioux country where he was +the pioneer cattleman, never had been heated to come in contact with +such base skins as these, Morgan reflected, and it would not be so +dishonored now if cattle were carrying it on any range. + +When the Indians killed his father and drove off the last of the herd, +the Three Crow became a discontinued brand in the Northwest. The son had +kept this iron which his father had carried at his saddle horn as a +souvenir of the times when life was not worth much between the Black +Hills and the Platte. The brand was not recorded anywhere today; the +brand books of the cattle-growers' associations did not contain it. But +it was his mark; he intended to set it on these cattle, disfiguration of +face for disfiguration, and turn them loose to return smelling of the +hot iron among their kind. + +Sodden with the dregs of last night's carousel, slow-headed, surly as +the Texans were when Morgan encountered them, they were all alert and +fully cognizant of their peril now. No rough jest passed from mouth to +mouth; there was no sneer, no laugh of bravado, no defiance. Some of +them had curses left in them as they sweated in the fear of Morgan's +silent preparations and lunged on their ropes in the hope of breaking +loose. All but the Dutchman appealed to the crowd to interfere, +promising rewards, making pledges in the name of their absent patron, +Seth Craddock, the dreaded slayer of men. + +Now and again one of them shouted a name, generally Peden's name, or the +name of some dealer or bouncer in his hall. Nobody answered, nobody +raised hand or voice to interfere or protest. During their short reign +of pillage and debauchery under the protection of the city marshal, the +members of the gang had not made a friend who cared to risk his skin to +save theirs. + +To add to their disgrace and humiliation, their big pistols hung in the +holsters on their thighs. People, especially the men of the range, +remarked this full armament, marveling how the stranger had taken six +men of such desperate notoriety all strapped with their guns, but they +understood at once his purpose in allowing the weapons to hang under +their impotent hands. It was a mockery of their bravado, a belittlement +of their bluff and swagger in the brief day of their oppression. + +Morgan withdrew the brand from the fire, knocking the clinging bits of +wood from it against the ground. + +The Dutchman was first in the line at Morgan's right hand as he turned +from the fire with the branding iron red-hot in his hand. Near the +Dutchman stood Morgan's borrowed horse, drowsing in the sun with head +down, its weight on three legs, one ear set in its inherited caution to +catch the least alarm. From the first moment of his encounter with these +scoundrels Morgan had not lowered himself to address them a single word. +Such commands as he had given them had been in dumb show, as to driven +creatures. This rule of silence he held still as he approached the first +object of his vengeance. + +The Dutchman started back from the iron in sudden rousing from his +brooding silence, fear and hate convulsing his snarling face, shrinking +back against the timber of the hitching rack as far as he could +withdraw, where he stood with shoulders hunched about his neck, savage +as a chained wolf. He began to writhe and kick as Morgan laid hold of +his neck to hold him steady for the cruel kiss of the iron. + +The fellow squirmed and lunged, with head lowered, trying to get on the +other side of the rack, his companions who were within reach joining in +kicking at Morgan, adding their curses and cries to the Dutchman's +silent fight to save his skin. They raised such a commotion of noise and +dust that it spread to the crowd, which pressed up with a great clamor +of derision, pity, laughter, and shrill cries. + +The cowboys, feeling themselves privileged spectators by reason of craft +affiliation, made a ring around the scene of punishment, shouting in +enjoyment of the spectacle, for it was quite in harmony with the cruel +jokes and wild pranks which made up the humorous diversions of their +lives. + +"You'll have to hog-tie that feller," said one, drawing nearer than the +rest in his interest. + +Morgan paused a moment, brand uplifted, as if he considered the friendly +suggestion. The Dutchman was cringing before him, head drawn between his +shoulders, face as near the ground as he could strain the ropes which +bound him. Morgan kicked the fellow's feet from under him, leaving him +hanging by his hands. + +The spectators cheered this adroit movement, laughing at the spectacle +of the Dutchman hanging face downward on his ropes, and Morgan, sweating +in the heat of the fire and sun, exertion and passion, careless of +everything, thoughtless of all but his unsatisfied vengeance, straddled +the Dutchman's neck as if he were a calf. He brought the iron down +within an inch or two of the Dutchman's face, calculating how much of +the crude device of three flying crows he could get between mouth and +ear, and as Morgan stood so with the hot iron poised, the Dutchman +choking between his clamping knees, a hand clutched his arm, jerking the +hovering brand away. + +Morgan had not heard a step near him through the turmoil of his hate, +nor seen any person approaching to interfere. Now he whirled, pistol +slung out, facing about to account with the one who dared break in to +stay his hand in the administration of a punishment that he considered +all too inadequate and humane. + +There was a girl standing by him, her restraining hand still on his arm, +the sun glinting in the gloss of her dark hair, her dark eyes fixed on +him in denial, in a softness of pity that Morgan knew was not for his +victims alone. And so in that revel of base surrender to his primal +passions she had come to him, she whom his heart sought among the faces +of women; in that manner she had found him, and found him, as Morgan +knew in his abased heart, at his worst. + +There was not a word, not the whisper of a word, in the crowd around +them. There was scarcely the moving of a breath. + +"Give me that iron, Mr. Morgan!" she demanded in voice that trembled +from the surge of her perturbed breast. + +Morgan stood confronting her in the fierce pose of a man prepared to +contend to the last extreme with any who had come to stay his hand in +his hour of requital. The glowing iron, from which little wavers of heat +rose in the sun, he grasped in one hand; in the other his pistol, elbow +close to his side, threatening the quarter from which interference had +come. Still he demurred at her demand, refusing the outstretched hand. + +"Give it to me!" she said again, drawing nearer, but a little space +between them now, so near he fancied her breath, panting from her open +lips, on his cheek. + +Silent, grim, still clouded by the vapors of his passion, Morgan stood +denying her, not able to adjust himself in wrench so sudden to the calm +plane of his normal life. + +"Not for their sake--for your own!" she pleaded, her hand gentle on his +arm. + +The set muscles of his pistol arm relaxed, the muzzle of the weapon +dropped slowly with the surge of dark passion in his breast. + +"They deserve it, and worse, but not from you, Mr. Morgan. Leave them to +the law--give me that iron." + +Morgan yielded it into her hand, slowly slipped his pistol back into the +holster, slowly raised his hand to his forehead, pushed back his hat, +swept his hand across his eyes like one waking from an oppressive dream. +He looked around at the silent people, hundreds of them, it seemed to +him, for the first time fully conscious of the spectacular drama he had +been playing before their astonished eyes. + +The Dutchman had struggled to his knees, where he leaned with neck +outstretched as if he waited the stroke of the headsman's sword, unable +to regain his feet. The girl looked with serious eyes into Morgan's +face, the hot branding iron in her hand. + +"I think you'd better lock them up in jail, Mr. Morgan," she said. + +Morgan did not reply. He stood with bent head, his emotions roiled like +a turgid brook, a feeling over him of awakening daze, such as one +experiences in a sweat of agony after dreaming of falling from some +terrifying height. Morgan had just struck the bottom of the precipice in +his wild, self-effacing dream. The shock of waking was numbing; there +was no room for anything in his righted consciousness but a vast, +down-bearing sense of shame. She had seen a side of his nature long +submerged, long fought, long ago conquered as he believed; the +vindictive, the savage part of him, the cruel and unforgiving. + +Public interest in the line of captives along the hitching rack was +waking in a new direction all around the sun-burned square. It was +beginning to come home to every staid and sober man in the assembly that +he had a close interest in the disposition of these men. + +"I don't know about that jail business and the law, Miss Retty," said a +severe dark man who pushed into the space where Morgan and the girl +stood. "We've been dressin' and feedin' and standin' the loss through +breakin' and stealin' these fellers have imposed on this town for a week +and more now, and I'm one that don't think much of lockin' them up in +jail to lay there and eat off of the county and maybe be turned loose +after a while. You'd just as well try to carry water up here from the +river in a gunny sack as convict a crook in this county any more." + +This man found supporters at once. They came pushing forward, the +resentment of insult and oppression darkening their faces, to shake +threatening fists in the faces of the Dutchman and his companions. + +"The best medicine for a gang like this is a cottonwood limb and a +rope," the man who had spoken declared. + +It began to look exceedingly dark for the unlucky desperadoes inside of +the next minute. The suggestion of hanging them immediately became an +avowed intention; preparations for carrying it into effect began on the +spot. While some ran to the hardware store for rope, others discussed +the means of employing it to carry out the public sentence. + +Hanging never had been popular in Ascalon, mainly because of the +barrenness of the country, which offered no convenient branches except +on the cottonwoods along the river. Wagon tongues upended and propped by +neckyokes had been known to serve in their time, and telegraph poles +when the railroad built through. But gibbets of this sort had their +shortcomings and vexations. There was nothing so comfortable for all +concerned as a tree, and trees did not grow by nature or by art in +Ascalon. So there was talk of an expedition to the river, where all the +six might be accommodated on one tree. + +The girl who had taken the branding iron from Morgan and cooled the heat +of his resentment and vengeance quicker than the iron had cooled, stood +looking about into the serious faces of the men who suddenly had +determined to finish for Morgan the business he had begun. Her face was +white, horror distended her eyes; she seemed to have no words for a plea +against this rapidly growing plan. + +One of the doomed men behind her began to whimper and beg, appealing to +her in his mother's name to save him. He was a young man, whose weak +face was lined by the excesses of his unrestrained days in Ascalon. His +hat had fallen off, his foretop of brown hair straggled over his wild +eyes. + +"Come away from here," said Morgan, turning to her now, his voice rough +and still shaken by his subsiding passion. He took the hot iron from +her, thinking of the trough at the public well where he might cool it. + +"Don't let them do it," she implored, putting out her hands to him in +appeal. + +"Now Miss Rhetta, you'd better run along," a man urged kindly. + +Morgan stood beside her in the narrowing circle about the six men who +had been condemned by public sentiment in less than sixty seconds and +scarcely more words, the hot end of the branding iron in the dust at his +feet. He was silent, yet apparently agitated by a strong emotion, as a +man might be who had leaped a crevasse in fleeing a pressing peril, upon +which he feared to look back. + +She whom the man had called Rhetta picked up the young cowboy's hat and +put it on his head. + +"Hush!" she charged, in reply to his whimpering intercession for mercy. +"Mr. Morgan isn't going to let them hang you." + +Morgan started out of his thoughtful glooming as if a reviving wind had +struck his face, all alert again in a moment, but silent and inscrutable +as before. He leaned his brand against the hitching post, recovered his +rifle where it lay in the dust beside the scattered sticks of his fire, +making himself a little room as he moved about. + +Those who had talked of hanging the six now suspended sentence while +waiting the outcome of this new activity on the part of the avenger. A +man who came from somewhere with a coil of rope on his arm stood at the +edge of the newly widened circle with fallen countenance, like one who +arrived too late at some great event in which he had expected to be the +leading actor. + +Morgan began stripping belts and pistols from his captives, throwing the +gear at the foot of the post where his branding iron stood. When he had +stripped the last one he paused a moment as if considering something, +the weapon in his hand. The girl Rhetta had not added a word to her +appeal in behalf of the unworthy rascals who stood sweating in terror +before the threatening crowd. But she looked now into Morgan's face with +hopeful understanding, the color coming back to her drained cheeks, a +light of admiration in her eyes. As for Morgan, his own face appeared to +have cleared of a cloud. There was a gleam of deep-kindling humor in his +eyes. + +"Gentlemen, there will not be any hanging in Ascalon this morning," he +announced. + +He threw the last pistol down with the others, nodded Stilwell to him, +whispered a word or two. Stilwell went shouldering off through the +crowd. Morgan sheathed his rifle in the battered scabbard that hung on +his saddle. In a little while Stilwell came back with a saw. + +Morgan took the tool and sawed through the pole to which his captives +were made fast. Stilwell held up the severed end while Morgan cut the +other, freeing from the bolted posts the four-inch section of pole to +which the cowboys were tied, leaving it hanging from the ropes at their +wrists, dangling a little below their hands. + +The late lords of the plains were such a dejected and altogether +sneaking looking crew, shorn of their power by the hands of one man, +stripped of their roaring weapons, tied like cattle to a hurdle, that +the vengeful spirit of Ascalon veered in a glance to humorous +appreciation of the comedy that was beginning before their eyes. + +The cowboys who had stood ready a few minutes past to help hang the +outfit, fairly rolled with laughter at the sight of this miserable +example of complete degradation, through which the meanness of their +kind was so ludicrously apparent. The citizenry and floating population +of the town joined in the merriment, and the lowering clouds of tragedy +were swept away on a gale of laughter that echoed along the jagged +business front. + +But the girl Rhetta was not laughing. Perplexed, troubled, she laid her +hand on Morgan's arm as he stood beside his horse about to mount. + +"What are you going to do with them now, Mr. Morgan?" she inquired. + +"They're going to start for Texas down the Chisholm Trail," he said, +smiling down at her from the saddle. + +And in that manner they set out from Ascalon, carrying the pole at their +backs, Morgan driving them ahead of him, starting them in a trot which +increased to a hobbling run as they bore away past the railroad station +and struck the broad trampled highway to the south. + +Afoot and horseback the town and the visitors in it came after them, +shooting and shouting, getting far more enjoyment out of it than they +would have got out of a hanging, as even the most contrary among them +admitted. For this was a drama in which the boys and girls took part, +and even the Baptist preacher, who had a church as big as a mouse trap, +stood grinning in appreciation as they passed, and said something about +it being a parallel of Samson, and the foxes with their tails tied +together being driven away into the Philistines' corn. + +The crowd followed to the rise half a mile south of town, where most of +it halted, only the cowboys and mounted men accompanying Morgan to the +river. There they turned back, also, leaving it to Morgan to carry out +the rest of his program alone, it being the general opinion that he +intended to herd the six beyond the cottonwoods on the farther shore and +despatch them clean-handed, according to what was owing to him on their +account. + +Morgan urged his captives on, still keeping them on the trot, although +it was becoming a staggering and wabbling progression, the weaker in +the line held up by the more enduring. They were experiencing in a small +and colorless measure, as faint by comparison, certainly, as the smell +of smoke to the feel of fire on the naked skin, what they had given +Morgan in the hour of their cruel mastery. + +At last one of them could stumble on no farther. He fell, dragging down +two others who were not able to sustain his weight. There Morgan left +them, a mile or more beyond the river, knowing they would not have far +to travel before they came across somebody who would set them free. + +The Dutchman, stronger and fresher than any of his companions, turned as +if he would speak when Morgan started to leave. Morgan checked his horse +to hear what the fellow might have to say, but nothing came out of the +ugly mouth but a grin of such derision, such mockery, such hate, that +Morgan felt as if the bright day contracted to shadows and a chill crept +into the pelting heat of the sun. He thought, gravely and soberly, that +he would be sparing the world at large, and himself specifically, future +pain and trouble by putting this scoundrel out of the way as a man would +remove a vicious beast. + +Whatever justification the past, the present, or the future might plead +for this course, Morgan was too much himself again to yield. He turned +from them, giving the Dutchman his life to make out of it what he might. + +From the top one of the ridges such as billowed like swells of the sea +that gray-green, treeless plain, Morgan looked back. All of them but +the Dutchman were either lying or sitting on the ground, beaten and +winded by the torture of their bonds and the hard drive of more than +three miles in the burning sun. The Dutchman still kept his feet, +although the drag of the pole upon him must have been sore and heavy, as +if he must stand to send his curse out after the man who had bent him to +his humiliation. + +And Morgan knew that the Dutchman was not a conquered man, nor bowed in +his spirit, nor turned one moment away from his thought of revenge. +Again the bright day seemed to contract and grow chill around him, like +the oncoming shadow and breath of storm. He felt that this man would +return in his day to trouble him, low-devising, dark and secret and +meanly covert as a wolf prowling in the night. + +The last look Morgan had of the Dutchman he was gazing that way still, +his face peculiarly white, the weight of the pole and his fallen +comrades dragging down on his bound arms. Morgan could fancy still, even +over the distance between them, the small teeth, wide set in the red +gums like a pup's, and the loathsome glitter of his sneering eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +IN PLACE OF A REGIMENT + + +Morgan rode back to town in thoughtful, serious mood after conducting +the six desperadoes across the small trickle of the Arkansas River. He +was not satisfied with the morning's adventure, no matter to what extent +it reflected credit on his manhood and competency in the public mind of +Ascalon. He would have been easier in all conscience and higher in his +own esteem if it had not happened at all. + +He thought soberly now of getting his trunk over to Conboy's from the +station and changing back into the garb of civilization before meeting +that girl again, that wonderful girl, that remarkable woman who could +play a tune on him to suit her caprice, he thought, as she would have +fingered a violin. + +Judge Thayer's little office, with the white stakes behind it marking +off the unsold lots like graves of a giant race, reminded Morgan of his +broken engagement to look at the farm. He hitched his horse at the rack +running out from one corner of the building, where other horses had +stood fighting flies until they had stamped a hollow like a buffalo +wallow in the dusty ground. + +Judge Thayer got up from the accumulated business on his desk at the +sound of Morgan's step in his door, and came forward with welcome in his +beaming face, warmth of friendliness and admiration in every hair of +his beard, where the gray twinkled like laughter among the black. + +"I asked the governor for a company of militia to put down the disorder +and outlawry in this town--I didn't think less than a company could do +it," said the judge. + +"Is he sending them?" Morgan inquired with polite interest. + +"No, I'm glad to say he refused. He referred me to the sheriff." + +"And the sheriff will act, I suppose?" + +"Act?" Judge Thayer repeated, turning the word curiously. "Act!"--with +all the contempt that could be centered in such a short +expression--"yes, he'll act like a forsworn and traitorous coward, the +friend to thieves that he's always been! We don't need him, we don't +need the governor's petted, stall-fed militia, when we've got one man +that's a regiment in himself!" + +The judge must shake hands with Morgan again, and clap him on the +shoulder to further express his admiration and the feeling of security +his single-handed exploit against the oppressors of Ascalon had brought +to the town. + +"I and the other officers and directors sat up in the bank four nights, +lights out and guns loaded, sweatin' blood, expecting a raid by that +gang. They had this town buffaloed, Morgan. I'm glad you came back here +today and showed us the pattern of a real, old-fashioned man." + +"I guess I was lucky," Morgan said, with modest depreciation of his +valor, exceedingly uncomfortable to stand there and hear this +loud-spoken praise of a deed he would rather have the public forget. + +"Maybe you call it luck where you came from, but we've got another name +for it here in Ascalon." + +"I'm sorry I couldn't keep my engagement to look at that farm, Judge +Thayer. You must have heard my reason for it." + +"Stilwell told me. It's a marvel you ever came back at all." + +"If the farm isn't sold----" + +"No," said the judge hastily, as if to turn him away from the subject. +"Come in and sit down--there's a bigger thing than farming on hand for +you if you can see your interests in it as I see them, Mr. Morgan. A +man's got to trample down the briars before he makes his bed sometimes, +you know--come on in out of this cussed sun. + +"Morgan, the situation in Ascalon is like this," Judge Thayer resumed, +seated at his desk, Morgan between him and the door in much the same +position that Seth Craddock had sat on the day of his arrival not long +before; "we've got a city marshal that's bigger than the authority that +created him, bigger than anything on earth that ever wore a star. Seth +Craddock's enlarged himself and his authority until he's become a curse +and a scourge to the citizens of this town." + +"I heard something of his doings from Fred Stilwell. Why don't you fire +him?" + +"Morgan, I approached him," said the judge, with an air of injury. "I +believe on my soul the old devil spared my life only because I had +befriended him in past days. There's a spark of gratitude in him that +the drenching of blood hasn't put out. If it had been anybody else he'd +have shot him dead." + +"Hm-m-m-m!" said Morgan, grunting his sympathy, eyes on the floor. + +"Morgan, that fellow's killed eight men in as many days! He's got a +regular program--a man a day." + +"It looks like something ought to be done to stop him." + +"The old devil's shrewd, he's had legal counsel from no less illustrious +source than the county attorney, who's so crooked he couldn't lie on the +side of a hill without rollin' down it like a hoop. Seth knows he fills +an elective office, he's beyond the power of mayor and council to +remove. The only way he can be ousted is by proceedings in court, which +he could wear along till his term expired. We can't fire him, Morgan. +He'll go on till he depopulates this town!" + +"It's a remarkable situation," Morgan said. + +"He's a jackal, which is neither wolf nor dog. He's never killed a man +here yet out of necessity--he just shoots them down to see them kick, or +to gratify some monstrous delight that has transformed him from the man +I used to know." + +"He may be insane," Morgan suggested. + +"I don't know, but I don't think so. I can't abase my mind low enough to +fathom that man." + +"It's a wonder somebody hasn't killed him," Morgan speculated. + +"He never arrests anybody, there hasn't been a prisoner in the +calaboose since he took charge of this town. Notoriety has turned his +head, notoriety seems to put a halo around him that makes a troop of +sycophants look up to him as a saint. Look here--look at this!" + +The judge held out a newspaper, shaking it viciously, his face clouded +with displeasure. + +"Here's a piece two columns long about that scoundrel in the _Kansas +City Times_--the notoriety of the town is obscured by the bloody +reputation of its marshal." + +"It must be gratifying to a man of his ambitions," Morgan commented, +glancing curiously over the story, his mind on the first victim of +Craddock's gun in that town. + +"It's a disgrace that some of us feel, whatever it may be to him. I +expected him to confine his gun to gamblers and crooks and these vermin +that hang around the women of the dance houses, but he's right-hand man +with them, they're all on his staff." + +Morgan looked up in amazement, hardly able to believe what he heard. + +"It's enough to wind any decent man," Judge Thayer nodded. "You remember +his first case--that fool cowboy he killed at the hotel?" + +"I was just thinking of him," Morgan said. + +"That's the kind he goes in for, cowboys from the range, green, innocent +boys, harmless if you take 'em right. Yesterday afternoon he killed a +young fellow from Glenmore. It's going to bring retaliation and reprisal +on us, it's going to hurt us in this contest over the county seat." + +"I shouldn't wonder," said Morgan, hoping the reprisal would be swift +and severe. + +"I think the man's blood mad," Judge Thayer speculated, in a hopeless +way. "It must be the outcome of all that slaughter among the buffalo. +He's not a brave man, he lacks the bearing and the full look of the eye +of a courageous man, but he carries two guns now, Morgan, and he can +sling out and shoot a man with incredible speed. And we've got him +quartered on us for nearly two years unless somebody from Glendora comes +over and nails him. We can't fire him, we don't dare to approach him to +suggest his abdication. Morgan, we're in a three-cornered hell of a +fix!" + +"Can't the fellow be prosecuted for some of these murders? Isn't there +some way the law can reach him?" + +"The coroner's jury absolves him regularly," the judge replied wearily. +"At first they did it because it was the routine, and now they do it to +save their hides. No, there's just one quick and sure way of heading +that devil off in his red trail that I can see, Morgan, and that's for +me to act while he's away. He's gone on some high-flyin' expedition to +Abilene, leaving the town without a peace officer at the mercy of +bandits and thieves. I have the authority to swear in a deputy marshal, +or a hundred of them." + +Morgan looked up again quickly from his speculative study of the boards +in Judge Thayer's floor, to meet the elder man's shrewd eyes with a look +of complete understanding. So they sat a moment, each reading the other +as easily as one counts pebbles at the bottom of a clear spring. + +"I don't believe I'm the man you're looking for," Morgan said. + +"You're the only man that can do it, Morgan. It looks to me like you're +appointed by Providence to step in here and save this town from this +reign of murder." + +"Oh!" said Morgan, impatiently, discounting the judge's fervid words. + +"You can supplant him, you can strip him of his badge of office when he +steps from the train, and you're the one man that _can_ do it!" + +Morgan shook his head, whether in denial of his attributed valor and +prowess, or in declination to assume the proffered honor, Judge Thayer +could not tell. + +"I believe you'd do it without ever throwing a gun down on him," Judge +Thayer declared. + +"I know he could!" said a clear, hearty, confident voice from the door. + +"Come in and help me convince him, Rhetta," Judge Thayer said, his +gray-flecked beard twinkling with the pleasure that beamed from his +eyes. "Mr. Morgan, my daughter. You have met before." + +Morgan rose in considerable confusion, feeling more like an abashed and +clumsy cowboy than he ever had felt before in his life. He stood with +his battered hat held flat against his body at his belt, turning the old +thing foolishly like a wheel, so unexpectedly confronted by this girl +again, before whom he desired to appear as a man, and the best that was +in the best man that he could ever be. And she stood smiling before him, +mischief and mastery in her laughing eyes, confident as one who had +subjugated him already, playing a tune on him, surely--a tune that came +like a little voice out of his heart. + +"I didn't know, I didn't suspect," he said. + +"Of course not. She isn't anything like me." Judge Thayer laughed over +it, mightily pleased by this evidence of confusion in a man who could +heat his branding iron to set his mark on half a dozen desperadoes, yet +turned to dough before the eyes of a simple maid. + +"No more than a bird is like a bear," said Morgan, thinking aloud, +racing mentally the next moment to snatch back his words and shape them +in more conventional phrase. But too late; their joint laughter drowned +his attempt to set it right, and the world lost a compliment that might +have graced a courtier's tongue, perhaps. But, not likely. + +Morgan proffered the chair he had occupied, but Rhetta knew of one in +reserve behind the display of wheat and oats in sheaf on the table. This +she brought, seating herself near the door, making a triangle from which +Morgan had no escape save through the roof. + +Judge Thayer resumed the discussion of the most vital matter in Ascalon +that hour, pressing Morgan to take the oath of office then and there. + +"I wouldn't ask Mr. Morgan to take the office," said Rhetta when Judge +Thayer paused, "if I felt safe to stay in Ascalon another day with +anybody else as marshal." + +"That's a compelling reason for a man to take a job," Morgan told her, +looking for a daring moment into the cool clarity of her honest brown +eyes. "But I might make it worse instead of better. Trouble came to +this town with me; it seems to stick to my heels like a dog." + +"You got rid of most of it this morning--_that_ gang will never come +back," she said. + +Morgan looked out of the open door, a thoughtfulness in his eyes that +the nearer attraction could not for the moment dispel. "One of them +will," he replied. + +"Oh, one!" said she, discounting that one to nothing at all. + +"The gamblers and saloon men are right about it," Morgan said, turning +to the judge; "this town will dry up and blow away as soon as it loses +its notorious name. If you want to kill Ascalon, enforce the law. The +question is, how many people here want it done?" + +"The respectable majority, I can assure you on that." + +"Nearly everybody you talk to say they'd rather have Ascalon a whistling +station on the railroad, where you could go to sleep in peace and get up +feeling safe, than the awful place it is now," Rhetta said. She removed +her sombrero as she spoke, and dropped it on the floor at her feet, as +though weary of the turmoil that vexed her days. + +Morgan noted for the first time that she was not dressed for the saddle +today as on the occasion of their first meeting, but garbed in becoming +simplicity in serge skirt and brown linen waist, a little golden bar +with garnets at her throat. Her redundant dark hair, soft in its dusky +shade as summer shadows in a deep wood, was coiled in a twisted heap to +fit the crown of her mannish sombrero. It came down lightly over the +tips of her ears in pretty disorder, due to the excitement of the +morning, and she was fair as a camelia blossom and fresh as an evening +primrose of her native prairie land. + +"I wouldn't like to be the man that killed Ascalon, after all its highly +painted past," Morgan said, trying to turn it off lightly. "It might be +better for all the respectable people to go away and leave it wholly +wicked, according to its fame." + +"That might work to the satisfaction of all concerned, Mr. Morgan, if we +had wagons and tents, and nothing more," said the judge. "We could very +well pick up and pull out in that case. But a lot of us have staked all +we own on the future of this town and the country around it. We were +here before Ascalon became a plague spot and a by-word in the mouths of +men; we started it right, but it went wrong as soon as it was able to +walk." + +"It seems to have wandered around quite a bit since then," Morgan said, +sparing them a grin. + +"It's been a wayward child," Rhetta sighed. "We're ashamed of our +responsibility for it now." + +"It would mean ruination to most of us to pull out and leave it to these +wolves," said the judge. "We couldn't think of that." + +"Of course not, I was only making a poor joke when I talked of a +retreat," Morgan said. "Things will begin to die down here in a year or +two--I've seen towns like this before, they always calm down and take up +business seriously in time, or blow away and vanish completely. That's +what happens to most of them if they're let go their course--change and +shift, range breaking up into farms, cowboys going on, take care of +that." + +"I don't think Ascalon will go out that way--not if we can keep the +county seat," Judge Thayer said. "If you were to step into the breach +while that killer's away and rub even one little white spot in the +town----" + +Morgan seemed to interpose in the manner of throwing out his hand, a +gesture speaking of the fatuity and his unwillingness to set himself to +the task. + +"Not just temporarily, we don't mean just temporarily, Mr. Morgan, but +for good," Rhetta urged. "I want to take over editing the paper and be +of some use in the world, but I couldn't think of doing it with all this +killing going on, and a lot of wild men shooting out windows and +everything that way." + +"No, of course you couldn't," Morgan agreed. + +"The railroad immigration agent has been trying to locate a colony of +Mennonites here," Judge Thayer said, "fifty families or more of them, +but the notoriety of the town made the elders skittish. They were out +here this spring, liked the country, saw its future with eyes that +revealed like telescopes, and would have bought ten sections of land to +begin with if it hadn't been for two or three killings while they were +here." + +"It was the same way with those people from Pennsylvania," said Rhetta. + +"We had a crowd of Pennsylvania Dutch out here a week or two after the +Mennonites," the judge enlarged, "smellin' around hot-foot on the trail +as hounds, but this atmosphere of Ascalon and its bad influence on the +country wouldn't be good for their young folks, they said. So _they_ +backed off. And that's the way it's gone, that's the way it will go. The +blight of Ascalon falls over this country for fifty miles around, the +finest country the Almighty ever scattered grass seed over. + +"You saw the possibilities of it from a distance, Mr. Morgan; others +have seen it. Wouldn't you be doing humanity a larger service, a more +immediate and applicable service, by clearing away the pest spot, curing +the repulsive infection that keeps them away from its benefits and +rewards, than by plowing up eighty acres and putting in a crop of wheat? +A man's got to trample down his bed-ground, as I've said already, +Morgan, before he can spread his blankets sometimes. This is one of the +places, this is one of the times." + +Morgan thought it over, hands on his thighs, head bent a little, eyes on +his boots, conscious that the girl was watching him anxiously, as one on +trial at the bar watches a doubtful jury when counsel makes the last +appeal. + +"There's a lot of logic in what you say," Morgan admitted; "it ought to +appeal to a man big enough, confident enough, to undertake and put the +job through." + +He looked up suddenly, answering directly Rhetta Thayer's anxious, +expectant, appealing brown eyes. "For if he should fail, bungle it, and +have to throw down his hand before he'd won the game, it would be +Katy-bar-the-door for that man. He'd have to know how far the people of +this town wanted him to go before starting, and there's only one +boundary--the limit of the law. If they want anything less than that a +man had better keep hands off, for anything like a compromise between +black and white would be a fizzle." + +Rhetta nodded, her bosom quivering with the pounding of her expectant +heart, her throat throbbing, her hands clenched as if she held on in +desperate hope of rescue. Judge Thayer said no more. He sat watching +Morgan's face, knowing well when a word too many might change the +verdict to his loss. + +"The question is, how far do they want a man to go in the regeneration +of Ascalon? How many are willing to put purity above profit for a while? +Business would suffer; it would be as dead here as a grasshopper after a +prairie fire while readjustment to new conditions shaped. It might be a +year or two before healthy legitimate trade could take the place of this +flashy life, and it might never rebound from the operation. A man would +want the people who are calling for law and order here to be satisfied +with the new conditions; he wouldn't want any whiners at the funeral." + +"New people would come, new business would grow, as soon as the news got +abroad that a different condition prevailed in this town," Judge Thayer +said. "I can satisfy you in an hour that the business men want what +they're demanding, and will be satisfied to take the risk of the +result." + +"I came out here to farm," Morgan said, unwilling to put down his plans +for a questionable and dangerous service to a doubtful community. + +"There'll not be much sod broken between now and late fall, from the +present look of things," the judge said. "We've had the longest dry +spell I've ever seen in this country--going on four weeks now without a +drop of rain. It comes that way once every five or seven years, but that +also happens back in Ohio and other places men consider especially +favored," he hastened to conclude. + +"I didn't intend to break sod," Morgan reflected, "a man couldn't sow +wheat in raw sod. That's why I wanted to look at that claim down by the +river." + +"It will keep. Or you could buy it, and hire your crop put in while +you're marshal here in town." + +"And I could edit the paper. Between us we could save the county seat." + +Rhetta spoke quite seriously, so seriously, indeed, that her father +laughed. + +"I had forgotten all about saving the county seat--I was considering +only the soul of Ascalon," he said. + +"If you refuse to let father swear you in, Mr. Morgan, Craddock will say +you were afraid. I'd hate to have him do that," said Rhetta. + +"He might," Morgan granted, and with subdued voice and thoughtful manner +that gave them a fresh rebound of hope. + +And at length they had their will, but not until Morgan had gone the +round of the business men on the public square, gathering the assurance +of great and small that they were weary of bloodshed and violence, +notoriety and unrest; that they would let the bars down to him if he +would undertake cleaning up the town, and abide by what might come of it +without a growl. + +When they returned to Judge Thayer's office Morgan took the oath to +enforce the statutes of the state of Kansas and the ordinances of the +city of Ascalon, Rhetta standing by with palpitating breast and glowing +eyes, hands behind her like a little girl waiting her turn in a spelling +class. When Morgan lowered his hand Rhetta started out of her expectant +pose, producing with a show of triumph a short piece of broad white +ribbon, with CITY MARSHAL stamped on it in tall black letters. + +Judge Thayer laughed as Morgan backed away from her when she advanced to +pin it on his breast. + +"I set up the type and printed it myself on the proof press," she said, +in pretty appeal to him to stand and be hitched to this sign of his new +office. + +"It's so--it's rather--prominent, isn't it?" he said, still edging away. + +"There isn't any regular shiny badge for you, the great, grisly Mr. +Craddock wore away the only one the town owns. Please, Mr. +Morgan--you'll have to wear _something_ to show your authority, won't +he, Pa?" + +"It would be wiser to wear it till I can send for another badge, Morgan, +or we can get the old one away from Seth. Your authority would be +questioned without a badge, they're strong for badges in this town." + +So Morgan stood like a family horse while Rhetta pinned the ribbon to +the pocket of his dingy gray woolen shirt, where it flaunted its +unmistakable proclamation in a manner much more effective than any +police shield or star ever devised. Rhetta pressed it down hard with the +palm of her hand to make the stiff ribbon assume a graceful hang, so +hard that she must have felt the kick of the new officer's heart just +under it. And she looked up into his eyes with a glad, confident smile. + +"I feel safe _now_," she said, sighing as one who puts down a wearing +burden at the end of a toilsome journey. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE HAND OF THE LAW + + +The stars came out over a strange, silent, astonished, confounded, +stupefied Ascalon that night. The wolf-howling of its revelry was +stilled, the clamor of its obscene diversions was hushed. It was as if +the sparkling tent of the heavens were a great bowl turned over the +place, hushing its stridulous merriment, stifling its wild laughter and +dry-throated feminine screams. + +The windows of Peden's hall were dark, the black covers were drawn over +the gambling tables, the great bar stood in the gloom without one priest +of alcohol to administer the hilarious rites across its glistening altar +boards. + +As usual, even more than usual, the streets around the public square +were lively with people, coming and passing through the beams of light +from windows, smoking and talking and idling in groups, but there was no +movement of festivity abroad in the night, no yelping of departing +rangers. It was as if the town had died suddenly, so suddenly that all +within it were struck dumb by the event. + +For the new city marshal, the interloper as many held him to be, the +tall, solemn, long-stepping stranger who carried a rifle always ready +like a man looking for a coyote, had put the lock of his prohibition on +everything within the town. Everything that counted, that is, in the +valuation of the proscribed, and the victims who came like ephemera on +the night wind to scorch and shrivel and be drained in their bright, +illusive fires. The law long flouted, made a joke of, despised, had come +to Ascalon and laid hold of its alluring institutions with stern and +paralyzing might. + +Early in the first hours of his authority the new city marshal, or +deputy marshal, to be exact, had received from unimpeachable source, no +less than a thick volume of the statutes, that the laws of the state of +Kansas, which he had sworn to enforce, prohibited the sale of +intoxicating liquors; prohibited gambling and games of chance; +interdicted the operation of immoral resorts--put a lock and key in his +hand, in short, that would shut up the ribald pleasures of Ascalon like +a tomb. As for the ordinances of the city, which he also had obligated +himself to apply, Morgan had not found time to work down to them. There +appeared to be authority in the thick volume Judge Thayer had lent him +to last Ascalon a long time. If he should find himself running short +from that source, then the city ordinances could be drawn upon in their +time and place. + +Exclusive of the mighty Peden, the other traffickers in vice were +inconsequential, mere retailers, hucksters, peddlers in their way. They +were as vicious as unquenchable fire, certainly, and numerous, but +small, and largely under the patronage of the king of the proscribed, +Peden of the hundred-foot bar. + +And this Peden was a big, broad-chested, muscular man, whose neck rose +like a mortised beam out of his shoulders, straight with the back of his +head. His face was handsome in a bold, shrewd mold, but dark as if his +blood carried the taint of a baser race. He went about always dressed in +a long frock coat, with no vest to obscure the spread of his white shirt +front; low collar, with narrow black tie done in exact bow; +broad-brimmed white sombrero tilted back from his forehead, a cigar that +always seemed fresh under his great mustache. + +This mustache, heavy, black, was the one sinister feature of the man's +otherwise rather open and confidence-winning face. It was a cloud that +more than half obscured the nature of the man, an ambush where his +passions and dark subterfuges lay concealed. + +Peden had met the order to close his doors with smiling loftiness, easy +understanding of what he read it to mean. Astonished to find his offer +of money silently and sternly ignored, Peden had grown contemptuously +defiant. If it was a bid for him to raise the ante, Morgan was starting +off on a lame leg, he said. Ten dollars a night was as much as the +friendship of any man that ever wore the collar of the law was worth to +him. Take it or leave it, and be cursed to him, with embellishments of +profanity and debasement of language which were new and astonishing even +to Morgan's sophisticated ears. Peden turned his back to the new officer +after drenching him down with this deluge of abuse, setting his face +about the business of the night. + +And there self-confident defiance, fattened a long time on the belief +that law was a thing to be sneered down, met inflexible resolution. The +substitute city marshal had a gift of making a few words go a long way; +Peden put out his lights and locked his doors. In the train of his +darkness others were swallowed. Within two hours after nightfall the +town was submerged in gloom. + +Threats, maledictions, followed Morgan as he walked the round of the +public square, rifle ready for instant use, pistol on his thigh. And the +blessing of many a mother whose sons and daughters stood at the perilous +crater of that infernal pit went out through the dark after him, also; +and the prayers of honest folk that no skulking coward might shoot him +down out of the shelter of the night. + +Even as they cursed him behind his back, the outlawed sneered at Morgan +and the new order that seemed to threaten the world-wide fame of +Ascalon. It was only the brief oppression of transient authority, they +said; wait till Seth Craddock came back and you would see this range +wolf throw dust for the timber. + +They spoke with great confidence and kindling pleasure of Seth's return, +and the amusing show that would attend his resumption of authority. For +it was understood that Seth would not come alone. Peden, it was said, +had attended to that already by telegraph. Certain handy gun-slingers +would come with him from Kansas City and Abilene, friends of Peden who +had made reputations and had no scruples about maintaining them. + +As the night lengthened this feeling of security, of pleasurable +anticipation, increased. This little break in its life would do the town +good; things would whirl away with recharged energy when the doors were +opened again. Money would simply accumulate in the period of stagnation +to be thrown into the mill with greater abandon than before by the +fools who stood around waiting for the show to resume. + +And the spectacle of seeing Seth Craddock drive this simpleton clear +over the edge of the earth would be a diversion that would compensate +for many empty days. That alone would be a thing worth waiting for, they +said. + +Time began to walk in slack traces, the heavy wain of night at its slow +heels, for the dealers and sharpers, mackerels and frail, spangled women +to whom the open air was as strange as sunlight to an earthworm. They +passed from malediction and muttered threat against the man who had +brought this sudden change in their accustomed lives, to a state of +indignant rebellion as they milled round the square and watched him +tramp his unending beat. + +A little way inside the line of hitching racks Morgan walked, away from +the thronged sidewalk, in the clear where all could see him and a shot +from some dark window would not imperil the life of another. Around and +around the square he tramped in the dusty, hoof-cut street, keeping his +own counsel, unspeaking and unspoken to, the living spirit of the mighty +law. + +It was a high-handed piece of business, the bleached men and kalsomined +women declared, as they passed from the humor of contemplating Seth +Craddock's return to fretful chafing against the restraint of the +present hour. How did it come that one man could lord it over a whole +town of free and independent Americans that way? Why didn't somebody +take a shot at him? Why didn't they defy him, go and open the doors and +let this thirsty, money-padded throng up to the gambling tables and +bars? + +They asked to be told what had become of the manhood of Ascalon, and +asked it with contempt. What was the fame of the town based upon but a +bluff when one man was able to shut it up as tight as a trunk, and strut +around that way adding the insult of his tyrannical presence to the act +of his oppressive hand. There were plenty of questions and suggestions, +but nobody went beyond them. + +The moon was in mid-heaven, untroubled by a veil of cloud; the day wind +was resting under the edge of the world, asleep. Around and around the +public square this sentinel of the new moral force that had laid its +hand over Ascalon tramped the white road. Rangers from far cow camps, +disappointed of their night's debauch, began to mount and ride away, +turning in their saddles as they went for one more look at the lone +sentry who was a regiment in himself, indeed. + +The bleached men began to yawn, the medicated women to slip away. Good +citizens who had watched in anxiety, fearful that this rash champion of +the new order would find a bullet between his shoulders before midnight, +began to breathe easier and seek their beds in a strange state of +security. Ascalon was shut up; the howling of its wastrels was stilled. +It was incredible, but true. + +By midnight the last cowboy had gone galloping on his long ride to carry +the news of Ascalon's eclipse over the desolate gray prairie; an hour +later the only sign of life in the town was the greasy light of the +Santa Fé café, where a few lingering nondescripts were supping on cove +oyster stew. These came out at last, to stand a little while like +stranded mariners on a lonesome beach watching for a rescuing sail, then +parted and went clumping their various ways over the rattling board +walks. + +Morgan stopped at the pump in the square to refresh himself with a +drink. A dog came and lapped out of the trough, stood a little while +when its thirst was satisfied, turning its head listening, as though it +missed something out of the night. It trotted off presently, in angling +gait like a ferry boat making a crossing against an outrunning tide. It +was the last living thing on the streets of the town but the weary city +marshal, who stood with hat off at the pump to feel the cool wind that +came across the sleeping prairie before the dawn. + +At that same hour another watcher turned from her open window, where she +had sat a long time straining into the silence that blessed the town. +She had been clutching her heart in the dread of hearing a shot, full of +upbraidings for the peril she had thrust upon this chivalrous man. For +he would not have assumed the office but for her solicitation, she knew +well. She stretched out her hand into the moonlight as if she wafted him +her benediction for the peace he had brought, a great, glad surge of +something more tender than gratitude in her warm young bosom. + +In a little while she came to the window again, when the moonlight was +slanting into it, and stood leaning her hands on the sill, her dark hair +coming down in a cloud over her white night dress. She strained again +into the quiet night, listening, and listening, smiled. Then she stood +straight, touched finger tips to her lips and waved away a kiss into the +moonlight and the little timid awakening wind that came out of the east +like a young hare before the dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SOME FOOL WITH A GUN + + +Morgan was roused out of his brief sleep at the Elkhorn hotel shortly +after sunrise by the night telegrapher at the railroad station, who came +with a telegram. + +"I thought you'd like to have it as soon as possible," the operator +said, in apology for his early intrusion, standing by Morgan's bed, Tom +Conboy attending just outside the door with ear primed to pick up the +smallest word. + +"Sure--much obliged," Morgan returned, his voice hoarse with broken +sleep, his head not instantly clear of its flying clouds. The operator +lingered while Morgan ran his eye over the few words. + +"Much obliged, old feller," Morgan said, warmly, giving the young man a +quick look of understanding that must serve in place of more words, +seeing that Conboy had his head within the door. + +Morgan heard the operator denying Conboy the secret of the message in +the hall outside his door. Conboy had lived long enough in Ascalon to +know when to curb his curiosity. He tiptoed away from Morgan's door, +repressing his desire behind his beard. + +Knowing that he could not sleep again after that abrupt break in his +rest, Morgan rose and dressed. Once or twice he referred again to the +message that lay spread on his pillow. + + Craddock wired Peden last night that he would arrive on number + seven at 1:20 this afternoon. + +That was the content of the message, not a telegram at all, but a +friendly note of warning from the night operator, who had come over to +the hotel to go to bed. The young man had shrewdly adopted this means to +cover his information, knowing that Peden's wrath was mighty and his +vengeance far-reaching. Nobody in town could question the delivery of a +telegram. + +Morgan had expected Craddock to hasten back and attempt to recover his +scepter and resume his sway over Ascalon, where the destructive sickle +of his passion for blood could be plied with safety under the shelter of +his prostituted office. But he did not expect him to return so soon. It +pleased him better that the issue was to be brought to a speedy trial +between them. While he had his feet wet, he reasoned, he would just as +well cross the stream. + +Conboy was sweeping the office, having laid the thick of the dust with a +sprinkling can. He paused in his work to give Morgan a shrewd, sharp +look. + +"Important news when it pulls a man out of bed this early," Conboy +ventured, "and him needin' sleep like you do." + +"Yes," said Morgan, going on to the door. + +Conboy came after him, voice lowered almost to a whisper as he spoke, +eyes turning about as if he expected a spy to bob up behind his +counter. + +"I heard it passed around late last night that Craddock was comin' +back." + +"Wasn't he expected to?" Morgan inquired, indifferently, wholly +undisturbed. + +Conboy watched him keenly, standing half behind him, to note any sign of +panic or uneasiness that would tell him which side he should support +with his valuable sympathy and profound philosophy. + +"From the way things point, I think they're lookin' for him back today," +he said. + +"The quicker the sooner," Morgan replied in offhand cowboy way. + +Conboy was left on middle ground, not certain whether Morgan would flee +before the arrival of the man whose powers he had usurped, or stand his +ground and shoot it out. It was an uncomfortable moment; a man must be +on one side or the other to be safe. In the history of Ascalon it was +the neutral who generally got knocked down and trampled, and lost his +pocketbook and watch, as happens to the gaping nonparticipants in the +squabbles of humanity everywhere. + +"From what I hear goin' around," Conboy continued, dropping his voice to +a cautious, confidential pitch, "there'll be a bunch of bad men along in +a day or two to help Craddock hold things down. It looks to me like it's +goin' to be more than any one man can handle." + +"It may be that way," Morgan said, lingering in the door, Conboy doing +his talking from the rear. Morgan was thinking the morning had a +freshness in it like a newly gathered flower. + +"It'll mean part closed and part open if that man takes hold of this +town again," Conboy said. "Him and Peden they're as thick as three in a +bed. Close all of 'em, like you did last night, or give everybody a fair +whack. That's what I say." + +"Yes," abstractedly from Morgan. + +"It was kind of quiet and slow in town last night, slowest night I've +ever had since I bought this dump. I guess I'd have to move away if +things run along that way, but I don't know. Maybe business would pick +up when people got used to the new deal. Goin' to let 'em open tonight?" + +"Night's a long way off," Morgan said, leaving the question open for +Conboy to make what he could out of it. + +Conboy was of the number who could see no existence for Ascalon but a +vicious one, yet he was no partisan of Seth Craddock, having a soreness +in his recollection of many indignities suffered at the hands of the +city marshal's Texas friends, even of Craddock's overriding and sardonic +disdain. Yet he would rather have Craddock, and the town open, than +Morgan and stagnation. He came to that conclusion with Morgan's evasion +of his direct question. The interests of Peden and his kind were +Conboy's interests. He stood like a housemaid with dustpan and broom to +gather up the wreckage of the night. + +"When can I get breakfast?" Morgan inquired, turning suddenly, catching +Conboy with his new resolution in his shifty, flickering eyes, reading +him to the marrow of his bones. + +"It's a little early--not half-past five," Conboy returned, covering his +confusion as well as he could by referring to his thick silver watch. +"We don't begin to serve till six, the earliest of 'em don't come in +before then. If you feel like turnin' in for a sleep, we'll take care of +you when you get up." + +Morgan said he had sleep enough to carry him over the day. Dora, +yawning, disheveled, appeared in the dining-room door at that moment, +tying her all-enveloping white apron around her like Poor Polly Bawn. +She blushed when she saw Morgan, and put up her hands to smooth her +hair. + +"I had the best sleep last night I can remember in a coon's age--I felt +so _safe_," she said. + +"You always was safe enough," Conboy told her, not in the best of humor. + +"Safe enough! I can show you five bullet holes in the walls of my room, +Mr. Morgan--one of 'em through the head of my bed!" + +"Pretty close," Morgan said, answering the animation of her rosy, +friendly face with a smile. + +"Never mind about bullet holes--you go and begin makin' holes in a piece +of biscuit dough," her father commanded. + +"When I get good and ready," said Dora, serenely. "You wouldn't care if +we got shot to pieces every night as long as we could get up in the +morning and make biscuits!" + +"Yes, and some of you'd be rootin' around somebody else's kitchen for +biscuits to fill your craws if this town laid dead a little while +longer," Conboy fired back, his true feeling in the matter revealed. + +"I can get a job of biscuit shooter any day," Dora told him, untroubled +by the outlook of disaster that attended upon peace and quiet. "I'd +rather not have no guests than drunks that come in stagger blind and +shoot the plaster off of the wall. It ain't so funny to wake up with +your ears full of lime! Ma's sick of it, and I'm sick of it, and it'd be +a blessin' if Mr. Morgan would keep the joints all shut till the drunks +in this town dried up like dead snakes!" + +"You, and your ma!" Conboy grumbled, bearing on an old grievance, an old +theme of servitude and discontent. + +Morgan recalled the gaunt anxiety of Mrs. Conboy's eyes, hollow of every +emotion, as they seemed, but unrest and straining fear. Dora had gone +unmarked yet by the cursed fires of Ascalon; only her tongue discovered +that the poison of their fumes had reached her heart. + +"I'd like to put strickenine in some of their biscuits!" Dora declared, +with passionate vehemence. + +"Tut-tut! no niggers----" + +"How's your face, Mr. Morgan?" Dora inquired, out of one mood into +another so quickly the transition was bewildering. + +"Face?" said Morgan, embarrassed for want of her meaning. "Oh," putting +his hand to the forgotten wound--"about well, thank you, Miss Dora. I +guess my good looks are ruined, though." + +Dora half closed her eyes in arch expression, pursing her lips as if she +meant to give him either a whistle or a kiss, laughed merrily, and ran +off to cut patterns in a sheet of biscuit dough. She left such a +clearness and good humor in the morning air that Morgan felt quite light +at heart as he started for a morning walk. + +Morgan was still wearing the cowboy garb that he had drawn from the +bottom of his trunk among the things which he believed belonged to a +past age and closed period of his life's story. He had deliberated the +question well the night before, reaching the conclusion that, as he had +stepped out of his proper character, lapsed back, in a word, to +raw-handed dealings with the rough edges of the world, he would better +dress the part. He would be less conspicuous in that dress, and it would +be his introduction and credentials to the men of the range. + +Last night's long vigil, tramping around the square in his high-heeled, +tight-fitting boots, had not hastened the cure of his bruised ankles and +sore feet. This morning he limped like a trapped wolf, as he said to +himself when he started to take a look around and see whether any of the +outlawed had made bold to open their doors. + +Few people were out of bed in Ascalon at that hour, although the sun was +almost an hour high. As Morgan passed along he heard the crackling of +kindling being broken in kitchens. Here and there the eager smoke of +fresh fires rose straight toward the blue. No stores were open yet; the +doors of the saloons remained closed as the night before. Morgan paused +at the bank corner after making the round of the square. + +Ahead of him the principal residence street of the town stretched, the +houses standing in exclusive withdrawal far apart on large plots of +ground, a treeless, dusty, unlovely lane. Here the summer sun raked roof +and window with its untempered fire; here the winds of winter bombarded +door and pane with shrapnel of sleet and charge of snow, whistling on +cornice and eaves, fluttering in chimney like the beat of exhausted +wings. + +Morgan knew well enough how the place would appear in that bitter +season; he had lived in the lonely desolation of a village on the bald, +unsheltered plain. How did Rhetta Thayer endure the winter, he wondered, +when she could not gallop away into the friendly solitude of the clean, +unpeopled prairie? Where did she live? Which house would be Judge +Thayer's among the bright-painted dwellings along that raw lane? He +favored one of the few white ones, a house with a wide porch screened by +morning-glory vines, a gallant row of hollyhocks in the distance. + +Lawn grass had been sown in many of the yards, where it had flourished +until the scorching summer drouth. Even now there were little rugs of +green against north walls where the noonday shadows fell, but the rest +of the lawns were withered and brown. Some hardy flowers, such as +zinnias and marigolds, stood clumped about dooryards; in the kitchen +gardens tasseled corn rose tall, dust thick on the guttered blades. + +Morgan turned from this scene in which Ascalon presented its better +side, to skirmish along the street running behind Peden's establishment. +It might be well, for future exigencies, to fix as much of the geography +of the place in his mind as possible. He wondered if there had been a +back-door traffic in any of the saloons last night as he passed long +strings of empty beer kegs, concluding that it was very likely something +had been done in that way. + +Across the street from Peden's back door was a large vacant piece of +ground, a wilderness of cans, bottles, packing boxes, broken barrels. On +one corner, diagonally across from where Morgan stood, facing on the +other street, a ragged, weathered tent was pitched. Out of this the +sound of contending children came, the strident, commanding voice of a +woman breaking sharply to still the commotion that shook her unstable +home. Morgan knew this must be the home of the cattle thief whose case +Judge Thayer had undertaken. He wondered why even a cattle thief would +choose that site at the back door of perdition to pitch his tent and +lodge his family. + +A bullet clipping close past his ear, the sharp sound of a pistol shot +behind him, startled him out of this speculation. + +Morgan did not believe at once, even as he wheeled gun in hand to +confront the careless gun-handler or the assassin, as the case might +prove, that the shot could have been intended for him, but out of +caution he darted as quick as an Indian behind a pyramid of beer kegs. +From that shelter he explored in the direction of the shot, but saw +nobody. + +There was ample barrier for a lurking man all along the street on +Peden's side. From behind beer cases and kegs, whisky barrels, wagons, +corners of small houses, one could have taken a shot at him; or from a +window or back door. There was no smoke hanging to mark the spot. + +Morgan slipped softly from his concealment, coming out at Peden's back +door. Bending low, he hurried back over the track he had come, keeping +the heaps of kegs, barrels, and boxes between him and the road. And +there, twenty yards or so distant, in a space between two wagons, he saw +a man standing, pistol in hand, all set and primed for another shot, but +looking rather puzzled and uncertain over the sudden disappearance of +his mark. + +Morgan was upon him in a few silent strides, unseen and unheard, his gun +raised to throw a quick shot if the situation called for it. The man was +Dell Hutton, the county treasurer. His face was white. There was the +look in his eyes of a man condemned when he turned and confronted +Morgan. + +"Who was it that shot at you, Morgan?" he inquired, his voice husky in +the fog of his fright. He was laboring hard to put a face on it that +would make him the champion of peace; he peered around with simulated +caution, as if he had rushed to the spot ready to uphold the law. + +Morgan let the pitiful effort pass for what it was worth, and that was +very little. + +"I don't know who it was, Hutton," he replied, with a careless laugh, +putting his pistol away. "If you see him, tell him I let a little thing +like that pass--once." + +Morgan did not linger for any further words. Several shock-haired +children had come bursting from the tent, their contention silenced. +They stood looking at Morgan as he came back into the road, wonder in +their muggy faces. Heads appeared at windows, back doors opened +cautiously, showing eyes at cracks. + +"Some fool shootin' off his gun," Morgan heard a man growl as he passed +under a window of a thin-sided house, from which the excited voices of +women came like the squeaks of unnested mice. + +"What was goin' on back there?" Conboy inquired as Morgan approached the +hotel. The proprietor was a little way out from his door, anxiety, +rather than interest, in his face. + +"Some fool shootin' off his gun, I guess," Morgan replied, feeling that +the answer fitted the case very well. + +He gave Dora the same explanation when she met him at the blue door of +the dining-room, trouble in her fair blue eyes. She looked at him with +keen questioning, not satisfied that she had heard it all. + +"I hope he burnt his fingers," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +WILL HIS LUCK HOLD? + + +Dora escorted Morgan to a table apart from the few heavy feeders who +were already engaged, indicating to the other two girls who served with +her in the dining-room that this was her special customer and guest of +honor. She whirled the merry-go-round caster to bring the salt and +pepper to his hand; just so she placed his knife and fork, and plate +overturned to keep the flies off the business side of it. Then she +hurried away for his breakfast, asking no questions bearing on his +preferences or desires. + +A plain breakfast in those vigorous times was unvarying--beefsteak, ham +or bacon to give it a savor, eggs, fried potatoes, hot biscuits, coffee. +It was the same as dinner, which came on the stroke of twelve, and none +of your six-o'clock pretenses about _that_ meal, except there was no +pie; identical with supper, save for the boiled potatoes and rice +pudding. A man of proper proportions never wanted any more; he could not +thrive on any less. And the only kind of a liver they ever worried about +in that time on the plains of Kansas was a white one. That was the only +disease of that organ known. + +Dora was troubled; her face reflected her unrest as glass reflects +firelight, her blue eyes were clouded by its gloom. She made a pretense +of brushing crumbs from the cloth where there were no crumbs, in order +to furnish an excuse to stoop and bring her lips nearer Morgan's ear. + +"He's comin' on the one-twenty this afternoon--I got it straight he's +comin'. I thought maybe you'd like to know," she said. + +Morgan lifted his eyes in feigned surprise at this news, not having it +in his heart to cloud her generous act by the revelation of a suspicion +that it was no news to him. + +"You mean----?" + +"I got it straight," Dora nodded. + +"Thank you, Miss Dora." + +"I hope to God," she said, for it was their manner to speak ardently in +Ascalon in those days, "you'll beat him to it when he gets off of the +train!" + +"A man can only do his best, Dora," he said gently, moved by her honest +friendship, simple wild thing though she was. + +"If I was a man I'd take my gun and go with you to meet him," she +declared. + +"I know you would. But maybe there'll not be any fuss at all." + +"There'll be fuss enough, all right!" Dora protested. "If he comes +alone--but maybe he'll not _come_ alone." + +A man who rose from a near-by table came over to shake hands with +Morgan, and express his appreciation for the good beginning he had made +as peace officer of the town. Dora snatched Morgan's cup and hastened +away for more coffee. When she returned the citizen was on his way to +the door. + +"Craddock used to come in here and wolf his meals down," she said, +picking up her theme in the same troubled key, "just like it didn't +amount to nothing to kill a man a day. I looked to see blood on the +tablecloth every time his hand touched it." + +"It's a shame you girls had to wait on the brute," Morgan said. + +"Girls! he wouldn't let anybody but me wait on him." Dora frowned, her +face coloring. She bent a little, lowering her voice. "Why, Mr. Morgan, +what do you suppose? He wanted me to _marry_ him!" + +"That old buffalo wrangler? Well, he _is_ kind of previous!" + +"He's too fresh to keep, I told him. Marry _him_! He used to come in +here, Mr. Morgan, and put his hat down by his foot so he could grab it +and run out and kill another man without losin' time. He never used to +take his guns off and hang 'em up like other gentlemen when they eat. He +just set there watchin' and turnin' his mean old eyes all the time. He's +afraid of them, I know by the way he always tried to look behind him +without turnin' his head, never sayin' a word to anybody, he's afraid." + +"Afraid of whom, Dora?" + +"The ghosts of them murdered men!" + +Morgan shook his head after seeming to think it over a little while. "I +don't believe they'd trouble him much, Dora." + +"I'd rather wait on a dog!" she said, scorn and rebellion in her pretty +eyes. + +"You can marry somebody else and beat him on that game, anyhow. I'll +bet there are plenty of them standing around waiting." + +"O Mr. Morgan!" Dora was drowned in blushes, greatly pleased. "Not so +many as you might think," turning her eyes upon him with coquettish +challenge, "only Mr. Gray and Riley Caldwell, the printer on the +_Headlight_." + +"Mr. Gray, the druggist?" + +"Yes, but he's too old for me!" Dora sighed, "forty if he's a day. He's +got money, though, and he's perfec'ly _grand_ on the pieanno. You ought +to hear him play _The Maiden's Prayer_!" + +"I'll listen out for him. I saw him washing his window a while ago--a +tall man with a big white shirt." + +"Yes," abstractedly, "that was him. He's an elegant fine man, but I +don't give a snap for none of 'em. I wish I could leave this town and +never come back. You'll be in for dinner, won't you?" as Morgan pushed +back from the repletion of that standard meal. + +"And for supper, too, I hope," he said, turning it off as a joke. + +"I hope to God!" said Dora fervently, seeing no joke in the uncertainty +at all. + +Excitement was laying hold of Ascalon even at that early hour. When +Morgan went on the street after breakfast he found many people going +about, gathering in groups along the shady fronts, or hastening singly +in the manner of men bound upon the confirmation of unusual news. The +pale fish of the night were out in considerable numbers, leaking +cigarette smoke through all the apertures of their faces as they +grouped according to their kind to discuss the probabilities of the +day. Seth Craddock was coming back with fire in his red eyes; their +deliverer was on his way. + +There was no secret of Seth's coming any longer. Even Peden leered in +triumph when he met Morgan as he sauntered outside his closed door in +the peculiar distinction of his black coat, which the strong sun of that +summer morning was not powerful enough to strip from his broad back. + +None of the saloons or resorts made an attempt to open their doors to +business. The proprietors appeared to have, on the other hand, a secret +pleasure in keeping them closed, perhaps counting on the gain that would +be theirs when this brief prohibition should come to its end. + +Opposed to this pleasurable expectancy of the proscribed was the +uneasiness and doubt of the respectable. True, this man Morgan had taken +Seth Craddock's gun away from him once, but luck must have had much to +do with his preservation in that perilous adventure. Morgan had rounded +up the Texas men quartered on the town under Craddock's patronage, also, +but they were sluggish from their debauch, and he had approached them +with the caution of a man coming up on the blind side of a horse. +Yesterday that had looked like a big, heroic thing for one man to +accomplish, but in the light of reflection today it must be admitted +that it was mainly luck. + +Yes, Morgan had closed up the town last night, defying even Peden in his +own hall, where defiance as a rule meant business for the undertaker. +But the glamour of his morning's success was still over him at that +time; Peden and his bouncers were a little cautious, a little cowed. He +could not close the town up another night; murmurs of defiance were +beginning to rise already. + +And so the people who had applauded his drastic enforcement of the law +last night, became of no more support to Morgan today than a furrow of +sand. Luck was a great thing if a man could play it forever, they said, +but it was too much to believe that luck would hold even twice with +Morgan when he confronted Seth Craddock that afternoon. + +Morgan walked about the square that morning like a stranger. Few spoke +to him, many turned inward from their doors when they saw him coming, +afraid that a little friendship publicly displayed might be laid up +against them for a terrible reckoning of interest by and by. Morgan was +neither offended nor downcast by this public coldness in the quarter +where he had a right to expect commendation and support. He understood +too well the lengths that animosities ran in such a town as Ascalon. A +living coward was more comfortable than a dead reformer, according to +their philosophy. + +It was when passing the post-office, about nine o'clock in the morning, +that Morgan met Rhetta Thayer. She saw him coming, and waited. Her face +was flushed; indignation disturbed the placidity of her eyes. + +"They don't deserve it, the cowards!" she burst out, after a greeting +too serious to admit a smile. + +"Deserve what?" he inquired, looking about in mystification, wondering +if something had happened in the post-office to fire this indignation. + +"The help and protection of a brave man!" she said. + +Morgan was so suddenly confused by this frank, impetuous appreciation of +his efforts, for there was no mistaking the application, that he could +not find a word. Rhetta did not give him much time, to be sure, but ran +on with her denunciation of the citizenry of the town. + +"I wouldn't turn a hand for them again, Mr. Morgan--I'd throw up the +whole thing and let them cringe like dogs before that murderer when he +comes back! It's good enough for them, it's all they deserve." + +"You can't expect them to be very warm toward a stranger," he said, +excusing them according to what he knew to be their due. + +"They're afraid you can't do it, they're telling one another your luck +will fail this time. Luck! that's all the sense there is in _that_ bunch +of cowards." + +"They may be right," he said, thoughtfully. + +"You know they're not right!" she flashed back, defending him against +himself as though he were another. + +"I don't expect any generosity from them," he said, gentle in his tone +and undisturbed. "They're afraid if my luck should happen to turn +against me they'd have to pay for any friendship shown me here this +morning. Business is business, even in Ascalon." + +"Luck!" she scoffed. "It's funny you're the only lucky man that's struck +this town in a long time, then. If it's all luck, why don't some of them +try their hands at rounding up the crooks and killers of this town and +showing them the road the way you did that gang yesterday? Yes, I know +all about that kind of luck." + +Morgan walked with her toward Judge Thayer's office, whither she was +bound with the mail. Behind them the loafers snickered and passed quips +of doubtful humor and undoubted obscenity, but careful to present the +face of decorum until Morgan was well beyond their voices. No matter +what doubt they had of his luck holding with Seth Craddock, they were +not of a mind to make a trial of it on themselves. + +"I think the best thing to do with this town is just let it go till it +dries up and blows away," she said, with the vindictive impatience of +youth. "What little good there is in it isn't worth the trouble of +cleaning up to save." + +"Your father's got everything centered here, he told me. There must be a +good many honest people in the same boat." + +"Maybe we could sell out for something, enough to take us away from +here. Of course we expected Ascalon to turn out a different town when we +came here, the railroad promised to do so much. But there's nothing to +make a town when the cattle are gone. We might as well let it begin to +die right now." + +"You're gloomy this morning, Miss Thayer. You remember the Mennonites +that wanted to settle here and were afraid?" + +"There's no use for you to throw your life away making the country safe +for them." + +"Of course not. I hadn't thought of them." + +"Nor any of these cold-nosed cowards that turn their backs on you for +fear your luck's going to change. Luck! the fools!" + +"They don't figure in the case at all, Miss Thayer." + +"If it's on account of your own future, if you're trampling down a place +in the briars to make your bed, as pa called it, then I think you can +find a nicer place to camp than Ascalon. It never will repay the peril +you'll run and the blood you'll lose--have lost already." + +"I'm further out of the calculation than anybody, Miss Thayer." + +"I don't see what other motive there can be, then," she reflected, eyes +bent to the ground as she walked slowly by his side. + +"A lady asked me to undertake it. I'm doing it for her," he replied. + +"She was a thoughtless, selfish person!" Rhetta said, her deep feeling +stressed in the flush of her face, her accusation as vehement as if she +laid charges against another. "Last night she thought it over; she had +time to realize the danger she'd asked a generous stranger to assume. +She wants to withdraw the request today--she asks you to give it up and +let Ascalon go on its wicked way." + +"Tell her," said he gently, holding her pleading, pained eyes a moment +with his assuring gaze, "that a man can't drop a piece of work like this +and turn his back on it and walk away. They'd say in Ascalon that he was +a coward, and they'd be telling the truth." + +"Oh! I oughtn't have argued you into it!" she regretted, bitter in her +self-blame. "But the thought of that terrible, cruel man, of all he's +killed, all he will kill if he comes back--made a selfish coward of me. +We had gone through a week of terror--you can't understand a woman's +terror of that kind of men, storming the streets at night uncurbed!" + +"A man can only guess." + +"I was so grateful to you for driving them away from here, for purifying +the air after them like a rain, that I urged you to go ahead and finish +the job, just as if we were conferring a great favor! I didn't think at +the time, but I've thought it all over since." + +"You mustn't worry about it any more. It is a great favor, a great +honor, to be asked to serve you at all." + +"You're too generous, Mr. Morgan. There are only a few of us here who +care about order and peace--you can see that for yourself this +morning--no matter what assurance they gave you yesterday. Let it go. If +you don't want to get your horse and ride away, you can at least resign. +You've got justification enough for that, you've seen the men that +promised to support you yesterday turn their backs on you when you came +up the street today. They don't want the town shut up, they don't want +it changed--not when it hits their pocketbooks. You can tell pa that, +and resign--or I'll tell him--it was my fault, I got you into it." + +"You couldn't expect me to do that--you don't expect it," he chided, his +voice grave and low. + +"I can want you to do it--I don't expect it." + +"Of course not. We'll not talk about it any more." + +They continued toward her father's office in silence, crossing the +stretch of barren in which the little catalpa tree stood. Rhetta looked +up into his face. + +"You've never killed a man, Mr. Morgan," she said, more as a positive +statement than as a question. + +"No, I never have, Miss Thayer," Morgan answered her, as ingenuously +sincere as she had asked it. + +"I think I know it by the touch of a man's hand," she said, her face +growing pale from her deep revulsion. "I shudder at the touch of blood. +If you could be spared that in the ordeal ahead of you!" + +"There's no backing out of it. The challenge has passed," he said. + +"No, there's no way. He's coming--he knows you're waiting for him. But I +hope you'll not have to--I hope you'll come out of it _clean_! A curse +of blood falls on every man that takes this office. I wish--I hope, you +can keep clear of that." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE MEAT HUNTER COMES + + +The few courageous and hopeful ones who remained loyal to Morgan were +somewhat assured, the doubtful ones agitated a bit more in their +indecision, when he appeared on horseback a little past the turn of day. +These latter people, whose courage had leaked out overnight, now began +to weigh again their business interests and personal safety in the +balance of their wavering judgment. + +Morgan, on horseback, looked like a lucky man; they admitted that. Much +more lucky, indeed, than he had appeared that morning when he went +limping around the square. It was a question whether to come over to his +side again, openly and warmly, or to hold back until he proved himself +to be as lucky as he looked. A man might as well nail up his door and +leave town as fall under the disfavor of Seth Craddock. So, while they +wavered, they were still not quite convinced. + +Prominent among the business men who had revised their attitude on +reform as the shadow of Seth Craddock approached Ascalon was Earl Gray, +the druggist, one of the notables on Dora Conboy's waiting list. +Druggist Gray was a man who wore bell-bottomed trousers and a moleskin +vest without a coat. His hair had a fetching crinkle to it, which he +prized above all things in bottles and out, and wore long, like the man +on the label. + +There was so much hair about Mr. Gray, counting mustache and all, that +his face and body seemed drained and attenuated by the contribution of +sustenance to keep the adornment flourishing in its brown abundance. For +Gray was a tall, thin, bony-kneed man, with long flat feet like wedges +of cheese. His eyes were hollow and melancholy, as if he bore a sorrow; +his nose was high and bony, and bleak in his sharp, thin-cheeked face. + +Gray expressed himself openly to the undertaker, in whom he found a +cautious, but warm supporter of his views. There would be fevers and +ills with Ascalon closed up, Gray said he knew very well, just as there +would be deaths and burials in the natural course of events under the +same conditions. But there would be neither patches for the broken, +stitches for the cut nor powders for the headaches of debauchery called +for then as now; and all the burying there would be an undertaker might +do under his thumb nail. + +They'd go to drugging themselves with boneset tea, and mullein tea, and +bitter-root powders and wahoo bark, said Gray. Likewise, they'd turn to +burying one another, after the ways of pioneers, who were as resourceful +in deaths and funerals as in drugs and fomentations. Pioneers, such as +would be left in that country after Morgan had shut Ascalon up and +driven away those who were dependent on one another for their skinning +and fleecing, filching and plundering, did not lean on any man. Such as +came there to plow up the prairies would be of the same stuff, +rough-barked men and women who called in neither doctor to be born nor +undertaker to be buried. + +It was a gloomy outlook, the town closed up and everybody gone, said +Gray. What would a man do with his building, what would a man do with +his stock? + +"Maybe Craddock ain't no saint and angel, but he makes business in this +town," said Gray. + +"Makes business!" the undertaker echoed, with abstraction and looking +far away as if he already saw the train of oncoming, independent, +self-burying pioneers over against the horizon. + +"If this feller's luck don't go ag'in' him, you might as well ship all +your coffins away but one--they'll need one to bury the town in. What do +you think of him ridin' around the depot down there, drawin' a deadline +that no man ain't goin' to be allowed to cross till the one-twenty pulls +out? Kind of high-handed deal, I call it!" + +"I've got a case of shrouds comin' in by express on that train, two +cases layin' in my place waitin' on 'em," the undertaker said, +resentfully, waking out of his abstraction and apparent apathy. + +"_You_ have!" said Gray, eying him suddenly. + +"He stopped me as I was goin' over to wait around till the train come +in, drove me back like I was a cow. He said it didn't make no difference +how much business I had at the depot, it would have to wait till the +train was gone. When a citizen and a taxpayer of this town can't even +cross the road like a shanghai rooster, things is comin' to a hell of a +pass!" + +"Well, I ain't got no business at the depot this afternoon, or I bet you +a cracker I'd be over there," Gray boasted. "I think I'll close up a +while and go down to the hotel where I can see better--it's only forty +minutes till she's due." + +"Might as well, everybody's down there. You won't sell as much as a pack +of gum till the train's gone and this thing's off of people's minds." + +Gray went in for his hat, to spend a good deal of time at the glass +behind his prescription case setting it at the most seductive slant upon +his luxuriant brown curls. This was an extremely enticing small hat, +just a shade lighter brown than the druggist's wavy hair. It looked like +a cork in a bottle placed by a tipsy hand as Druggist Gray passed down +the street toward the hotel, to post himself where he might see how well +Morgan's luck was going to hold in this encounter with the meat hunter +of the Cimarron. + +As the undertaker had said, nearly everybody in Ascalon was already +collected in front and in the near vicinity of the hotel, fringing the +square in gay-splotched crowds. Beneath the canopy of the Elkhorn hotel +many were assembled, as many indeed, as could conveniently stand, for +that bit of shade was a blessing on the sun-parched front of Ascalon's +bleak street. + +Business was generally suspended in this hour of uncertainty, public +feeling was drawn as tight as a banjo head in the sun. In the courthouse +the few officials and clerks necessary to the county's business were at +the windows looking upon the station, all expecting a tragedy of such +stirring dimensions as Ascalon never had witnessed. + +The stage was set, the audience was in waiting, one of the principal +actors stood visible in the wings. With the rush of the passenger train +from the east Seth Craddock would make his dramatic entry, in true color +with his violent notoriety and prominence in the cast. + +Unless friends came with Craddock, these two men would hold the stage +for the enactment of that swift drama alone. Morgan, silent, determined, +inflexible, had drawn his line around the depot, across which no man +dared to pass. No friend of Craddock should meet him for support of +warning word or armed hand; no innocent one should be jeopardized by a +curiosity that might lead to death. + +The moving question now was, had Peden's gun-notable friends joined +Craddock? If so, it would call for a vast amount of luck to overcome +their combined numbers and dexterity. + +Morgan was troubled by this same question as he waited in the saddle +where the sun bore hot upon him at the side of the station platform. +About there, at that point, the station agent had told him, the +smoking-car would stand when the train came to a stop, the engine at the +water tank. When Craddock came down out of the train, would he come +alone? + +Morgan was mounted on the horse borrowed from Stilwell, an agile young +animal, tractable and intelligent. A yellow slicker was rolled and tied +at the cantle of the saddle; at the horn a coil of brown rope hung, +pliant and smooth from much use upon the range among cattle. Morgan's +rifle was slung on the saddle in its worn scabbard, its battered stock, +from which the varnish had gone long ago in the hard usage of many +years, close to the rider's hand. + +It needed no announcement of wailing whistle or clanging bell to tell +Ascalon of the approach of a train from the east. In that direction the +fall of the land toward the Arkansas River began many miles distant from +the town, seeming to blend downward from a great height which dimmed out +in blue haze against the horizon. A little way along this high pitch of +land, before it turned down the grade that led into the river valley, +the railroad ran transversely. + +The moment a train mounted this land's edge and swept along the straight +transverse section of track, it was in full sight of Ascalon, day or +night, except in stormy weather, although many miles away. A man still +had ample time to shine his shoes, pack his valise, put on his collar +and coat--if he wore them--walk to the depot and buy his ticket, after +the train came in sight on top of this distant hill. + +Once the train headed straight for Ascalon it dropped out of sight, and +one unused to the trend of things might wonder if it had gone off on +another line. Presently it would appear again, laboring up out of a dip, +rise the intervening billow of land, small as a toy that one could hold +in the hand, and sink out of sight again. This way it approached +Ascalon, now promising, now denying, drawing into plainer sight with +every rise. + +On this particular afternoon when the sun-baked people of Ascalon stood +waiting in such tensity of expectation that their minds were ready to +crack like the dry, contracting earth beneath their feet, it seemed that +nature had laid off that land across which the railroad ran with the +sole view of adding to the dramatic value of Seth Craddock's entry in +this historic hour. Certainly art could not have devised a more +effective means of whetting the anxiety, straining the suspense, than +this. + +When the train first came in sight over the hill there was a murmur, a +movement of feet as people shifted to points believed to be more +advantageous for seeing the coming drama; watches clicked, comments +passed on the exactness to the schedule; breaths were drawn with fresh +tingling of hope, or falling of doubt and despair. + +Morgan was watching that far skyline for the first smoke, for the first +gleam of windows in the sun as the train swept round the curve heading +for a little while into the north. He noted the murmur and movement of +the watchers as it came in sight; wondered if any breast but one was +agitated by a pang of friendly concern, wondered if any hand loosed +weapon in its sheath to strike in his support if necessity should call +for such intervention. He knew that Rhetta Thayer stood in the shade of +the bank with her father and others; he was cheered by the support of +her presence to witness his triumph or fall. + +Now, as the train swept into the first obscuring swale, Morgan rode +around the depot again to see that none had slipped through either in +malice or curiosity. Only the station agent was in sight, pulling a +truck with three trunks on it to the spot where he estimated the +baggage-car would stop. Morgan rode back again to take his stand at the +point where arrivals by train crossed from depot into town. His left +hand was toward the waiting crowd, kept back by his injunction fifty +yards or more from the station; his right toward the track on which the +train would come. + +Conversation in the crowd fell away. Peden, garbed in his long coat, was +seen shouldering through in front of the hotel, the nearest point to the +set and waiting stage. As always, Peden wore a pistol strapped about him +on ornate belt, the holster carrying the weapon under the skirt of his +coat. His presence on the forward fringe of the crowd seemed to many as +an upraised hand to strike the waiting horseman in the back. + +Morgan saw Peden when he came and took his stand there, and saw others +in his employ stationed along the front of the line. He believed they +were there to throw their weight on Craddock's beam of the balance the +moment they should see him outmastered and outweighed. + +Because he mistrusted these men, because he did not know, indeed, +whether there was a man among all those who had pledged their moral +support who would lift a hand to aid him even if summoned to do so, +Morgan kept his attention divided, one eye on the signs and portents of +the crowd, one on keeping the depot platform clear. + +Morgan did not know whether even Judge Thayer and the men who had +guarded the bank with him would risk one shot in his defense if the +outlawed forces should sweep forward and overwhelm him. He doubted it +very much. It was well enough to delegate this business to a stranger, +one impartial between the lines, but they could not be expected to turn +their weapons on their fellow-townsmen and depositors in the bank, no +matter how their money came, no matter how much the law might lack an +upholding hand. + +The train came clattering over the switch, safety valve roaring, bell +ringing as gaily as if arriving in Ascalon were a joyous event in its +day. Conductor and brakeman stood on the steps ready to swing to the +platform; the express messenger lolled with bored weariness in the door +of his car, scorning the dangerous notoriety of the town by exposing to +the eye all the boxed treasure that it contained. Passengers crowded +platforms, leaning and looking, ready to alight for a minute, so they +might be able to relate the remainder of their lives how they braved the +perils of Ascalon one time and came out unsinged. + +A movement went over the watching people of the town, assembled along +its business front, as wind ripples suddenly a field of grain. Nobody +had breath for a word; dry lips were pressed tightly in the varying +emotions of hope, fear, expectancy, desire. Morgan was seen to be busy +for a moment with something about his saddle; it was thought he was +drawing his rifle out of its case. + +Nearly opposite where Morgan waited, the first coach of the train +stopped. Instantly, like children freed from school, the eager +passengers poured off for their adventurous breath of this most wicked +town's intoxicating air. Morgan's whole attention was now fixed on the +movement around the train. He shifted his horse to face that way, +risking what might develop behind him, one hand engaged with the bridle +rein, the other seemingly dropped carelessly on his thigh. + +And in that squaring of expectation, that pause of breathless waiting, +Seth Craddock descended from the smoking-car, his alpaca coat carried in +the crook of his left elbow, his right hand lingering a moment on the +guard of the car step. The hasty ones who had waited on the car platform +were down ahead of him, standing a little way from the steps; others who +wanted to get off came pressing behind him, in their ignorance that they +were handling a bit of Ascalon's most infernal furnishing, pushing him +out into the timid crowd of their fellows. + +A moment Craddock stood, taller than the tallest there, sweeping his +quick glance about for signs of the expected hostility, the trinkets of +silver on the band of his costly new sombrero shining in the sun. Then +he came striding among the gaping passengers, like a man stalking among +tall weeds, something unmistakably expressive of disdain in his +carriage. + +There he paused again, and put on his coat, plainly mystified and +troubled by the absence of townspeople from the depot, and the sight of +them lined up across the square as if they waited a circus parade. All +that he saw between himself and that fringe of puzzling, silent people +was a cowboy sitting astraddle of his bay horse at the end of the +station platform. + +And as Craddock started away from the crowd of curious passengers who +were whispering and speculating behind him, pointing him out to each +other, wondering what notable he might be; as Craddock started down the +platform away from there, the voice of the conductor warning all to +clamber aboard, the waiting cowboy tightened the reins a little, causing +his horse to prick up its ears and start with a thrill of expectancy +which the rider could feel ripple over its smooth hide under the +pressure of his knees. + +Craddock came on down the platform, turning his head on his long neck in +the way of a man entirely mystified and suspicious, alone, unsupported +by even as much as the shadow of a strange gun-slinger or local friend. + +What was passing through the fellow's head Morgan could pretty well +guess. There was a little break of humor in it, for all the tight-drawn +nerves, for all the chance, for all the desperation of the gathering +moment. The grim old killer couldn't make out whether it was through +admiration of him the people had gathered to welcome him home, or in +expectation of something connected with the arrival of the train. Two +rods or so from where Morgan waited him, Craddock stopped to look back +at the train, now gathering slow headway, and around the deserted +platform, down which the station agent came dragging a mail sack. + +It was when he turned again from this suspicious questioning into things +which gave him back no reply, that Craddock recognized the hitherto +unsuspected cowboy. In a start he stiffened to action, flinging hand to +his pistol. But a heartbeat quicker, like a flash of sunbeam from a +mirror, the coiled rope flew out from Morgan's high-flung arm. + +As the swift-running noose settled over Craddock's body, the horse +leaped at the pressure of its rider's knees. Craddock fired as the +flying rope snatched him from his feet, the noose binding his arms +impotently to his sides; in his rage he fired again and again as he +dragged in ludicrous tangle of long, thrashing legs from the platform +into the dust. + +There, in a cloud of obscuring dust from the trampled road, the horse +holding the line taut, Morgan flung from the saddle in the nimble way of +a range man, bent over the fallen slayer of men a little while. When the +first of the crowd came breaking across the broad space intervening and +drew up panting and breathless in admiration of the bold thing they had +witnessed, Seth Craddock lay hog-tied and harmless on the ground, one +pistol a few feet from where he struggled in his ropes, the other in the +holster at his side. + +And there came Judge Thayer, in his capacity as mayor, officious and +radiant, proud and filled with a new feeling of safety and importance, +and took the badge of office from Craddock's breast, in all haste, as if +it were the most important act in this spectacular triumph, this +bloodless victory over a bloody man. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +WITH CLEAN HANDS + + +Seth Craddock was a defiant, although a fallen man. He refused to resign +the office of marshal of the third-class city of Ascalon when Morgan +released his feet at Judge Thayer's direction, allowing him to stand. +Somebody brought his hat and put it down harshly on his small, +turtle-like head, flaring out his big red ears. There he stood, +glowering, dusty, blood on his face from an abrasion he had got in the +rough handling at the end of Morgan's rope. + +Judge Thayer said it made no difference whether he gave up the office +willingly, he was without a voice in the matter, anyhow. He was fired, +and that's all there was to it. But no, said Seth; not at all. The +statutes upheld him, the constitution supported him, and hell and +damnation and many other forces which he enumerated in his red-tongued +defiance, could not move him out of that office. He demanded to be +allowed to consult his lawyer, he glared around and cursed the curious +and unawed public which laughed at his plight and the figure he cut, +ordering somebody to go and fetch the county attorney, on pain of death +when he should come again into the freedom of his hands. + +But nobody moved, except to shift from one foot to the other and laugh. +The terror seemed to have departed out of Seth Craddock's name and +presence; a terrible man is no longer fearful when he has been dragged +publicly at the end of a cow rope and tied up in the public place like a +calf for the branding iron. + +The county attorney was discreet enough to keep his distance. He did not +come forward with advice on habeas corpus and constitutional rights. +Only Earl Gray, the druggist, with seven kinds of perfumery on his hair, +came out of the crowd with smirking face, ingratiating, servile, +offering Morgan a cigar. The look that Morgan gave him would have wilted +the tobacco in its green leaf. It wilted Druggist Gray. He turned back +into the crowd and eliminated himself from the day's adventure like +smoke on the evening wind. + +Peden was seen, soon after Craddock's dusty downfall, making his way +back to the shelter of his hall, a cloud on his dark face, a sneer of +contempt in his eyes. His bearing was proclamation that he had expected +a great deal more of Seth Craddock, and that the support of his +influence was from that moment withdrawn. But there was nothing in his +manner of a disturbed or defeated man. Those who knew him best, indeed, +felt that he had played only a preliminary hand and, finding it weak, +had taken up the deck for a stronger deal. + +Seth Craddock stood with his back to the station platform, hands bound +behind him, his authority gone. A little way to one side Morgan waited +beside his horse, his pistol under his hand, rifle on the saddle, not so +confident that all was won as to lay himself open to a surprise. Judge +Thayer was holding a session with Craddock, the town, good and bad, +looking on with varying emotions of mirth, disappointment, and disgust. + +Judge Thayer unbuckled Craddock's belt and remaining pistol, picked up +the empty weapon from the ground, sheathed it in the holster opposite +its once terrifying mate, and gave them to Morgan. Morgan hung them on +his saddle horn, and the wives and mothers of Ascalon who had trembled +for their husbands and sons when they heard the roar of those guns in +days past, drew great breaths of relief, and looked into each other's +faces and smiled. + +"We can't hold you for any of the killings you've done here, Seth, +though some of them were unjustified, we know," Judge Thayer said. +"You've been cleared by the coroner's jury in each case, there's no use +for us to open them again. But you'll have to leave this town. Your +friends went yesterday, escorted by Mr. Morgan across the Arkansas +River. You can follow them if you want to--you might overtake 'em +somewhere down in the Nation--you'll have to go in the same direction, +in peace if you will, otherwise if you won't." + +"I'm marshal of this town," Seth still persisted, in the belief that +forces were gathering to his rescue, one could see. "The only way I'll +ever leave till I'm ready to go'll be in a box!" + +Certainly, Seth did not end the defiance and the declaration that way, +nor issue it from his mouth in such pale and commonplace hues. Judge +Thayer argued with him, after his kindly disposition, perhaps not a +little sorry for the man who had outgrown his office and abused the +friend who had elevated him to it. + +Seth remained as obdurate as a trapped wolf. He roved his eyes around, +craned his long, wrinkled neck, looking for the succor that was so long +in coming. He repeated, with blasting enlargement, that the only way +they could send him out of Ascalon would be in a box. + +Judge Thayer drew apart to consult Morgan, in low tones. Morgan was +undisturbed by Craddock's unbending opinion that he had plenty of law +behind him to sustain his contention that he could not be removed from +office. It did not matter how much ammunition a man had if he couldn't +shoot it. It was Morgan's opinion, given with the light of humor +quickening in his eyes, that they ought to take Craddock at his word. + +"Ship him out?" said Judge Thayer. + +"In a box," Morgan nodded, face as sober as judgment, the humor growing +in his eyes. + +"But we can't butcher the fellow like a hog!" Judge Thayer protested. + +"Live hogs are shipped in boxes, right along," Morgan explained. + +Judge Thayer saw the light; his pepper-and-salt whiskers twinkled and +spread around his mouth, and rose so high in their bristling over his +silent laughter that they threatened his eyes. He turned to Craddock, +forcing a sober front. + +"All right, Seth, we'll take you up on it. You're going out of town in a +box," he said. + +Judge Thayer ordered the undertaker to bring over a coffin box, the +longest one he had. The word ran like a prairie fire from those who +heard the order given, that they were going to shoot Craddock for his +crimes and bury him on the spot. + +There was not a little disappointment, but more relief, in the public +mind when it became understood that Craddock was not to be shot. As a +mockery of his past oppression and terrible name, he was to be nailed up +in a box and shipped out like a snake. And so it turned out again in +Ascalon that comedy came in to end the play where tragedy had begun it. + +Morgan bore no part in this unexpected climax to his hard-straining and +doubt-clouded day. He stood by watchful and alert, a great peace in his +mind, a great lightness. He had come through it according to Rhetta +Thayer's wish, according to his own desire, with no man's blood upon his +hands. + +There were many willing ones who came forward to make light the labor of +Seth Craddock's packing. They unbound his hands with derision and +bundled him into the capacious long box against his strivings and curses +with scorn. Morgan suggested the enclosure of a jug of water. Let him +frizzle and fry, they said. They'd bore an auger hole or two in the box +to give him air, and that was greater humanity than he deserved. Morgan +insisted on at least a bottle of water, and had his way, against +grumbling. + +The undertaker officiated, as if it were a regular funeral, putting the +long screws in the stout lid while citizens sat on it to hold the +explosive old villain down. They fastened him in as securely as if he +were a dead man, in all sobriety, boxed up againt the worms of the +grave. + +Then the question rose of where to send him, and how. On the first part +of it the public was of undivided mind. No matter where he went, or in +what direction, let it be far. On the second division there was some +argument. Some held for shipping him by freight, as livestock, and some +were for express as the quickest way to the end of a long journey. For +the farther out of sight he could be carried in the shortest possible +time, they said, the better for all concerned. + +There the station agent was called in to lend the counsel of his +official position. A man could not be shipped by freight if alive, he +said. He could be sent as a corpse is sent, by paying the rate of a fare +and a half and stowing him in the baggage-car with trunks and dogs. The +undertaker was of the same opinion, which he expressed gravely, with +becoming sadness and gloom. + +Judge Thayer wrote the address on the shipping tag, the undertaker +tacked it on Seth Craddock's case, and then the amazed people of Ascalon +came forward surrounding the case, and read: + + Chief of Police, + Kansas City, Missouri. + +That was the consignee of the strangest shipment ever billed out of +Ascalon. People wondered what the chief of police would do with his +gift. They wished him well of it, with all their hearts. + +Meantime Seth Craddock, with the blood of eight men on his hands, was +making more noise in the coffin box than a sack of cats. It was a most +undignified way for a man of his sanguinary reputation to accept this +humiliation at the hands of a public that he had outraged. A mule in a +box stall could not have made a greater clatter with heels against +planks than the fallen city marshal of Ascalon drummed up with his on +the stout end of the coffin box. He cursed as he kicked, and called in +muffled voice on the friends of his brief day of power to come and set +him free. + +But the sycophants who had hung to his heels like hand-fed dogs when +power glorified him like a glistening garment and exalted him high above +other men, turned out as all time-servers and cowardly courtiers always +finish when the object of their transitory adulation falls with his +belly in the dust. They sneered, they jeered, they turned white-shirted +coatless backs upon his box with derisive, despising laughter on their +night-pale faces. Seth Craddock was a mighty man as long as he had a +license to walk about and slay, but fastened up in a box like a corpse +for shipment at the rate of the dead, he was only a hull and an empty +husk of a man. + +They said he was a coward; they had known it all along. It called for a +coward to shoot men down like rabbits. That was not the way of a brave +and worthy man. This great moral conclusion they reached readily enough, +Seth Craddock securely caged before them. If Morgan's rope had missed +its mark, if a snarl had shortened it a foot; if Craddock had been a +second sooner in starting to draw his gun, this wave of moral exaltation +would not have descended upon Ascalon that day. + +There was some concern over the holding quality of the box. People +feared Craddock might burst out of it before going far, and return +against them for the reckoning so volubly threatened. The undertaker +quieted these fears by tapping the box around with his hammer, pointing +out its reenforced strength with melancholy pride. A ghost might get out +of it if some other undertaker put the lid on, he said, but even that +thin and vaporous thing would have to call for help if _he_ screwed him +shut in that most competent container of the mortal remains of man. + +Thus assured, the citizens carried the box in festive spirit, with more +charity and kindness toward old Seth than he deserved, and stood it on +end in the shadow of the depot. There was an auger hole on a level with +Seth's eye, through which he could glower out for his last look on +Ascalon, and the people who gathered around to deride him and triumph in +his overthrow. + +Through this small opening Seth cursed them, checking such of them off +by name as he recognized, setting them down in his memory for the +vengeance he declared he would return speedily and exact. There he +stood, like Don Quixote in his cage, his red eye to the hole, swearing +as terribly as any man that marched in that hard-boiled army in Flanders +long ago. + +Those who had been awed by his grim silence in the days when he ruled +above all law in Ascalon, were surprised now by his volubility. Under +provocation Craddock could say as much as the next man, it appeared. +Unquestionably, he could express his limited thoughts in words luridly +strange. He wearied of this arraignment at last, and subsided. Long +before the train came he lapsed into his natural blue sulkiness, +remaining as quiet behind his auger hole as one ready for the grave. + +They loaded Craddock on a truck when the train from the west whistled, +trundled him down the platform and posted him ready to load in the +baggage-car, attended by a large, jubilant crowd. There was so much +hilarity in this gathering for a funeral, indeed, and so much profanity, +denunciation, and threat issuing out of the coffin box--for Seth broke +out again the minute they moved him--that the baggage-man aboard the +train demurred on receiving the shipment. He closed the door against the +eager citizens who mounted the truck to shove the box aboard, leaving +only opening enough for him to stand flatwise in and shout up the +platform to the conductor. + +This conductor was a notable man in his day on that pioneer railroad. He +was a bony, irascible man, fiery of face, with a high hook nose that had +been smashed to one side in some battle when he was construction foreman +in his days of lowly beginning. He wore a pistol strapped around his +long coat, which garment was braided and buttoned like an ambassador's, +and he was notable throughout the land of cattle and cards as a man who +could reach far and hit hard. If Seth Craddock had applied to him for +instruction in invective and profanity, veteran that he was he would +have been put at the very foot of the primer class. + +Now this mighty man came striding down the platform, thrusting his way +through the crowd with no gentle elbow, hand on his gun, displeasure +ready to explode from his mouth. The baggage-man asked advice on +accepting the proffered box, with fare and a half ticket attached as in +the case of a corpse. + +The conductor remarked, with terrible sarcasm, that the corpse was the +noisiest one he ever had encountered, even in that cursed and benighted +and seven times outcast hole. He knocked on the box and demanded of the +occupant an account of himself, and the part he was bearing in this +pleasant little episode, this beautiful little joke. + +Seth lifted up his muffled voice to say that it was no joke, at least to +him. He explained his identity and denounced his captors, swearing +vengeance to the last eyebrow. The conductor faced the crowd with +disdainful severity. + +What were they trying to play off on him, anyhow? Who did they suppose +he was? Maybe that was fun in Ascalon, but his company wasn't going to +carry no man from nowhere against his will and be sued for it. Burn him +and box up the ashes, boil him and bottle the soup; reduce him by any +comfortable means they saw fit, according to their humane way, fetch him +there in any guise but that of a living man, and the company would haul +him to Hades if they billed him to that destination. + +But not in his present shape and form; not as a living, swearing, +suit-threatening man. Take him to hell out of there, the conductor +ordered in rising temper. Don't insult him and his road by coming around +there to make them a part in their idle, life-wasting, time-gambling, +blasted to the seventh depth of Hades tricks. + +The baggage-man closed the door, the conductor gave the signal to pull +out, and the train departed, leaving Seth Craddock on the truck, the +rather shamed and dampened citizens standing around. They concluded they +would have to hang him, after all their trouble for a more romantic, +picturesque, and unusual exit. And hanging was such a common, ordinary +way of getting rid of a distasteful man that the pleasure was taken out +of their day. + +Judge Thayer was firmly against hanging. He ordered the undertaker to +open the box, which he did with fear and trembling, seeing in a future +hour the vengeance of Seth Craddock descending on his solemn head. +Craddock, sweat-drenched and weak from his rebellion and the heat of his +close quarters, sat up with scarcely a breath left in him for a curse. +Judge Thayer delivered him to Morgan, with instructions to lock him up. + +The city calaboose was an institution apart from the county jail. Due to +some past rivalry between the county and city officials, the palatial jail +was closed to offenders against the lowly and despised-by-the-sheriff +town ordinances. So, out of its need, the city had built this little +house with bars across the one small window, and a barred door formed of +wagon tires to close outside the one of wood. + +No great amount of business ever had been done in this calaboose, for +minor infractions of the law were not troubled with in that town. If +there ever was anybody left over from a shooting he usually went along +about his business or his pleasure until the coroner's jury assembled +and let him off. The last man confined in the calaboose had stolen a +bottle of whisky, a grave and reprehensible offense which set all the +town talking and speculating on the proper punishment. This poor bug had +made a fire of his hay bedding in the night, and perished as miserably +as everybody said he deserved. The charred boards in one corner still +attested to his well-merited end. + +Morgan was not at all confident of the retaining powers of the +calaboose, neither was he greatly concerned. He believed that if +Craddock could break out he would make a streak away from Ascalon, +hooked up at high speed, never to return. It was not in the nature of a +man humbled from a high place, mocked by the lowly, derided by those +whom he had oppressed, contemned by the false friends he had favored, to +come back on an errand of revenge. The job was too general in a case +like Craddock's. He would have to exterminate most of the town. + +They left him in the calaboose with whatever reflections were his. The +window was too high in the wall for anybody on the outside to see in, or +for Craddock, tall as he was, to see anything out of it but the sky. +Public interest had fallen away since he was neither to be shipped out +nor hanged, only locked up like a whisky thief. Only a few boys hung +around the calaboose, which stood apart in the center of at least half +an acre of ground, as if ashamed of its office in a community that used +it so seldom when it was needed so often. + +Morgan returned to the square for his horse, rather dissatisfied now +with the day's developments. It was going to be troublesome to have this +fellow on his hands. Judge Thayer should not have interfered with the +last decree of public justice. It would have been over with by now. + +Rhetta Thayer was in the door of the newspaper office. She came to the +edge of the sidewalk as Morgan approached, leading his horse. She did +not reflect the public satisfaction from her handsome face and troubled +eyes that Ascalon in general enjoyed over Craddock's humiliation. Morgan +wondered why. + +"I asked too much of you, Mr. Morgan," she said, coming at once to the +matter that clouded her honest eyes. + +"You couldn't ask too much of me," he returned, with no unction of +flattery, but the cheerfully frank expression of an ingenuous heart. + +"I didn't realize the disadvantage you would be under, I didn't know +what I expected of you when I urged you into this. Meeting that +desperate man with a rope instead of a gun!" + +"You didn't know I was going to meet him with a rope," he said. + +He stood before her, hat in hand, wholesomely honest in his homely +ruggedness, a flush of embarrassment tinging his face. The sun in his +short hair seemed laughing, picking out little flecks of gold as mica +flakes in the sea waves turn and flash. + +"You might have been killed! When I saw him throw his hand to his gun! +Oh! it was terrible!" + +"So you're the editor now?" he said, cheerfully, trying to turn her from +this disturbing subject. + +"My heart jumped clear out of my mouth when you threw your rope!" + +"It came over and helped me," he said, in manner sincere and grave. + +A little flame of color lifted in her pale cheek. She looked at the +dusty road, her hand pressed to her bosom as if to make certain that the +truant heart had come back to her like a dove to its cote out of the +storm. She looked up presently, and smiled a bit; looked down again, the +hot blood writing a confession in her face. + +"I hope it did," she said. + +Morgan felt himself in such a suffocation of strange delight he could +find no word that seemed the right word, and left it to silence, which, +perhaps was best. He looked at the road, also, as if he would search +with her there for grains of gold, or for lost hearts which leap out of +maidens' breasts, in the white dust marked by many feet. + +Together they looked up, faces white, breath faltering on dry lips. So +the fire leaps in a moment such as this and enwraps the soul. It is no +mystery, it is no process of long distillation. In a moment; so. + +"Here are his guns," said he, his voice trembling as if it strained in +leaping the subject that lay in its door to go back to the business of +the day. + +"His guns!" she repeated after him, shuddering at the thought. + +"Hang them over your desk--you might need them, now you're the editor." + +She accepted them from his hand, but dubiously, holding them far out +from contact with her dress as something unclean. Morgan reproached +himself for offering her these instruments which had sent so many men +to sudden, undefended death. He reached to relieve her hand. + +"Let me do it for you, Miss Thayer." + +"No," she denied him, putting down her qualm, clutching the heavy belt +firmly. "It is a notable trophy, a great distinction you're giving me, +Mr. Morgan. I'm afraid you'll think I'm a coward," smiling wanly as she +lifted her face. + +"You're not afraid to edit the paper. That seems to me the most +dangerous job in town." + +"Most dangerous job in town!" she reproved him, giving him to understand +very plainly that she could name one attended by greater perils. +"They've only killed _one_ editor, so far." + +"Can you shoot?" he asked, as seriously concerned as if the fate of +editors in Ascalon darkened over her already. + +"Everybody in this town can shoot," she sighed. "It's every boy's +ambition to own and carry a pistol, and most of them do." + +"I hope you'll never have to defend the independence of the press with +arms," he said, making a small pleasantry of it. "More than likely +they're gentlemen enough to let you say whatever you want to, and make +no kick." + +"The _Headlight_ is going to be an awful joke with Riley Caldwell and me +getting it out. But I'm not going to try to please anybody. That way I +may please them all." + +"It sounds like the sensible way. Have you edited before?" + +"I used to help Mr. Smith, the editor they killed. That was in the +summer vacation, just. I taught school the rest of the time." + +"You must have been the busiest person in town," he said, with pride in +her activities as if they had touched his own life long ago. + +"I'm a poor stick of an editor, I'm afraid, though--I seem to be all +mussed up with legal notices and this sudden flood of news. And I can't +set type worth a cent!" + +"Just let the news go," he suggested, not without concern for the part +he might bear in her chronicle of late events in Ascalon. + +"Let the news go!" She censured him with her softly chiding eyes. "I +wish I could write like Mr. Smith--I'd wake this town up! Poor man, his +coat is hanging in the office by the desk, so suggestive of him it makes +me cry. I haven't had the heart to take it away--it would seem like +expelling his spirit from the place. He was a slender, gentle little +man, more like a minister than an editor. It took an awful coward to +shoot him down that way." + +"You're right; I met him," Morgan said, remembering Dell Hutton among +the wagons, his smoking gun in his hand. + +"Sneaking little coward!" + +"Well, he'll hardly sling his gun down on you," Morgan reflected, as if +he communed with himself, yet thinking that Hutton scarcely would be +beyond even that. + +"Hardly," she replied, in abstraction. "What are you going to do with +that old brigand you've got locked in the calaboose?" + +"I expect we'll turn him loose in the morning. There doesn't seem to be +anything we can hold him for, guilty as he is." + +"If he'll leave, and never come back," doubtfully. "I'm glad now it +turned out the way it did, I'm so thankful you didn't have to--that you +came through _without blood on your hands_!" + +"It would have been a calamity the other way," he said. + +When Morgan went his way presently, leaving her in the door of the +little boxlike newspaper office, from where she gave him a parting +smile, it was with a revised opinion of the day's achievements. He felt +peculiarly exalted and satisfied. He had accomplished something, after +all. + +Whatever this was, he did not confess, but he smiled, and felt renewed +with a lifting gladness, as he went on to the livery barn, his horse at +his heels. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A BONDSMAN BREATHES EASIER + + +There was a little ripple, more of mirth than excitement or concern, in +Ascalon next morning when it became known that Seth Craddock had kicked +a hole in the burned corner of the calaboose and leaked out of it into +the night. + +Let him go; it was as well that way as any, they said, since it relieved +them at once of the charge of his keep and the trouble of disposing of +him in the end. He never would come back to that town, let him ravage in +other parts of the world as he might. What the town had lost in +notoriety by his going would be offset by the manner of his degradation, +already written at length by the local correspondent of the _Kansas City +Times_ and sent on to be printed with a display heading in a prominent +position in that paper and copied by other papers all over the land. + +Seth Craddock and his reign were behind the closed door of the past, +through which he was not likely to kick a hole and emerge again, after +his manner of going from the calaboose. That matter off the town's mind, +it ranged itself along the shady side of the street to watch the present +contest between the law and those who lived beyond it. + +Up to this point it appeared that the law was going to have it according +to its mandate. Peden made no attempt to open his place on the night +following Craddock's deposition, the lesser lights following his +virtuous example. + +But there was in this quiescent confidence, in this lull almost +threatening, something similar to the impertinent repression of an +incorrigible child who yields to authority immediately above him, +knowing that presently it will be overruled. Something was clouding up +to break over Ascalon; the sleepiest in the town was aware of that. + +How much more keenly, then, was this charged atmosphere sensed and +explored with the groping hand of trepidation by Rhetta Thayer, finely +tuned as a virtuoso's violin. She knew something was hatching in that +Satan's nest of iniquity that would result in an outbreak of defiance, +but what form it would take, and when, she could not determine, although +friends tried to sound for her the bottom of this pit. + +Morgan knew it; all the scheme was as plain to him as the line of +hitching racks around the square. They were waiting to gather force, +when they meant to rise up and crush him, fling wide their doors, invite +the outlawed of the world in, and proceed as in the past. All there was +to be done was wait the uncovering of their hands. + +Meantime, there was a breathing spell between, a spell of pleasant hours +in the little newspaper office, reading the exchanges, helping on the +arrangement of such news as the town and country about it yielded, and +having many a good laugh over their bungling of the job, himself and the +pretty, brown-eyed editor, that was better for their bodies and souls +than all the physic on Druggist Gray's shelves. And not one line +concerning Morgan's adventures appeared in the _Headlight_ during that +time. + +In this manner, Ascalon enjoyed as it might three days of peace out of +this summer solstice. The drouth was aggravating in its duration and +growing hardships. Many families in town were without water, and obliged +to carry it from the deep well in the public square. Numberless cattle +were being driven to the loading pens for shipment to market, weeks +ahead of their day of doom, unfattened, unfit. The range was becoming a +barren; disaster threatened over that land with a torch in its +blind-striking hand. + +On the evening of this third day, between sunset and twilight, Rhetta +Thayer stopped Morgan as he was passing the _Headlight_ office at the +beginning of his nightly patrol. She was disturbed by an agitation that +she could not conceal; her eyes stood wide as if some passing terror had +opened their windows. + +"He shot at you, and you didn't tell me!" she said, reproachfully, +facing him just inside the door. + +"Well, he isn't much of a shot," Morgan told her, cheerful assurance in +his words. "I can assure you I was at no time in any danger." + +"Oh! you didn't tell me!" she said, her voice little above a whisper on +her quick-coming breath. + +"It didn't amount to anything," Morgan discounted, wondering how she had +heard of it. "All that puzzled me was why the little rat did it--I never +stepped in front of him anywhere." + +"That woman in the tent--the rustler's wife--told me--she told me just +a little while ago. Oh! if he--if he'd have hit you!" + +"The kids all came running out of the tent--I thought he'd hit one of +them," Morgan said, humorously, thinking only to calm her great +agitation and quiet her friendly--if there could be no dearer +interest--concern. + +"It was Peden got him to do it," she declared. + +"Peden? Why should Hutton go out to do that fellow's gunning?" + +"Dell Hutton's gambling the county's money, he killed Mr. Smith because +he charged him with it! Pa knows it, pa's on his bond, and if he keeps +on losing the county funds there on Peden's game we'll have to make it +good. It will take everything we've got--if he keeps on." + +"That's bad, that's mighty bad," Morgan said, deeply concerned, +curiously awakened to the inner workings of things in Ascalon. "Still, I +don't see what connection I have in it, why he'd want to take a shot at +me on the quiet that way." + +"He shoots from behind, he shot Mr. Smith in the back, and it was at +night, besides. Don't you see how it was? Peden must have bribed him to +do it, promised to make good his losses, or something like that." + +"Plain as a wagon track," Morgan said. + +"I don't know why I ever got you into this tangle," she lamented, "I +don't know what made me so selfish and so blind." + +"It's just one more little complication in Ascalon's sickness," he +comforted her, "it doesn't amount to beans. The poor little fool was so +scared that morning he could hardly lift his gun. He'll never make +another break." + +"If I only thought he wouldn't! He's as treacherous as a snake, you +can't tell where he's sneaking to bite you. Give it up, Mr. Morgan, +won't you, please?" She turned to him suddenly, appealing with her eyes, +with her wistful lips, with every line of her sympathetic, anxious face. + +"Give it up?" he repeated, her meaning not quite clear. + +"The office, I mean. Surely, as I coaxed you into taking it, I've got a +right to ask you to give it up. You've done what you took the place to +do, you've got Craddock out of it and away from here. Your work's done, +you can quit now with a good conscience and no excuse to anybody." + +"Why," said Morgan, reflectively, "I don't believe I could quit right +now, Miss Rhetta. There's something more to come, it isn't quite +finished yet." + +"There's a great deal more to come, the end of all this fighting and +killing and grinning treachery never will come!" she said, in great +bitterness. "What's the use of one man putting his life against all this +viciousness? There's no cure for the curse of Ascalon but time. Let it +go, Mr. Morgan--I beg you to give it up." + +Morgan took the hand that she reached out to him in her appeal. The +great fervor of her earnest heart had drawn the blood away from it, +leaving it cold. He clasped it, tightly, to warm it in his big palm, and +spoke comfortingly, yet he would not, could not, tell her that he would +give over the office and leave the town to its devices. The work he had +begun on her account, at her appeal, was not finished. He wanted to give +her a peace that would make permanent the placidity of her eyes such as +had warmed his heart during those three days. But he could not tell her +that. + +"If it goes on," she said, sad that he would not yield to her appeal, +"you'll have to--you'll have to--do what the rest of them have done. And +I don't want you to do that, Mr. Morgan. I want you to keep clean." + +"As it must be, so it will be," he said. "But I don't see any reason why +I can't keep on the way I've started. There's nobody doing any shooting +here now." + +"They're only waiting," she said. + +"I'll have to watch them a little longer, then," he told her; "somebody +might shoot your windows out." + +He led her away from the subject of Ascalon's dangers and unrest, its +sinister ferment and silent threat, but she would come back to it in a +little while, and to Dell Hutton, who shot men in the back. + +"He's over there in the courthouse now--that's his office where you see +the light--trying to doctor up his books to hide his stealing, I know," +she declared. + +Morgan left her, his rifle in his hand, to go on his patrol of the town +according to his nightly program. As he tramped around the square, he +watched the light in the courthouse window, thinking of the account on +his own books against the old-faced young man who labored there alone to +hide his peculations for a little while longer. And so, watching and +considering, thinking and devising, the night came down over him, +guardian of the peace of Ascalon, where there was no peace. + +Rhetta Thayer, leaving the _Headlight_ office at nine o'clock, saw two +men come down the courthouse steps, shadowy and indistinct in the dusk +of starlight and early night. She paused on her way, wondering, and her +wonder and mystification grew when she saw them cut across the square in +the direction of Peden's dark and silent hall. One of them was Dell +Hutton. The other she had no need to name. + +When Dell Hutton, county treasurer, deposited three thousand dollars of +the county's funds in the bank next morning, a certain man who stood +surety on his bond wiped the sweat of vast relief from his forehead. And +when Rhetta heard of it, she smiled, and the incense of gratitude rose +out of her heart for the strong-handed man who had stopped this leak in +the slender finances of the county, a thing which he believed he was +holding secret in the simplicity of his honest soul. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE CURSE OF BLOOD + + +Sensitive as a barometer to every variation, every shading, in public +sentiment and sympathy, Morgan patroled the town nightly until the +streets were deserted. Night by night he felt, rather than saw, the +growing insolence of the pale feeders on the profits of vice, the +confidence in some approaching triumph gleaming in their furtive eyes. + +None of the principals, few of the attendant vultures, had left Ascalon. +The sheriff had returned from his excursion after cattle thieves, and, +contrary to the expectation of anybody, had brought one lean and hungry, +hound-faced man with him and locked him up in jail. + +But the sheriff was taking no part in the new city marshal's campaign in +the town, certainly not to help him. If he worked against him in the way +his fat, big-jowled face proclaimed that it was his habit to work, no +evidence of it was in his manner when he met Morgan. He was a friendly, +puffy-handed man, loud in his hail and farewell to the riders who came +in from the far-off cow camps to see for themselves this wide-heralded +reformation of the godless town of Ascalon. + +These visitors, lately food for the mills of the place, walked about as +curiously as fowls liberated in a strange yard after long confinement in +a coop. They looked with uncomprehending eyes on the closed doors of +Peden's famous temple of excesses; they turned respectful eyes on Morgan +as he passed them in his silent, determined rounds. And presently, after +meeting the white-shirted, coatless dealers, lookout men, _macquereaux_, +they began to have a knowing look, an air of expectant hilarity. After a +little they usually mounted and rode away, laughing among themselves +like men who carried cheerful tidings to sow upon the way. + +In that manner Ascalon remained closed five nights, nobody contesting +the authority of the new marshal, not a shot fired in the streets. On +the afternoon of the sixth day an unusual tide of visitors began to set +in to this railroad port of Ascalon. By sundown the hitching rack around +the square was packed with horses; Dora Conboy told Morgan she never had +waited on so many people before in her hotel experience. + +At dusk Morgan brought his horse from the livery stable, mounted with +his rifle under the crook of his knee. At nine o'clock Peden threw open +his doors, the small luminaries which led a dim existence in his +effulgence following suit, all according to their preconcerted plan. + +There was a shout and a break of wild laughter, a scramble for the long +bar with its five attendants working with both hands; a scrape of +fiddles and a squall of brass; a squeaking of painted and bedizened +drabs, who capered and frisked like mice after their long inactivity. +And on the inflow of custom and the uprising of jubilant mirth, Peden +turned his quick, crafty eyes as he stood at the head of the bar to +welcome back to his doors this golden stream. + +Close within Peden's wide door, one on either hand, two vigilant +strangers stood, each belted with two revolvers, each keeping a hand +near his weapons. One of these was a small, thin-faced white rat of a +man; the other tall, lean, leathery; burned by sun, roughened by +weather. A shoot from the tree that produced Seth Craddock he might have +been, solemn like him, and grim. + +Dell Hutton, county treasurer, cigar planted so far to one corner of his +wide thin mouth that wrinkles gathered about it like the leathery folds +of an old man's skin, came to Peden where he stood at the bar. + +"All's set for him," he said, drawing his eyes small as he peered around +through the fast-thickening smoke. + +"Let him come!" said Peden, watching the door with expectant, vindictive +eyes. + +The news of Peden's defiance swept over the town like a taint on the +wind. Not only that Peden had opened his doors to the long-thirsting +crowd gathered by the advertised news of a big show for that night, but +that he had posted two imported gun-fighters inside his hall with +instructions to shoot the city marshal if he attempted to interfere. +With the spread of this news men began to gather in front of Peden's to +see what the city marshal was going to do, how he would accept this +defiance, if he meant to accept it, and what the result to him would be. + +Judge Thayer came down to the square without his alpaca coat, his +perturbation was so great, looking for Morgan, talking of swearing in a +large number of deputies to uphold the law. + +This was received coldly by the men of Ascalon. Upholding the law was +the city marshal's business, they said. If he couldn't do it alone, let +the law drag; let it fall underfoot, where it seemed the best place for +it in that town, anyhow. So Judge Thayer went on, looking around the +square for Morgan, not finding him, nor anybody who had seen him within +the last half hour. + +Rhetta was working late in the _Headlight_ office, preparing for the +weekly issue of the paper. This disquieting news had come in at her door +like the wave of a flood. She had no thought of work from that moment, +only to stand at the door listening for the dreaded sound of shooting +from the direction of Peden's hall. + +Judge Thayer found her standing in the door when he completed his search +around the square, his heart falling lower at every step. + +"He's gone! Morgan's deserted us!" he said. + +"Gone!" she repeated in high scorn. "He'll be the last to go." + +"I can't find him anywhere--I've hunted all over town. Nobody has seen +him. I tell you, Rhetta, he's gone." + +"I wish to heaven he would go! What right have we got to ask him to give +his life to stop the mean, miserable squabbles of this suburb of hell!" + +"I think you'd better run along home now--Riley will go with you. Why, +child, you're cold!" + +He drew her into the office, urging her to put on her bonnet and go. + +"I'll stay here and see it out," she said. "Oh, if he would go, if he +would go! But he'll never go." + +She threw herself into the chair beside her littered desk, hands +clenched, face white as if she bore a mortal pain, only to leap up again +in a moment, run to the door, and listen as if she sought a voice out of +the riotous sound. + +Judge Thayer had none of this poignant concern for Morgan's welfare. He +was not a little nettled over his failure to find the marshal, and that +officer's apparent shunning of duty in face of this mocking challenge to +his authority. + +"Why, Rhetta, you wanted him to take the office, you urged him to," he +reminded her. "I don't understand this sudden concern for the man's +safety in disregard of his oath and duty, this--this--unaccountable----" + +"I didn't know him then--I didn't _know_ him!" she said, in piteous low +moan. + +Judge Thayer looked at her with a sudden sharp turning of the head, as +if her words had expressed something beyond their apparent meaning. He +came slowly to the door, where he stood beside her a little while in +silence, hand upon her shoulder tenderly. + +"I'll look around again," he said, "and come back in a little while." + +Meanwhile, in Peden's place the celebrants at the altar of alcohol were +rejoicing in this triumph of personal liberty. Where was this man-eating +city marshal? What had become of that knock-kneed horse wrangler from +Bitter Creek they had heard so much about? They drank fiery toasts to +his confusion, they challenged him in the profane emphasis of scorn. +Upon what was his fame based? they wanted to be told. The mere +corraling of certain stupid drunk men; the lucky throw of a rope. _He_ +never had killed a man! + +With the mounting of their hastily swilled liquor the hilarious patrons +of Peden's hall became more contemptuous of the city marshal. His +apparent avoidance of trouble, his unaccountable absence, his failure to +step up and meet this challenge from Peden, became a grievance against +him in their inflamed heads. + +They had counted on him to make some kind of a bluff, to add something +either of tragedy or comedy to this big show. Now he was hiding out, and +they resented it in the proper spirit of men deprived of their rights. +They began to talk of going out to find him, of dragging him from his +hole and starting a noise behind him that would scare him out of the +country. + +Peden encouraged this growing notion. If Morgan wouldn't bring his show +there, go after him and make him stand on his hind legs like a dog. +After a few more drinks, after a dance, after another stake on the +all-devouring tables of chance. They turned to these diversions in the +zest of long abstinence, in the redundant vitality of youth, mocking all +restraint, insolent of any reckoning of circumstance or time. + +Peden distended with satisfaction to see the free spending, the free +flinging of money into his games. A little virtuous recess seemed to be +profitable; it was like giving a horse a rest. His two guards waited at +the door, his lookout at the faro table swept the hall from his high +chair with eyes keen to mark any hostile invasion. Morgan never could +come six feet inside his door. + +Well satisfied with himself and the beginning of that night's business, +exceedingly comfortable in the thought that this defiance of the law +would bring a newer and wider notoriety to himself and the town of which +he was the spirit, Peden sauntered among the boisterous merrymakers on +his floor. + +Dancers were worming and shuffling in close embrace, couples breaking +out of the whirl now and then to rush to the bar; players stood deep +around the tables; men reached over each other's shoulders to take their +drinks from the bar. All was haste and hilarity, all a crowding of +pleasure with hard-pursuing feet, a snatching at the elusive thing with +rough boisterous hands, with loud laughter, with wild yells. + +Pleasure, indeed, seemed on the flight before these coarse revelers, who +pursued it blindfold down the steeps of destruction unaware. + +Peden shouldered his way through the throng toward the farther end of +the long bar, nodding here with a friendly smile, stopping now and then +to shake hands with some specially favored patron, throwing commands +among his female entertainers from his cold, hard, soulless eyes as he +passed along. + +And in that sociable progression down his thronging hall, ten feet from +the farther end of his famous bar, Peden came face to face with Morgan, +as grim as judgment among the crowd of wastrels and women of poisoned +lips, who fell back in breathless silence to let him pass. + +Morgan was carrying his rifle; his pistol hung at his side. The big +shield of office once worn by Seth Craddock was pinned on the pocket of +his shirt; his broad-brimmed hat threw a shadow over his stern face. + +Peden stopped with a little start of withdrawal at sight of Morgan, +surprised out of his poise, chilled, perhaps, at the thought of the long +pistol shot between this unexpected visitor and the hired killers at his +front door, the way between them blocked by a hundred revelers. + +So, this was the cunning of this range wolf, to come in at his back door +and fall upon him in surprise! Peden's resentment rose in that second of +reflection with the dull fire that spread in his dark face. He flung his +hand to his revolver, throwing aside the skirt of his long coat. + +"Let your gun stay where it is," Morgan quietly advised him. "Get these +people out of here, and close this place." + +"Show me your authority!" Peden demanded, scouting for a moment of +precious time. + +The musicians in the little orchestra pit behind Morgan ceased playing +on a broken note, the shuffle of dancing feet stopped short. Up the long +bar the loud hilarity quieted; across the hall the clash of pool balls +cut sharply into the sudden stillness. As quickly as wind makes a rift +in smoke the revelers fell away from Morgan and Peden, leaving a fairway +for the shooting they expected to begin at the door. Peden stood as he +had stopped, hand upon his gun. + +Morgan stepped up to him in one long, quick stride, rifle muzzle close +against Peden's broad white shirt front. In that second of hesitant +delay, that breath of portentous bluff, Morgan had read Peden to the +roots. A man who had it in him to shoot did not stop at anybody's word +when he was that far along the way. + +"Clear this place and lock it up!" Morgan repeated. + +The temperature of the crowded hall seemed to fall forty degrees in the +second or two Morgan stood pushing his rifle against Peden's breastbone. +Those who had talked with loud boasts, picturesque threats, high-pitched +laughter, of going out to find this man but a little while before, were +silent now and cold around the gills as fish. + +Morgan was watching the two men at the front door while he held Peden up +those few seconds. He knew there was no use in disarming Peden, to turn +him loose where he could get fifty guns in the next two seconds if he +wanted them. He believed, in truth, there was not much to fear from this +fellow, who depended on his hired retainers to do his killing for him. +So, when Peden, watching Morgan calculatively, shifted a little to get +himself out of line so he would not stand a barrier between his +gun-slingers and their target and longer block the opening of operations +to clear the hall of this upstart, Morgan let him go. Then, with a +sudden bound, Peden leaped across into the crowd. + +A moment of strained waiting, quiet as the empty night, Morgan standing +out a fair target for any man who had the nerve to pull a gun. Then a +stampede in more of sudden fear than caution by those lined up along +the bar, and the two hired killers at the front of the house began to +shoot. + +Morgan pitched back on his heels as if mortally hit, staggered, thrust +one foot out to stay his fall. He stood bracing himself in that manner +with out-thrust foot, shooting from the hip. + +Three shots he fired, the roar of his rifle loud above the lighter sound +of the revolvers. With the third shot Morgan raised his gun. In the +smoke that was settling to the floor the taller of the gunmen lay +stretched upon his face. The other, arms rigidly at his sides, held a +little way from his body, head drooping to his chest, turned dizzily two +or three times, spinning swiftly in his dance of death, gave at the +knees, settled down gently in a strange, huddled heap. + +Dead. Both of them dead. The work of one swift moment when the blood +curse fell on this new, quick-handed marshal of Ascalon. + +There was a choking scream, and a woman's cry. "Look out! look out!" + +Peden, on the fringe of a crowd of shrinking, great-eyed women, ghastly +in the painted mockery of their fear, fired as Morgan turned. Morgan +blessed the poor creature who was woman enough in her debauched heart to +cry out that warning, as the breath of Peden's bullet brushed his face. +Morgan could not defend himself against this assault, for the coward +stood with one shoulder still in the huddling knot of women, and fired +again. Morgan dropped to the floor, prone on his face as the dead man +behind him. + +Peden came one cautious step from his shelter, leaning far over to see, +a smile of triumph baring his gleaming teeth; another step, while the +crowd broke the stifling quiet with shifted feet. Morgan, quick as a +serpent strikes, raised to his elbow and fired. + +Morgan had one clear look at Peden's face as he threw his arms high and +fell. Surprise, which death, swift in its coming had not yet overtaken, +bulged out of his eyes. Surprise: no other emotion expressed in that +last look upon this life. And Peden lay dead upon his own floor, his hat +fallen aside, his arms stretched far beyond his head, his white cuffs +pulled out from his black coat sleeves, as if he appealed for the mercy +that was not ever for man or woman in his own cold heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +UNCLEAN + + +Earl Gray came down the street hatless, the big news on his tongue. +Rhetta Thayer, in the door of the _Headlight_ office, where she had +stood in the pain of one crucified while the shots sounded in Peden's +hall, stopped him with a gasped appeal. + +Dead. Peden and the gun-slingers he had brought there to kill Morgan; +any number of others who had mixed in the fight; Morgan himself--all +dead, the floor covered with the dead. That was the terrible word that +rolled from Gray's excited tongue. And when she heard it, Rhetta put out +her hands as one blind, held to the door frame a moment while the blood +seemed to drain out of her heart, staring with horrified eyes into the +face of the inconsequential man who had come in such avid eagerness to +tell this awful tale. + +People were hastening by in the direction of Peden's, scattered at +first, like the beginning of a retreat, coming then by twos and threes, +presently overflowing the sidewalk, running in the street. Rhetta stood +staring, half insensible, on this outpouring. Riley Caldwell, the young +printer, rushed past her out of the shop, his roached hair like an +Algonquin's standing high above his narrow forehead, his face white as +if washed by death. + +Impelled by a desire that was commanding as it was terrifying, moved by +a hope that was only a shred of a raveled dream, Rhetta joined the +moving tide that set toward Peden's door. Dead--Morgan was dead! Because +she had asked him, he had set his hand to this bloody task. She had sent +him to his death in her selfish desire for security, in her shrinking +cowardice, in her fear of riot and blood. And he was dead, the light was +gone out of his eyes, his youth and hope were sacrificed in a cause that +would bring neither glory nor gratitude to illuminate his memory. + +She began to run, out in the dusty street where he had marched his +patrol that first night of his bringing peace to Ascalon; to run, her +feet numb, her body numb, only her heart sentient, it seemed, and that +yearning out to him in a great pain of pity and stifling labor of +remorse. It was only a little way, but it seemed heavy and long, impeded +by feet that could not keep pace with her anguish, swift-running to +whisper a tender word. + +The lights were bright in Peden's hall, a great crowd leaned and +strained and pushed around its door. There were some who asked her +kindly to go away, others who appealed earnestly against her looking +into the place, as Rhetta pushed her way, panting like an exhausted +swimmer, through the crowd. + +Nothing would turn her; appeals were dim as cries in drowning ears. +Gaining the door, she paused a moment, hands pressed to her cheeks, hair +fallen in disorder. Her eyes were big with the horror of her thoughts; +she was breathless as one cast by breakers upon the sand. She looked in +through the open door. + +Morgan was standing like a soldier a little way inside the door, his +rifle carried at port arms, denying by the very sternness of his pose +the passage of any foot across that threshold of tragedy. There was +nothing in his bearing of a wounded man. Beyond him a few feet lay the +bodies of the two infamous guards who had been posted at the door to +take his life; along the glistening bar, near its farther end, Peden +stretched with face to the floor, his appealing hands outreaching. + +A gambling table had been upset, chairs strewn in disorder about the +floor, when the rabble was cleared out of the place. Only Morgan +remained there with the dead men, like a lone tragedian whose part was +not yet done. + +Rhetta looked for one terrifying moment on that scene, its tragic detail +impressed on her senses as a revelation of lightning leaps out of the +blackest night to be remembered for its surrounding terror. And in that +moment Morgan saw her face; the horror, the revulsion, the sickness of +her shocked soul. A moment, a glance, and she was gone. He was alone +amidst the blood that the curse of Ascalon had led his hand to pour out +in such prodigality in that profaned place. + +Long after the fearful waste of battle had been cleared from Peden's +floor, and the lights of that hall were put out; long after the most +wakeful householder of Ascalon had sought his bed, and the last horseman +had gone from its hushed streets, Morgan walked in the moonlight, +keeping vigil with his soul. The curse of blood had descended upon him, +and she whose name he could speak only in his heart, had come to look +upon his infamy and flee from before his face. + +Time had saved him for this excruciating hour; all his poor adventures, +slow striving, progression upward, had been designed to culminate in the +mockery of this night. Fate had shaped him to his bitter ending, drawing +him on with lure as bright as sunrise. And now, as he walked slowly in +the moonlight, feet encumbered by this tragedy, he felt that the essence +had been wrung out of life. His golden building was come to confusion, +his silver hope would ring its sweet chime in his heart no more. From +that hour she would abhor him, and shrink from his polluted hand. + +He resented the subtle indrawing of circumstance that had thrust him in +the way of this revolting thing, that had thrust upon him this infamous +office that carried with it the inexorable curse of blood. Softly, +against the counsel of his own reason, he had been drawn. She who had +stared in horror on the wreckage of that night had inveigled him with +gentle word, with appeal of pleading eye. + +This resentment was sharpened by the full understanding of his +justification, both in law and in morals, for the slaying of these +desperate men. Duty that none but a coward and traitor to his oath would +have shunned, had impelled him to that deed. Defense of his life was a +justification that none could deny him. But she had denied him that. She +had fled from the lifting of his face as from a thing unspeakably +unclean. + +He could not chide her for it, nor arraign her with one bitter thought. +She had hoped it would be otherwise; her last word had been on her best +hope for him in a place where such hope could have no fruition--that he +would pass untainted by the bloody curse that fell on men in this place. +It could not be. + +Because he had taken Seth Craddock's pistol away from him on that first +day, she had believed him capable of the superhuman task of enforcing +order in Ascalon without bloodshed. Sincere as she had been in her +desire to have him assume the duties of peace officer, she had acted +unconsciously as a lure to entangle him to his undoing. + +Very well; he would clean up the town for her as she had looked to him +to do, sweep it clear of the last iniquitous gun-slinger, the last +slinking gambler, the last drab. He would turn it over to her clean, +safe for her day or night, no element in it to disturb her repose. At +what further cost of life he must do this, he could not then foresee, +but he resolved that it should be done. Then he would go his way, +leaving his new hopes behind him with his old. + +Although it was a melancholy resolution, owing to its closing provision, +it brought him the quiet that a perturbed mind often enjoys after the +formation of a definite plan, no matter for its desperation. Morgan went +to the hotel, where Tom Conboy was still on duty smoking his cob pipe in +a chair tilted back against a post of his portico. + +"Well, the light's out up at Peden's," said Conboy, feeling a new and +vast respect for this man who had proved his luck to the satisfaction of +all beholders in Ascalon that night. + +"Yes," said Morgan, wearily, pausing at the door. + +"They'll never be lit again in this man's town," Conboy went on, "and +I'm one that's glad to see 'em go. Some of these fellers around town was +sayin' tonight that Ascalon will be dead in the shell inside of three +weeks, but I can't see it that way. Settlers'll begin to come now, that +hall of Peden's'll make a good implement store, plenty of room for +thrashin' machines and harvesters. I may have to put up my rates a +little to make up for loss in business till things brighten up, but I'd +have to do it in time, anyhow." + +"Yes," said Morgan, as listlessly as before. + +"They say you made a stand with that gun of yours tonight that beat +anything a man ever saw--three of 'em down quicker than you could strike +a match! I heard one feller say--man! look at that badge of yours!" + +Conboy got up, gaping in amazement. Morgan had stepped into the light +that fell through the open door, passing on his way to bed. The metal +shield that proclaimed his office was cupped as if it had been held +edgewise on an anvil and struck with a hammer. Morgan hastily detached +the badge and put it in his pocket, plainly displeased by the discovery +Conboy had made. + +"Bullet hit it, square in the center!" Conboy said. "It was square over +your heart!" + +"Keep it under your hat!" Morgan warned, speaking crossly, glowering +darkly on Conboy as he passed. + +"No niggers in Ireland," said Conboy, knowingly; "no-o-o niggers in +Ireland!" + +Morgan regretted his oversight in leaving the badge in place. He had +intended to remove it, long before. As he went up the complaining stairs +he pressed his hand to the sore spot over his heart where the bullet +almost had driven the badge into his flesh. Pretty sore, but not as sore +as it was deeper within his breast from another wound, not as sore as +that other hurt would be tomorrow, and the heavy years to come. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +AS ONE THAT IS DEAD + + +"I feel like I share his guilt," said Rhetta, voice sad as if she had +suffered an irreparable loss. + +"He's not guilty," said Violet, stoutly, standing in his defense. + +Rhetta had fled from Ascalon that morning, following the terrible night +of Morgan's sanguinary baptism. Racked by an agony of mingled remorse +for her part in this tragedy and the loss of some valued thing which she +would not bring her heart to acknowledge, only moan over and weep, and +bend her head to her pillow through that fevered night, she had taken +horse at sunrise and ridden to Stilwell's ranch, for the comfort of +Violet, whose sympathy was like balm to a bruise. Rhetta had come +through the night strained almost to breaking. All day she had hidden +like one crushed and shamed, in Stilwell's house, pouring out to Violet +the misery of her soul. + +Now, at night, she was calmer, the haunting terror of the scene which +rose up before her eyes was drawing off, like some frightful thing that +had stood a menace to her life. But she felt that it never would dim +entirely from her recollection, that it must endure, a hideous picture, +to sadden her days until the end. + +The two girls had gone to the river, where the moonlight softened the +desert-like scene of barren bars, and twinkled in the ripples of shallow +water which still ran over against the farther shore. They were sitting +near the spot where Morgan had laved his bruised feet in the river not +many nights past. A whippoorwill was calling in the tangle of +cottonwoods and grapevines that grew cool and dark on a little island +below them, its plaint as sad as the mourner's own stricken heart. + +"I begged him to give up the office and let things go," said Rhetta, +pleading to mitigate her own blame, against whom no blame was laid. + +"You'd have despised him for it if he had," said Violet. + +"But he wouldn't do it, and now this has happened, and he's a man-killer +like the rest of them. Oh it's terrible to think about!" + +"Not like the rest of them," Violet corrected, in her firm, gentle way. +"He had to stand up like a man for what he was sworn to do, or run like +a dog. Mr. Morgan wouldn't run. Right or wrong, he wouldn't run from any +man!" + +"No," said Rhetta, sadly, "he wouldn't run." + +"You talk like you wanted him to!" + +"I don't think I would," said Rhetta. + +"Then what _do_ you expect of a man?" impatiently. "If he stands up and +fights he's either got to kill or be killed." + +"Don't--don't, Violet! It seems like killing is all I hear--the sound of +those guns--I hear them all the time, I can't get them out of my ears!" + +"Suppose," said Violet, looking off across the runlet sparkling, +gurgling like an infant across the bar, "it was him you saw when you +looked in there, instead of the others. You'd have been satisfied then, +I suppose?" + +"Violet! how can you say such awful things!" + +"Well, somebody had to be killed. Do you suppose Mr. Morgan killed them +just for fun?" + +"They say, they were talking all over town that night--last night--and +saying the same thing this morning, that he didn't give them a show, +that he just turned his rifle on them and killed them before he knew +whether they were going to shoot or not!" + +"Well, they lie," said Violet, with the calmness of conviction. + +"I suppose he had a right to do what he did, but he doesn't seem like +the same man to me now. I feel like I'd lost something--some friendship +that I valued, I mean, Violet--you know what I mean." + +"I know as well as anything," said Violet, smiling to herself, head +turned away, the moonlight on her good, kind face. + +"I feel like somebody had died, and that he--they--that he----" + +"And you ought to be thankful it isn't so!" said Violet, sharply, "but I +don't believe you are." + +"I never want to see him again, I'll always think of him standing there +with that terrible gun in his hands, those dead men around him on the +floor!" + +"You may have to go to him on your knees yet, and I hope to God you will +Rhetta Thayer!" Violet said. + +"If you'd seen somebody--somebody that you--that was--if you'd seen him +like I saw him, you wouldn't blame me so," Rhetta defended, beginning +again to cry, and bend her head upon her hands and moan like a mother +who had lost a child. + +Violet was moved out of her harshness at once. She put her arm around +the weeping girl, whose sorrow was too genuine to admit a doubt of its +great depth, and consoled her with soft words. + +"And he looked so big to me, and he was so _clean_, before that," Rhetta +wailed. + +"He's bigger than ever, he's as blameless as a lamb," said Violet. +"After a little while you'll see it different, he'll be the same to +you." + +"I couldn't touch his hand!" said Rhetta, shuddering at the thought. + +"Never mind," said Violet, soothingly; "never mind." + +Violet said no more, but took Rhetta by the hand, and it was wet with +tears from her streaming cheeks. There was peace in the night around +them, for all the turmoil there might be in human hearts, for night had +eased the throbbing, drouth-cursed earth of its burning, and called the +trumpeters of the greenery out along the riverside. + +"I'm afraid he'll come," said Rhetta by and by. + +"Why should he come?" asked Violet, stroking back the other's hair. + +"He's got one of your horses--I'm afraid he'll come to bring it home." + +"You only hope he will," said Violet, in her assured, calm way. + +"Violet!" But there was not so much chiding in the word as a cry of +pain, a confession of despair. He would not come; and she knew he would +not come. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +WHINERS AT THE FUNERAL + + +Joe Lynch, the bone man, stopped at the well in the public square to +pour water on his wagon tires. A man was pestered clean out of his +senses by his tires coming off, his felloes shrinking up like a fried +bacon rind in that dry weather, Joe said. It beat his time, that drouth. +He had been through some hot and dry spells in the Arkansaw Valley, but +never one as dry and hot as this. + +He told Morgan this as he poured water slowly on his wheels to swell the +wood and tighten the tires, there at the town well in the mid-morning of +that summer day. It was so hot already, the ceaseless day wind blowing +as if it trailed across a fire, that one felt shivers of heat go over +the skin; so hot that the heat was bitter to the taste, and shade was +only an aggravation. + +This was almost a week after Morgan's forceful assertion of the law's +supremacy in Ascalon, when Peden and his assassins fell in their +insolence. It seemed that day as if Ascalon itself had fallen with +Peden, and the blood of life had drained out of its body. There was a +quietude over it that seemed the peace of death. + +"I never thought, the day I hauled you into this town," said Joe, his +high rasping voice harmonizing well with his surroundings, like a +katydid on a dead limb, "you'd be the man to put the kibosh on 'em and +close 'em up like you done. I never saw the bottom drop out of no place +as quick as it's fell out of this town, and I've saw a good many go up +in my day. The last of them gamblers pulled out a couple of days ago, I +hauled his trunk over to the depot. He went a cussin', and he pulled the +hole in after him, I guess, on all the high-kickin' this town'll ever +do. Well, I ain't a carin'; I've been waitin' my time." + +"You were wiser than some of them, you knew it would come," Morgan said, +glad to meet this bone-gathering philosopher in the desert he had made +of Ascalon, and stand talking with him, foot on his hub in friendly way. + +"Not so much bones," said Joe reflectively, as if he had weighed the +possibilities long ago and now found them coming out according to +calculation, "as bottles. Thousands of bottles, every boy in this town's +out a pickin' up bottles for me. I reckon I'll have a couple of carloads +of nothing but bottles. Oh-h-h, they'll be _some_ bones, but the +skeleton of this town is bottles. That's why I tell 'em it never will +pick up no more. You've got to build a town on something solider'n a +bottle if you want it to stand up." + +"I believe you," Morgan said. + +"You've worked yourself out of a job. They won't no more need a marshal +here'n they will a fish net." + +Morgan shook his head, got out his pipe, struck a match on the bleached +forehead of a buffalo skull in Joe's wagon. + +"No. I'm leaving town in a week or two--when I make sure it _is_ dead, +that they'll never come back and start the games again." + +"They never will," said Joe, shaking a positive head. "Peden was the +guts of this town; it can't never be what it was without him. So you're +goin' to leave the country, air you?" + +"Yes." + +"Give up that fool notion you had about raising wheat out here on this +pe-rairie, heh?" + +"Gave it up," Morgan replied, nodding in his solemn, expressive way. + +"Well, you got _some_ sense hammered into you, anyhow. I told you right +at the jump, any man that thought he could farm in this here country +should be bored for the simples. Look at that range, look at them cattle +that's droppin' dead of starvation and want of water all over it. Look +at them cattlemen shippin' out thousands of head that ain't ready for +market all along this railroad every day. This range'll be as bare of +stock by fall, I tell you, as the pa'm of my hand's bare of hairs. +Bones? I'll have more bones to pick up than ever was in this country +before. Ascalon ain't all that's dead--the whole range's gone up. +This'll clean 'em all out. It's the hottest summer and the longest dry +spell that ever was." + +"It couldn't be much worse." + +"Worse!" Joe looked up from his pouring in his reprovingly surprised +way, stopping his dribbling stream on the wagon wheel. "You hang around +here a month longer and see what worse is! I'm goin' to begin pickin' up +bones over on Stilwell's range in about a week; I'm givin' them wolves +and buzzards time to clean 'em up a little better. About then you'll see +the cattlemen begin to fight for range along the river where their +stock can eat the leaves off of the bushes and find a bunch of bluestem +once in a while that ain't frizzled and burnt up. You'll begin to see +the wolf side to some of these fellers in this country then." + +Joe rumbled on to the car that he was loading, his tires being tight +enough to hold him that far. Morgan sauntered down the shady side of the +street, meeting few, getting what ease he could out of life with his +pipe. He had put off his cowboy dress only that morning, feeling it out +of place in the uneventful quiet of the town. He had not carried his +rifle since the night of his battle in Peden's hall. Today he was +beginning to consider leaving off his revolver. A pocketknife for +whittling would be about all the armament a man would need in Ascalon +from that time forward. + +Earl Gray was leaning on one long leg in the door of his drug-store, oil +on his fluffy brown hair. He was melancholy and downcast, plainly +resentful in his bearing toward Morgan as the contriver of this business +stagnation. He swept his hand around the emptiness of the town as Morgan +drew near, giving voice to his contemplation. + +"Look at it--not a dime been spent around this square this morning! I +ain't sold but one box of pills in two days! If it wasn't for the little +trade in t'backer and cigars of a night when the cowboys come in, I'd +have to lock up and leave. I will anyhow--I can see it a-comin'." + +Morgan leaned against the building close by the door, the indolence of +the day over him. There was nothing to do but hear the dying town's +complaint. He was not a doctor; he had nothing to prescribe. He realized +that the merchants had been hit hard by this sudden paralysis. It would +not have been so much like disaster if the town had been left to die in +its own way, as time and change would have attended to more slowly. + +Morgan could not tell Druggist Gray, whose trade in pills had come to a +standstill; he could not tell the hardware merchant, whose traffic in +firearms and ammunition had fallen away; he could not explain to the +proprietor of the Santa Fé café, or any of the other merchants of the +town who had come to regret their one spasm of virtue, induced by fear, +that he had not considered either their prosperity or their loss when he +closed up the saloons and gambling-houses and drove the proscribed of +the law away. They were squealing now, exactly as he had known they +would squeal in spite of their assurance before the event. Let them +squeal, let them stagnate, let dust settle on their wares that no man +came to buy. + +For the security of somebody's sleep, for the tranquillity of somebody's +dreams; for the peace of two brown eyes, for the safety of a short +little white hand, strong and comforting just to see--for these, for +these alone, he had closed up the riotous places and swept away like a +purging fire the chaff and pestilence of Ascalon. He could not tell them +this. Even her he could not tell. + +Earl Gray, giving off perfume to the hot winds, was pursuing his +complaint. + +"The undertaker's packin' up to leave, goin' to ship his stock today. I +wish I could go with him, but a man's got to have a place to light +before he starts out with a drug stock." + +"I don't suppose anybody's sorry to see him go," Morgan said. "I think +it's a good sign." + +"They'll bury each other, as I told him, and they'll drug each other +with mullein tea, as I told him the other day," Gray said, +acrimoniously. "Yes, and they'll be eatin' each other before spring! I'd +like to know what they're goin' to live on, the few that's left in this +town--a little cow-punchin', a little clerkin' in the courthouse and +gittin' jury and witness fees. That won't keep no town alive." + +"Judge Thayer's got a big colonization project going that looks good, he +says. If he puts it through things will begin to pick up." + +"Them Mennonites, I guess. They ain't the kind of people a man wants to +see come in here--whiskers all over 'em, never sell 'em a cake of +shavin' soap or a razor from Christmas to doomsday. Them fellers don't +shave, they never shave; they grow up from the cradle with whiskers all +over 'em." + +"They'll need horse liniment, and stuff like that." + +"There might be a livin' here for a drug-store if settlers begun to come +in," Gray admitted, picking up a little hope. "They say this sod gives +off fevers and chills when it's broke up. Something poison in it." + +Tom Conboy was on the sidewalk before his door, casting his eyes up and +down the street as if on the lookout for somebody that owed him a bill. +He was in bed when Morgan left the hotel on his early round, and there +was a look about him still of fustiness and the cobwebs of sleep. + +"If a man was to take a sack of meal and empty it, and spread the sack +down flat, he'd have something like this man's town's got to be," Conboy +complained. "Dead, not a breath left in it. I saw a couple of buzzards +sailin' around over the square a while ago. I've been lookin' to see +them light on the courthouse tower." + +"It is a little quiet, but they all say it will begin to pick up in a +day or two," Morgan prevaricated, with a view to reeling him out, having +no other diversion. + +"I don't know what it's goin' to pick up on," Conboy sighed. "Two for +breakfast outside of the regulars. I used to have twenty to thirty-five +up to a week ago." + +"Court will convene next month," Morgan reminded him by way of cheer. + +"It'll bring a few," Conboy allowed, "not many, and all of them big +eaters. You don't make anything off of a man that rides thirty or forty +miles before breakfast when you sit him down to a twenty-five cent +meal." + +Morgan said he was not a hotel man, but it seemed pretty plain even to +him that there could be no wide border of profit in any such +transaction. + +"No, it was those night-working men, dealers, bartenders, and that +crowd, that were the light and profitable eaters. A man that drinks +heavy all night don't get up with a thirty-mile appetite in him next +day. Well, they're gone; they'll never come back to this man's town." + +"You were one of the men that wanted the town cleaned up." + +"No niggers in Ireland, now, Morgan--no-o-o niggers in Ireland!" + +Conboy made a warning of his peculiar expression, as if he halted Morgan +on ground that was dangerous to advance over as far as another word. It +was impressive, almost threatening, given in his deep voice, with grave +eye and face suddenly stern, but Morgan knew that it was all on the +outside. + +"Cowboys don't any more than hit the ground here till they hop on their +horses and leave," Conboy continued. "Nothing to entertain them, no +interest for a live man in a dead town, where the only drink he can get +is out of the well. There was just three horses tied along the square +last night, where there used to be fifty or a hundred. I'll have to +leave this man's town; I can't stand the pressure." + +"A man with a little nerve ought to swallow his present losses for his +future gains," Morgan said, beginning to grow tired of this whining. + +"If I could see any future gains comin' my way I'd gamble on them with +any man," Conboy returned with some spirit. "I'm goin' over to Glenmore +this afternoon and see what it looks like there. That's the comin' town, +it seems to me; good crops over there in the valley, no cattle starvin'. +They may bend the railroad around to touch that town, too--they're +talkin' of it. That's sure to happen if Glenmore wins the county seat +this fall. Then you'll see skids put under every house in this town and +moved over there. Ascalon will be a name some of us old-timers will +remember twenty years from now, and that's all." + +"If Judge Thayer and the railroad colonization agent put through a big +deal they've got going, I don't see why this town shouldn't pick up +again on a healthy business foundation," Morgan said. + +"Them Pennsylvania Dutch?" Conboy scoffed. "They're not the kind of +people that ever stay in a hotel, they carry their blankets with 'em and +flop down under their wagons like Indians. When they come to town they +bring a basket of grub along, they don't spend money for a meal in any +man's hotel. You put Pennsylvania Dutch into this country and there'll +never be another coroner's jury called!" + +Morgan knocked the ashes out of his short, clubby little pipe, put it in +his shirt pocket behind his badge, and went on. He paused at the door of +the _Headlight_ office to look within, hoping to see a face that had +been missing since the night of his great tragedy. Only Riley Caldwell, +the printer, was there, working furiously, as if fired by an ambition +that Ascalon, dead or alive, could not much longer contain. The +droop-shouldered alpaca coat once worn by the editor now dead, hung +beside the desk, like the hull he had cast when he took flight away from +the troubles of his much-harassed life. + +Only the day before Judge Thayer had told Morgan that Rhetta was still +at Stilwell's ranch, whither she had gone to compose herself after the +strain of so much turmoil. Morgan could only feel that she had gone +there to avoid him, shrinking from the sight of his face. + +There was not much warmth in Morgan's reception by the business men of +Ascalon around the square that morning, hot as the weather was. It +seemed as if some messenger had gone before him crying his coming, as a +jaybird goes setting up an alarm from tree to tree before the squirrel +hunter in the woods. + +Earnest as their solicitations had been for him to assume the office of +marshal, voluble as their protestations in the face of fear and +insecurity of life and property that they would accept the result +without a whimper, there were only a few who stood by their pledges like +men. These were the merchants of solider character, whose dealings were +with the cattlemen and homesteaders. The hope of these merchants was in +the coming of more homesteaders, according to Judge Thayer's dream. They +were the true patriots and pioneers. + +While these few commended Morgan's stringent application of the letter +and spirit of the state and town laws, their encouragement was only a +flickering candle in the general gloom of the place. Morgan knew the +grunters were saying behind his back that he had gone too far, farther +than their expectations or instructions. All they had expected of him +was that he knock off the raw edges, suppress the too evident, abate the +promiscuous banging around of guns by every bunch of cowboys that +arrived or left, and to cut down a little on the killing, at least +confine it to the unprofitable class. + +They admitted they didn't want the cowboys killed off the way Craddock +had been doing it, giving the town a bad name. But to shut the saloons +all up, to go and shoot Peden down that way and kill the town with him, +that was more than they had given him license for. So they growled +behind his back, afraid of him as they feared lightning, without any +ground for such fear in the world. + +Judge Thayer appeared to be the only man in town who was genuinely happy +over the result of Morgan's sweeping out the encumbering rubbish that +blocked the country's progress by its noisome notoriety. But through all +the judge's glow of gratitude for duty well done, Morgan was conscious +of a peculiar aloofness, not exactly fear such as was unmistakable in +many others, but a withdrawing, as if something had fallen between them +and changed their relations man to man. + +Morgan knew that it was the blood of slain men. He was to this man, and +to another of far greater consequence to Morgan's peace and happiness, +like a pitcher that had been defiled. + +Judge Thayer's friendliness was unabated, but it was the sort of +friendliness that did not offer the hand, or touch the arm when walking +by Morgan's side, as in the early hours of their acquaintance. Useful +this man, to the work that must be done in this place to make it fit, +and safe, and secure for property and life, but unclean. That was what +Judge Thayer's attitude proclaimed, as plainly as printed words. + +This morning when Judge Thayer encountered Morgan on the street, not far +from the little catalpa tree that was having a bitter struggle against +wind and drouth, he invited the city marshal to accompany him to his +office. News that would tickle his ears, he said; big news. + +The biggest of this big news was that the railroad company was going to +establish a division point there at once. The railroad officials had +given Judge Thayer to understand, directly, that this decision had come +as a result of the town waking up and shedding its leprous skin. They +felt that it would be a safe place for their employees to live now, with +the pitfalls closed, the temptations removed. And the credit, Judge +Thayer owned, was Morgan's alone. + +But there was more news. The eastern immigration agents of the railroad +were spreading the news of Ascalon's pacification with gratifying +result. Already parties of Illinois and Indiana farmers, who had been +looking to that country for a good while, were preparing to come out and +scout for locations. + +"They're getting tired of farming that high-priced land, Morgan. They're +wearing it out, it costs them more for fertilizers than they take off of +it. They're coming here, where a man can plow a furrow forty miles long, +we tell them--and it's the gospel truth, a hundred miles, or two hundred +if he wanted to--and never hit a stump." + +Judge Thayer got up at that point, and stood in his door looking at the +dull sky sullen with heat; looking at the glimmer that rose like +impalpable smoke from the hard surface of the cracked, baked earth. + +"But I wish we could get a good rain before they begin to come," he +sighed, "and I think--" cautiously, with a sly wink at Morgan--"we're +going to get it. I've got a man here right now working on it, along +scientific principles, Morgan--entirely scientific." + +"A rainmaker?" said Morgan, his incredulity plain in his tone. + +"He came to me highly recommended by bankers and others in Nebraska, +where he undoubtedly brought rain, and in Texas, where the proof is +indisputable. But I'm doing it solely on my own account," Judge Thayer +hastened to explain, "carrying the cost alone. He's under contract to +bring a copious rain not later than seven days from today." + +"What's the bill?" Morgan asked, amused by this man's eager credulity. + +"One hundred dollars on account, four hundred to be paid the day he +delivers the rain--provided that he delivers it within the specified +time. I've bound him up in a contract." + +"I think he'll win," said Morgan, drily, looking meaningly at the murky +sky. + +"It's founded on science, pure science, Morgan," Judge Thayer declared, +warmly. "I'm telling you this in confidence, not another soul in town +knows it outside of my own family. We'll keep it a pleasant secret--I +want to give the farmers and cattlemen of this valley the present of a +surprise. When the proper time comes I'll announce the responsible +agency, I'll show that crowd over at Glenmore where the progressive +people of this county live, I'll prove to the doubters and knockers +where the county seat belongs!" + +"It's a great scheme," Morgan admitted. "How does the weather doctor +work?" + +"Chemicals," Judge Thayer whispered, mysteriously; "sends up vapors day +and night, invisible, mainly, but potent, causing, as near as I can +come to it from his explanation--which is technical and thoroughly +scientific, Morgan--" this severely, as if to rebuke the grin that +dawned on Morgan's face. "Causing, as near as I can come to it, a +dispersion of the hot belt of atmosphere, this superheated belt that +encircles the globe in this spot like a flame of fire, causing a break +in this belt, so to speak, drilling a hole in it, bringing down the +upper frigid air." + +Judge Thayer looked with triumph at Morgan when he delivered this, +sweating a great deal, as if the effort to elucidate this scientific +man's methods of conspiring against nature to beat it out of a rain were +equal to a ten-mile walk in the summer sun. + +"Yes, sir," said Morgan, with more respect in his voice and manner than +he felt. "And then what happens?" + +"Why, when the cold and the hot currents meet, condensation is the +natural result," said the judge. "Plain, simple, scientific as a +fiddle." + +"Just about," said Morgan. + +Judge Thayer passed it, either ignoring it as a fling beneath the notice +of a scientific man, or not catching the note of ridicule. + +"He's at work in my garden now," he said, "sending up his invisible +vapors. I want to center the downpour from the heavens over this +God-favored spot, right over this God-favored spot of Ascalon." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +ASCALON CURLS ITS LIP + + +It was the marvel and regret of people who made their adventures +vicariously, and lived the thrill of them by reading the newspapers, +that Ascalon had come to a so sudden and unmistakable end of its +romance. For a little while there was hope that it might rise against +this Cromwell who had reached out a long arm and silenced it; for a few +days there was satisfaction in reading of this man's exploits in this +wickedest of all wicked towns, for newspapers sent men to study him, and +interview him, and write of his conquest of Ascalon on the very battle +ground. + +Little enough they got out of Morgan, who met them kindly and talked of +the agricultural future of the country lying almost unpeopled beyond the +notorious little city's door. Such as they learned of his methods of +taming a lawless community they got from looser tongues than the city +marshal's. + +Even from Chicago and St. Louis these explorers among the fallen temples +of adventure came, some of them veterans who had talked with Jesse James +in his day but recently come to a close. They waited around a few days +for the shot that would remove this picturesque crusader, not believing, +any more than the rest of the world, including Ascalon itself, believed +that this state of quiescence could prevail without end. + +While they waited, sending off long stories by telegraph to their +papers every night, they saw the exodus of the proscribed begin, +increase, and end. The night-flitting women went first, urged away by +the necessities of the flaccid fish which lived upon their shame. The +gamblers and gamekeepers followed close behind. + +A little while the small saloon-keepers who had nosed the floor and +licked up the crumbs which fell from Peden's bar hung around, hoping +that it was a flurry that would soon subside. They had big eyes for +future prosperity, the overlord being now out of the way, and talked +excitedly among themselves, even approached Morgan through an emissary +with proposals of a handsome subsidy. + +But when they saw a Kansas City gambler come and strip Peden's hall of +its long bar and furnishings, of its faro tables and doctored roulette +wheels, load them all on a car and ship them to his less notorious but +safer town, they knew it was the end. Ascalon had fallen with its most +notable man, never to rise up again. + +The last of the correspondents left on the evening of the day that Judge +Thayer set the rainmaker to work. He sent the obituary of Ascalon, as he +believed, ahead of him by wire. + +Not that Ascalon was as dead as it appeared on the surface, or the +gamblers would make it out to be. True, the undertaker's business had +gone, and he with it; Druggist Gray's trade in the bromides and +restoratives in demand after debauches, and repairs for bunged heads +after the nightly carousels, had fallen away to nothing; the Elkhorn +hotel and the Santa Fé café were feeding few, and the dealers in +vanities and fancies, punctured hosiery, lacy waists, must pack up and +follow those upon whom they had prospered. + +But there was as much business as before in lumber and hardware, +implements, groceries, and supplies for the cattle ranches and the many +settlers who were arriving without solicitation or proclamation and +establishing themselves to build success upon the ruins of failure left +by those who had gone before. + +It was only the absence of the wastrels and those who preyed upon them, +and the quiet of nights after raucous revelry, that made the place seem +dead. Ascalon was as much alive as any town of its kind that had no more +justification for being in the beginning. It had more houses than it +could use now, since so many of its population had gone; empty stores +were numerous around the square, and more would be seen very soon. The +fair was over, the holiday crowd was gone. That was all. + +Rhetta Thayer came back the same evening the last correspondent faced +away from Ascalon. Morgan saw her in the _Headlight_ office, where she +worked late that night to overtake her accumulated affairs, her pretty +head bent over a litter of proofs. Her door stood open as he passed, but +he hastened by softly, and did not return that way again. + +He felt that she had gone away from Ascalon on his account, fearful that +she would meet him with blood fresh upon his hands. The attitude of +Judge Thayer was but a faint reflection of her own, he was sure. It was +best that they should not meet again, for blood had blotted out what +had seemed the beginning of a tender regard between them. That was at an +end. + +During the next few days little was seen of Morgan in Ascalon. When he +was not riding on long excursions into the outlying country he could +have been found, if occasion had arisen demanding his presence on the +square, in the station agent's office at the depot. There he spent hours +hearing the little agent, whose head was as bald as a grasshopper's, +nothing but a pale fringe from ear to ear at the back of his neck, +recount the experiences that had fallen in his way during his +five-years' occupancy of that place. + +This period covered the most notorious history of the town. In that +time, according to the check the agent had kept on them, no fewer than +fifty-nine men had met violent death on the street and in the caves of +vice in Ascalon. This man also noted keenly every arrival in these slack +days, duly reporting them all to Morgan, for whom he had a genuine +friendship and respect. So there was little chance of anybody slipping +in to set a new brewing of trouble over the dying embers of that +stamped-out fire. + +Morgan avoided the _Headlight_ office, for there was a sensitive spot in +his heart that Rhetta's abhorrence of him hurt keenly. But more than +that he had the thought of sparing her the embarrassment of a meeting, +even of his shadow passing her door. + +Twice he saw her at a distance in the street, and once she stood waiting +as if to speak to him. But the memory of her face at Peden's door that +night was with him always; he could not believe she would seek a +meeting out of a spontaneous and honest desire to see him. Only because +their lives were thrown together for a little while in that dice-box of +fate, and avoidance seemed studied and a thing that might set foolish +tongues clapping, she paused and looked his way as if waiting for him to +approach. She was serving convention, not with a wish of her heart. So +he believed, and turned the other way. + +Cattlemen from the range at hand, and several from Texas who had driven +their herds to finish on the far-famed Kansas grass for the fall market, +were loading great numbers of cattle in Ascalon every day. The drouth +was driving them to this sacrifice. Lean as their cattle were, they +would be leaner in a short time. + +This activity brought scores of cowboys to town daily. Under the old +order business would have been lively at night, when most of the +herdsmen were at leisure. As it was, they trooped curiously around the +square, some of them who had looked forward on the long drive to a +hilarious blowout at the trail's end resentfully sarcastic, but the +greater number humorously disposed to make the most of it. + +Sober, these men of the range were very much like reservation Indians in +town on a holiday. They walked slowly around and around the square, +looking at everything closely, saying little, to dispose themselves +along the edge of the sidewalk after a while and smoke. There were no +fights, nobody let off a gun. When Morgan passed them on his quiet +rounds, they nudged each other, and looked after him with low comments, +for his fame had gone far in a little while. + +These men had no quarrel with Morgan, disappointed of their revelry, +thirsty after their long waiting, sour as some of them were over finding +this oasis of their desert dry. They only looked on him with silent +respect. Nobody cared to provoke him; it was wise to give the road when +a fellow met that man. So they talked among themselves, somewhat +disappointed to find that Morgan was not carrying his rifle about with +him these peaceful days, unusual weapon for a gun-fighting man in that +country. + +In this way, with considerable coming and going through its doors, yet +all in sobriety and peace, Ascalon passed the burning, rainless summer +days. But not without a little cheer in the hard glare of the parching +range, not without a laugh and a chuckle, and a grin behind the hand. +The town knew all about the rainmaker at work behind the shielding rows +of tall corn in Judge Thayer's garden. An undertaking of such scope was +too big to sequester in any man's back yard. + +Whether the rainmaker believed in his formula, or whether he was a plain +fraud who was a little sharper on weather conditions than most men, and +good on an estimate of a drouth's duration, he seemed to be doing +something to earn his money. Day and night he kept something burning in +a little tin stove with a length of pipe that came just above the corn, +sending up a smoke that went high toward the cloudless sky before the +wind began to blow in the early morning hours, and after it ceased at +evening, after its established plan. During the day this smoke dispersed +very generally over town, causing some coughing and sneezing, and not a +little swearing and scoffing. + +Sulphur, mainly, the doctor and Druggist Gray pronounced the chemical to +be. It was a sacrilege, the Baptist preacher declared, an offering to +Satan, from the smell of it, rather than a scientific assault upon the +locked heavens to burst open the windows and let out a dash of rain. If +the effort of the mysterious stranger brought anything at all, it would +bring disaster, the preacher declared. A cyclone, very likely, and +lightning, in expression of the Almighty's wrath. + +Those who did not accept it wrathfully, as the preacher, or resentfully, +as Druggist Gray, from whom the experimenter bought none of his +chemicals, or humorously, as the doctor and many of higher intelligence, +had a sort of sneaking hope that something might come of it. If the rain +man could stir up a commotion and fetch a soaker, it would be the +salvation of that country. The range would revive, streams would flow, +water would come again into dry wells, and the new farmers who had come +in would be given hope to hang on another year and by their trade keep +Ascalon from perishing utterly. + +But mainly the disposition was to laugh. Judge Thayer was a well-meaning +man, but easy. He believed he was bringing a doctor in to cure the +country's sickness, where all of his hopes were staked out in town lots, +when he had brought only a quack. A hundred dollars, even if the faker +made no more, was pretty good pay for seven days' work, they said. A +dollar's worth of sulphur would cover his expenses. And if it happened +to turn out a good guess, and a rain did blow up on time, Judge Thayer +was just fool enough to give the fellow a letter that would help him put +his fraud through in another place. + +It did not appear, as the days passed, that the rainmaker was driving +much of a hole in the hot air that pressed down upon that tortured land. +No commotion was apparent in the upper regions, no cloud lifted to cut +off for an hour the shafts of the fierce sun. Ascalon lay panting, +exhausted, dry as tow, the dust of driven herds blowing through its +bare, bleak streets. + +Gradually, as dry burning day succeeded the one in all particulars like +it that had gone before, what little hope the few had in Judge Thayer's +weather doctor evaporated and passed away. Those who had scoffed at the +beginning jeered louder now, making a triumph of it. The Baptist +preacher said the evil of meddling in the works of the Almighty was +becoming apparent in the increasing severity of the hot wind. Ascalon, +for its sins past and its sacrilege of the present, was to writhe and +scorch and wither from the face of the earth. + +For all this, interest in the rainmaker's efforts did not lax. People +sniffed his smoke, noting every change in its flavor, and pressed around +Judge Thayer's garden fence trying to get a look at the operations. +Judge Thayer was not a little indignant over the scoffings and +denunciations, and this impertinent curiosity to pry upon what he gave +them to understand was his own private venture. + +Keep off a safe distance from this iniquitous business, he warned with +sarcasm; don't lean on the fence and risk the wrath of the Almighty. +Let the correction of Providence fall on his own shoulders, which had +been carrying the sins of Ascalon a long time; don't get so close as to +endanger their wise heads under the blow. At the same time he gave them +to understand that if any rain came of the efforts of his weather doctor +it would be his, the judge's, own private and individual rain, wrung +from denying nature by science, and that science paid for by the judge's +own money. + +The scoffers laughed louder at this, the sniffers wrinkled their noses a +little more. But the Baptist preacher only shook his head, the hot wind +blowing his wide overalls against his thin legs. + +Morgan stood aloof from doubters, hopers, scoffers, and all, saying no +word for or against the rainmaker. Every morning now he took a ride into +the country, to the mystification of the town, coming back before the +heat mounted to its fiercest, always on hand at night to guard against +any outbreak of violence among the visitors. + +There were not a few in town who watched him away each morning in the +hope that something would overtake him and prevent his return; many more +who felt their hearts sink as he rode by their doors with the fear that +each ride would be his last. Out there in the open some enemy might be +lying behind a clump of tangled briars. These women's prayers went with +the city marshal as he rode. + +On a certain morning Morgan overtook Joe Lynch, driving toward town with +his customary load of bones. Morgan walked his horse beside Joe's wagon +to chat with him, finding always a charm of originality and rather more +than superficial thinking about the old fellow that was refreshing in +the intellectual stagnation of the town. + +"Is that rain-crow feller still workin' over in town?" Joe inquired as +soon as greetings had passed. + +"I suppose he is, I don't believe his seven days are up yet." + +"This is his sixth, I'm keepin' notches on him. I thought maybe he'd +skinned out. Do you think he'll be able to fetch it?" + +"I hope he can, but I've got my doubts, Joe." + +"Yes, and I've got more than doubts. Science is all right, I reckon, as +fur as I ever heard, but no science ain't able to rake up clouds in the +sky like you'd rake up hay in a field and fetch on a rain. Even if they +did git the clouds together, how're they goin' to split 'em open and let +the rain out?" + +"That would be something of a job," Morgan admitted. + +"You've got to have lightnin' to bust 'em, and no science that ever was +can't make lightnin', I'm here to tell you, son. If some feller _did_ +happen on how it was done, what do you reckon'd become of that man?" + +"Why, they do make it, Joe--they make it right over at Ascalon, keep it +in jars under that table at the depot. Didn't you ever see it?" + +"That ain't the same stuff," Joe said, with high disdain, almost +contempt. "Wire lightnin' and sky lightnin' ain't no more alike than +milk's like whisky. Well, say that science _did_ make up a batch of sky +lightnin'--but I ain't givin' in it can be done--how air they goin' to +git up to the clouds, how're they goin' to make it do the bustin' at the +right time?" + +"That's more than I can tell you, Joe. It's too deep for me." + +"Yes, or any other man. They'd let it go all at once and cause a +waterspout, that's about what they'd do, and between a waterspout and a +dry spell, give me the dry spell!" + +"I never was in one, but I've seen 'em tearin' up the hills." + +"Then you know what they air. It'd suit me right up to the han'le if +this feller could bring a rain, for I tell you I never saw so much +sufferin' and misery as these settlers are goin' through out here on +this cussid pe-rairie right now. Some of these folks is haulin' water +from the river as much as thirty mile!" + +"I notice all the creeks and branches are dry. But it's only a little +way to plenty of water all over this country if they'll dig. Some of +them have put down wells during this dry spell and hit all the water +they need. There's a sheet of water flowing under this country from the +mountains in Colorado." + +"Oh, you git out!" + +"Just the same as the Arkansas River, only spread out for miles," Morgan +insisted. "A drouth here doesn't mean anything to that water supply; +I've been riding around over this country trying to show people that. +Most of them think I'm crazy--till they dig." + +"I don't guess you're cracked yit," Joe allowed, "but you will be if you +stay in this country. If it wasn't for the bones you wouldn't find me +hangin' around here--I'd make for Wyoming. They tell me there's any +amount of bones that's never been touched up in that country." + +"I noticed several other wagons out gathering bones. They'll soon clean +them up here, Joe." + +"They're all takin' to it," Joe said, with the resentment of a man who +feels competition, "hornin' in on my business, what's mine by rights of +bein' the first man to go into it in this blame country. Let 'em--let +'em run their teams down scourin' around after bones--I'll be here to +pick up the remains of 'em all. I was here first, I've stuck through the +rushes of them fellers that's come into this country and dried up, and +I'll be here when this crowd of 'em dries up. Them fellers haul in bones +and trade 'em at the store for flour and meal, they don't git half out +of 'em what I do out of mine, and they're hurtin' the business, drivin' +it down to nothin'." + +"Hotter than usual this morning," Morgan remarked, not so much +interested in bones and the competition of bones. + +"Wind's dying down; I noticed that some time ago. Goin' to leave us to +sizzle without any fannin'. Ruther have it that way, myself. This +eternal wind dries a man's brains up after a while. I'd say, if I was +anywhere else, it was fixin' up to rain." + +"Or for a cyclone." + +"Too late in the season for 'em," Joe declared, not willing to grant +even that diversion to the drouth-plagued land of bones. + +Joe reverted to the bones; he could not keep away from bones. There was +not much philosophy in him today, not much of anything but a plaint and +a denunciation of competition in bones. Morgan thought the wind must be +having its effect on Joe's brains; they seemed to be so hydrated that +morning they would have rattled against his skull. Morgan considered +riding on and leaving him, at the risk of giving offense, dismissing the +notion when they rose a hill and looked down on Ascalon not more than a +mile away. + +"I believe there's a cloud coming up over there," said Morgan, pointing +to the southwest. + +"Which?" said Joe, rousing as briskly as if he had been doused with a +bucket of water. "Cloud? No, that ain't no cloud. That's dust. More wind +behind that, a regular sand storm. Ever been through one of 'em?" + +"In Nebraska," Morgan replied, with detached attention, watching what he +still believed to be a cloud lifting above the hazy horizon. + +"Nothin' like the sand storms in this country," Joe discounted, never +willing to yield one point in derogative comparison between that land +and any other. "Feller told me one time he saw it blow sand so hard here +it started in wearin' a knot hole in the side of his shanty in the +evenin', and by mornin' the whole blame shack was gone. Eat them boards +up clean, that feller said. Didn't leave nothin' but the nails. But I +always thought he was stretchin' it a little," Joe added, not a gleam of +humor to be seen anywhere in the whole surface of his wind-dried face. + +"That's a cloud, all right," Morgan insisted, passing the reduction by +attrition of the settler's shack. + +"Cloud?" said Joe, throwing up his head with renewed alertness. He +squinted a little while into the southwest. "Bust my hub if it _ain't_ a +cloud! Comin' up, too--comin' right along. Say, do you reckon that +rain-crow feller brought that cloud up from somewheres?" + +"He didn't have anything to do with it," Morgan assured him, grinning a +little over the quick shift in the old man's attitude, for there was awe +in his voice. + +"No, I don't reckon," said Joe thoughtfully, "but it looks kind of +suspicious." + +The cloud was lifting rapidly, as summer storms usually come upon that +unprotected land, sullen in its threat of destruction rather than +promise of relief. A great dark fleece rolled ahead of the green-hued +rain curtain, the sun bright upon it, the hush of its oncoming over the +waiting earth. No breath of wind stirred, no movement of nature +disturbed the silent waiting of the dusty land, save the lunging of +foolish grasshoppers among the drooping, withered sunflowers beside the +road as the travelers passed. + +"I'm goin' to see if I can make it to town before she hits," said Joe, +lashing out with his whip. "Lordy! ain't it a comin'!" + +"I think I'll ride on," said Morgan, feeling a natural desire for +shelter against that grim-faced storm. + +The oncoming cloud had swept its flank across the sun before Morgan rode +into town, and in the purple shadow of its threat people stood before +their houses, watching it unfold. In Judge Thayer's garden--it was the +house Morgan had fixed on that first morning of his exploration--the +rainmaker was firing up vigorously, sending up a smoke of such density +as he had not employed in his labors before. This black column rose but +a little way, where it flattened against the cool current that was +setting in ahead of the storm, and whirled off over the roofs of Ascalon +to mock the scoffers who had laughed in their day. + +Morgan stabled his horse and went to the square, where many of the +town's inhabitants were gathered, all faces tilted to watch the storm. +Judge Thayer was there, glorifying in the success of his undertaking, +sparing none of those who had mocked him for a sucker and a fool. A cool +breath of reviving wind was moving, fresh, sweet, rain-scented; as +hopeful, as life-giving, as a reprieve to one chained among faggots at +the stake of intolerance. + +"It looks like you're going to win, Judge," Morgan said. + +"Win? I've won! Look at it, pourin' rain over at Glenmore, the advance +of it not three miles from here! It'll be here inside of five minutes, +rainin' pitchforks." + +But it did not happen so. The rain appeared to have taken to dallying on +the way, in spite of the thickening of clouds over Ascalon. Straining +faces, green-tinted in the gloomy shadow of the overhanging cloud, +waited uplifted for the first drops of rain; the dark outriders of the +storm wheeled and mingled, turned and rolled, low over the dusty roofs; +lightning rived the rain curtain that swept the famished earth, so near +at hand that the sensitive could feel it in their hair; deep thunder +sent its tremor through the ground, jarring the windows of Ascalon that +had looked in their day upon storms of human passion which were but +insect strife to this. + +Yet not a drop of rain fell on roof, on trampled way, on waiting face, +on outstretched hand, in all of Ascalon. + +Judge Thayer was seen hurrying from the square, making for home and the +weather doctor, who was about to let the rain escape. + +"He's goin' to head it off," said one of the scoffers to Morgan, +beginning to feel a return of his exultation. + +"It's goin' to miss us," said Druggist Gray, his head thrown back, his +Adam's apple like an elbow of stovepipe in his thin neck. + +"We may get a good shower out of one end of it," Conboy still hoped, +pulling for the rain as he might have boosted for a losing horse. + +"Nothing more than a sprinkle, if that much," said the station agent, +shaking his head, which he had bared to the cool wind. + +"He's got him firin' up like he was tryin' to hive a swarm of bees," one +reported, coming from the seat of scientific labors. + +"It's breakin', it's passin' by us--we'll not get a drop of it!" + +So it appeared. Overhead the swirling clouds were passing on; in the +distance the thunder was fainter. The wind began to freshen from the +track of the rain, the pigeons came out of the courthouse tower for a +look around, light broke through the thinning clouds. + +Not more than a mile or two southward of Ascalon the rain was falling in +a torrent, the roar of it still quite plain in the ears of those whose +thirst for its cooling balm was to be denied. The rain was going on, +after soaking and reviving Glenmore, which place Judge Thayer would have +given a quarter of his possessions to have had it miss. + +A mockery, it seemed, a rebuke, a chastisement, the way nature conducted +that rain storm. Judge Thayer urged the rainmaker to his greatest +efforts to stop it, turn it, bring it back; smoke green and black went +up in volumes, to stream away on the cool, refreshing wind. Sulphur and +rosin and pitch were identified in that smoke as surely as the spectrum +reveals the composition of the sun. But the wind was against the +rainmaker; nature conspired to mock him before men as the quack that he +was. + +The gloom of storm cleared from the streets of Ascalon, the worn and +tired look came back into faces that had been illumined for a little +while with hope. Farther away, fainter, the thunder sounded, dimmer the +murmur of the withdrawing rain. + +The cool wind still blew like whispered consolation for a great, a +pangful loss, but it could not soften the hard hearts of those who had +stood with lips to the fountain of life and been denied. The people +turned again to their pursuits, their planning, their gathering of +courage to hold them up against the blaze of sun which soon must break +upon them for a parching season again. The dust lay deep under their +feet, gray on their roofs where shingles curled like autumn leaves in +the sun. The rainmaker sent up his vain, his fatuous, foolish, +infinitesimal breath of smoke. The rain went on its way. + +"Aw, hell!" said Ascalon, in its derisive, impious way; "Aw, hell!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +MADNESS OF THE WINDS + + +Ascalon's temper was not improved by the close passing of the rain, +which had refreshed but a small strip of that almost limitless land. The +sun came out as hot as before, the withering wind blew from the +southwest plaguing and distorting the fancy of men. Everybody in town +seemed sulky and surly, ready to snap at a word. The blight of +contention and strife seemed to be its heritage, the seed of violence +and destruction to be sown in the drouth-cursed soil. + +The judgment of men warped in that ceaseless wind, untempered by green +of bough overhead or refreshing turf under foot. There was no justice in +their hearts, and no mercy. Morgan himself did not escape this infection +of ill humor that rose out of the hard-burned earth, streamed on the hot +wind, struck into men's brains with the rays of the penetrating sun. Not +conscious of it, certainly, any more than the rest of them in Ascalon +were aware of their red-eyed resentment of every other man's foot upon +the earth. Yet Morgan was drilled by the boring sun until his view upon +life was aslant. Resentment, a stranger to him in his normal state, grew +in him, hard as a disintegrated stone; scorn for the ingratitude of +these people for whom he had imperiled his life rose in his eyes like a +flame. + +More than that, Morgan brooded a great deal on the defilement of blood +he had suffered there, and the alienation, real or fancied, that it had +brought of such friends as he valued in that town. By an avoidance now +unmistakably mutual, Morgan and Rhetta Thayer had not met since the +night of Peden's fall. + +One thing only kept Morgan there in the position that had become +thankless in the eyes of those who had urged it upon him in the +beginning. That was the threatened vengeance of Peden's friends. He was +giving them time to come for their settlement; he felt that he could not +afford to be placed in the light of one who had fled before a threat. +But it seemed to him, on the evening of the second day after the rain +storm's passing, that he had waited long enough. The time had come for +him to go. + +There were a few cowboys in town that evening, and these as quiet as +buzzards on a fence as they sat along the sidewalk near the hotel +smoking their cigarettes. The wind had fallen, leaving a peace in the +ears like the cessation of a hateful turmoil. There was the promise of a +cool night in the unusual clearness of the stars. Morgan rode away into +the moonless night, leaving the town to take care of its own dignity and +peace. + +Morgan's thought was, as he rode away into the early night, to return +Stilwell's horse, come back to Ascalon next day, resign his office and +leave the country. Not that his faith in its resources, its future +greatness and productivity when men should have learned how to subdue +it, was broken or changed. His mind was of the same bent, but +circumstances had revised his plans. There was with him always, even in +his dreams, a white, horror-stricken face looking at him in the pain of +accusation, repulsion, complete abhorrence, where he stood in that place +of blood. + +This was driving him away from the hopes he had warmed in his heart for +a day. Without the sweet flower he had hoped to fend and enjoy, that +land would be a waste to him. He could not forget in going away, but +distance and time might exorcise the spirit that attended him, and dim +away the accusing pain of that terrified face. + +Ascalon's curse of blood had descended to him; it was no mitigation in +her eyes that he had slain for her. But he had brought her security. +Although he had paid the tremendous price, he had given her nights of +peace. + +Even as this thought returned to him with its comfort, as it came always +like a cool breath to preserve his balance in the heat and turmoil of +his regret and pain, Rhetta Thayer came riding up the dim road. + +Her presence on that road at night was a greater testimonial to her +confidence in the security he had brought to Ascalon and its borders +than her tongue might have owned. She was riding unattended where, ten +days ago, she would not have ventured with a guard. It gave Morgan a +thrill of comfort to know how completely she trusted in the security he +had given her. + +"Mr. Morgan!" she said, recognizing him with evident relief. Then, +quickly, in lively concern. "Who's looking after things in town +tonight?" + +"I left things to run themselves," he told her quietly, but with +something in his voice that said things might go right or wrong for any +further concern he had of them. + +"Well," she said, after a little silence, "I don't suppose you're needed +very much." + +"That's what the business men are saying," he told her, sarcasm in his +dry tone. + +"I don't mean it that way," she hastened to amend. "You've done us a +great service--we'll never be able to pay you----" + +"There isn't any pay involved," he interposed, almost roughly. "That's +what's worrying those nits around the square, they say they can't carry +a marshal's pay with business going to the devil since the town's +closed. Somebody ought to tell them. There never will be any bill." + +"You're too generous," she said, a little spontaneous warmth in her +voice. + +"Maybe I can live it down," he returned. + +"It's such a lovely cool night I couldn't stay in," she chatted on, +still laboring to be natural and at ease, not deceiving him by her +constraint at all, "after such a hard day fussing with that old paper. +We missed an issue the week--last week--we're getting out two in one +this time. Why haven't you been in? you seem to be in such a hurry +always." + +"I wanted to spare you what you can't see in the dark," he said, the +vindictive spirit of Ascalon's insanity upon him. + +"What I can't see in the dark?" she repeated, as if perplexed. + +"My face." + +"You shouldn't say that," she chided, but not with the hearty sincerity +that a friend would like to hear. "Are you going back to town?" + +"I'll ride with you," he granted, feeling that for all her friendly +advances the shadow of his taint lay between them. + +They were three miles or more from town, the road running as straight as +a plumbline before them. A little way they jogged on slowly, nothing +said. Rhetta was the first to speak. + +"What made you run away from me that day I wanted to speak to you, Mr. +Morgan?" + +"Did you want to, or were you just--_did_ you want to speak to me that +day, Miss Thayer?" Morgan's heart began to labor, his forehead to sweat, +so hard was the rebirth of hope. + +"And you turned right around and walked off!" + +"You can tell me now," he suggested, half choking on the commonplace +words, the tremor of his springing hope was so great. + +"I don't remember--oh, nothing in particular. But it looks so strange +for us--for you--to be dodging me--each other--that way, after we'd +_started_ being friends before everybody." + +"Only for the sake of appearances," he said sadly. "I hoped--but you ran +away and hid for a week, you thought I was a monster." + +Foolish, perhaps, to cut down the little shoot of hope again, when a +gentle breath, a soft word, might have encouraged and supported it. But +it was out of his mouth, the fruit of his brooding days, in his +resentfulness of her injustice, her ingratitude for his sacrifice, as +he believed. He saw her turn from him, as if a revulsion of the old +feeling swept her. + +"Don't judge me too harshly, Mr. Morgan," she appealed, still looking +away. + +Morgan was melted by her gentle word; the severity of the moment was +dissolved in a breath. + +"If we could go on as we began," he suggested, almost pleading in his +great desire. + +"Why, aren't we?" she asked, succeeding well, as a woman always can in +such a situation, in giving it a discouraging artlessness. + +"You know how they're kicking and complaining all around the square +because I've shut up the town, ruined business, brought calamity to +their doors as they see it?" + +"Yes, I know." + +"They forget that they came to me with their hats in their hands and +asked me to do it. Joe Lynch says the hot wind has dried their reason up +like these prairie springs. I believe he's right. But I didn't shut the +town up for them, I didn't go out there with my gun like a savage and +shoot men down for them, Miss Thayer. If you knew how much you were----" + +"Don't--don't--Mr. Morgan, please!" + +"I think there's something in what Joe Lynch says about the wind," he +told her, leaning toward her, hand on the horn of her saddle. "It warps +men, it opens cracks in their minds like the shrunk lumber in the houses +of Ascalon. I think sometimes it's getting its work in on me, when I'm +lonesome and disappointed." + +"You ought to come in and talk with me and Riley sometimes." + +"I've often felt like going to them, whining around about the town being +killed," he went on, pursuing his theme as if she had not spoken, "and +telling them they didn't figure in my calculations at the beginning nor +come in for any of my consideration at the end--if this is the end. +There was only one person in my thoughts, that one person was Ascalon, +and all there was in it, and that was you. When I took the job that day, +I took it for you." + +"Not for me alone!" she hastened to disclaim, as one putting off an +unwelcome responsibility, unfriendly denial in her voice. + +"For you, and only you," he told her, earnestly. "If you knew how much +you were to me----" + +"Not for me alone--I was only one among all of them," she said, spurring +her horse in the vehemence of her disclaimer, causing it to start away +from Morgan with quick bound. She checked it, waiting for him to draw up +beside her again. "I'd hate to think, Mr. Morgan--oh, you can't want me +alone to take the responsibility for the killing of those men!" + +Morgan rode on in silence, head bent in humiliation, in the sad +disappointment that fell on him like a blow. + +"If it could have been done, if I could have brought peace and safety to +the women of Ascalon without bloodshed, I'd have done it. I wanted to +tell you, I tried to tell you----" + +"Don't--don't tell me any more, Mr. Morgan--please!" + +She drew across the road, widening the space between them as she spoke. +Perhaps this was due to the unconscious pressure on the rein following +her shrinking from his side, from the thought of his touch upon her +hand, but it wounded Morgan's humiliated soul deeper than a thousand +unkind words. + +"No, I'll never tell you," he said sadly, but with dignity that made the +renunciation noble. + +Rhetta seemed touched. She drew near him again, reaching out her hand as +if to ease his hurt. + +"It was different before--before _that night_! you were different, all +of us, everything. I can't help it, ungrateful as I seem. You'll forgive +me, you'll understand. But you were _different_ to me before then." + +"Yes, I was different," Morgan returned, not without bitterness in his +slow, deep, gentle voice. "I never killed a man for--I never had killed +a man; there was no curse of blood on my soul." + +"Why is it always necessary to kill in Ascalon?" she asked, wildly, +rebelliously. "Why can't anything be done without that horrible ending!" + +"If I knew; if I had known," he answered her, sadly. + +"Forgive me, Mr. Morgan. You know how I feel about it all." + +"I know how you feel," he said, offering no word of forgiveness, as he +had spoken no word of reminder where a less generous soul might have +spoken, nor raised a word of blame. If he had a thought that she must +have known when she urged him to the defense of the defenseless in +Ascalon, what the price of such guardianship must be, he kept it sealed +in his heart. + +They rode on. The lights of Ascalon came up out of the night to meet +their eyes as they raised the last ridge. There Morgan stopped, so +abruptly that she rode on a little way. When he came up to her where she +waited, he was holding out his hand. + +"Here is my badge--the city marshal's badge," he said. "If you can bear +the thought of touching it, or touch it without a thought, I wish you +would return it to Judge Thayer for me. I'm not needed in Ascalon any +longer, I'm quitting the job tonight. Good-bye." + +Morgan laid the badge in her hand as he spoke the last word, turned his +horse quickly, rode back upon their trail. Rhetta wheeled her horse +about, a protest on her lips, a sudden pang in her heart that clamored +to call him back. But no cry rose to summon him to her side, and Morgan, +gloomy as the night around him, went on his way. + +But the lights of Ascalon were blurred as if she looked on them through +a rain-drenched pane when Rhetta faced again to go her way alone, the +marshal's badge clutched in her hand. Remorse was roiling in her breast; +the corrosive poison of regret for too much said, depressed her generous +heart. + +If he had known how to accomplish what he had wrought without blood, he +had said; if he had known. Neither had she known, but she had expected +it of him, she had set him to the task with an unreasonable condition. +Blood was the price. Ascalon exacted blood, always blood. + +The curse of blood, he had said, was on his soul, his voice trembling +with the deep, sad vibration that might have risen from a broken heart. +Yes, there was madness in the wind, in the warping sun, in the hard +earth that denied and mocked the dearest desires of men. It had struck +her, this madness that hollowed out the heart of a man like a worm, +leaving it an unfeeling shell. + +Rhetta had time for reflection when she reached home, and deeper +reflection than had troubled the well of her remorse as she rode. For +there in the light of her room she saw the bullet-mark on the dented +badge, which never had come quite straight for all Morgan's pains to +hammer out its battle scars. A little lead from the bullet still clung +in the grooves of letters, unmistakable evidence of what had marred its +nickled front. + +Conboy had regarded Morgan's warning to keep that matter under his hat, +for he had learned the value of silence at the right time in his long +experience in that town. Nobody else knew of the city marshal's close +escape the night of his great fight. The discovery now came to Rhetta +Thayer with a cold shudder, a constriction of the heart. She stared with +newly awakened eyes at the badge where it lay in her palm, her pale +cheeks cold, her lips apart, shocked by the sudden realization of his +past peril as no word could have expressed. + +Hot thoughts ran in thronging turmoil through her brain, thoughts before +repressed and chilled in her abhorrence of that flood of blood. For her +he had gone into that lair of murderous, defiant men, for her he had +borne the crash of that ball just over his heart. For there he had worn +the badge--just over his honest heart. Perhaps because she had thought +his terrible work had been unjustified, as the spiteful and vicious +told, she had recoiled from him, and the recollection of him standing on +grim guard among the sanguinary wreckage of that awful place. If he had +known any other way, he had said; if he had known! + +Not for the mothers of Ascalon, of whom he had spoken tenderly; not for +the men who came cringing to beg their redemption from the terror and +oppression of the lawless at his hand. Not for them. But for her. So he +had said not half an hour past. + +But he had said no word to remind her where reminder was needed, not an +accusation had he uttered where accusation was so much deserved, that +would bring back to her the plain, hard fact that it was at her earnest +appeal he had undertaken the regeneration of that place. + +On the other hand, he had spoken as if he had assumed the task +voluntarily, to give her the security that she now enjoyed. She had sent +him to this work, expecting him to escape the curse of blood that had +fallen. But she had not shown him the means. And when it fell on him, +saddening his generous heart, she had fled like an ingrate from the +sight of his stern face. Now he was gone, leaving her to the +consideration of these truths, which came rushing in like false +reserves, too late. + +She put out the light and sat by the open window, the scarred badge +between her hands, warming it tenderly as if to console the hurt he had +suffered, wondering if this were indeed the end. This evidence in her +hand was like an absolution; it left him without a stain. The +justification was there presented that removed her deep-seated +abhorrence of his deed. In defense of his own life he had struck them +down. His life; most precious and most dear. And he was gone. + +Was this, indeed, the end? For her romance that had lifted like a bright +flower in an unexpected place for a little day, perhaps; for Ascalon, +not the end. Something of unrest, as an impending storm, something of +the night's insecurity, troubled her as she sat by the window and told +her this. The sense of peace that had made her nights sweet was gone; a +vague terror seemed growing in the silent dark. + +This feeling attended her when she went to bed, harassed her sleep like +a fever, woke her at early dawn and drew her to the window, where she +leaned and listened, straining to define in the stillness the thing that +seemed to whisper a warning to her heart. + +There was nothing in the face of nature to account for this; not a cloud +was on the sky. The town, too, lay still in the mists of breaking +morning, its houses dim, its ways deserted. Alarm seemed unreasonable, +but her heart quivered with it, and shrunk within her as from a chilling +wind. There was no warder at the gate of Ascalon; the sentry was gone. + +Rhetta turned back to her bed, neither quieted of her indefinable +uneasiness nor inclined to resume her troubled sleep. After a little +while she rose again, and dressed. Dread attended her, dread had brooded +on her bosom while she slept uneasily, like a cat breathing its poisoned +breath into her face. + +Dawn had widened when she went to the window again, the mist that clung +to the ground that morning in the unusual coolness was lifting. A +horseman rode past the corner at the bank, stopped his horse in the +middle of the street, turned in his saddle and looked around the quiet +square. + +Other riders followed, slipping in like wolves from the range, seven or +eight of them, their horses jaded as if they had been long upon the +road. Cowboys in with another herd to load, she thought. And with the +thought the first horseman, who had remained this little while in the +middle of the street gazing around the town, rode up to the hitching +rack beside the bank and dismounted. Rhetta gasped, drawing back from +the window, her heart jumping in sudden alarm. + +Seth Craddock! + +There could be no mistaking the man, slow-moving when he dismounted, +tall and sinewy, watchful as a battered old eagle upon its crag. With +these ruffians at his back, gathered from the sweepings of no knowing +how many outlawed camps, he had come in the vengeance that had gathered +like a storm in his evil heart, to punish Ascalon and its marshal for +his downfall and disgrace. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +A SUMMONS AT SUNRISE + + +Three horses were standing in Stilwell's yard, bridle reins on the +ground, as three horses had stood on the morning that Morgan first found +his tortured way to that hospitable door. In the house the Stilwell +family and Morgan were at breakfast, attended by Violet, who bore on +biscuits and ham to go with the coffee that sent its cheer out through +the open door as if to find a traveler and lead him to refreshment. +Behind the cottonwoods along the river, sunrise was about to break. + +"I'm gittin' so I can't wake up of a morning when I sleep in a house," +Stilwell complained, his broad face radiating humor. "I guess I'll have +to take the blankets ag'in, old lady." + +"I guess you can afford to sleep till half-past three in the morning +once in a while," Mrs. Stilwell said complacently. "Why, Mr. Morgan, +that man didn't sleep under a roof once a month the first five or six +years we were on this range! He just laid out like a coyote anywhere +night overtook him, watchin' them cattle like they were children. Now, +what's come of it!" + +This last bitter note, ranging back to their recent loss from Texas +fever, took the cheer out of Stilwell's face. A brooding cloud came over +it; his merry chaff was stilled. + +"Yes, and Drumm'll pay for them eight hundred head of stock he killed +for us, if I have to trail him to his hole in Texas!" Fred declared. +"Suit or no suit, that man's goin' to pay." + +"I don't like to hear you talk that way, honey," his mother chided. + +"Suit!" Fred scoffed; "what does that man care about a suit? He'll never +show his head in this country any more, the next drive he makes he'll +load west of here and we'll never know anything about it. There's just +one way to fix a man like him, and I know the receipt that'll cure _his_ +hide!" + +"If he ever drives another head of stock into this state I'll hear of +it, and I'll attach him. It'll be four or five years before the +railroad's built down into that country, he'll have to drive here or +nowheres. I'll set right here on this range till he comes." + +"Did the rain strike any of your range?" Morgan inquired, eager to turn +them away from this gloomy matter of loss and revenge. + +"Yes, we got a good soakin' over the biggest part of it. Plenty of water +now, grass jumpin' up like spring. It's the purtiest country, Cal, a man +ever set eyes on after a rain." + +"And in the spring," said Mrs. Stilwell, wistfully. + +"And when the wild roses bloom along in May," said Violet. "There's no +place in the world as pretty as this country then." + +"I believe you," Morgan told them, nodding his head in undivided assent. +"Even dry as it is around Ascalon and that country north, it gets hold +of a man." + +"You buy along on the river here somewhere, Cal, and put in a nice +little herd. It won't take you long to make a start, and a good start. +This country ain't begun to see the cattle it will----" + +"Somebody comin'," said Violet, running to the door to see, a plate of +hot biscuits in her hand. + +"Seems to be in a hurry for this early in the day," Stilwell commented, +listening to the approach of a galloping horse. He was not much +interested; horsemen came and went past that door at all hours of the +day and night, generally in a gallop. + +"It's Rhetta!" Violet announced from the door, turning hurriedly to put +the plate of biscuits on the table, where it stood before unheeding +eyes. + +"Rhetta?" Mrs. Stilwell repeated, getting up in excitement. "I wonder +what----" + +Rhetta was at the door, the dust of her arrival making her indistinct to +those who hurried from the unfinished breakfast to learn the cause of +this precipitous visit. Morgan saw her leaning from the saddle, her +loosely confined hair half falling down. + +"Is Mr. Morgan here?" she inquired. + +The girl's voice trembled, her breath came so hard Morgan could hear its +suspiration where he stood. It was evident that she labored under a +tremendous strain of anxiety, arising out of a trouble that Morgan was +at no loss to understand. Yet he remained in the background as Stilwell +and Fred crowded to the door. + +"Why, Rhetty! what's happened?" Stilwell inquired, hurrying out, +followed by his wife and son. Violet was already beside her perturbed +visitor, looking up into her terror-blanched face. + +"Oh, they've come, they've come!" Rhetta gasped. + +"Who?" Stilwell asked, mystified, laying hold of her bridle, shaking it +as if to set her senses right. "Who's come, Rhetty?" + +"I came for Mr. Morgan!" she panted, as weak, it seemed, as a wounded +bird. "I thought he came here--he had your horse." + +"He's here, honey," Mrs. Stilwell told her, consoling her like a hurt +child. + +Morgan did not come forward. He stood as he had risen from his chair at +the table, one hand on the cloth, his head bent as if in a travail of +deepest thought. The shaft of tender new sunlight reaching in through +the open door struck his shoulders and breast, leaving his face in the +shadow that well suited the mood darkening over his soul like a storm. A +thousand thoughts rose up and swirled within him, a thousand harsh +charges, a thousand seeds of bitterness. Rhetta, leaning to peer under +the lintel of the low door, could see him there, and she reached out her +hand, appealing without a word. + +"He is here, honey," Mrs. Stilwell repeated, assuringly, comfortingly. + +"Tell him--tell him--Craddock's come!" Rhetta said. + +"Craddock?" said Stilwell, pronouncing the name with inflection of +surprise. "Oh, I thought something awful had happened to somebody." He +turned with the ease of indifference in his manner, to go back and +finish his meal. "Well, didn't you look for him to come back? I knew all +the time he'd come." + +Morgan lifted his head. The sun, broken by Rhetta's shadow, brightened +on the floor at his feet, and spread its beam upon his breast like a +golden stole. The old wound on his check bone was a scar now, irregular, +broad from the crude surgery that had bound it but illy. Its dark +disfigurement increased the somber gravity of his face, sunburned and +wind-hardened as any ranger's who rode that prairie waste. From where he +stood Morgan could not see the girl's face, only her restless hand on +the bridle rein, the brown of her riding skirt, the beginning of white +at her waist. + +"There ought to be men enough in Ascalon to take care of Craddock," +Violet said. + +"He's not alone, some of those Texas cowboys are with him," Rhetta +explained, her voice firmer, her words quicker. "Mr. Morgan is still +marshal--he gave me his badge, but please tell him I didn't--I forgot to +turn it in with his resignation." + +"I don't see that it's Cal's fight this time, Rhetty," Stilwell said. +"He's done enough for them yellow pups over in Ascalon, to be yelped at +and cussed for savin' their dirty hides." + +"They're looking for him, they think he's hiding!" + +"Well, let 'em look. If they come over here they'll find him--Cal ain't +makin' no secret of where he's at. And they'll find somebody standin' +back to back with him, any time they want to come." Stilwell's +resentment of Ascalon's ingratitude toward his friend was plainer in his +mouth than print. + +"They're going to burn the town to drive him out!" Rhetta said, gasping +in the terror that shook her heart. + +"I guess it'll be big enough to hold all the people that's in it when +they're through," said Stilwell, unfeelingly. + +"Here's his badge," said Rhetta, offering it frantically. "Tell him he's +still marshal!" + +"Yes, you can come for him--now!" said Violet, accusingly. "I told +you--you remember now what I told you!" + +"O Violet, Violet! If you knew what I've paid for that--if you knew!" + +"Not as much as you owe him, if it was the last drop of blood in your +heart!" said Violet. And she turned away, and went and stood by the +door. + +"They'll burn the town!" Rhetta moaned. "Oh, isn't anybody going to help +me--won't you call him, Violet?" + +"No," said Violet. "He can hear you--he'll come if he wants to--if he's +fool enough to do it again!" + +"Violet!" her mother cautioned. + +"How many are with him?" Fred inquired. + +"Seven or eight--I didn't see them all. Pa's collecting a posse to guard +the bank--they're going to rob it!" + +"They're welcome to all I've got in it," Stilwell said. "You better come +in and have a cup of coffee, Rhetty, before----" + +"The one they call the Dutchman's there, and Drumm----" + +"Drumm?" Fred and his father spoke like a chorus, both of them jumping +to alertness. + +"And some others of that gang Mr. Morgan drove out of town. They were +setting the hotel afire when I left!" + +Stilwell did not wait for all of it. He was in the house at a jump, +reaching down his guns which hung beside the door. Close after him Fred +came rushing in, snatching his weapons from the buffalo horns on the +wall. + +"I'm goin' to git service on that man!" Stilwell said. "Are you goin' +with us, Cal?" + +But Cal Morgan did not reply. He went to the bedroom where he had slept, +took up his gun, stood looking at it a moment as if considering +something, snatched his hat from the bedpost and turned back, buckling +his belt. Mrs. Stilwell and Violet were struggling with husband and +brother to restrain them from rushing off to this battle, raising a +turmoil of pleading and protesting at the door. + +As Morgan passed Stilwell, who was greatly impeded in his efforts to +buckle on his guns by his wife's clinging arms and passionate pleadings +to remain at home, Fred broke away from his sister and ran for the +kitchen door. + +"Let Drumm go--let all of them go--let the cattle go, let everything go! +none of it's worth riskin' your life for!" Stilwell's affectionate good +wife pleaded with him. + +"Now, Mother, I'm not goin' to git killed," Morgan heard Stilwell say, +his very assurance calming. But the poor woman, who perhaps had +recollections of past battles and perils which he had gone through, +burst out again, weeping, and clung to him as if she could not let him +go. + +Morgan paused a moment at the threshold, as if reconsidering something. +Violet, who had stood leaning her head on her bent arm, weeping that +Fred was rushing to throw his life away, lifted her tearful face, +reached out and touched his arm. + +"Must you go?" she asked. + +For reply Morgan put out his hand as if to say farewell. She took it, +pressed it a moment to her breast, and ran away, choked on the grief she +could not utter. Morgan stepped out into the sun. + +Rhetta Thayer stood at the door, a little aside, as if waiting for him, +as if knowing he would come. She was agitated by the anxious hope that +spoke out of her white face, but restrained by a fear that could not +hide in her wide-straining eyes. She moved almost imperceptibly toward +him, her lips parted as if to speak, but said nothing. + +As Morgan lifted his hand to his hat in grave salute, passing on, she +offered him the badge of his office which she had held gripped in her +hand. He took it, inclining his head as in acknowledgment of its safe +keeping through the night, and hastened on to one of the horses that +stood dozing on three legs in the early sun. + +As he left her, Rhetta followed a few quick steps, a cry rising in her +heart for him to stay a moment, to spare her one word of forgiveness out +of his grim, sealed lips. But the cry faltered away to a great, stifling +sob, while tears rose hot in her eyes, making him dim in her sight as he +threw the rein over the horse's head, starting the animal out of its +sleep with a little squatting jump. She stood so, stretching out her +hands to him, while he, unbending in his stern answer to the challenge +of duty, unseeing in the hard bitterness of his heart, swung into the +saddle and rode away. + +Rhetta groped for her saddle, blind in her tears. Morgan was hidden by +the dust that hung in the quiet morning behind him as she mounted and +followed. + +Half a mile or so along the road, Fred passed her, bending low as he +rode, as if his desire left the saddle and carried him ahead of his +horse; a little while, and Stilwell thundered by, leaving her last and +alone on that road leading to what adventures her heart shrunk in her +bosom to contemplate. + +Ahead of her the smoke of Ascalon's destruction rose high. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +IN THE SQUARE AT ASCALON + +Morgan had time for a bitter train of reflection as he rode, never +looking behind him to see who came after. Whether Stilwell would yield +to his wife's appeal and remain at home, whether Fred could be bent from +his fiery desire to be avenged on the author of their calamity, he took +no trouble to surmise. He only knew that he, Calvin Morgan, was rushing +again to combat at the call of this girl whose only appeal was in the +face of dreadful peril, whose only service was that of blood. + +She had come again, this time like a messenger bearing a command, to +call him back to a duty which he believed he had relinquished and put +down forever. And solely because it would be treasonable to that duty +which still clung to him like a tenacious cobweb, he was riding into the +smoke of the burning town. + +So he told himself as he galloped on, but never believing for a moment +in the core of his heart that it was true. Deep within him there was a +response to a more tender call than the stern trumpeting of duty--the +answer to an appeal of remorseful eyes, of a pleading heart that could +not bear the shame of the charge that he was hiding and afraid. For her, +and his place of honor in her eyes, he was riding to Ascalon that hour. +Not for Ascalon, and those in it who had snarled at his heels. For her, +not the larger duty of a sworn officer of the law riding to defend and +protect the lives and property under his jurisdiction. + +Morgan pulled up his horse at the edge of town, to consider his +situation. He had left Stilwell's in such haste, and in the midst of +such domestic anguish, that he had neglected to bring one of the +rancher's rifles with him. His only weapon was his revolver, and the +ammunition at his belt was scant, due to the foolish security of the +days when he believed Seth Craddock never would return. He must pick up +a gun somewhere, and ammunition. + +There was some scattered shooting going on in the direction of the +square, but whether the citizens were gathering to the defense of the +town, or the raiders were firing admonitory shots to keep them indoors, +Morgan could not at that distance tell. He rode on, considering his most +urgent necessity of more arms, concluding to ride straight for Judge +Thayer's house and borrow his buffalo rifle. + +He swung into the road that led past Judge Thayer's house, which +thoroughfare entered the square at the bank corner, still about a +quarter of a mile away. As he came round the turn of the road he saw, a +few hundred yards ahead of him, a man hurrying toward the square with a +gun in his hand. A spurt of speed and Morgan was beside him, leaning +over, demanding the gun. + +It was the old man who had jumped out of his reverie on the morning of +Morgan's first return to Ascalon, and menaced him with the crook of his +hickory stick. The veteran was going now without the comfort of his +stick, making pretty good time, eager in the rousing of fires long +stilled in his cooling heart. He began trotting on when he recognized +Morgan, shouting for him to hurry. + +"Lend me your gun, Uncle John--I left mine in the hotel," Morgan said. + +"Hell, what'll I do then?" said Uncle John, unwilling to give it up. + +Morgan was insistent. He commandeered the weapon in the name of the law. +That being the case, Uncle John handed it up to him, with a word of +affection for it, and a little swearing over his bad luck. + +It was a double-barreled buffalo rifle, a cap-and-ball gun of very old +pattern, belonging back in the days of Parkman and the California Trail, +and the two charges which it bore were all that Morgan could hope to +expend, for Uncle John carried neither pouch nor horn. But Morgan was +thankful for even that much, and rode on. + +A little way ahead a man, hatless, wild-haired, came running out from +his dooryard, having witnessed Morgan's levying on Uncle John's gun and +read his reason for it. This citizen rushed into the road and offered a +large revolver, which Morgan leaned and snatched from his hand as he +galloped by. But it hadn't a cartridge in its chambers, and its caliber +was not of Morgan's ammunition. Still, he rode on with it in his hand, +hoping that it might serve its turn. + +Morgan galloped on toward the square, where a great volume of smoke hid +the courthouse and all of the town that lay before the wind. He hoped to +meet somebody there with a gun worth while, although he had no +immediate plan for pitching into the fight and using it. That must be +fixed for him by circumstances when he confronted them. + +Women and children stood in the dooryards watching the fire that was +cutting through the thin-walled buildings on that side of the +square--the hotel side--as if they were strawboard boxes. They were +silent in the great climax of fear; they stood as people stand, +straining and waiting, watching the approach of a tornado, no safety in +flight, no refuge at hand. There was but one man in sight, and he was +running like a jack rabbit across the staked ground behind Judge +Thayer's office, heading for the prairie. It was Earl Gray, the +druggist. He was covering sixteen feet at a jump. When he saw Morgan +galloping into the town, Gray stopped, darted off at an angle as if he +were going on some brave and legitimate excursion, and disappeared. + +The Elkhorn hotel was well under way of destruction, its roof already +fallen, its thin walls bending inward, perforated in a score of places +by flames. The head of the street was unguarded; Morgan rode on and +halted at the edge of the square. + +Smoke blotted out everything in the square, except for a little shifting +by the rising wind which revealed the courthouse, the pigeons in wild +flight around the tower. There was not a man in sight, neither raider +nor defender. Across on the other side of the square, as if they +defended that part from being set on fire, the citizens were doing some +shooting with rifles, even shotguns, as Morgan could define by the +sound. The raiders were there, for they were answering with shot and +yell. + +Morgan caught the flutter of a dress at the farther corner of the +bank--a little squat brick building this was--where some woman stood and +watched. He rode around, and at the sound of his approach a gun-barrel +was trained on him, and a familiar fair head appeared, cheek laid +against the rifle stock in a most determined and competent way. + +"Dora! don't shoot!" Morgan shouted. In a moment he was on the ground +beside her, and Dora Conboy was handing him his own rifle, pride and +relief in her blue eyes. + +"I knew you'd come, I told them you'd come!" she said. + +"How did you save it--what are you doing here, Dora?" he asked in +amazement. + +"I was layin' for Craddock! If he'd 'a' come around that corner--but it +was you!"--with a sigh of relief. + +"Have you got any shells, Dora?" + +"No, I didn't have time to grab anything but your gun--I run to your +room when they set the hotel afire and drove us out." + +"You're the bravest man in town!" he praised her, patting her shoulder +as if she were a very little girl, indeed. "Where are they all?" + +"They've locked Riley, and Judge Thayer, and all the men that's got a +fight in 'em up in jail with the sheriff. Pa got away--he's over there +where you hear that shootin'--but he can't hit nothin'!" Dora said, in +hopeless disgust. + +Morgan saw with relief that the magazine of his rifle was full, and a +shot in the barrel. He took Dora by the hand, turning away from his +haste to mount as if it came to him as an after-thought to thank her for +this great help. + +"There's going to be a fight, Dora," he said. "You'd better get behind +the bank, and keep any of the women and children there that happen +along. You're a brave, good little soul, I'll never forget you for what +you've done for me today. Please take care of this gun--it belongs to +Uncle John." + +He was up in the saddle with the last word, and gone, galloping into the +pitchy black smoke that swirled like a turgid flood from burning Ascalon +across the square. + +Morgan's thought was to locate the raiders' horses and cut them off, if +it should be that some of the rascals were still on foot setting fires, +as it seemed likely from the smell of kerosene, that they were. It would +increase his doubtful chances to meet as many of them on foot as +possible. This was his thought. + +He made out one mounted man dimly through the blowing smoke, watching in +front of the Santa Fé café, but recently set on fire. This fellow +doubtless was stationed there on the watch for him, Morgan believed, +from the close attention he was giving the front door of the place, out +of which a volume of grease-tainted smoke rolled. He wondered, with a +little gleam of his saving humor, what there was in his record since +coming to Ascalon that gave them ground for the belief that it was +necessary to burn a house to bring him out of it to face a fight. + +Morgan rode on a little way across the square, not twenty yards behind +this raider, the sound of his horse silenced in the roar of fire and +growing wind. The heat of the place was terrific; burning shingles +swirled on the wind, coals and burning brands fell in a rain all over +the square. At the corner of the broad street that came into the square +at Peden's hall, another raider was stationed. + +The citizens who were making a weak defense were being driven back, the +sound of firing was behind the stores, and falling off as if the raiders +pressed them hard. Morgan quickly concluded that Craddock and the rest +of the outfit were over there silencing this resistance, probably in the +belief that he was concerned in it. + +This seemed to be his moment for action, yet arresting any of them was +out of the question, and he did not want to be the aggressor in the +bloodshed that must finish this fiendish morning's work. Hopeless as his +situation appeared, justified as he would have been in law and reason +for opening fire without challenge, he waited the further justification +of his own conscience. They had come looking for him; let them find him +here in their midst. + +Fire was rising high among the stripped timbers of Peden's hall, purging +it of its debauchery and blood. On the rising wind the flames were +licking up Gray's drug-store, the barber shop beside it, the newspaper +office, the Santa Fé café and the incidental small shops between them +and Peden's like a windrow of burning straw. A little while would +suffice to see their obliteration, a little longer to witness the +destruction of the town if the wind should carry the coals and blazing +shingles to other roofs, dry as the sered grasses of the plain. + +The sound of this fire set by Seth Craddock in celebration of his return +to Ascalon was in Morgan's ears like the roar of the sea; the heat of it +drew the tough skin of his face as he rode fifty yards from it into the +center of the square. There he stopped, his rifle across his breast, +waiting for the discovery. + +The man in the street near Peden's was the first to see and recognize +him as he waited there on his horse in the pose of challenge, in the +expectant, determined attitude of defense. This fellow yelled the alarm +and charged, breakneck through the smoke, shooting as he came. + +Morgan fired one shot, offhand. The charging horse reared, stood so a +moment as rigidly as if fixed by bronze in that pose, its rider leaning +forward over its neck. Then, in whatever terrible pang that such sudden +stroke of death visits, it flung itself backward, the girths snapping +from its distended belly. The rider was flung aside, where Morgan saw +him lying, head on one extended arm, like a dog asleep in the sun. + +The others came whooping their triumphant challenge and closed in on +Morgan then, and the battle of his life began. + +How many were circling him as he stood in the center of the square, or +as close to the center as he could draw, near the courthouse steps, +Morgan did not know. Some had come from behind the courthouse, others +from the tame fight with the citizens back of the stores not yet on +fire. + +The dust that rose from their great tumult of charge and galloping +attack, mingling with the smoke that trailed the ground, was Morgan's +protection and salvation. Nothing else saved him from almost immediate +death in the fury of their assault. + +Morgan fired at the fleeting figures as they moved in obscurity through +this stifling cloud, circling him like Indians of the plains, shouting +to each other his location, drawing in upon him a little nearer as they +rode. He turned and shifted, yet he was a target all too plain for +anything he could do to lessen his peril. + +A horse came plunging toward him through the blinding swirl, plain for a +flash of wild-flying mane and tossing rein, its saddle empty, fleeing +from the scene of fire-swept conflict as if urged on by the ghost of the +rider it had lost. + +Bullets clipped Morgan's saddle as the raiders circled him in a wild +fęte of shots and yells. One struck his rifle, running down the barrel +to the grip like a lightning bolt, spattering hot lead on his hand; +another clicked on the ornament of the Spanish bit, frightening his +horse, before that moment as steady as if at work on the range. The +shaken creature leaped, bunching its body in a shuddering knot. Blood +ran from its mouth in a stream. + +A shot ripped through the high cantle of the saddle; one seared Morgan's +back as it rent his shirt. The horse leaped, to come down stiff-legged +like an outlaw, bleeding head thrust forward, nose close to the ground. +Then it reared and plunged, striking wildly with fore feet upon the +death-laden air. + +In leaping to save himself from entanglement as the creature fell, +Morgan dropped his rifle. Before he could recover himself from the +spring out of the saddle, the horse, thrashing in the paroxysm of death, +struck the gun with its shod fore foot, snapping the stock from the +barrel. + +Dust was in Morgan's eyes and throat, smoke burned in his scorched +lungs. The smell of blood mingling with dust was in his nostrils. The +heat of the increasing fire was so great that Morgan flung himself to +the ground beside his horse, with more thought of shielding himself from +that torture than from the inpouring rain of lead. + +How many were down among the raiders he did not know; whether the people +had heard the noise of this fight and were coming to his assistance, he +could not tell. Dust and smoke flew so thick around him that the +courthouse not three rods away, was visible only by dim glimpses; the +houses around the square he could not see at all. + +The raiders flashed through the smoke and dust, here seen in a rift for +one brief glance, there lost in the swathing pall that swallowed all but +their high-pitched yells and shots. Morgan was certain of only one thing +in that hot, panting, brain-cracking moment--that he was still alive. + +Whether whole or hurt, he did not know, scarcely considered. The marvel +of it was that he still lived, like a wolf at the end of the chase +ringed round by hounds. Lived, lead hissing by his face, lead lifting +his hair, lead knocking dirt into his eyes as he lay along the carcass +of his horse, his body to the ground like a snake. + +Morgan felt that it would be his last fight. In the turmoil of smoke and +dust, his poor strivings, his upward gropings out of the dark; his glad +inspirations, his thrilling hopes, must come to an obscure end. It was a +miserable way to die, nothing to come out of it, no ennobling sacrifice +demanding it to lift a man's name beyond his day. In the history of this +violent place, this death-struggle against overwhelming numbers would be +only an incident. Men would say, in speaking of it, that his luck failed +him at last. + +Morgan discovered with great concern that he had no cartridges left but +those in the chambers of his revolver. He considered making a dash for +the side of the square not yet on fire, where he might find support, at +least make a further stand with the arms and ammunition every +storekeeper had at hand. + +As these thoughts swept him in the few seconds of their passing, Morgan +lay reserving his precious cartridges. The momentary suspension of his +defense, the silence of his rifle's defiant roar, which had held them +from closing in, perhaps led his assailants to believe him either dead +or disabled. They also stopped shooting, and the capricious wind, now +rising to a gale as it rushed into the fiery vacuum, bent down and +wheeled away the dust and smoke like a curtain suddenly drawn aside. + +Craddock and such of his men as were left out of that half-minute +battle were scattered about the square in a more or less definite circle +around the spot where Morgan lay behind his horse, the nearest to him +being perhaps thirty yards away. The citizens of the town who had been +resisting the raiders, had come rushing to the square at the diversion +of the fight to that center. These began firing now on the raiders from +windows and doors and the corners of buildings. Craddock sent three of +his men charging against this force, now become more courageous and +dangerous, and with two at his side, one of whom was the Dutchman, he +came riding over to investigate Morgan's situation. + +Morgan could see the Dutchman's face as he spurred on ahead of the +others. Pale, with a pallor inborn that sun and wind could not shade, a +wide grin splitting his face, the Dutchman came on eagerly, no doubt in +the hope that he would find a spark of conscious life in Morgan that he +could stamp out in some predesigned cruelty. + +The Dutchman was leaning forward as he rode, revolver lifted to throw +down for a quick shot. When he had approached within two lengths of his +horse, Morgan lifted himself from the ground and fired. The Dutchman +sagged over the horn of his saddle like a man asleep, his horse +galloping on in panic. As it passed Morgan the Dutchman pitched from the +saddle, drug a little way by one encumbered foot, the frantic horse +plunging on. Fred Stilwell, closely followed by his father, came riding +into the square. + +Morgan leaped to his feet, new hope in him at sight of this friendly +force. Craddock's companion turned to meet Fred with the fire of two +revolvers. One of the three sent a moment before to dislodge the +citizens, turned back to join this new battle. + +Morgan had marked this man as Drumm from the beginning. He was a florid, +heavy man, his long mustache strangely white against the inflamed +redness of his face. He carried a large roll covered with black oilcloth +behind his saddle. + +Morgan wasted one precious cartridge in a shot at this man as he passed. +The raider did not reply. He was riding straight to meet Stilwell and +Fred, to whom Craddock also turned his attention when he saw Morgan's +rifle broken on the ground. It was as if Craddock felt him out of the +fight, to be finished at leisure. + +Morgan left his dubious shelter of the fallen horse and ran to meet his +friends, hoping to reach one of them and replenish his ammunition. Fred +Stilwell was coming up with the wind, his dust blowing ahead of him on +the sweeping gale. At his first shot the man who had left Craddock's +side to attack him pitched from his saddle, hands thrown out before him +as if he dived into eternity. The next breath Fred reeled in his saddle +and fell. + +The man with the oilcloth roll at his saddle yelled in exultation, +lifting his gun high in challenge to Stilwell, who rode to meet him. A +moment Stilwell halted where Fred lay, as if to dismount, then galloped +furiously forward to avenge his fall. The two raiders who had gone +against the townsmen, evidently believing that the battle was going +against them, spurred for the open country. + +Craddock was bearing down on Morgan, the fight being apportioned now +man to man. Morgan heard Stilwell's big gun roaring when he turned to +face Craddock, vindictive, grim, who came riding upon him with no word +of challenge, no shout of triumph in what seemed his moment of victory. + +Morgan was steady and unmoved. The ground was under his feet, his arm +was not disturbed by the rock of a galloping horse. He lifted his weapon +and fired. Craddock's horse went down to its knees as if it had struck a +gopher hole, and Craddock, horseman that he was, pitched out of the +saddle and fell not two yards from Morgan's feet. + +In falling, Craddock dropped his gun. He was scrambling for it when +Morgan, no thought in him of mercy, threw his weapon down for the +finishing shot. The hammer clicked on an empty shell. And Craddock, on +hands and knees, agile as a bear, was reaching one long hairy arm to +clutch his lost gun. + +Morgan threw himself headlong upon the desperado, crushing him flat to +the ground. With a sprawling kick he sent Craddock's gun far out of +reach, and they closed, with the weapons nature had given them, for the +last struggle in the drama of their lives. + +The stage was empty for them of anything that moved, save only +Craddock's horse, which Morgan's last shot, confident as he was when he +aimed it, had no more than maimed with a broken leg. To the right of +them Fred Stilwell lay, his face in the dust, his arms outspread, his +hat close by; on the other hand the Dutchman's body sprawled, his legs, +flung out as if he had died running. And near this unsightly wreckage of +a worthless wretch Morgan's horse stretched, in the lazy posture of an +animal asleep in a sunny pasture. + +Behind them the fire that was eating one side of the square away rose +and bent, roared and crackled, sighed and hissed, flinging up long +flames which broke as they stabbed into the smoke. Morgan felt the fire +hot on his neck as he bent over Craddock, throwing the strain of every +tendon to hold the old villain to the ground. + +Craddock writhed, jointless as a snake, it seemed, under the grip of +Morgan's hand at his spiney throat, squirmed and turned and fought to +his knees. They struggled and battled breast to breast, until they stood +on their feet, locked in a clinch out of which but one of them, Morgan +was determined, should come a living man. + +Morgan had dropped his empty revolver when he flung himself on Craddock. +There was no inequality between them except such as nature had given in +the strength of arm and back. They swayed in silent, terrible +determination each to have the other's life, and Morgan had a glimpse, +as he turned, of women and children watching them from the corner near +the bank, huddled groups out of which he knew many a hope went out for +his victorious issue. + +Craddock was a man of sinews as hard as bow strings; his muscles were +like dried beef. Strong as Morgan was, he felt that he was losing +ground. Then, by some trick learned perhaps in savage camps, Craddock +lifted him, and flung him with stunning force against the hard ground. + +There they rolled, clawing, striking, grappling at each other's +throats. As if surf made sport of them on the shelving sands they +rolled, one upper-most now, the other then. And they fought and rolled +until Morgan felt something hard under his oppressed back, and groped +for it in the star-shot agony of sinewy fingers choking out his life. +His empty gun. It seemed that he grasped it in delirium, and struck with +it in the blindness of hovering death. + +When Morgan staggered to his feet there was blood in his mouth; the +sound of the fiery turmoil around him was hushed in the roar of blood in +his ears. He stood weakly a moment, looking at the pistol in his hand. +The blow he had laid along Craddock's head had broken the cylinder pin. +Meditatively Morgan looked at it again, then threw it down as an +abandoned and useless thing. It fell close by where Craddock lay, blood +running from a wound on his temple. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +ABSOLUTION + + +Morgan stood looking down on the man whom he had overcome in the climax +of that desperate hour, wondering if he were dead. He did not stoop to +investigate; from where he stood no sign of life disturbed Craddock's +limp body. Morgan was thinking now that they would say of him in Ascalon +that luck had been with him to the last. + +Not prowess, at any rate; he did not claim to that. Perhaps luck was as +good a name as any for it, but it was something that upheld his hand and +stimulated his wit in crises such as he had passed in Ascalon that +eventful fortnight. + +A band of men came around the corner past Peden's hall, now only a +vanishing skeleton of beams, bringing with them the two raiders who had +attempted to escape by that avenue to the open prairie. The two were +still mounted, the crowd that surrounded them was silent and ominous. +Morgan waited until they came up, when, with a sign toward Craddock, +which relinquished all interest in and responsibility for him to the +posse comitatus, he turned away to hasten to Fred Stilwell's side. + +Tom Conboy had reached the fallen youth--he was little more than a +boy--and was kneeling beside him, lifting his head. + +"God! they killed a woman over there--and a man!" Conboy said. + +"Is he dead?" Morgan inquired, his voice hoarse and strange. + +"He's shot through the lung, he's breathin' through his back," Conboy +replied, shaking his head sadly. "But I've seen men live shot up worse +than Fred is," he added. "It takes a big lot of lead to kill a man +sometimes." + +"We must carry him out of this heat," Morgan said. + +They carried him across the square to that part of the business front +the fire had not yet leaped over to and taken, and laid him in a little +strip of shade in front of the harness store. Conboy hurried off to see +if he could find the doctor. + +Morgan wadded a handkerchief against the wound in Fred's back, whence +the blood bubbled in frothy stream at every weak inspiration, and let +him down gently upon that insufficient pad to wait the doctor, not +having it in his power to do more. He believed the poor fellow would die +with the next breath, and looked about to see if Stilwell were in sight. +Stilwell was nowhere to be seen, his pursuit of Drumm having led him +far. But approaching Morgan were five or six men carrying guns, their +faces clouded with what seemed an unfriendly severity. + +"We want to have a word or two with you over in the square," one of them +said. + +Morgan recognized all of them as townsmen. He looked at them in +undisguised surprise, completely lost for the meaning of the blunt +request. + +"All right," he said. + +"The doctor will be here in a minute, he's gone for his case," one of +them volunteered. + +Relieved by the word, Morgan thanked him, and returned with them to the +place where a growing crowd of men stood about Seth Craddock and the two +prisoners who had been taken in their attempt to escape. Craddock was +sitting on the ground, head drooping forward, a man's knee at his back. +And Earl Gray, a revolver in his hand, no hat on, his hair flying forty +ways, was talking. + +"If he'd 'a' been here tendin' to duty under his oath, in place of +skulkin' out and leavin' the town wide open to anybody that wanted to +set a match to it, this thing wouldn't 'a' happened, I tell you, +gentlemen. Look at it! look at my store, look at the _ho_-tel, look at +everything on that side of the square! Gone to hell, every stick of it! +And that's the man to blame!" + +Gray indicated Morgan with a thrust of his gun, waving one hand +dramatically toward the ruin. A sound, more a growl than a groan, ran +through the crowd, which now numbered not fewer than thirty or forty +men. + +The sight of the destruction was enough, indeed, to make them growl, or +even groan. Everything on that side of the square was leveled but a few +upstanding beams, the fire was rioting among the fallen rafters, eating +up the floors that had borne the trod of so many adventurous feet. The +hotel was a ruin, Gray's store only a recollection, the little shops +between it and Peden's long, hollow skeleton of a barn already coals. + +Men, women, and children were on the roofs of buildings across the +street from Peden's, pouring precious water over the fires which sprang +from falling brands. It seemed that this shower of fire must overwhelm +them very soon, and engulf the rest of the business houses, making a +clean sweep of everything but the courthouse and the bank. The +calaboose, in its isolation, was still safe. + +"Where was you last night?" Gray demanded, insolence in his narrow face +as he turned again to Morgan, poking out with his gun as if to vex the +answer from him as one prods a growl from a dog. + +"None of your ---- business!" Morgan replied, rising into a rage as +sudden as it was unwise, the unworthiness of the object considered. He +made a quick movement toward Gray as he spoke, which brought upon him +the instant restraint of many hands. + +"You don't grab no gun from nobody here!" one said. + +"Why wasn't you here attendin' to business when that gang rode in this +morning?" one at Morgan's side demanded. It was the barber; his shop was +gone, his razors were fused among the ashes. + +Morgan ignored him, regretting at once the flash of passion that had +betrayed him into their hands. For they were madmen--mad with the +torture of hot winds and straining hopes that withered and fell; mad +with their losses of that day, mad with the glare of sun of many days, +and the stricken earth under their bound and sodden feet; mad with the +very bareness of their inconsequential lives. + +Seth Craddock heaved up to his knees, struggled to his feet with quick, +frantic lumbering, like a horse clambering out of the mire. He stood +weaving, his red eyes watching those around him, perhaps reading +something of the crowd's threat in the growl that ran through it, +beginning in the center as it died on the edge, quieting not at all. His +hat was off, dust was in his hair, a great welted wound was black on his +temple, the blood of it caked with dust on his face. + +The two prisoners on horseback, one of them wounded so badly his life +did not seem worth a minute's reprieve, were pulled down; all were +bunched with Morgan in the middle of the mob. Gray began again with his +denunciation, Morgan hearing him only as the wind, for his attention was +fixed on the activities of Dell Hutton, working with insidious swiftness +and apparent success among the mob. + +Hutton did not look at Morgan as he passed with low word from man to +man, sowing the poison of his vindictive hate against this man who had +compelled him to be honest once against his bent. A moment Hutton paused +in conference with the blacksmith, and that man came forward now, +silenced Gray with a word and pushed him aside. + +The blacksmith was a knotty short man of Slavic features, a cropped +mustache under his stubby nose. His shop was burning in the ruin of that +tragic morning; the blame of it was Morgan's. Others whose business +places had been erased in the fire were recognized by Morgan in the +crowd. The proprietor of the Santa Fé café, the cobbler, the Mexican who +sold tamales and chili--none of them of any consequence ordinarily, but +potent of the extreme of evil now, merged as they were into that +unreasoning thing, the mob. + +There were murmured suggestions, rejections; talk of the cross-arms on +the telegraph poles, which at once became determined, decisive. Men +pushed through the press with ropes. Seth Craddock looked across at +Morgan, and cursed him. One of the prisoners, the unwounded man, a youth +no older than Fred Stilwell, began to beg and cry. + +Morgan had not been alarmed up to the moment of his seeing Hutton +inflaming the crowd against him, for the mob was composed of men whose +faces were for the greater part familiar, mild men in their way, whom +the violence in which they had lived had passed and left untouched. But +they held him with strong hands; they were making ready a noose to throw +over his head and strangle his life out in the shame that belongs to +murderers and thieves. + +This had become a matter beyond his calculation; this should not be. +There were guns in men's hands all about him where guns did not belong. +Morgan threw his determination and strength into a fling that cleared +his right arm, and began a battle that marked for life some of them who +clung to him and tried to drag him down. + +They were crushing him, they were overwhelming him. Only a sudden jerk +of the head, a dozen determined, silent men hanging to him, saved +Morgan's neck from the flung rope. The man who cast it cursed; was +drawing it back with eager haste to throw again, when Rhetta Thayer +came. + +She came pushing through the mad throng about Morgan, he heard her +command to clear the way; she was beside him, the mystery of her swift +passage through the mob made plain. Seth Craddock's guns, given her as a +trophy of that day when Morgan lassoed the meat hunter, were in her +hands, and in her eyes there was a death warrant for any wretch that +stood in her way. She gave the weapons to Morgan, her breathing audible +over the hush that fell in the failing of their cowed hearts. + +"Drop your guns!" Morgan commanded. + +There was a panic to comply. Steel and nickel, ivory handle, old navy +and new Colt's, flashed in the sun as they were dropped in the little +open space at Morgan's feet. + +"Clear out of here!" + +Morgan's sharp order was almost unnecessary. Those on the edge of the +crowd were beginning already to sneak off; a little way, looking back +over shoulders, and they began to run. They dispersed like dust on the +wind, leaving behind them their weapons which would identify them for +the revenge this terrible, invincible, miraculously lucky man might come +to their doors and exact. + +The thought was terrifying. They did not stop at the margin of the +square to look back to see if he pressed his vengeance at their heels. +Only the shelter of cyclone cellar, sequestered patches of corn, the +willows along the distant river, would give them the respite from the +terror of this outreaching hand necessary to a full, free breath. + +The sheriff had released himself from jail, with Judge Thayer and the +valorous Riley Caldwell, and twenty or more others who had been locked +up with them. The sheriff, humiliated, resentful, red with the anger +that choked him--for it was safe now to be as angry as he could lash +himself--came stalking up to where Morgan held Craddock and the +unwounded raider off from the tempting heap of weapons thrown down by +the mob. The sheriff began to abuse Craddock, laying to him all the +villainy of ancestry and life that his well-schooled tongue could shape. +Morgan cut him off with a sharp word. + +"Take these men and lock them up!" + +"Yes, sir, Mr. Morgan, you bet your life I'll lock 'em up!" the sheriff +agreed. + +"Hold them for a charge of arson and murder," Judge Thayer commanded +sternly. "And see that you _do_ hold them!" + +Judge Thayer came on to where Morgan stood, the surrendered weapons at +his feet, Rhetta beside him, pride higher than the heavens in her eyes. + +"I can't apologize for them, I can't even try," said the judge, with a +humility in his word and manner quite new and strange, indicating the +members of the fast-scattering mob. He made himself as small as he felt +by his way of approaching this man who had pitched his life like a coin +of little value into the gamble of that tragic day. + +"Never mind trying--it's only an incident," Morgan told him, full of +another thought. + +"I'll see that he locks Craddock and the other two up safe, then I'll +have these guns picked up for evidence. I'm going to lay an information +against every man of them in that mob with the prosecuting attorney!" + +"Let them go, Judge Thayer--I'd never appear against them," Morgan said. + +Judge Thayer appeared to be dazed by the events of that day, crowded to +their fearful climax of destruction of property and life. He was lacking +in his ready words, older, it seemed, by many years, crushed under the +weight of this terrible calamity that had fallen on his town. He went +away after the sheriff, leaving Morgan and Rhetta, the last actors on +the stage in the drama of Ascalon's downfall, alone. + +Beyond them the fire raged in the completion of the havoc that was far +beyond any human labor to stay. The heat of it was scorching even where +they stood; coals, blazing fragments, were blown about their feet on the +turbulent wind. The black-green smoke still rose in great volume, +through which the sun was red. On the flank of the fire those who +labored to confine its spread shouted in the voice of dismay. It was an +hour of desolation; it was the day of doom. + +"Thank you for my life," said Morgan. "I've put a new valuation on it +since you've gone to so much trouble to save it." + +"Don't speak cynically about it, Mr. Morgan!" she said, hurt by his +tone. + +"I'm not cynical," he gravely assured her. "My life wasn't worth much to +me this morning when I left Stilwell's. It has acquired a new value +now." + +All this time Morgan had stood holding Seth Craddock's big revolvers in +his hands, as if he distrusted the desolation of the fire-sown square. +Now he sheathed one of them in his holster, and thrust the other under +his belt. His right hand was bleeding, from wounds of the bullet that +had struck his rifle-barrel and sprayed hot lead into his flesh, and +from the blows he had dealt in his fury amongst the mob. + +Rhetta put out her hand and took his, bleeding and torn and +battle-maimed as it was, and lifted it tenderly, and nestled it against +her cheek. + +"Dear, brave hand!" she said. + +"You're not afraid of it now!" he wondered, putting out his free hand as +if he offered it also for the absolution of her touch. + +"It was only the madness of the wind," she told him, the sorrow of her +penance in her simple words. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +SUNSET + + +Evening saw the fires of Ascalon subdued and confined. With the falling +of the wind the danger of the disaster spreading to embrace the entire +town decreased almost to safety, although the wary, scorched townsmen +stood watch over the smoldering coals which lay deep where the principal +part of Ascalon lately stood. + +Fred Stilwell had been taken to Judge Thayer's house, where his mother +and Violet attended him. The doctor said youth and a clean body would +carry him through. As for Drumm, whose bullet had brought the young man +down, his horse with the black saddle-roll had stood hitched to Judge +Thayer's fence until evening, when the sheriff came with a writ of +attachment in Stilwell's favor and took it away. Drumm's body was lying +on a board in the calaboose, diverted for that dark day in Ascalon's +history into a morgue. + +The sheriff reported that the Texas cattleman had carried more than +fifty thousand dollars in currency behind his saddle. That was according +to the custom of the times, and usage of the range, where many a man's +word was as good as his bond, but no man's check was as good as money. + +Tom Conboy was already hiring carpenters to rebuild the hotel, his eye +full of the business that would come to his doors when the railroad +shops were running, and the trainmen of the division point were there +to be housed and fed. Dora and Riley had been wandering around town all +afternoon, very much like two pigeons looking for a place to nest. + +And so evening found peace in Ascalon, after all its tragedy and pain. + +Calvin Morgan and Rhetta Thayer stood at the bank corner at sunset, +looking down the square where the great gap in its front made the scene +unfamiliar. Morgan's disabled hand was bandaged; there was a cross of +surgical tape on his chin, closing a deep cut where some citizen had +tapped him with a revolver in the last fight of that tumultuous day. + +Little groups of desolate, disheartened people stood along the line of +hitching racks; dead coals, which the wind had sown as living fire over +the square, littered the white dust. Morgan had taken off his badge of +office, having made a formal resignation to Judge Thayer, mayor of the +town. Nobody had been sworn in to take his place, for, as Judge Thayer +had said, it did not appear as if any further calamity could be left in +store among the misfortunes for that town, except it might be an +earthquake or a cyclone, and a city marshal, even Morgan, could not fend +against them if they were to come. + +"You have trampled your place among the thorns," said Rhetta. + +"It looks like I've pulled a good deal down with me," he returned, +viewing the seat of fire with a softening of pity in his grave face. + +"All that deserves to rise will rise again," she said in confidence. +"It's a good thing it burned--it's purged of its old shame and old +monuments of corruption. I'm glad it's gone." + +There was a quiet over the place, as if the heart of turbulence had been +broken and its spirit had taken flight. In the southwest, in the faces +of the two watchers at the margin of this ruin, a vast dark cloud stood +like a landfall rising in the mariner's eye out of the sea. It had been +visible since four o'clock, seeming to hesitate as if nature intended +again to deny this parched and suffering land the consolation of rain. +Now it was rising, already it had overspread the sunset glow, casting a +cool shadow full of promise over the thirsting prairie wastes. + +"It will rain this time," Rhetta prophesied. "It always comes up slowly +that way when it rains a long time." + +"A rain will work wonders in this country," he said, his face lifted to +the promise of the cloud. + +"And wisdom and faith will do more," she told him, her voice tender and +low. + +"And love," said he, voice solemn as a prophet's, yet gentle as a +dove's. + +"And love," she whispered, the wind, springing like an inspiration +before the rain, lifting her shadowy hair. + +Joe Lynch came driving into the stricken square down the road beside +them, bringing a load of bones. + +"Had to burn the town to fetch a rain, huh?" said Joe, his ghostly dry +old face tilted to catch the savor of the wind. So saying, he drove on, +and paused not in his labor of off-bearing the waste of failure that +must be cleared for the new labor of wisdom, faith, and love. + + * * * * * + +Thirty years will do for a cottonwood what two centuries will do for an +oak. Thirty years had built the cottonwoods of great girth, and lifted +them in dignity high above the roof of Calvin Morgan's white farmhouse, +his great barns and granaries. Elm trees, bringing their blessings of +wide-spreading branch more slowly, led down a broad avenue to the white +manse with its Ionian portico. Over the acres of smooth, luxuriant green +lawn, the long shadows of closing day reached like the yearning of men's +unfinished dreams. + +Before the house a broad roadway, smooth as a city boulevard, ran +straight to the bright, clean, populous city where Ascalon, with its +forgotten shame and tragedies, once stood. And far and away, over the +swell of gentle ridge, into the dip of gracious valley, spread the +benediction of growing wheat. Wisdom and faith and love had worked their +miracle. This land had become the nation's granary; it was a land +redeemed. + + * * * * * + +Under the giant cottonwoods, gray-green of leaf as the desert grasses +were gray-green in the old cattle days, the brown walls, the low roof, +of a sod house stood, the lawn clipped smooth around its humble door, +lilac clumps green beside its walls, sweet honeysuckle clambering over +its little porch. And there came, in the tender last beams of the +setting sun, a man and woman to its door. + +Not old, not bent, not gnarled by the rack of blind-groping, undirected +toil, for such of the chosen out of nature's nobility are never old. +Hair once dark as woodland shadows was shot with the sunlight of many +years; hair once bright as the mica tossed by joyous waves upon a sunny +beach was whitened now by the unmelting snows of winters numbered +swiftly in the brief calendar of man. But shoulders were unbent by the +burdens which they had borne joyously, and their feet went quickly as +lovers' to a tryst. + +This little sod house stood with all its old-time furnishings, like a +shrine, and on this day, which seemed to be an anniversary, it had been +brightened with vases of flowers. This man and this woman, not old, +indeed, entered and stood within its door, where the light was dimming +through the little window high in the thick wall. The man crossed the +room, and stood where a belt with holsters hung upon the wall. She drew +near him, and lifted his great hand, and nestled it against her cheek. + +"Old Seth Craddock's guns," he said, musing as on a recurring memory. + +"His guns!" she murmured, drawing closer into the shadow of his +strength. + + + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +1. 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Ogden</title> + <style type="text/css"> + /*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ + <!-- + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + a {text-decoration: none;} + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + body {margin-left: 11%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {right: 1%; font-size: x-small; background-color: inherit; color: gray; + text-indent: 0em; text-align: right; position: absolute; + border: 1px solid silver; padding: 1px 3px; font-style: normal; + font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;} + .blockquot {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + /* horizontal rules present in text */ + hr.major {width: 75%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + /* title block present in text */ + td.pr {padding-right: 10px; vertical-align: top;} + p.titleblock {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent: 0; text-align: center;} + /* illustration present in text */ + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + .caption {font-size: 90%;} + .tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 2em; + padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; + font-size: 90% } + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 75%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Trail's End, by George W. Ogden, Illustrated +by P. V. E. Ivory</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Trail's End</p> +<p>Author: George W. Ogden</p> +<p>Release Date: February 28, 2007 [eBook #20712]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAIL'S END***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Roger Frank<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/c/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="illus-001" id="illus-001"></a> +<img src="images/illus-fpc.jpg" alt="Morgan, grim as judgment, stood among the crowd of wastrels and women of poisoned lips [Page 229]" title="" width="400" height="590" /> +<table style="width: 400px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em" summary="caption"> +<tr><td style="text-align: center">Morgan, grim as judgment, stood among the crowd of wastrels and women of poisoned lips</td></tr> +<tr><td style="text-align: right; font-size: smaller;">[<i>Page 229</i>]</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<table width="400" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="" border="1"><tr><td> +<p class="titleblock" style="margin-top: 40px; font-size: 260%; margin-bottom: 30px;">TRAIL’S END</p> +<p class="titleblock" style="font-size: 120%; margin-bottom: 10px;">BY</p> +<p class="titleblock" style="font-size: 200%; margin-bottom: 20px;">G. W. OGDEN</p> +<p class="titleblock" style="font-size: 70%; margin-bottom: 5px;">AUTHOR OF</p> +<p class="titleblock" style="font-size: 80%;">THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE,</p> +<p class="titleblock" style="font-size: 80%;">THE FLOCKMASTER OF POISON CREEK,</p> +<p class="titleblock" style="font-size: 80%; margin-bottom: 60px;">THE LAND OF LAST CHANCE, Etc.</p> +<p class="titleblock" style="font-size: 100%; margin-bottom: 40px;">FRONTISPIECE BY P. V. E. IVORY</p> +<p class="titleblock"><img src="images/illus-emb.png" width="60" height="58" alt="emblem" /></p> +<p class="titleblock" style="margin-top: 40px; font-size: 120%; letter-spacing: 0.15em">GROSSET & DUNLAP</p> +<p class="titleblock" style="font-size: 100%; margin-bottom: 40px;">PUBLISHERS NEW YORK</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="center" style="font-size: 70%">Made in the United States of America</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div style="font-size: smaller"> +<p class="center">Copyright<br />A. C. McClurg & Co.<br />1921</p> +<hr style="width: 15%" /> +<p class="center">Published September, 1921</p> +<hr style="width: 15%" /> +<p class="center"><i>Copyrighted in Great Britain</i></p> +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<h2><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a>Contents</h2> + +<table border="0" width="500" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<col style="width: 20%;" /> +<col style="width: 70%;" /> +<col style="width: 10%;" /> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right"><span style="font-size: 80%">CHAPTER</span></td> + <td align="left"></td> + <td align="right"><span style="font-size: 80%">PAGE</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">I</td> + <td align="left">The Unconquered Land</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">II</td> + <td align="left">The Meat Hunter</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">11</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">III</td> + <td align="left">First Blood</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">23</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">IV</td> + <td align="left">The Optimist Explains</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">36</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">V</td> + <td align="left">Ascalon Awake</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">54</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">VI</td> + <td align="left">Riders of the Chisholm Trail</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">65</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">VII</td> + <td align="left">A Gentle Cowboy Joke</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">77</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">VIII</td> + <td align="left">The Avatism of a Man</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">87</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">IX</td> + <td align="left">News From Ascalon</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">101</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">X</td> + <td align="left">The Hour of Vengeance</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">111</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XI</td> + <td align="left">The Penalty</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">124</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XII</td> + <td align="left">In Place of a Regiment</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">141</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XIII</td> + <td align="left">The Hand of the Law</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">157</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XIV</td> + <td align="left">Some Fool with a Gun</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">165</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XV</td> + <td align="left">Will His Luck Hold?</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">176</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XVI</td> + <td align="left">The Meat Hunter Comes</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">187</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XVII</td> + <td align="left">With Clean Hands</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">199</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XVIII</td> + <td align="left">A Bondsman Breathes Easier</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">216</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XIX</td> + <td align="left">The Curse of Blood</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">223</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XX</td> + <td align="left">Unclean</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">234</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XXI</td> + <td align="left">As One That Is Dead</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">241</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XXII</td> + <td align="left">Whiners at the Funeral</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">245</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XXIII</td> + <td align="left">Ascalon Curls Its Lip</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">259</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XXIV</td> + <td align="left">Madness of the Winds</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">277</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XXV</td> + <td align="left">A Summons at Sunrise</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">290</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XXVI</td> + <td align="left">In The Square at Ascalon</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">299</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XXVII</td> + <td align="left">Absolution</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">315</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="pr" align="right">XXVIII</td> + <td align="left">Sunset</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">325</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<h1><a name="Trails_End" id="Trails_End"></a>Trail’s End</h1> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2><h3>THE UNCONQUERED LAND</h3> +</div> + +<p>Bones.</p> + +<p>Bones of dead buffalo, bones of dead horses, bones of dead men. The +tribute exacted by the Kansas prairie: bones. A waste of bones, a +sepulcher that did not hide its bones, but spread them, exulting in its +treasures, to bleach and crumble under the stern sun upon its sterile +wastes. Bones of deserted houses, skeletons of men's hopes sketched in +the dimming furrows which the grasses were reclaiming for their own.</p> + +<p>A land of desolation and defeat it seemed to the traveler, indeed, as he +followed the old trail along which the commerce of the illimitable West +once was borne. Although that highway had belonged to another +generation, and years had passed since an ox train toiled over it on its +creeping journey toward distant Santa Fé, the ruts of old wheels were +deep in the soil, healed over by the sod again, it is true, but seamed +like scars on a veteran's cheek. One could not go astray on that broad +highway, for the eye could follow the many parallel trails, where new +ones had been broken when the old ones wore deep and rutted.</p> + +<p>Present-day traffic had broken a new trail between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span> the old ones; it +wound a dusty gray line through the early summer green of the prairie +grass, endless, it seemed, to the eyes of the leg-weary traveler who +bent his footsteps along it that sunny morning. This passenger, afoot on +a road where it was almost an offense to travel by such lowly means, was +a man of thirty or thereabout, tall and rather angular, who took the +road in long strides much faster than the freighters' trains had +traveled it in the days of his father. He carried a black, dingy leather +bag swinging from his long arm, a very lean and unpromising repository, +upon which the dust of the road lay spread.</p> + +<p>Despite the numerous wheel tracks in the road, all of them apparently +fresh, there was little traffic abroad. Not a wagon had passed him since +morning, not a lift had been given him for a single mile. Now, mounting +a ridge toward which he had been pressing forward the past hour, which +had appeared a hill of consequence in the distance, but now flattened +out to nothing more than a small local divide, he put down his bag, +flung his dusty black hat beside it, and stood wiping his face with a +large turkey-red handkerchief which he unknotted from about his neck.</p> + +<p>His face was of that rugged type common among the pioneers of the West, +lean and harsh-featured, yet nobly austere, the guarantee of a soul +above corruption and small trickery, of a nature that endures patiently, +of an anger slow to move. There were bright hues as of glistening metal +in his close-cut light hair as he stood bareheaded in the sun.</p> + +<p>Sheep sorrel was blooming by the wheel tracks of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span> the road, purple and +yellow; daisy-like flowers, with pale yellow petals and great wondering +hearts like frightened eyes, grew low among the short grass; countless +strange blooms spread on the prairie green, cheering for their brief day +the stern face of a land that had broken the hearts of men in its +unkindness and driven them away from its fair promises. The traveler +sighed, unable to understand it quite.</p> + +<p>All day he had been passing little sod houses whose walls were +crumbling, whose roofs had fallen in, whose doors beckoned in the wind a +sad invitation to come in and behold the desolation that lay within. +Even here, close by the road, ran the grass-grown furrows of an +abandoned field, the settler's dwelling-place unmarked by sod or stone. +What tragedy was written in those wavering lines; what heartbreak of +going away from some dear hope and broken dream! Here a teamster was +cutting across the prairie to strike the road a little below the point +where the traveler stood. Extra side boards were on his wagon-box, as +they used to put them on in corn-gathering time back in the traveler's +boyhood home in Indiana. The wagon was heaped high with white, dry +bones.</p> + +<p>Bones. Nothing left to haul out of that land but bones. The young man +took up his valise and hat and struck off down the road to intercept the +freighter of this prairie product, hoping for an invitation to ride, +better pleased by the prospect of resting living bones on dead dry ones +than racking them in that strain to reach the town on the railroad, his +journey's end, on foot before nightfall.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span></p> + +<p>The driver's hat was white, like his bones; it drooped in weather-beaten +limpness about his ears, hiding his face, but he appeared to have an +hospitable heart in spite of the cheerlessness of his pursuit. Coming to +the road a little before the traveler reached the point of conjunction, +he drew the team to a stand, waiting his approach.</p> + +<p>"Have a ride?" the freighter invited, edging over on the backless spring +seat as he spoke, making room.</p> + +<p>The bone-wagon driver was a hollow-framed man, who looked as if he had +starved with the country but endured past all bounds of hardship and +discouragement. He looked hungry—hungry for food, hungry for change, +hungry for the words of men. His long gray mustache hung far below his +stubble-covered chin; there was a pallor of a lingering sickness in his +skin, which the hot sun could not sere out of it. He sat dispiritedly on +his broken seat, sagging forward with forearms across his thighs.</p> + +<p>"Footin' it over to Ascalon?" he asked, as the traveler mounted beside +him.</p> + +<p>"Yes sir, I'm headin' that way."</p> + +<p>"Come fur?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes," thoughtfully, as if he considered what might be counted far +in that land of unobstructed horizons, "I have come a considerable +little stretch."</p> + +<p>"I thought maybe you was one of them new settlers in here, goin' over to +Ascalon to ketch the train," the bone man ventured, putting his inquiry +for further particulars as politely as he knew how.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm not a settler yet, but I expect to try it here."</p> + +<p>"You don't tell me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes sir; that's my intention."</p> + +<p>"Where you from?"</p> + +<p>"Iowa."</p> + +<p>The bone man looked his passenger over with interest, from his feet in +their serviceable shoes, to his head under his round-crowned, +wide-brimmed black hat.</p> + +<p>"A good many of 'em used to come in here from Ioway and Newbrasky in the +early days," he said. "You never walked plumb from there, did you?"</p> + +<p>"I thought of stopping at Buffalo Creek, back fifteen or twenty miles, +but I didn't like the country around there. They told me it was better +at Ascalon, so I just struck out to walk across the loop of the railroad +and take a close look at the land as I went along."</p> + +<p>"You must be something of a walker," the bone man marveled.</p> + +<p>"I used to follow a walking cultivator across an eighty-acre cornfield," +the traveler replied.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that'll stretch a feller's legs," the bone man admitted, +reminiscently. "Nothing like follerin' a plow to give a man legs and +wind. But they don't mostly walk around in this country; they kind of +suspicion a man when they see him hoofin' it."</p> + +<p>"There doesn't seem to be many of them to either walk or ride," the +traveler commented, sweeping a look around the empty land.</p> + +<p>"It used to be full of homesteaders all through this country—I seen 'em +come and I seen 'em go."</p> + +<p>"I've seen traces of them all along the railroad for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span> the last hundred +miles or more. It must have been a mighty exodus, a sad thing to see."</p> + +<p>"Accordin' to the way you look at it, I reckon," the bone man reflected. +"They're comin' to this country ag'in, flocks of 'em. This makes the +third time they've tried to break this part of Kansas to ride, and I +don't know, on my soul, whether they'll ever do it or not. Maybe I'll +have more bones to pick up in a year or two."</p> + +<p>"It seems to be one big boneyard; I saw cars of bones on every sidetrack +as I came through."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I tell folks that come here and try to farm that bones was the +best crop this country ever raised, and it'll be about the only one. I +come in here with the railroad, I used to drive a team pickin' up the +buffaloes the contractors' meat hunter killed."</p> + +<p>"You know the history of its ups and downs, then," the young man said, +with every evidence of deep interest.</p> + +<p>"I guess I do, as well as any man. Bones was the first freight the +railroad hauled out of here, and bones'll be the last. I follered the +railroad camps after they built out of the buffalo country and didn't +need me any more, pickin' up the bones. Then the settlers begun to come +in, drawed on by the stuff them railroad colonization agents used to put +in the papers back East. The country broke their backs and drove 'em out +after four or five years. Then I follered around after <i>them</i> and picked +up the bones.</p> + +<p>"Yes, there used to be some familiar lookin' bones among 'em once in a +while in them times. I used to bury that kind. A few of them settlers +stuck, the ones<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span> that had money to put in cattle and let 'em increase on +the range. They've done well—you'll see their ranches all along the +Arkansaw when you travel down that way. This is a cattle country, son; +that's what the Almighty made it for. It never can be anything else."</p> + +<p>"And there was another wave of immigration, you say, after that?" the +passenger asked, after sitting a while in silence turning over what the +old pioneer had said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, wave is about right. They come in by freight trainload, cars of +horses and cattle, and machinery for farmin', from back there in Ohio +and Indiany and Ellinoi—all over that country where things a man plants +in the ground grows up and comes to something. They went into this +pe-rairie and started a bustin' it up like the ones ahead of 'em did. +Shucks! you can turn a ribbon of this blame sod a hundred miles long and +never break it. What can a farmer do with land that holds together that +way? Nothin'. But them fellers planted corn in them strips of sod, +raised a few nubbins, some of 'em, some didn't raise even fodder. It run +along that way a few years, hot winds cookin' their crops when they did +git the ground softened up so stuff would begin to make roots and grow, +cattle and horses dyin' off in the winter and burnin' up in the fires +them fool fellers didn't know how to stop when they got started in this +grass. They thinned out year after year, and I drove around over the +country and picked up their bones.</p> + +<p>"That crowd of settlers is about all gone now, only one here and there +along some crick. Bones is gittin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span> scarce, too. I used to make more +when I got four dollars a ton for 'em than I do now when they pay me +ten. Grind 'em up to put on them farms back in the East, they tell me. +Takin' the bones of famine from one place to put on fat in another. +Funny, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>The traveler said it was strange, indeed, but that it was the way of +nature for the upstanding to flourish on the remains of the fallen. The +bone man nodded, and allowed that it was so, world without end, +according to his own observations in the scale of living things from +grass blade to mankind.</p> + +<p>"How are they coming in now—by the trainload?" the traveler asked, +reverting to the influx of settlers.</p> + +<p>"These seem to be a different class of men," the bone man replied, his +perplexity plain in his face. "I don't make 'em out as easy as I did the +ones ahead of 'em. These fellers generally come alone, scoutin' around +to see the lay of the country—I run into 'em right along drivin' livery +rigs, see 'em around for a couple or three weeks sometimes. Then they go +away, and the first thing I know they're back with their immigrant car +full of stuff, haulin' out to some place somebody went broke on back in +the early days. They seem to be a calculatin' kind, but no man ain't +deep anough to slip up on the blind side of this country and grab it by +the mane like them fellers seems to think they're doin'. It'll throw +'em, and it'll throw 'em hard."</p> + +<p>"It looks to me like it would be a good country for wheat," the traveler +said.</p> + +<p>"Wheat!"</p> + +<p>The bone man pulled up on his horses, checking them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span> as if he would stop +and let this dangerous fellow off. He looked at the traveler with +incredulous stare, into which a shading of pity came, drawing his +naturally long face longer. "I'd just as well stop and let you start +back right now, mister." He tightened up a little more on the lines.</p> + +<p>There was merriment in the stranger's gray eyes, a smile on his homely +face that softened its harsh lines.</p> + +<p>"Has nobody ever tried it?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"There's been plenty of fools here, but none that wild that I ever heard +of," the bone man said. "You're a hundred miles and more past the +deadline for wheat—you'd just as well try to raise bananers here. +Wheat! it'd freeze out in the winter and blow out by the roots in the +spring if any of it got through."</p> + +<p>The traveler swept a long look around the country, illusive, it seemed, +according to its past treatment of men, in its restful beauty and secure +feeling of peace. He was silent so long that the bone man looked at him +again keenly, measuring him up and down as he would some monstrosity +seen for the first time.</p> + +<p>"Maybe you're right," the young man said at last.</p> + +<p>The bone man grunted, with an inflection of superiority, and drove on, +meditating the mental perversions of his kind.</p> + +<p>"Over in Ascalon," he said, breaking silence by and by, "there's a +feller by the name of Thayer—Judge Thayer, they call him, but he ain't +never been a judge of nothin' since I've knowed him—lawyer and land +agent for the railroad. He brings a lot of people in here and sells 'em +railroad land. He says wheat'll grow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span> in this country, tells them +settlers that to fetch 'em here. You two ought to git together—you'd +sure make a pair to draw to."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't we?" said the stranger, in hearty humor.</p> + +<p>"What business did you foller back there in Ioway?" inquired the bone +man, not much respect in him now for the man he had lifted out of the +road.</p> + +<p>"I was a professional optimist," the traveler replied, grave enough for +all save his eyes.</p> + +<p>The bone man thought it over a spell. "Well, I don't think you'll do +much in Ascalon," he said. "People don't wear specs out here in this +country much. Anybody that wants 'em goes to the feller that runs the +jewelry store."</p> + +<p>The stranger attempted no correction, but sat whistling a merry tune as +he looked over the country. The bone man drove in silence until they +rose a swell that brought the town of Ascalon into view, a passenger +train just pulling into the station.</p> + +<p>"Octomist! Wheat!" said the bone man, with discount on the words that +left them so poor and worthless they would not have passed in the +meanest exchange in the world.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2><h3>THE MEAT HUNTER</h3> +</div> + +<p>There was one tree in the city of Ascalon, the catalpa in front of Judge +Thayer's office. This blazing noonday it threw a shadow as big as an +umbrella, or big enough that the judge, standing close by the trunk and +holding himself up soldierly, was all in the shade but the gentle swell +of his abdomen, over which his unbuttoned vest gaped to invite the +breeze.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer was far too big for the tree, as he was too big for +Ascalon, but, scholar and gentleman that he was, he made the most of +both of them and accepted what they had to offer with grateful heart. +Now he stood, his bearded face streaming sweat, his alpaca coat across +his arm, his straw hat in his hand, his bald head red from the +parboiling of that intense summer day, watching a band of Texas drovers +who had just arrived with three or four thousand cattle over the long +trail from the south.</p> + +<p>These lank, wide-horned creatures were crowding and lowing around the +water troughs in the loading pens, the herdsmen shouting their +monotonous, melancholy urgings as they crowded more famished beasts into +the enclosures. Judge Thayer regarded the dusty scene with troubled +face.</p> + +<p>"And so pitch hot!" said he, shaking his head in the manner of a man who +sees complications ahead of him. He stood fanning himself with his hat, +his brows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span> drawn in concentration. "Twenty wild devils from the Nueces, +four months on the trail, and this little patch of Hades at the end!"</p> + +<p>The judge entered his office with that uneasy reflection, leaving the +door standing open behind him, ran up his window shades, for the sun had +turned from the front of his building, took off his collar, and settled +down to work. One could see him from the station platform, substantial, +rather aristocratic, sitting at his desk, his gray beard trimmed to a +nicety, one polished shoe visible in line with the door.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer's office was a bit removed from the activities of Ascalon, +which were mainly profane activities, to be sure, and not fit company +for a gentleman even in the daylight hours. It was a snubby little +building with square front like a store, "Real Estate" painted its width +above the door. On one window, in crude black lettering: </p> + +<p style="text-align: center; font-family: sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"> +WILLIAM THAYER<br />ATTORNEY<br /> +——<br /> +NOTARY</p> + +<p>On the other: </p> + +<p style="text-align: center; font-family: sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">MAYOR'S OFFICE</p> + +<p>The office stood not above two hundred feet from the railroad station, +at the end of Main Street, where the buildings blended out into the +prairie, unfenced, unprofaned by spade or plow. Beyond Judge Thayer's +office were a coal yard and a livery barn; behind him the lots which he +had charted off for sale, their bounds marked by white stakes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span></p> + +<p>Ascalon, in those early days of its history, was not very large in +either the territory covered or the inhabitants numbered, but it was a +town of national notoriety in spite of its size. People who did not live +there believed it to be an exceedingly wicked place, and the farther one +traveled from Ascalon, in any direction whatever, the faster this ill +fame increased. It was said, no farther off than Kansas City, that +Ascalon was the wickedest place in the United States. So, one can image +what character the town had in St. Louis, and guess at the extent of its +notoriety in Pittsburg and Buffalo.</p> + +<p>Porters on trains had a holy fear of Ascalon. They announced the train's +approach to it with suppressed breath, with eyes rolling white in fear +that some citizen of the proscribed town might overhear and defend the +reputation of his abiding-place in the one swift and incontrovertible +argument then in vogue in that part of the earth. Passengers of +adventurous nature flocked to the station platform during the brief +pause the train made at Ascalon, prickling with admiration of their own +temerity, so they might return home and tell of having set foot in the +wickedest town in the world.</p> + +<p>And that was the fame of Ascalon, new and raw, for the greater part of +it, as it lay beside the railroad on that hot afternoon when Judge +Thayer stood in the shade of his little catalpa tree watching the Texans +drive their cattle into the loading pens.</p> + +<p>Before the railroad reached out across the Great Plains, Ascalon was +there as a fort, under another name. The railroad brought new +consequence, new activities, and made it the most important loading +place for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span> Texas cattle, driven over the long route on their slow way to +market.</p> + +<p>It was a cattle town, living and fattening on the herds which grazed the +vast prairie lands surrounding it, and on the countless thousands which +came northward to its portal over the Chisholm Trail. As will have been +gathered from the scene already passed, agriculture had tried and failed +in that land. Ascalon was believed to be, in truth, far beyond the limit +of that gentle art, which was despised and contemned by the men who +roamed their herds over the free grass lands, and the gamesters who +flourished at their expense.</p> + +<p>Not that all in Ascalon were vicious and beyond the statutory and moral +laws. There was a submerged desire for respectability in the grain of +even the worst of them which came to the front at times, as in defense +of the town's reputation, and on election day, when they put in such a +man as Judge Thayer for mayor. With a man like Judge Thayer at the head +of affairs, all charges of the town's utter abandonment to the powers of +evil seemed to fall and fade. But the judge, in reality, was only a +pillar set up for dignity and show. They elected him mayor, and went on +running the town to suit themselves, for the city marshal was also an +elective officer, and in his hands the scroll of the law reposed.</p> + +<p>Now, in these summer days, there was a vacancy in this most important +office, three months, only, after election. The term had almost two +years to run, the appointment of a man to the vacancy being in the +mayor's hands. As a consequence there was being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span> exerted a great deal of +secret and open pressure on the mayor in favor of certain favorites. It +was from a conference with several of the town's financial powers that +the mayor had returned to his office when you first beheld him under his +catalpa tree. The sweat on his face was due as much to internal +perplexity as outward heat, for Judge Thayer was a man who wanted to +please his friends, and everybody that counted in Ascalon was his +friend, although they were not all friends among themselves.</p> + +<p>No later than the night before the vacancy in the marshalship had +fallen; it would not do to allow the town to go unbridled for even +another night. A strong man must be appointed to the place, and no fewer +than three candidates were being urged by as many factions, each of +which wanted its peculiar interests especially favored and protected. So +Judge Thayer was in a sweat with good reason. He wished in his honest +soul that he could reach out and pick up a disinterested man somewhere, +set him into the office without the strings of fear or favor on him, and +tell him to keep everybody within the deadline, regardless of whose +business prospered most.</p> + +<p>But there were not men raining down every day around Ascalon competent +to fill the office of city marshal. Out of the material offered there +was not the making of one side of a man. Two of them were creatures of +the opposing gambling factions, the other a weak-kneed fellow with the +pale eyes of a coward, put forward by the conservative business men who +deplored much shooting in the name of the law.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span></p> + +<p>How they were to get on without much shooting, Judge Thayer did not +understand. Not a bit of it. What he wanted was a man who would do more +shooting than ever had been done before, a man who would clean the place +of the too-ready gun-slingers who had gathered there, making the town's +notoriety their capital, invading even the respectable districts in +their nightly debaucheries to such insolent boldness that a man's wife +or daughter dared not show her ear on the street after nightfall.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer put the town's troubles from him with a sigh and leaned to +his work. He was preparing a defense for a cattle thief whom he knew to +be guilty, but whose case he had undertaken on account of his wife and +several small children living in a tent behind the principal +gambling-house. Because it seemed a hopeless case from the jump, Judge +Thayer had set his beard firmer in the direction of the fight. Hopeless +cases were the kind that had come most frequently his way all the days +of his life. He had been fronting for the under pup so long that his own +chances had dwindled down to a distant point in his gray-headed years. +But there was lots of satisfaction behind him to contemplate even though +there might not be a great deal of prosperity ahead. That helped a man +wonderfully when it came to casting up accounts. So he was bent to the +cattle thief's case when a man appeared in his door.</p> + +<p>This was a tall, bony man with the dust of the long trail on him; a +sour-faced man of thin visage, with long and melancholy nose, a lowering +frown in his unfriendly, small red eyes. A large red mustache drooped +over his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span> mouth, the brim of his sombrero was pressed back against the +crown as if he had arrived devil-come-headlong against a heavy wind.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer took him for a cattleman seeking legal counsel, and invited +him in. The visitor shifted the chafed gear that bore his weapon, as if +to ease it around his gaunt waist, and entered, removing his hat. He +stood a little while looking down at Judge Thayer, a disturbance in his +weathered face that might have been read for a smile, a half-mocking, +half-humorous expression that twitched his big mustache with a catlike +sneer.</p> + +<p>"You're the mayor of this man's town, are you, Judge?" he asked.</p> + +<p>As the visitor spoke, Judge Thayer's face cleared of the perplexity that +had clouded it. He got up, beaming welcome, offering his hand.</p> + +<p>"Seth Craddock, as sure as little apples! I knew you, and I didn't know +you, you old scoundrel! Where have you been all these years?"</p> + +<p>Seth Craddock only expanded his facial twitching at this friendly +assault until it became a definite grin. It was a grin that needed no +apology, for all evidence was in its favor that it was so seldom seen by +the eyes of men that it could be forgiven without a plea.</p> + +<p>"I've been ridin' the long trail," said Seth.</p> + +<p>"With that bunch that just arrived?"</p> + +<p>"Yeh. Drove up from the Nueces. I'm quittin'."</p> + +<p>"The last time I saw you, Seth, you were butchering two tons of buffalo +a day for the railroaders. I often wondered where you went after you +finished your meat contract."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span></p> + +<p>"I scouted a while for the gover'ment, but we run out of Indians. Then I +went to Texas and rode with the rangers a year or two."</p> + +<p>"I guess you kept your gun-barrel hot down in that country, Seth?"</p> + +<p>"Yeh. Once in a while it was lively. Dyin' out down there now, quiet as +a school."</p> + +<p>"So you turned back to Kansas lookin' for high life. Heard of this burg, +I guess?"</p> + +<p>"I kind of thought something might be happenin' off up here, Judge."</p> + +<p>"And I was sitting here frying out my soul for the sight of a full-sized +man when you stepped in the door! Sit down; let's you and me have a +talk."</p> + +<p>Seth drew a dusty chair from against the wall and arranged himself in +the draft between the front and back doors of the little house. He +leaned his storm-beaten sombrero against the leg of his chair near his +heel, as carefully as if making preparations for quick action in a +hostile country, shook his head when the judge offered a cigar, shifted +his worn cartridge belt a bit with a movement that appeared to be as +unconscious as unnecessary.</p> + +<p>"What's restin' so heavy on your mind, Judge?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Our city marshal stepped in the way of a fool feller's bullet last +night, and all the valuable property in this town is lying open and +unguarded today."</p> + +<p>"Don't nobody want the job?"</p> + +<p>"Many are called, or seem to feel themselves nominated, but none is +appointed. The appointment is in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span> my hands; the job's yours if you'll do +an old friend a favor and take it. It pays a hundred dollars a month."</p> + +<p>Seth's heavy black hair lay in disorder on his high, sharp forehead, +sweated in little ropes, more than half concealing his immense ears. He +smoothed it back now with slow hand, holding a thoughtful silence; +shifted his feet, crossed his legs, looked out through the open door +into the dusty street.</p> + +<p>"How does the land lay?" he asked at length.</p> + +<p>"You know the name of the town, everybody knows the name of the town. +Well, Seth, it's worse than its name. It's a job; it's a double man's +job. If it was any less, I wouldn't lay it down before you."</p> + +<p>"Crooks run things, heh?"</p> + +<p>"I'm only a knot on a log. The marshal we had wasn't worth the powder +that killed him. Oh-h, he did kill off a few of 'em, but what we need +here is a man that can see both sides of the street and behind him at +the same time."</p> + +<p>"How many folks have you got in this man's town by now, Judge?"</p> + +<p>"Between six and seven hundred. And we could double it in three months +if we could clean things up and make it safe."</p> + +<p>"How would you do it, Judge? marry everybody?"</p> + +<p>"I mean we'd bring settlers in here and put 'em on the land. The +railroad company could shoot farmers in here by the hundreds every month +if it wasn't for the hard name this town's got all over the country. A +good many chance it and come as it is. We could make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span> this town the +supply point for a big territory, we could build up a business that'd +make us as respectable as we're open and notorious now. For I tell you, +Seth, this country around here is God Almighty's granary—it's the wheat +belt of the world."</p> + +<p>Seth made no reply. He slewed himself a little to sweep the country over +beyond the railroad station with his sullen red eyes. The heat was +wavering up from the treeless, shrubless expanse; the white sun was over +it as hot as a furnace blast. From the cattle pens the dusty, hoarse +cries of the cowboys sounded, "Ho, ho, ho!" in what seemed derision of +the judge's fervent claims.</p> + +<p>"A lot of us have staked our all on the outcome here in Ascalon, we +fellows who were here before the town turned out to be the sink-hole of +perdition that it is today. We built our homes here, and brought our +families out, and we can't afford to abandon it to these crooks and +gamblers and gun-slingers from the four corners of the earth. I let them +put me in for mayor, but I haven't got any more power than a stray dog. +This chance to put in a marshal is the first one I've had to land them a +kick in the gizzards, and by Jeems River, Seth, I want to double 'em +up!"</p> + +<p>"It looks like your trick, Judge."</p> + +<p>"Yes, if I had the marshal with me the two of us could run this town the +way it ought to be run. And we'd keep the county seat here as sure as +sundown."</p> + +<p>"Considerin' a change?"</p> + +<p>"The folks over in Glenmore are—the question will come to a vote this +fall. The county seat belongs here,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span> not away off there at Glenmore, +seven miles from the railroad."</p> + +<p>"What's your chance?"</p> + +<p>"Not very heavy right now. We can out-vote them in town, but the +country's with Glenmore, all on account of our notorious name. Folks +hate to come in here to court, it's got so bad. But we could do a lot of +cleaning up between now and November, Seth."</p> + +<p>Seth considered it in silence, his red eyes on the dusty activities of +his late comrades at the cattle pens. He shifted his dusty feet as if +dancing to his slow thoughts, scraping his boot soles grittily on the +floor.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I reckon we could, Judge."</p> + +<p>"Half the people in Glenmore want to come over to the railroad. They'd +vote with us if they could be made to feel this was a town to bring +their families to."</p> + +<p>Seth seemed to take this information like a pill under his tongue and +dissolve it in his reflective way. Judge Thayer left him to his +ruminations, apparently knowing his habits. After a little Seth reached +down for his hat in the manner of a man about to depart.</p> + +<p>"All right, Judge; we'll clean up the town and part its hair down the +middle," he said.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer did not give vent to his elation on Seth Craddock's +acceptance of the office of city marshal, although his satisfaction +gleamed from his eyes and radiated from his kindly face. He merely shook +hands with his new officer in the way of men sealing a bargain, swore +him in, and gave him the large shield which had been worn by the many +predecessors of the meat hunter in that uncomfortable office, three of +whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span> had gone out of the world with lead enough in them to keep them +from tossing in their graves.</p> + +<p>This ceremony ended, Seth put his hat firmly on his small, reptilian +head, adding greatly to the ferociousness of his thirsty countenance by +his way of pulling the sombrero down upon his ears.</p> + +<p>"Want to walk around with me and introduce me and show me off?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"It'll be the biggest satisfaction in ten years!" Judge Thayer +declared.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2><h3>FIRST BLOOD</h3> +</div> + +<p>Judge Thayer had completed the round of Ascalon's business section with +the town's new peace officer, introducing him in due form. They stood +now in front of the hotel, the plank awning of which extended over the +sidewalk breaking the sun, Judge Thayer about to go his way.</p> + +<p>"We've got to change this condition of things, Seth," he said, sweeping +his hand around the quiet square, where nothing seemed awake but a few +loafers along the shady fronts: "we've got to make it a day town instead +of a night roost for the buzzards that wake up after sundown."</p> + +<p>Seth did not answer. He stood turning his red eyes up and down the +street, as if calculating distances and advantages for future +emergencies. And as he looked there came driving into the somnolent +square two men on a wagonload of bones.</p> + +<p>"Old Joe Lynch; he's loadin' another car of bones," Judge Thayer said.</p> + +<p>"He used to pick up meat for me," said Seth in his sententious way, +neither surprised nor pleased on finding this associate of his +adventurous days here in this place of his new beginning.</p> + +<p>Joe Lynch drove across the farther side of the square, a block away from +the two officials of Ascalon. There he stopped only long enough to allow +his passenger to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span> alight, and continued on to the railroad siding where +his car stood.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer lingered under the hotel awning, where the breeze struck +refreshingly, perhaps making a pretense of being cooled that was greater +than his necessity, curious to see who it was Lynch had brought to town +on his melancholy load. The passenger, carrying his flat bag, came on +toward the hotel.</p> + +<p>"He's a stranger to me," said the judge. His interest ending there, he +went his way to take up again the preparation of his case in defense of +the cattle thief whom he knew to be a thief, and nothing but a thief.</p> + +<p>Seth Craddock, the new marshal, glanced sharply at the stranger as he +approached the hotel. It was nothing more severe than Seth's ordinary +scrutiny, but it appeared to the traveler to be at once hostile and +inhospitable, the look of a man who sneered out of his heart and carried +a challenge in his eyes. The stranger made the mental observation that +this citizen was a sour-looking customer, who apparently resented the +coming of one more to the mills of Ascalon's obscene gods.</p> + +<p>There was a cluster of flies on the open page of the hotel register, +where somebody had put down a sticky piece of chocolate candy and left +it. This choice confection covered three or four lines immediately below +the last arrival's name, its little trickling rivulets, which the flies +were licking up, spreading like a spider's legs. There was nobody in the +office to receive the traveler's application for quarters, but evidence +of somebody in the remote parts of the house, whence came the sound of a +voice more penetrating than musical, raised in song.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span></p> + +<p class="blockquot"> +<i>With her apurn pinned round her,<br /> +He took her for a swan,<br /> +But oh and a-las, it was poor Pol-ly Bawn.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>So she sang, the words of the ancient ballad cutting through the +partition like a saw. There was a nasal quality in them, as if the +singer were moved to tears by the pathos of Poor Polly's end. The +traveler laid a finger on the little bell that stood on the cigar case, +sending his alarm through the house.</p> + +<p>The song ceased, the blue door with DINING-ROOM in pink across its +panels, shut against the flies, opened with sudden jerk, as if by a +petulant hand. There appeared one who might have been Polly Bawn +herself, taken by the white apron that shrouded her figure from +shoulders to floor. She stood a moment in the door, seeing that it was a +stranger, half closing that gay portal to step behind it and give her +hair that swift little adjustment which, with women the world over, is +the most essential part of the toilet. She appeared smiling then, +somewhat abashed and coy, a fair short girl with a nice figure and +pretty, sophisticated face, auburn curls dangling long at her ears, a +precise row of bangs coming down to her eyebrows. She was a pink and +white little lady, quick on foot, quicker of the blue eyes which +measured the waiting guest from dusty feet to dusty hat in the glance +that flashed over him in business-like brevity.</p> + +<p>"Was you wishin' a room?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"If you can accommodate me."</p> + +<p>"Register," she said, in voice of command, whirling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span> the book about. At +the same time she discovered the forgotten confection, which she removed +to the top of the cigar case with an annoyed ejaculation under her +breath that sounded rather strong. She applied her apron to the page, +not helping it much, spreading the brown paste rather than removing it.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to skip three or four lines, mister, unless you've got a +'delible pencil."</p> + +<p>"No, I haven't. I'll write down here where it's dry."</p> + +<p>And there the traveler wrote, the girl looking on sharply, spelling the +letters with silently moving lips as the pen trailed them: </p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Calvin Morgan, Des Moines, Ia.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>"In and out, or regular?" the girl asked, twisting the book around to +verify the upside-down spelling of his name.</p> + +<p>"I expect it will be only for a few days," Morgan replied, smiling a +little at the pert sufficiency of the clerk.</p> + +<p>"It's a dollar a day for board and room—in advance in this man's town."</p> + +<p>"Why in this man's town, any more than any other man's town?" the guest +inquired, amused.</p> + +<p>"What would you think of a man that would run up a three weeks' bill and +then walk out there and let somebody put a bullet through him?" she +returned by way of answer.</p> + +<p>"I think it would be a mean way to beat a board bill," he told her, +seriously. "Do they do that right along here?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span></p> + +<p>"One smarty from Texas done it three or four months ago. Since then it's +cash in advance."</p> + +<p>Morgan thought it was a very wise regulation for a town where perils +were said to be so thick, all in keeping with the notoriety of Ascalon. +He made inquiry about something to eat. The girl's face set in +disfavoring cast as she tossed her head haughtily.</p> + +<p>"Dinner's over long ago," she said.</p> + +<p>Morgan made amends for this unwitting breach of the rules, wondering +what there was in the air of Ascalon that made people combative. Even +this fresh-faced girl, not twenty, he was sure, was resentful, snappish +without cause, inclined to quarrel if a word got crosswise in a man's +mouth. As he turned these things in mind, casting about for some place +to stow his bag, the girl smiled across at him, the mockery going out of +her bright eyes. Perhaps it was because she felt that she had defended +the ancient right of hostelers to rise in dignified front when a +traveler spoke of a meal out of the regular hour, perhaps because there +was a gentleness and sincerity in the tall, honest-looking man before +her that reached her with an appeal lacking in those who commonly came +and went before her counter.</p> + +<p>"Put your grip over there," she nodded, "and I'll see what I can find. +If you don't mind a snack—" she hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Anything—a slab of cold meat and a cup of coffee."</p> + +<p>"I'll call you," she said, starting for the blue door.</p> + +<p>The girl had reached the dining-room door when there entered from the +street a man, lurching when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span> he walked as if the earth tipped under him +like the deck of a ship. He was a young and slender man, dressed rather +loudly in black sateen shirt and scarlet necktie, with broad blue, +tassel-ornamented sleeve holders about his arms. He wore neither coat +nor vest, but was belted with a pistol and booted and spurred, his +calling of cowboy impressed in every line.</p> + +<p>The girl paused, hand on the door, waiting to see what he wanted, and +turned back when he rested his arms on the cigar case, clicking the +glass with a coin. While she was making change for him, the cowboy stood +with his newly bought cigar in his mouth, scanning the register. He +seemed sober enough when standing still, save for the vacant, +liquor-dead look of his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Who wrote that?" he asked, pointing to Morgan's name.</p> + +<p>"That gentleman," the girl replied, placing his change before him.</p> + +<p>The cowboy picked up his money with numb fingers, fumbled to put it in +his pocket, dropping it on the floor. He kicked at it with a curse and +let it lie, scowling meantime at Morgan with angry eyes.</p> + +<p>"Too good to write your name next to mine, are you?" he sneered. "Afraid +it'd touch your fancy little handwritin', was you?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know it was your name, pardner," Morgan returned, conciliating +him as he would an irresponsible child. "Why, I'd walk a mile to write +my name next to yours any day. There was something on the book——"</p> + +<p>"You spit on it! You spit on my name!" the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span> foolish fellow charged, +laying hand to his pistol. "A man that's too good to write his name next +to mine's too good to stay in the same house with me. You'll hit the +breeze out of here, pardner, or you'll swaller lead!"</p> + +<p>The girl came swiftly from behind the counter, and ran lightly to the +door. Morgan put up his hand to silence the young man, knowing well that +he could catch his slow arm before he could drag his gun two inches from +the holster.</p> + +<p>"Keep your gun where it is, old feller," he suggested, rather than +warned, in good-natured tone. "I didn't mean any insult, but I'll take +my hat off and apologize to you if you want me to. There was a piece of +candy on the book right——"</p> + +<p>"I'll put a piece of hot iron in your guts!" the cowboy threatened. He +leaned over the register, hand still on his pistol, and tore out the +offending page, crumpling it into a ball. "You'll eat this, then you'll +hit the road back where you come from!"</p> + +<p>The girl was beckoning to somebody from the door. Morgan was more +annoyed and shamed by his part in this foolish scene than he was +disturbed by any feeling of danger. He stood watching the young man's +shooting arm. There was not more than five feet between them; a step, a +sharp clip on the jaw, and the young fool would be helpless. Morgan was +setting himself to act, for the cowboy, whose face was warrant that he +was a simple, harmless fellow when sober, was dragging on his gun, when +one came hastening in past the girl.</p> + +<p>This was a no less important person than the new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span> city marshal, whom +Morgan had seen without knowing his official standing, as he arrived at +the hotel.</p> + +<p>"This man's raisin' a fuss here—he's tore the register—look what he's +done—tore the register!" the indignant girl charged.</p> + +<p>"You're arrested," said the marshal. "Come on."</p> + +<p>The cowboy stood mouthing his cigar, a weak look of scorn and derision +in his flushed face. His right hand was still on his pistol, the wadded +page of the register in the other.</p> + +<p>"You'd better take his gun," Morgan suggested to the marshal, "he's so +drunk he might hurt himself with it."</p> + +<p>Seth Craddock fixed Morgan a moment with his sullen red eyes, in which +the sneer of his heart seemed to speak. But his lips added nothing to +the insult of that disdainful look. He jerked his head toward the door +in command to his prisoner to march.</p> + +<p>"Come out! I'll fight both of you!" the cowboy challenged, making for +the door. He was squarely in it, one foot lifted in his drunken +balancing to step down, when Seth Craddock jerked out his pistol between +the lifting and the falling of that unsteady foot, and shot the +retreating man in the back. The cowboy pitched forward into the street, +where he lay stretched and motionless, one spurred foot still in the +door.</p> + +<p>Morgan sprang forward with an exclamation of shocked protest at this +unjustified slaughter, while the girl, her blue eyes wide in horror, +shrunk against the counter, hands pressed to her cheeks, a cry of +outraged pity ringing from her lips.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span></p> + +<p>"Resist an officer, will you?" said the city marshal, as he strode +forward and looked down on the first victim in Ascalon of the woeful +harvest his pistol was to reap. So saying, as if publishing his +justification, he sheathed his weapon and walked out, as little moved as +if he had shot the bottom out of a tomato can in practice among friends.</p> + +<p>A woman came hastening from the back of the house with dough on her +hands, a worn-faced woman, whose eyes were harried and afraid as if they +had looked on violence until horror had set its seal upon them. She +exclaimed and questioned, panting, frantic, holding her dough-clogged +fingers wide as she bent to look at the slain man in her door.</p> + +<p>"It was the new marshal Judge Thayer was in here with just after +dinner," the girl explained, the pink gone out of her pretty face, the +reflection of her mother's horror in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"My God!" said the woman, clutching her breast, looking with a wilder +terror into Morgan's face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wish they'd take him away! I wish they'd take him away!" the girl +moaned, cringing against the counter, covering her face with her hands.</p> + +<p>Outside a crowd collected around the fallen man, for common as death by +violence was in the streets of Ascalon, the awe of its swift descent, +the hushing mystery of its silence, fell as coldly over the hearts of +men there as in the walks of peace. Presently the busy undertaker came +with his black wagon to gather up this broken shape of what had been a +man but a few minutes past.</p> + +<p>The marshal did not trouble himself in the case further.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span> Up the street +Morgan saw him sauntering along, unmoved and unconcerned, from all +outward show, as if this might have been just one incidental task in a +busy day. Resentment rose in Morgan as he watched the undertaker and his +helper load the body into the wagon with unfeeling roughness; as he saw +the marshal go into a saloon with a crowd of noisy fellows from the +stock pens who appeared to be applauding his deed.</p> + +<p>This appeared to Morgan simply murder in the name of the law. That +bragging, simple, whisky-numbed cowboy could not have hurt a cat. All +desire for dinner was gone out of Morgan's stomach, all thought of +preparing it from the girl's mind. She stood in the door with her +mother, watching the black wagon away with this latest victim to be +crushed in Ascalon's infernal mill, twisting her fingers in her apron, +her face as white as the flour on her mother's hands. The undertaker's +man came hurrying back with a bucket of water and broom. The women +turned away out of the door then, while he briskly went to work washing +up the dark little puddle that spread on the boards of the sidewalk.</p> + +<p>"Dora, where's your pa?" the elder woman asked, stopping suddenly as she +crossed the room, her face drawn in a quick stroke of fear, her hands +lifted to ease the smothering in her breast again.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Ma. He ain't been around since dinner."</p> + +<p>The woman went to the door again, to lean and peer up and down the +street with that great anxiety and trouble in her face that made it old, +and distorted the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span> faint trace of lingering prettiness out of it as if +it had been covered with ashes.</p> + +<p>"He's comin'," she said presently, in voice of immeasurable relief. She +turned away from the door without allowing her glance to fall directly +on the wet spot left by the undertaker's man.</p> + +<p>Mother and daughter talked together in low words, only a few of which +now and then reached Morgan as he stood near the counter where the +mutilated register lay, turning this melancholy event in his thoughts. +He recovered the torn crumpled page from the floor, smoothed and +replaced it in the book. A man came in, the woman turning with a quick +glad lighting of the face to meet him.</p> + +<p>"O Tommy! I was worried to death!" she said.</p> + +<p>Tom Conboy, proprietor of the Elkhorn, as the hotel was called, grunted +in discount of this anxiety as he turned his shifty eyes to the +stranger, flicking them on and off like a fly. He saw the coins dropped +by the cowboy, picked them up, put them in his pocket, face red from +what evidently was unaccustomed effort as he straightened his back.</p> + +<p>"You seem to be gettin' mighty flush with money around this joint," he +said, severe censure in his tone.</p> + +<p>"He dropped it—the man the marshal shot dropped it—it was his," the +girl explained. "I wouldn't touch it!" she shuddered, "not for anything +in the world!"</p> + +<p>"Huh!" said Conboy, easily, entirely undisturbed by the dead man's money +in his pocket.</p> + +<p>"My God! I wish he hadn't done it here!" the woman moaned.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span></p> + +<p>"I didn't think he'd shoot him or I wouldn't 'a' called him," the girl +pleaded, pity for the deed in her shocked voice. "He didn't need to do +it—he didn't have to do it, at all!"</p> + +<p>"Sh-h-h! No niggers in Ireland, now—no-o-o niggers in Ireland!"</p> + +<p>Conboy shook his head at her as he spoke, pronouncing this rather +amazing and altogether irrelevant declaration with the utmost gravity, +an admonitory, cautioning inflection in his naturally grave and resonant +voice. The girl said no more on the needless sacrifice of the young +man's life.</p> + +<p>"I was goin' to get this gentleman some dinner," she said.</p> + +<p>"You'd better go on and do it, then," her father directed, gently enough +for a man of his stamp, rather surprisingly gentle, indeed, Morgan +thought.</p> + +<p>Tom Conboy was a short-statured man, slight; his carefully trimmed gray +beard lending a look of serious wisdom to his face which the shiftiness +of his insincere eyes at once seemed to controvert. He wore neither coat +nor vest, but a white shirt with broad starched bosom, a large gold +button in its collarless neckband. A diamond stud flashed in the middle +of his bosom; red elastic bands an inch broad, with silver buckles, held +up the slack of the sleeves which otherwise would have enveloped his +hands.</p> + +<p>"Are you goin' to stay in the office a while now, Tommy, and look after +things while Dora and I do the work?" the woman asked.</p> + +<p>"I've got to get the jury together for the inquest,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span> Conboy returned, +with the briskness of a man of importance.</p> + +<p>"Will I be wanted to give my testimony at the inquest, do you suppose?" +Morgan inquired. "I was here when it happened; I saw the whole thing."</p> + +<p>He spoke in the hope that he might be given the opportunity of relieving +the indignation, so strong in him that it was almost oppressive, before +the coroner's jury. Tom Conboy shook his head.</p> + +<p>"No, the marshal's testimony is all we'll need," Conboy replied. +"Resistin' arrest and tryin' to escape after arrest. That's all there +was to it. These fellers'll have to learn better than that with this new +man. I know him of old—he's a man that always brings in the meat."</p> + +<p>"But he didn't try to escape," Morgan protested. "He was so drunk he +didn't know whether he was coming or going."</p> + +<p>Conboy looked at him disfavoringly, as if to warn him to be discreet in +matters of such remote concern to him as this.</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut! no niggers in Ireland," said he, shaking his head with an +expression between a caution and a threat.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2><h3>THE OPTIMIST EXPLAINS</h3> +</div> + +<p>Not more than two hours after the tragedy at the Elkhorn hotel, of which +he was the indirect cause, Calvin Morgan appeared at Judge Thayer's +little office. The judge had finished his preparation for the cattle +thief's case, and now sat ruminating it over his cob pipe. He nodded +encouragingly as Morgan hesitated at the door.</p> + +<p>"Come in, Mr. Morgan," he invited, as cordially as if introductions had +passed between them already and relations had been established on a +footing pleasant and profitable to both.</p> + +<p>Morgan smiled a little at this ready identification, remembering the +torn page of the hotel register, which all the reading inhabitants of +the town who were awake must have examined before this. He accepted the +chair that Judge Thayer pushed toward him, nodding to the bone-wagon man +who came sauntering past the door at that moment, the long lash of his +bullhide whip trailing in the dust behind him.</p> + +<p>"You've come to settle with us, I hear?" said the judge.</p> + +<p>"I'm looking around with that thought, sir."</p> + +<p>"I don't know how you'll do at the start in the optical way, Mr. +Morgan—I'm afraid not much. I'd advise watch repairing and jewelry in +addition. This town is going to be made a railroad division point<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span> +before long, I could get you appointed watch inspector for the company. +Now, I've got a nice little storeroom——"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you've got me in the wrong deck," Morgan interrupted, +unwilling to allow the judge to go on building his extravagant fancy. "I +could no more fix a watch than I could repair a locomotive, and +spectacles are as far out of my line as specters."</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer's face reddened above his thick beard at this easy and +fluent denial of all that he had constructed from a hasty and indefinite +bit of information.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Mr. Morgan. It was Joe Lynch, the fellow that drives +the bone wagon, who got me wrong. He told me you were an oculist."</p> + +<p>"I think that was his rendition of optimist, perhaps," Morgan said, +laughing with the judge's hearty appreciation of the twist. "I told him, +in response to a curious inquiry, that I was an optimist. I've tried +hard—very hard, sometimes—to live up to it. My profession is one that +makes a heavy drain on all the cheerfulness that nature or art ever +stocked a man with, Judge Thayer."</p> + +<p>"It sounds like you might be a lawyer," the judge speculated, "or maybe +a doctor?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm simply an agriculturist, late professor of agronomy in the Iowa +State Agricultural College. It takes optimism, believe me, sir, to try +to get twenty bushels of wheat out of land where only twelve grew +before, or two ears of corn where only two-thirds of one has been the +standard."</p> + +<p>"You're right," Judge Thayer agreed heartily; "it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span> takes more faith, +hope, and courage to be a farmer than any other calling on earth. I +often consider the risks a farmer must take year by year in comparison +with other lines of business, staking his all, very frequently, on what +he puts into the furrows, turning his face to God when he has sown his +seed, in faith that rains will fall and frosts will be stayed. It is +heroic, sometimes it is sublimely heroic. And you are going to try your +fortunes here on the soil?"</p> + +<p>"I've had my eye on this country a good while in spite of the dismal +tales of hardship and failure that have come eastward out of it. I've +looked to it as the place for me to put some of my theories to the test. +I believe alfalfa, or lucerne, as it is called back East, will thrive +here, and I'm going to risk your derision and go a little farther. I +believe this can be made the greatest wheat country in America."</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer brought his hand down with a smack of the palm that made +his papers fly, his face radiating the pleasure that words alone could +not express.</p> + +<p>"I've been telling them that for seven years, Morgan!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Hasn't it ever been tried out?"</p> + +<p>"Tried out? They don't stay long enough to try out anything, Morgan. +They're here today and gone tomorrow, cursing Kansas as they go, +slandering it, branding it as the Tophet of the earth. We've never had +the right kind of people here, they didn't have the courage, the faith, +and the vision. If a man hasn't got the grit and ability to stick +through his losses at any game in this life, Morgan, he'll never win. +And he'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span> never be anything but a little loser, put him down where you +will."</p> + +<p>"I've met hundreds of them dragging their bones out of Kansas the past +four or five years," Morgan nodded. "From what I can gather by talking +with them, the trouble lies in their poverty when they come here. As you +say, they're not staked to play this stiff game. A man ought to +provision himself for a campaign against this country like he would for +an Arctic expedition. If he can't do it, he'd better stay away."</p> + +<p>"I guess there's more to that than I ever stopped to consider myself," +Judge Thayer admitted. "It is a hard country to break, but there are men +somewhere who can subdue it and reap its rewards."</p> + +<p>"I tried to induce the railroad company to back me in an experimental +farm out here, but the officials couldn't see it," Morgan said. "I'm +going to tackle it now on my lonesome. The best proof of a man's +confidence in his own theories is to put them into practice himself, +anyway."</p> + +<p>"These cattlemen around here will laugh at you and try to discourage +you, Morgan. I'm the standing joke of this country because I still stick +to my theory of wheat."</p> + +<p>"The farmers in Iowa laughed their teeth loose when we book farmers at +the college told them they could add a million bushels a year to the +corn crop of the state by putting a few more grains on the ends of the +cobs. Well, they did it, just the same, in time."</p> + +<p>"I heard about that," nodded the judge, quite warmed up to this +long-backed stranger.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span></p> + +<p>"Failure is written all over the face of this country," Morgan +continued; "I took a long tramp across it this morning. But I believe +I've got the formula that will tame it."</p> + +<p>"I believe you, I believe you can do it," Judge Thayer indorsed him, +with enthusiasm. "I believe you've brought the light of a new epoch into +this country, I believe you're carrying the key that's going to unlock +these prairies and liberate the gold under the grass roots."</p> + +<p>"It may be nothing but a dream," said Morgan softly, his eyes fixed on +the blue distances through the open door. "Maybe it will break me and +scatter my bones on the prairie for that old scavenger of men to haul +away."</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer shook his head in denial of this possibility, making note +of this rugged dreamer's strong face, strong arms, large, capable hands.</p> + +<p>"We're not away out West, as most people seem to think," he said, "only +a little past the middle of the state. My observation through several +years here has been that it rains about as much and as often in this +part of the country as it does in the eastern part of the state, enough +to make two crops in three, anyway, and that's as good as you can count +on without irrigation anywhere."</p> + +<p>Morgan agreed with a nod. Judge Thayer went on, "The trouble is, this +prairie sheds water like the roof of a house, shoots it off so quick +into the draws and creeks it never has a chance to soak in. Plow it, I +tell 'em, and keep on plowin' it, in season and out; fix it so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span> it can +soak up the rain and hold it. Is that right?"</p> + +<p>"You've got the key to it yourself," Morgan told him, not a little +surprised to hear this uncredited missionary preaching the very doctrine +that men of Morgan's profession had found so hard to make converts to in +the prairie country.</p> + +<p>"But it will be two or three years, at least, before you can begin your +experiment with wheat," Judge Thayer regretted. "By that time I'm afraid +the settlers that are taking up land around here now will be broken and +discouraged, gone to spread the curse against Kansas in the same old +bitterness of heart."</p> + +<p>"I hope to find a piece of land that somebody has abandoned or wants to +sell, that has been farmed a year or two," Morgan confided. "If I can +get hold of such a place I'll be able to put in a piece of wheat this +fall—even a few acres will start me going. I could enlarge my fields +with my experience."</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer said he believed he had the very place Morgan was looking +for, listed for sale. But there were so many of them listed for sale, +the owners gone, their equities long since eaten up by unpaid taxes, +that it took the judge a good while to find the particulars in this +special case.</p> + +<p>"Man by the name of Gerhart, mile and a half west of town—that would +bring him pretty near the river—offers his quarter for three hundred +dollars. He's been there about four years, wife died this spring. I +think he's got about eighty acres broken out. Some of that land ought to +be in pretty good shape for wheat by now."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span></p> + +<p>As the day was declining to evening, and Judge Thayer's supper hour was +near, they agreed on postponing until morning the drive out to look at +the dissatisfied settler's land. Morgan was leaving when the judge +called him back from the door.</p> + +<p>"I was just wondering whether you'd ever had any editorial experience?" +he said.</p> + +<p>"No, I've never been an editor," Morgan returned, speculating alertly on +what might be forthcoming.</p> + +<p>"We—our editor—our editor," said the judge, fumbling with it as +if he found the matter a difficult one to fit to the proper words, +"fell into an unfortunate error of judgment a short time ago, +with—um-m-m—somewhat melancholy—melancholy—" the judge paused, as if +feeling of this word to see that it fitted properly, head bent +thoughtfully—"results. Unlucky piece of business for this community, +coming right in the thick of the contest for the county seat. There's a +fight on here, Mr. Morgan, as you may have heard, between Ascalon, the +present county seat, and Glenmore, a God-abandoned little flyspeck on +the map seven miles south of here."</p> + +<p>"I hadn't heard of it. And what happened to the editor?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, one of our hot-headed boys shot him," said the judge, out of +patience with such trivial and hasty yielding to passion. "Since then +I've been getting out the paper myself—I hold a mortgage on the +property, I'll be obliged to foreclose to protect myself—with the help +of the printer. It's not much of a paper, Morgan, for I haven't got the +time to devote to it with the July<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span> term of court coming on, but I have +to get it out every week or lose the county printing contract. There's a +hungry dog over at Glenmore looking on to snatch the bone on the least +possible excuse, and he's got two of the county commissioners with him."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not an editor," Morgan repeated, speculatively, as if he saw +possibilities of distinction in that road.</p> + +<p>"Without the press, we are a community disarmed in the midst of our +enemies," said the judge. "Glenmore will overwhelm us and rob us of our +rights, without a champion whose voice is as the voice of a thousand +men."</p> + +<p>"I'd never be equal to that," Morgan said, shaking his head in all +seriousness. "Is the editor out of it for good? Is he dead?"</p> + +<p>"They have a devilish peculiarity of seldom wounding a man here in +Ascalon, Mr. Morgan. I've wished more than once they were not so cursed +proficient. The poor fellow fell dead, sir, at the first shot, while he +was reaching for his gun."</p> + +<p>"I've seen something of their proficiency here," Morgan said, with plain +contempt.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer looked at him sharply. "You refer to that affair at the +hotel this afternoon?"</p> + +<p>"It was a brutal and uncalled-for sacrifice of human life! it was murder +in the name of the law."</p> + +<p>"I think you are somewhat hasty and unjust in your criticism, Mr. +Morgan," the judge mildly protested. "I know the marshal to be a +cool-headed man, a man who can see perils that you and I might overlook +until too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span> late for our own preservation. The fellow must have made some +break for his gun that you didn't see."</p> + +<p>"I hope it was that way," Morgan said, willing to give the marshal every +shadow of justification possible.</p> + +<p>"I've known Seth Craddock a long time; he was huntin' buffalo for the +railroad contractors when I first came to this country. Why, I appointed +Seth to the office not more than an hour before that mix-up at the +hotel."</p> + +<p>"He's beginning early," Morgan said.</p> + +<p>"The man that's going to clean this town up must begin early and work +late," Judge Thayer declared. "An officer that would allow a man to run +a bluff on him wouldn't last two hours."</p> + +<p>"I suppose not," Morgan admitted.</p> + +<p>"As I told Seth when I swore him in, what we want in Ascalon is a +marshal that will use his gun oftener, and to better purpose, than the +men that have gone before him. This town must be purified, the offal of +humanity that makes a stench until it offends the heavens and spreads +our obscene notoriety to the ends of the earth, must be swept out before +we can induce sober and substantial men to bring their families into +this country."</p> + +<p>"It looks reasonable enough," Morgan agreed.</p> + +<p>"Hell's kettle is on the fire in this town, Mr. Morgan; the devil's own +stew is bubbling in it. If I could induce you to defer your farming +experiment a few months, as much as I approve it, anxious as I am to see +you demonstrate your theories and mine, I believe we could accomplish +the regeneration of this town.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span> With a man of Craddock's caliber on the +street, and you in the <i>Headlight</i> office speaking with the voice of a +thousand men, we could reverse public opinion and draw friends to our +side. Without some such support, I view the future with gloom and +misgiving. Glenmore is bound to displace us as the capital of this +county; Ascalon will decline to a whistling station by the side of the +track."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I wouldn't care to hitch up with Mr. Craddock in the +regeneration of Ascalon," Morgan said. "We'd pull so hard in opposite +directions we'd break the harness."</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer expressed his regret while he slipped on his black alpaca +coat, asking Morgan to wait until he locked his door, when he would walk +with him as far as the hotel corner. On the way they met a young man who +came bowling along with a great air of importance and self-assurance, a +fresh cigar tilted up in his mouth to such an angle that it threatened +the brim of his large white hat.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer introduced this man as Dell Hutton, county treasurer. +Hutton wrung Morgan's hand with ardent grip, as if he welcomed him into +the brotherhood of the elect in Ascalon, speaking out of the corner of +his mouth around his cigar. He was a thin-mouthed man of twenty-five, or +perhaps a year or two older, with a shrunken weazenness about his face +that made him look like a very old man done over, and but poorly +renovated. His eyes were pale, with shadows in them as of inquiry and +distrust; his stature was short, his frame slight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span></p> + +<p>Hutton seemed to be deeply, even passionately, interested in the venture +Morgan had come to make in that country. He offered his services in any +exigency where they might be applied, shaking hands again with hard +grip, accompanied by a wrinkling of his thin mouth about his cigar as he +clamped his jaws in the fervor of his earnestness. But he appeared to be +under a great pressure to go his way, his eyes controverting the +sincerity of his words the while.</p> + +<p>"He's rather a young man to be filling such a responsible position," +Morgan ventured as they resumed their way.</p> + +<p>"Dell wasn't elected to the office," Judge Thayer explained. "He's +filling out his father's term."</p> + +<p>"Did he—die?" Morgan inquired, marveling over the mortality among the +notables of the town.</p> + +<p>"He was a victim of this feud in the rivalry for the county seat," Judge +Thayer explained, with sadness. "It was due to Hutton, more than any +other force, that we didn't lose the county seat at the last +election—he kept the cattlemen lined up, was a power among them, +followed that business a long time himself. Yes. He was the first man +that ever drove a herd of cattle from Texas to load for market when this +railroad was put through. Some of those skulkers from Glenmore shot him +down at his door two months after he took office."</p> + +<p>"I thought the boy looked like he'd been trained on the range," Morgan +said, thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Dell was raised in the saddle, drove several trips from Texas up +here. Dell"—softly, a little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span> sorrowfully, Morgan thought—"was the +other principal in that affair with our late editor."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see. He was exonerated?"</p> + +<p>"Clear case of self-defense, proved that Smith—the editor was +Smith—reached for his gun first."</p> + +<p>Morgan did not comment, but he thought that this seemed a thing easily +proved in Ascalon. He parted from the judge at the bank corner, which +was across the way from the hotel.</p> + +<p>The shadow of the hotel fell far into the public square, and in front of +the building, their chairs placed in what would have been the gutter of +the street if the thoroughfare had been paved, their feet braced with +probably more comfort than grace against the low sidewalk, a row of men +was stationed, like crows on a fence. There must have been twenty or +more of them, in various stages of undress from vest down to suspenders, +from bright cravats flaunting over woolen shirts and white shirts, and +striped shirts and speckled shirts, to unconfined necks laid bare to the +breeze.</p> + +<p>Whether these were guests waiting supper, or merely loafers waiting +anything that might happen next, Morgan had not been long enough in town +to determine. He noticed the curious and, he thought, unfriendly eyes +which they turned on him as he approached. And as Morgan set foot on the +sidewalk porch of the hotel, Seth Craddock, the new city marshal, rose +out of the third chair on the end of the row nearest him, hand lifted in +commanding signal to halt.</p> + +<p>"You've just got time to git your gripsack," Craddock said, coming +forward as he spoke, but stopping a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span> little to one side as if to allow +Morgan passage to the door.</p> + +<p>"Time's no object to me," Morgan returned, good-humored and undisturbed, +thinking this must be one of the jokes at the expense of strangers for +which Ascalon was famous.</p> + +<p>Some of the loafers were standing by their chairs in attitude of +indecision, others sat leaning forward to see and hear. Traffic both +ways on the sidewalk came to a sudden halt at the spectacle of two men +in a situation recognized at a glance in quick-triggered Ascalon as +significant, those who came up behind Morgan clearing the way by edging +from the sidewalk into the square.</p> + +<p>"The train'll be here in twelve minutes," Craddock announced, watch in +his palm.</p> + +<p>"On time, is she?" Morgan said indifferently, starting for the door.</p> + +<p>Again Seth Craddock lifted his hand. Those who had remained seated along +the gutter perch up to this moment now got to their feet with such haste +that chairs were upset. Craddock put his hand casually to his pistol, as +a man rests his hand on his hip.</p> + +<p>"You're leavin' on it," he said.</p> + +<p>"I guess you've got the wrong man," Morgan suggested, noting everything +with comprehensive eye, not a little concerned by the marshal's +threatening attitude. If this were going to turn out a joke, Morgan +wished it might begin very soon to show some of its risible features on +the surface, in order that he might know which way to jump to make the +best figure possible.</p> + +<p>"No, I ain't got no wrong man!" Craddock returned,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span> making mockery of +the words, uttering them jeeringly out of the corner of his mouth. He +blasted Morgan with the glare of his malevolent red eyes, redder now +than before his weapon had moistened the street of Ascalon with blood. +"You're the feller that's been shootin' off your mouth about murder in +the name of the law, and you bein' able to take his gun away from that +feller. Well, kid, I'm afraid it's goin' to be a little too rough for +you in this town. You're leavin'—you won't have time to git your +gripsack now, you can write for it!"</p> + +<p>Morgan felt the blood flaming into his face with the hot swell of anger. +A moment he stood eye to eye with Craddock, fighting down the defiance +that rose for utterance to his lips. Then he started again toward the +hotel door.</p> + +<p>Craddock whipped out his pistol with arm so swift that the eye +multiplied it like a spoke in a quick-spinning wheel. He stood holding +the weapon so, his wrist rather limber, the muzzle of the pistol +pointing in the general direction of Morgan's feet.</p> + +<p>"Maybe you can take a gun away from me, little feller?" Craddock +challenged in high mockery, one nostril of his long nose twitching, +lifting his mustache on that side in a snarl.</p> + +<p>"Don't point that gun at me, Craddock!" Morgan warned, his voice +unshaken and cool, although the surge of his heart made his seasoned +body vibrate to the finger tips.</p> + +<p>"Scratch gravel for the depot!" Craddock commanded, lowering the muzzle +of his gun as if he intended<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span> to hasten the going by a shot between the +offender's feet.</p> + +<p>The men were separated by not more than two yards, and Morgan made no +movement to widen the breach immediately following the marshal's command +to go. On the contrary, before any that saw him standing there in +apparent indecision, and least of all among them Seth Craddock, could +measure his intention, Morgan stepped aside quicker than the watchers +calculated any living man could move, reached out his long arm a flash +quicker than he had shifted on his feet, and laid hold of the city +marshal's hairy wrist, wrenching it in a twist so bone-breaking that +nerves and muscles failed their office. Nobody saw exactly how he +accomplished it, but the next moment Morgan stepped back from the city +marshal, that officer's revolver in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Craddock," he said, in calm, advisory way, "I expect to stay around +this part of the country some little time, and I'll be obliged to come +to Ascalon once in a while. If you think you're going to feel +uncomfortable every time you see me, I guess the best thing for you to +do is leave. I'm not saying you must leave, I don't set myself up to +tell a man when to come and go without I've got that right over him. I +just suggest it for your comfort and peace of mind. If you stay here +you'll have to get used to seeing me around."</p> + +<p>Craddock stood for a breath glaring at the man who had humiliated him in +his new dignity, clutching his half-paralyzed wrist. He said nothing, +but there was the proclamation of a death feud in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Give him a gun, somebody!" said a fool in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span> crowd that pressed to +the edge of the sidewalk at the marshal's back.</p> + +<p>Tom Conboy, standing in his door ten feet away, interposed quickly, +waving the crowd back.</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut! No niggers in Ireland, now!" he said.</p> + +<p>"He can have this one," said Morgan, still in the same measured, calm +voice. He offered the pistol back to its owner, who snatched it with +ungracious hand, shoved it into his battered scabbard, turned to the +crowd at his back with an oath.</p> + +<p>"Scatter out of here!" he ordered, covering his degradation as he might +in this tyrannical exercise of authority.</p> + +<p>Morgan looked into the curious faces of the people who blocked the +sidewalk ahead of him, withdrawn a discreet distance, not yet venturing +to come on. Except for the red handkerchief that he had worn about his +neck, he was dressed as when he arrived in Ascalon in Joe Lynch's wagon, +coatless, the dust of the road on his shoes. In place of the bright +handkerchief he now wore a slender black necktie, the ends of it tucked +into his gray woolen shirt.</p> + +<p>He felt taller, rawer, more angular than nature had built him as he +stood there looking at the people who had gathered like leaves against a +rock in a brook. He was ashamed of his part in the public show, sorry +that anybody had been by to witness it. In his embarrassment he pushed +his hat back from his forehead, looking around him again as if he would +break through the ranks and hide himself from such confusing publicity.</p> + +<p>The crowd was beginning to disperse at Seth Craddock's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span> urging, although +those who had come to a stand on the sidewalk seemed timid about passing +Morgan. They still held back as if to give him room, or in uncertainty +whether it was all over yet. Perhaps they expected Craddock to turn on +Morgan again when he had cleared a proper space for his activities.</p> + +<p>As for Morgan, he had dismissed the city marshal from his thoughts, for +something else had risen in his vision more worthy the attention of a +man. This was the face of a girl on the edge of the crowd in front of +him, a tall, strong, pliant creature who leaned a little as if she +looked for her reflection in a stream. She was garbed in a brown duck +riding skirt, white waist with a bright wisp of cravat blowing at her +breast like the red of bittersweet against snow. Her dusty sombrero +threw a shadow over her eyes, but Morgan could see that they were dark +and friendly eyes, as no shadow but night could obscure. The other faces +became in that moment but the incidental background for one; his heart +lifted and leaped as the heart moves and yearns with tender quickening +at the sound of some old melody that makes it glad.</p> + +<p>Morgan stepped back, thinking only of her, seeing only her, making a way +for her, only, to pass. That others might follow was not in his mind. He +stepped out of the way for her.</p> + +<p>She came on toward him now, one finished, one refined, among that press +of crudity, one unlooked for in that place of wild lusts and dark +passions unrestrained. She carried a packet of newspapers and letters +under her bent arm, telling of her mission on the street; the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span> thong of +her riding quirt was about her wrist. Her soft dark hair was low on her +neck, a flush as of the pleasure that speaks in bounding blood when +friend meets friend glowed in her face. Morgan removed his hat as she +passed him. She looked into his face and smiled.</p> + +<p>The little crowd broke and followed, but Morgan, oblivious to the +movement around him, stood on the sidewalk edge looking after her, his +hat in his hand.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2><h3>ASCALON AWAKE</h3> +</div> + +<p>Ascalon was laid out according to the Spanish tradition for arranging +towns that dominated the builders of the West and Southwest in the days +when Santa Fé extended its trade influence over a vast territory. +Although Ascalon was only a stage station in the latter days of traffic +over the Santa Fé Trail, its builders, when it came occasion to expand, +were men who had traded in that capital of the gray desert wastes at the +trail's end, and nothing would serve them but a plaza, with the +courthouse in the middle of it, the principal business establishments +facing it the four sides around.</p> + +<p>There were many who called it <i>the plaza</i> still, especially visitors +from along the Rio Grande who came driving their long-horned, +lean-flanked cattle northward over the Chisholm Trail. Santa Fé, at its +worst, could not have been dustier than this town of Ascalon, and +especially the plaza, or public square, in these summer days. Galloping +horses set its dust flying in obscuring clouds; the restless wind that +blew from sunrise till sunset day in and day out from the southwest, +whipped it in sudden gusts of temper, and drove it through open doors, +spreading it like a sun-defying hoarfrost on the low roofs. All +considered, Ascalon was as dry, uncomfortable, unpromising of romance, +as any place that man ever built or nature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span> ever harassed with wearing +wind and warping sun.</p> + +<p>The courthouse in the middle of the public square was built of bricks, +of that porous, fiery sort which seem so peculiarly designed to the +monstrous vagaries of rural architecture. Here in Ascalon they fitted +well with the arid appearance of things, as a fiery face goes best with +white eyebrows, anywhere.</p> + +<p>The courthouse was a two-storied structure, with the cupola as +indispensable to the old-time Kansas courthouse as a steeple to a +church. The jail was in the basement of it, thus sparing culprits a +certain punishment by concealing the building's raw, red, and crude +lines from the eye. Not that anybody in jail or out of it ever thought +of this advantage, or appreciated it, indeed, for Ascalon was proud of +the courthouse, and fired with a desire and determination to keep it +there in the plaza forever and a day.</p> + +<p>There were precedents before them, and plenty of them in that part of +the country, where county seats had been changed, courthouses of red +bricks and gray stones put on skids and moved away, leaving desolation +that neither maledictions could assuage nor oratory could repair. For +prosperity went with the courthouse in those days, and dignity, and +consequence among the peoples of the earth.</p> + +<p>Hitching racks, like crude apparatus for athletic exercises, were built +around the courthouse, with good driving distance between them and the +plank sidewalks. Here the riders from distant ranges tied their jaded +mounts, here such as made use of wagons in that land of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span> horseback-going +men hitched their teams when they drove in for supplies.</p> + +<p>There was not a shrub in the courthouse square, not the dead and +stricken trunk of a tree standing monument of any attempt to mitigate +the curse of sun. There was not a blade of grass, not a struggling, +wind-blown flower. Only here and there chickweed grew, spreading its +green tracery over the white soil in such sequestered spots as the hoofs +of beast and the feet of men did not stamp and chafe and wear; and in +the angles of the courthouse walls, the Russian thistle, barbed with its +thousand thorns. Men did not consider beauty in Ascalon, this Tophet at +trail's end, save it might be the beauty of human flesh, and then it +must be rouged and powdered, and enforced with every cosmetic mixture to +win attention in an atmosphere where life was lived in a ferment of ugly +strife.</p> + +<p>There was in Ascalon in those bloody days a standing coroner's jury, of +which Tom Conboy was the foreman, composed of certain gamblers and town +politicians whose interests were with the vicious element. To these men +the wide notoriety of the town was capital. Therefore, it was seldom, +indeed, that anybody was slain in Ascalon without justification, +according to the findings of this coroner's jury. In this way the +gamblers and divekeepers, and such respectable citizens as chose to +exercise their hands in this exhilarating pastime, were regularly +absolved.</p> + +<p>The result of this amicable agreement between the county officials and +the people of the town was that Ascalon became, more than ever, a refuge +for the outlawed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span> and proscribed of other communities. Every train +brought them, and dumped them down on the station platform to find their +way like wolves to their kind into the activities of the town.</p> + +<p>Gamblers and gun-slingers, tricksters and sharpers, attended by the +carrion flock of women who always hover after these wreckers and +wastrels, came to Ascalon by scores. It began to appear a question, in +time, of what they were to subsist upon, even though they turned to the +ravening of one another.</p> + +<p>But the broad notoriety of Ascalon attended to this, bringing with the +outlawed and debased a fresh and eager train of victims. The sons of +families came from afar, sated with the diversions and debaucheries of +eastern cities, looking for strange thrills and adventures to heat their +surfeited blood. Unsophisticated young men came, following the lure of +romance; farm boys from the midwestern states came, with a thought of +pioneering and making a new empire of the plow, as their fathers had +smoothed the land in the states already called old.</p> + +<p>All of these came with money in their pockets, and nearly all of them, +one day first or last, became contributors to the support of Ascalon's +prostituted population. New victims came to replace the plucked, new +crowds of cowherders rode in from the long trails to the south, relays +of them galloped night after night from the far ranches stretching along +the sandy Arkansas. There was no want of grain to sow in the gaping +furrows struck out by the hands of sin in the raw, treeless, unpainted +city of Ascalon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span></p> + +<p>And into all this fever of coming and going, this heartbreak of shame +and loss, of quickly drawn weapon, of flash, despairing cry, and +death—this sowing of recklessness and harvesting of despair—into all +this had come Calvin Morgan, a man with a clean heart, a clean purpose +in his soul.</p> + +<p>Ascalon once had been illuminated at night about the public square by +kerosene lamps set on posts, after the manner of gas lights in a city, +but the expense of supplying glass day after day to repair the damage +done by roysterers during the night had become so heavy that the town +had abandoned lights long before Morgan's advent there. Only the posts +stood now, scarred by bullets, gnawed by horses which had stood hitched +to them forgotten by their owners who reveled their wages in Ascalon's +beguiling fires. At the time of Morgan's coming, starlight and +moonlight, and such beams as fell through the windows of houses upon the +uneven sidewalk around the square, provided all the illumination that +brightened the streets of Ascalon by night.</p> + +<p>On the evening of his mildly adventurous first day in the town, Morgan +sat in front of the Elkhorn hotel, his chair in the gutter, according to +the custom, his feet braced comfortably against the outer edge of the +sidewalk, flanked by other guests and citizens who filled the remaining +seats. Little was said to him of his encounter with the new city +marshal, and that little Morgan made less, and brought to short ending +by his refusal to be led into the matter at all. And as he sat there, +chatting in desultory way, the fretting wind died to a breath, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span> line +of men in the chairs grew indistinct in the gloom of early night, and +Ascalon rose up like a sleeping wolf, shaking off the drowse of the day, +and sat on its haunches to howl.</p> + +<p>This awakening began with the sound of fiddles and pianos in the big +dance hall whose roof covered all the vices which thrive best in the +dark. Later a trombone and cornet joined the original musical din, +lifting their brassy notes on the vexed night air. Bands of horsemen +came galloping in, yelping the short, coyote cries of the cattle lands. +Sometimes one of them let off his pistol as he wheeled his horse up to +the hitching rack, the relief of a simple mind that had no other +expression for its momentary exuberance.</p> + +<p>Sidewalks became thronged with people tramping the little round of the +town's diversions, but of different stamp from those who had sparsely +trickled through its sunlight on legitimate business that afternoon. +Cowboys hobbled by in their peggy, high-heeled gait, as clumsy afoot as +penguins; men in white shirts without coats, their skin too tender to +withstand the sun, walked with superior aloofness among the sheep which +had come to their shearing pens, preoccupied in manner, yet alert, +watching, watching, on every hand.</p> + +<p>Now and then women passed, but they, also, were of the night, gaudily +bedecked in tinsel and glittering finery that would have been fustian by +day to the least discriminating eye. Respectability was not abroad in +Ascalon by night. With the last gleam of day it left the stage to +wantonness.</p> + +<p>As the activity of the growing night increased, high-pitched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span> voices of +cowboys who called figures of the dances quavered above the confusion of +sounds, a melancholy note in the long-drawn syllables that seemed a +lament for the waste of youth, and a prophecy of desolation. When the +music fell to momentary silence the clash of pool balls sounded, and the +tramp of feet, and quavering wild feminine laughter rising sharply, +trailing away to distance as if the revelers sailed by on the storm of +their flaming passions, to land by and by on the shores of morning, +draggled, dry-lipped, perhaps with a heartache for the far places left +behind forever.</p> + +<p>Morgan was not moved by a curiosity great enough to impel him to make +the round. All this he had seen before, time over, in the frontier towns +of Nebraska, with less noise and open display, certainly, for here in +Ascalon viciousness had a nation-wide notoriety to maintain, and must +intensify all that it touched. He was wondering how the townspeople who +had honest business in life managed to sleep through that rioting, with +the added chance of some fool cowboy sending a bullet through their thin +walls as he galloped away to his distant camp, when Tom Conboy came +through the sidewalk stream to sit beside him in a gutter chair.</p> + +<p>The proprietor of the Elkhorn hotel appeared to be under a depression of +spirits. He answered those who addressed him in short words, with manner +withdrawn. Morgan noted that the diamond stud was gone out of the desert +of Conboy's shirt bosom, and that he was belted with a pistol. Presently +the man on Conboy's other hand, who had been trying with little result +to draw him into a conversation, got up and made his way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span> toward the +bright front of the dance hall. Conboy touched Morgan's knee.</p> + +<p>"Come into the office, kind of like it happened, a little while after +me," he said, speaking in low voice behind his hand. He rose, stretching +and yawning as if to give his movements a casual appearance, stood a +little while on the edge of the sidewalk, went into the hotel. Morgan +followed him in a few minutes, to find him apparently busy with his +accounts behind the desk.</p> + +<p>A little while the proprietor worked on his bookkeeping, Morgan lounging +idly before the cigar case.</p> + +<p>"Some fellers up the street lookin' for you," Conboy said, not turning +his head.</p> + +<p>"What fellows? What do they want?"</p> + +<p>"That bunch of cowboys from the Chisholm Trail."</p> + +<p>"I don't know them," said Morgan, not yet getting the drift of what +Conboy evidently meant as a warning.</p> + +<p>"They're friends of the city marshal; he belonged to the same outfit," +Conboy explained, ostensibly setting down figures in his book.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Morgan, starting for the door.</p> + +<p>"Where you goin' to?" Conboy demanded, forgetting caution and possible +complications in his haste to interpose.</p> + +<p>"To find out what they want."</p> + +<p>"There's no sense in a man runnin' his arm down a lion's throat to see +if he's hungry," Conboy said, making a feint now of moving the cigar +boxes around in the case.</p> + +<p>"This town isn't so big that they'd miss a man if they went out to hunt +him. Where are they?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span></p> + +<p>"I left them at Peden's, the big dance hall up the street. Ain't you got +a gun?"</p> + +<p>"No," Morgan returned thoughtfully, as if he had not even considered one +before.</p> + +<p>"The best thing you can do is to take a walk out into the country and +forget your way back, kid. Them fellers are goin' to be jangled up just +about right for anything in an hour or so more. I'd advise you to +go—I'll send your grip to you wherever you say."</p> + +<p>"You're very kind. How many of them are there?"</p> + +<p>"Seven besides Craddock, the rest of them went to Kansas City with the +cattle you saw leave in them three extras this evening. Craddock's +celebratin' his new job, he's leadin' 'em around throwin' everything +wide open to 'em without a cent to pay. 'Charge it to me' he said to +Peden—I was there when they came in—'charge it to me, I'm payin' this +bill.' You know what that means."</p> + +<p>"I suppose it means that the collection will be deferred," Morgon said, +grinning over the city marshal's easy cut to generosity.</p> + +<p>"Indefinitely postponed," said Conboy, gloomily. "I'm goin' to put all +my good cigars in the safe, and do it right now."</p> + +<p>"Here's something you may put in the safe for me, too," said Morgan, +handing over his pocketbook.</p> + +<p>"Ain't you goin' to leave town?" Conboy asked, hand stayed hesitantly to +take the purse.</p> + +<p>"I've got an appointment with Judge Thayer to look at a piece of land in +the morning," Morgan returned.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, keep out enough to buy a gun, two of 'em if you're a +double-handed man," Conboy counseled.</p> + +<p>"I've got what I need," said Morgan, putting the purse in Conboy's hand.</p> + +<p>"I'd say for you to take a walk out to Judge Thayer's and stay all night +with him, but them fellers will be around here a couple of weeks, I +expect—till the rest of the outfit comes back for their horses. Just +one night away wouldn't do you any good."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't think of it," said Morgan, coldly.</p> + +<p>"You know your business, I guess," Conboy yielded, doubtfully, "but +don't play your luck too far. You made a good grab when you took that +feller's gun away from him, but you can't grab eight guns."</p> + +<p>"You're right," Morgan agreed.</p> + +<p>"If you're a reasonable man, you'll hit the grit out of this burg," +Conboy urged.</p> + +<p>"You said they were at Peden's?"</p> + +<p>"First dance house you come to, the biggest one in town. You don't need +to tip it off that I said anything. No niggers in Ireland, you know."</p> + +<p>"Not a nigger," said Morgan.</p> + +<p>As he stepped into the street, Morgan had no thought of going in any +direction save that which would bring him in conjunction with the men +who sought him. If he began to run at that stage of his experiences, he +reasoned, he would better make a streak of it that would take him out of +the country as fast as his feet would carry him. If those riders of the +Chisholm Trail were going to be there a week or two, he could not dodge +them, and it might be that by facing them unexpectedly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span> and talking it +over man to man before they got too far along in their spree, the +grievance they held against him on Seth Craddock's account could be +adjusted.</p> + +<p>He had come to Ascalon in the belief that he could succeed and prosper +in that land which had lured and beckoned, discouraged and broken and +driven forth again ten thousand men. Already there was somebody in it +who had looked for a moment into his soul and called it courageous, and +passed on her way again, he knew not whither. But if Ascalon was so +small that a man whom men sought could not hide in it, the country +around it was not vast enough to swallow one whom his heart desired to +find again.</p> + +<p>He would find her; that he had determined hours ago. That should be his +first and greatest purpose in this country now. No man, or band of men, +that ever rode the Chisholm Trail could set his face away from it. He +went on to meet them, his dream before him, the wild sound of Ascalon's +obscene revelry in his ears.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2><h3>RIDERS OF THE CHISHOLM TRAIL</h3> +</div> + +<p>Peden's emporium of viciousness was a notable establishment in its day. +By far the largest in Ascalon, it housed nearly every branch of +entertainment at which men hazard their fortunes and degrade their +morality. It was a vast shell of planks and shingles, with skeleton +joists and rafters bare overhead, built hastily and crudely to serve its +ephemeral day.</p> + +<p>In the farther end there was a stage, upon which mephitic females +displayed their physical lures, to come down and sell drinks at a +commission in the house, and dance with the patrons, at intervals. +Beyond the many small round tables which stood directly in front of the +stage was a clear space for dancing, and on the border of this festival +arena, in the front of the house, the gambling devices. A bar ran the +length of the building on one side from door to orchestra railing. It +was the pride of Ascalon that a hundred men could stand and regale +themselves before this counter at one time.</p> + +<p>Five bartenders stood behind this altar of alcohol when Morgan set foot +in the place intent on putting himself in the way of the riders of the +Chisholm Trail. These Texas cowboys were easily identified among the +early activities of the place by the unusual amount of Mexican silver +and leather ornamentation of their apparel. They were a road-worn and +dusty crew, growing noisy and hilarious in their celebration of one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span> +their number being elevated to the place of so conspicuous power as city +marshal of that famous town. It appeared to have its humorous side from +the loud laughter they were spending over it, and the caressing thumps +which they laid on Seth Craddock's bony back.</p> + +<p>They were lined up against the bar, Craddock in the midst of them, a +regiment of bottles before them. Morgan drew near, ordered a drink, +stood waiting the moment of his discovery and what might follow it. The +Texans were trying everything in the stock, from gin to champagne, gay +in the wide choice the marvelous influence of their comrade opened to +them without money or the hint of price.</p> + +<p>Morgan lounged at the bar, turning meditatively the little glass of +amber liquor that was the passport to the estate of a proper man in +Ascalon, as in many places neither so notorious nor perilous in those +times. Each of the big metal kerosene lamps swung high on the joists +threw a circular blotch of shadow on the floor, but the light from them +fell brightly on the bar, increased in brilliancy by reflection from the +long row of mirrors.</p> + +<p>In this sparkle of glass and bar furniture Morgan stood, conspicuous by +being apart, like a solitary who had ridden in for a jambouree of his +own without companion or friend. He wore his broad-brimmed black hat +with the high crown uncreased, and only for the lack of boots and pistol +he might have passed for a man of the range. The bartender who served +him looked at him with rather puzzled and frequent sidelong turning of +the eyes as he stood brooding over the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span> untasted liquor, as if he sought +to place him in memory, or to classify him among the drift of men who +came in varying moods to his mahogany altar to pay their devotions to +its bottled gods.</p> + +<p>Morgan's hat cast a shadow over half his face, making it as stern as a +Covenanter's portrait. His eyes were on the bar, where his great hand +turned and turned the glass, as if his mind were withdrawn a thousand +leagues from the noisy scene about him. But for all that apparently +wrapt and self-centered contemplation, Morgan knew the moment when Seth +Craddock looked his direction and discovered him. At that moment he +lifted his glass and drank.</p> + +<p>Craddock turned to his companions, upon whom a quiet settled as they +drew together in brief conference. Presently the city marshal sauntered +out, leaving his comrades of the long trail to carry on their revelry +alone. A gangling young man, swart-faced, fired by the contending +crosses of alcoholic concoctions which he had swallowed, approached +Morgan where he leaned against the bar. This fellow straddled as if he +had a horse between his legs, and he was dusty and road-rough, but newly +shaved and clipped, and perfumed with all the strong scents of the +barber's stock.</p> + +<p>"Good evenin', bud. How does your copperosticies seems to segastuate +this evenin'?" he hailed, in a bantering, insolent, overriding way.</p> + +<p>"I'm able to be up and around and take a little grub," Morgan returned, +as good-humoredly as if there had been no insulting sneer in the +cowboy's words.</p> + +<p>"I hear you're leaving town this evenin'?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span></p> + +<p>"I guess that's a mistake of the printer," Morgan said with casual ease.</p> + +<p>The other men in the party drew around Morgan, some of them challenging +him with insolent glances, all of them holding their peace but the one +who had spoken, who appeared to have been selected for that office.</p> + +<p>"A friend of mine told me you was hittin' the grit out of here tonight," +the young man insisted, putting that in his voice which seemed to admit +no controversy. "This country ain't no place for a granger, bud; +farmin's the unhealthiest business here a man ever took up, they tell +me, he don't live no time at it. Sure, you're hittin' the road out of +here tonight—my friend appointed us a committee to see you off."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to disappoint you, boys, but your friend's got the wrong +information on me and my movements, whoever he is. I'm goin' to hang +around this town some little time, till my farming tools come, anyhow. +Just pass that word along to your friend, will you, sport?"</p> + +<p>"You ain't got erry gun stuck around in your pants, have you, bud?" the +Texan inquired with persuasive gentleness.</p> + +<p>"Not the ghost of a gun."</p> + +<p>"Grangers burn their eyebrows off and shoot theirselves through the feet +when they go totin' guns around," the fellow said, speaking in the +wheedling, ingratiating way that one addresses an irresponsible child or +a man in alcoholic paresis. The others appeared to find a subtle humor +in their comrade's mode of handling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span> a granger. Morgan grinned with them +as if he found it funny himself.</p> + +<p>One fellow stood a little apart from the rest of the band, studying +Morgan with an expression of insolence such as might well warrant the +belief that he held feud with all grangers and made their discomfiture, +dislodgment, and extermination the chief business of his life. This was +a man of unlikely proportions for a trade aback of a horse—short of +legs, heavy of body, long in the reach of his arms. His face was round +and full, fair for one who rode abroad in all seasons under sun and +storm, his teeth small and far apart.</p> + +<p>This man said nothing, took no part in the side comment that passed +among his comrades, only grinned occasionally, his eyes unwaveringly on +Morgan's face. Morgan was drawn to note him particularly among this +mainly trifling and innocuous bunch, uneasily impressed by the cold +curiosity of his round, tigerish eyes. He thought the fellow appeared to +be calculating on how much blood a granger of that bulk contained, and +how long it would take him to drink it.</p> + +<p>"You ain't got a twenty-two hid around in your pocket nowhere?" the +inquisitor pressed, with comically feigned surprise. Morgan denied the +ownership of even a twenty-two. "I'll have to feel over you and see—I +never saw a granger in my life that didn't tote a twenty-two," the Texan +declared, stepping up to Morgan to put his declaration into effect.</p> + +<p>Morgan had stood through this mocking inquisition in careless posture, +elbows on the bar at his back, with as much good humor as if he were a +member of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span> band taking his turn as the butt of the evening's +merrymaking. Now, as the young Texan approached with the evident +intention of searching him for a weapon, Morgan came suddenly out of his +lounging posture into one of watchfulness and defense. He put up his +hand in admonitory gesture to stay the impending degradation.</p> + +<p>"Hands off, pardner!" he warned.</p> + +<p>The cowboy stopped, turned to his comrades in simulated amazement.</p> + +<p>"Did you hear the pore feller make that noise?" he asked, turning his +head as if he listened, not quite convinced that his ears had not +deceived him.</p> + +<p>"He's sick, he orto have a dose of turkentime for the holler horn," said +one.</p> + +<p>"He's got the botts—drench him for the botts," another prescribed.</p> + +<p>That suggestion appealed to their humor. It was endorsed with laughter +as they pressed around Morgan to cut off his escape.</p> + +<p>"I was told you men were looking for me," Morgan said, estimating them +individually and collectively with calculative eyes, "so I stepped in +here where you could find me if you had anything worth a man's time to +say to me. I guess you've shot your wad, and you've got my answer. You +can tell your friend I'm stopping at the Elkhorn hotel, if he don't know +it already."</p> + +<p>Morgan moved away from the bar as if to leave the place. They bunched in +front of him to bar his passage, one laying hold of his arm.</p> + +<p>"We're fixin' up a little drink for you," this detainer said, indicating +the former spokesman, who was busy at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span> the bar pouring something of the +contents of the various bottles into one that bore a champagne label.</p> + +<p>"I've had my drink, it isn't time for another," Morgan said, swinging +his arm, sending the fellow who clung to it headlong through the ranks +of his companions.</p> + +<p>At this show of resistance the mask of humor that had covered their +sinister intention was flung aside. The man with the wide-set teeth +stepped into action there, the others giving place to him as to a +recognized champion. He whirled into Morgan, planting a blow just above +the bridge of his nose that sent him back against the bar with a jolt +that made the bottles dance.</p> + +<p>It was such a sudden and mighty blow that Morgan was dazed for a moment, +almost blinded. He saw his assailant before him in wavering lines as he +guarded instinctively rather than scientifically against the fierce +follow-up by which the fellow seemed determined to make an inglorious +end of it for the despised granger. Morgan cleared out of the mists of +this sudden assault in a moment, for he was a man who had taken and +given hard blows in more than one knock-down and drag-out in his day. He +caught the swing that was meant for a knock-out on his left guard, and +drove his able right fist into the fellow's face.</p> + +<p>The pugilistic cowboy, rare fellow among his kind, went to the floor. +But there was good stuff in him, worthy the confidence his comrades +reposed. For a breath or two he lay on his back as he fell, twisted to +his side with a springy movement of incredible swiftness, and sprang to +his feet. Blood was running from his battered nose and already puffed +lips. The cheers of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span> his comrades warmed him back to battle, and the +onlookers who came pressing from all quarters, drew aside to give them +room to fight.</p> + +<p>They began to mix it at a furious pace, both of them sledging heavily, +the advantage of reach and height sparing Morgan much of the heavy +punishment his opponent lacked the cleverness to avoid. While the fellow +doubtless was a champion among the men of his range, he had little +chance against Morgan, imperfect as he was at that game. In a few +minutes of incessant hammering, no breathing spell to break the fierce +encounter, Morgan had chopped the cowboy's face severely. Five times +Morgan knocked him down in less than half as many minutes, the elastic, +enduring fellow coming back each time with admirable courage and vigor.</p> + +<p>Morgan's hands were cut from this bare-knuckled mauling, but his +opponent had not landed a damaging blow on his face since the first +unexpected and unguarded one. He could see, from their crowding and +attempts to interfere, that the spirit of fairness had gone out of the +rest of the bunch. An end must be made speedily, or they would climb him +like a pack of wildcats and crush him like a rabbit in a fall. With this +menace plainly before him, Morgan put his best into the rush and wallop +that he meant to finish the fight.</p> + +<p>The cowboy's extraordinary resistance broke with the blow; he lay so +long like a dead man where he fell that his comrades brought whisky to +revive him. Presently he struggled to hands and knees, where he stood +coughing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span> blood, Morgan waiting by to see what would follow.</p> + +<p>"Take them knucks away from him! he slugged me!" Morgan was amazed to +hear the fellow charge.</p> + +<p>"That's not so!" Morgan denied. "Here—search me," he offered, lifting +his arms.</p> + +<p>In the code governing personal encounter in those days of the frontier, +which was not so very long ago, just one tick in the great clock of +history, it was permissible to straddle one's enemy when one got him +down, and churn his head against the ground; to gouge out his eyes; to +bite off his ears; to kick him, carve him, mutilate him in various and +unsportsman-like and unspeakable ways. But it was the high crime of the +code to slug him with brass or steel knuckles, commonly called knucks. +The man who carried this reenforcement for the natural fist in his +pocket and used it in a fight was held the lowest of all contemptible +and namelessly vile things. So, these Texas cowboys turned on Morgan at +their comrade's accusation, deaf to any denial, flaming with vengeful +resentment.</p> + +<p>They probably would have made an end of Morgan then and there, but for +the interference of Peden, proprietor of the place, who appeared on the +scene of the turmoil at that moment, calm and unruffled, expensive white +sombrero on the back of his head, fresh cigar in his mouth, black frock +coat striking him almost to the knees.</p> + +<p>Peden pushed in among the cowboys as they made a rush for Morgan, who +stood his ground, back to the bar, regretting now the foolish impulse +that had led him into this pack of wolves. Peden stepped in front<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span> of +Morgan, authority in his very calmness, and restrained the inflamed +Texans.</p> + +<p>He asked them to consider the ladies. The ladies were in a terrible +panic, he said, sweeping his hand toward the farther end of the room +where a dozen or so of the creatures whom he dignified with the name +were huddled under the restraint of the chief fiddler, who stood before +them with fiddle in one hand, bow in the other, like sword and buckler.</p> + +<p>There was more curiosity than fright in the women, as the most +unsophisticated observer could have read in their kalsomined +countenances. Peden's only object in keeping them back from a closer +enjoyment of the battle was entirely commercial, humanity and delicacy +being no part of his business plan. A live lady was worth a great deal +more to his establishment than one with a stray bullet in her skin, +waiting burial at his expense in the busy undertaker's morgue.</p> + +<p>The cowboys yielded immediately to Peden's appeal in behalf of the +ladies, although they very likely would have resented a more obscure +citizen's interference with their plans. They fronted the bar again on +Peden's invitation to pour another drink. Two of them lifted from the +floor the man whom Morgan had fought, and supported him in a weak-kneed +advance upon the bar. They cheered him in his half-blind and bleeding +wretchedness with promise of what that marvelous elixir, whisky, would +do for him once he began to feel the quickening of its potent flame.</p> + +<p>Peden indicated by a lifting of the eyebrows, a slight movement of the +head toward the door, that Morgan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span> was to improve this moment by making +a quiet and expeditious get-away. Morgan needed no urging, being quite +willing to allow matters to rest where they stood. He started for the +door, making a little detour to put a faro table, around which several +men were standing, between himself and the men to whom Seth Craddock had +delegated the business of his expulsion from the town. One of the men +supporting their defeated champion saw Morgan as he rounded the table, +and set up the alarm that the granger was breaking for the range.</p> + +<p>Even then Morgan could have escaped by a running dash, for those +high-heeled horseback men were not much on foot. But he could not pay +that much for safety before the public of Ascalon, despicable as those +of it gathered there might be. He made a pretense of watching the faro +game while the Texans put down their glasses to rush after him and make +him prisoner, threatening him with clubbed pistols above his head.</p> + +<p>The lookout at the faro game, whose patrons were annoyed by this renewal +of the brawl, jumped from his high seat and took a hand in the row. +Friends of the marshal or friends of the devil, he said, made no +difference to him. They'd have to go outside to finish their fuss. This +man, a notorious slayer of his kind, quicker of hand than any man in +Ascalon, it was said, urged them all toward the door.</p> + +<p>The cowboys protested against this breach of hospitality, but Peden +stood in his customary pose of calmness to enforce his bouncer's word, +hand pushing back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span> his long black coat where it fell over the holster at +his belt.</p> + +<p>Morgan was in no mind to go with them, for he began to have a disturbing +alarm over what these men might do in their drunken vengeance, relieved +as they thought themselves to be of all responsibility to law by the +liberty their friend Craddock had given them. Without regard to the +bouncer's orders or Peden's threatening pose, he began to lay about him +with his fists, making a breach in the ranks of his captors that would +have opened the way to the door in a moment, the outbreak was so +unexpected and violent, if it had not been for a quieting tap the +bouncer gave him with one of the lethal instruments which he carried for +such exigencies.</p> + +<p>Morgan was conscious of a sensation of expulsion, which seemed swift, +soft, and soundless, with a dim sense of falling at the end. When his +dispersed senses returned to their seat again, he found himself in the +open night, stretched on the ground, hands bound behind his back.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2><h3>A GENTLE COWBOY JOKE</h3> +</div> + +<p>As Morgan's faculties cleared out of their turgid whirl, and the stars +began to leave off their frivolous capers and stand still, he heard +voices about him in the dark, and they were discussing the very +interesting question of whether he should be hung like a horse thief or +loaded upon a train and shipped away like sheep.</p> + +<p>Morgan's bruised senses assembled and righted at the first conscious +grasp of this argument, as a laboring, buffeted ship rights when its +shifted cargo is flung back to place by the shock of a mighty surge. +Nature was on guard again in a moment, straining and tense in its sentry +over the habitation of a soul so nearly deserted but a minute before. +Morgan listened, sweating in the desperation of his plight.</p> + +<p>They had taken him away from the main part of town, as he was aware by +the sound of its revelry in the near distance. Close at hand a railroad +engine was frying and gasping; farther off another was snorting +impatiently as it jerked the iron vertebrae of a long freight train. And +these men whom he could not see around him in the darkness were +discussing the expediency of hanging him while unconscious, against the +morality of waiting for him to come to himself so he might have the +felon's last appeal of prayer.</p> + +<p>One maintained that it was against all precedent to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span> hang an unconscious +man and send him off to perdition without a chance to enter a plea for +his soul, and he argued soberly, in the manner of a man who had a spirit +of fairness in him, and a little gleam of reason and morality left. To +Morgan's relief and hope this man went further as he put his view of the +case, even so far as to question their right to hang the granger at all. +They clamored against him and tried to scoff him down, moving with +drunken, scuffing feet near the spot where Morgan lay, as if to put the +sentence into immediate execution.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute now, boys," this unknown, unseen champion pleaded, "let's +me and you talk this thing over some more. That kid put up a man's +fight, even if he is a granger—you'll have to give him credit for that. +I didn't find no knucks on him, and you didn't. He couldn't 'a' dropped +'em on the floor, and he couldn't 'a' swallered 'em. He didn't have no +knucks, boys—that hard-hoofed granger just naturally tore into the +Dutchman with his bare hands. I know he did, his hands is all cut and +swelled up—here, wait till I strike a match and show you."</p> + +<p>Morgan thought it wise to feign insensibility while this apparently +sober man among the crew struck a match and rolled his body over to show +the granger's battered hands. The others were not convinced by this +evidence, nor softened in the least. He was a granger, anyhow, a fencer +of the range, an interloper who had come into their ancient domain like +others of his grasshopper tribe to fence up the grazing lands and drive +them from the one calling that they knew. If for no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span> other reason, he +deserved hanging for that. Ask anybody; they'd say the same.</p> + +<p>"That ain't no kind of talk," said the defender, reprovingly, "your +daddies and mine was grangers before us, and our kids'll have to be +grangers or nothin' after a while—if any of us ever has any. I was in +for havin' a little fun with this feller; I was in on it with the rest +of you to see the Dutchman hammer him flat, but the Dutchman wasn't a +big enough feller for the job. Where's he at?"</p> + +<p>"Layin' up there on the depot platform," somebody said.</p> + +<p>"This feller flattened <i>him</i> out, done it like he had him on a anvil," +the granger's advocate chuckled. "That there freight's goin' to pull out +in a little while—let's look along till we find a empty car and chuck +him in it. By morning he'll be in La Junta. He's had his lesson out of +the cowman's book, he'll never come back to plow up this range."</p> + +<p>Morgan thought that, perhaps by adding his own argument to this unknown +friend's, he might move the rest of the bunch from their cruel +determination to have his life. He moved, making a breathing like a man +coming to his senses, and struggled to sit up.</p> + +<p>There were exclamations of satisfaction that he had revived in time to +relieve them of the responsibility of sending a man out of the world +without a chance to pray. The man who had championed Morgan's cause +helped him to sit up, asking him with a curious rough kindness if he +wanted a drink. Morgan replied that he did. A bottle was put to his +lips, bruised and swollen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span> until they stood open by the rough usage his +captors had given him while unconscious. He took a swallow of the +whisky, shutting the rest out with tongue against teeth when the fellow +insisted that he take a man's dose.</p> + +<p>They drew close around Morgan where he sat, back against this kind +fellow's knee. Morgan could see them plainly now, although it was too +dark to trace their features. One of them dropped the noose of a rope +over his head as the one who stood behind him took the flask from his +lips. Morgan knew by the feel of it against his neck that it was a +platted rawhide, such as the Mexicans term <i>reata</i>.</p> + +<p>"Granger, if you got anything to say, say it," this one directed. Morgan +recognized him as the one who had opened the trouble in Peden's hall.</p> + +<p>Morgan had considerable to say, and he said it without whimper or +tremor, his only appeal being to their fairness and sense of justice +between man and man. He went back a little farther in his simple history +than he had gone with Judge Thayer that afternoon, telling them how he +once had been a cowboy like themselves on the Nebraska and Wyoming +range, leading up briefly, so they might feel they knew him, to his +arrival in Ascalon that day, and his manner of incurring Seth Craddock's +enmity, for which they were considering such an unreasonable punishment.</p> + +<p>Inflamed as they were by liquor, and all but insensible to reasonable +argument, this simple story, enforced by the renewed plea of the one who +befriended him, turned two or three others in Morgan's favor. They +probably would have set him free if it had not been for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span> the Dutchman, +who joined them, apparently sober and bitterly vindictive, as they were +considering that step.</p> + +<p>The Dutchman was for vengeance on his own account, Seth Craddock out of +the consideration entirely. The granger had slugged him, he maintained; +no man that ever walked on the grass was able to lay him out with bare +hands. If they didn't hang the granger he'd shoot him, then and there, +even though he would have to throw ashes on his stinking blood to keep +it from driving everybody out of town.</p> + +<p>Wait a minute, the young man with the straddle suggested, speaking +eagerly, as if he had been struck by an inspiration. The freight train +was just pulling out; suppose they put the rope around the granger's +body instead of his neck, leave his hands tied as they were, and hitch +him to a car! In that way he'd hang himself. It would be plain suicide, +as anybody with eyes could see.</p> + +<p>The innocence and humor of this sportful proposal appealed to them at +once. It also satisfied the Dutchman, who seconded it loudly, with +excited enthusiasm. The protests of the granger's defender and friend +were unavailing. They pushed him back, even threatening him with their +guns when he would have interfered to stay the execution of this +inspired sentence.</p> + +<p>The train was getting under way; three of the gang laid hold of the +<i>reata</i> and ran, dragging Morgan against his best efforts to brace his +feet and hold them, the others pushing him toward the moving train. The +long freight was bound westward. Morgan and his tormenters were beyond +the railroad station, not far from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span> Judge Thayer's little white office +building, which Morgan could see through the gloom as he vainly turned +his eyes about in the hope of some passing stranger to whom he could +appeal.</p> + +<p>Luckily for Morgan, railroad trains did not get under way as quickly in +those days of hand brakes and small engines as now. Added to the weight +of the long string of empty cattle cars which the engine was laboring to +get going was a grade, with several short curves to make it harder where +the road wound in and out among small sand hills. By the time Morgan's +captors had attached the rope to the ladder of a car, the headway of the +train had increased until they were obliged to trot to keep up with it. +Not being fleet of foot in their hobbling footgear when sober, they were +at a double disadvantage when drunk and weaving on their legs. They made +no attempt to follow Morgan and revel in his sufferings and peril, but +fell back, content to enjoy their pleasantry at ease.</p> + +<p>Morgan lurched on over the uneven ground, still dizzy and weak from the +bludgeoning he had undergone, unable to help his precarious balance by +the use of his arms, doubly bound now by the rope about his middle which +the Texans had drawn in running noose. It was Morgan's hope in the first +few rods of this frightful journey that a brakeman might appear on top +of the train, whose attention he might attract before the speed became +so great he could no longer maintain it, or a lurch or a stumble in the +ditch at the trackside might throw him under the wheels.</p> + +<p>A quick glance forward and back dispelled this hope;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span> there was not the +gleam of a lantern in sight. But somebody was running after him, almost +beside him, and there were yells and shots out of the dark behind. Now +the runner was beside Morgan, hand on his shoulder as if to steady +himself, and Morgan's heart swelled with thankful gratitude for the +unknown friend who had thus risked the displeasure of his comrades to +set him free.</p> + +<p>The train was picking up speed rapidly, taxing Morgan's strength to hold +pace with it trussed up as he was, the strain of the hauling rope +feeling as if it would cut his arms to the bone. The man who labored to +hold abreast of Morgan was slashing at the rope. Morgan felt the blade +strike it, the tension yield for a second as if several strands had been +cut. But not severed, not weakened enough to break it. It stiffened +again immediately and the man, clinging desperately to Morgan's shoulder +to hold his place in the quickening race, struck at it again and missed.</p> + +<p>There came more shots and shouts. Morgan's heroic friend stumbled, lost +his hold on the shoulder of the man he was trying to save, fell behind +out of sight.</p> + +<p>Morgan's poor hope for release from present torture and impending death +now rested in the breaking of the rawhide rope where it had been +weakened by that one desperate slash of the knife. He tried lunging back +against the rope, but the speed of the train was too great; he could not +brace a foot, he could not pause. There were gravel and small boulders +in the ditch here. Morgan feared he would lose his footing and be +dragged to his miserable end.</p> + +<p>But onward through the dark he struggled and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span> stumbled, at a pace that +would have taxed an unhampered man to maintain, the strain of the +cutting rope about his body and arms like a band of hot iron. Should a +brakeman appear now on top of the car to which he was tied, Morgan knew +he had little chance of making himself heard through the noise of the +train, spent as he was already, gasping short breaths which he seemed +unable to drive into his burning lungs.</p> + +<p>How long could human strength and determination to cling to life endure +this punishment! how long until he must fall and drag, unable to regain +his feet, to be pounded at that cruel rope's end into a mangled, +abhorrent thing!</p> + +<p>On, the grind of wheels, the jolt of loose-jointed cars over the +clanking track drowning even the noise of the engine laboring up that +merciful grade; on, staggering and swaying, flung like a pebble on a +cord, shoulder now against the car, feet now flying, half lifted from +the ground, among the stones of the ditch, over the uneven earth, across +gullies, over crossings where there paused no traveler in the black +despair of that night to give him the help for which he perished.</p> + +<p>On, the breath that he drew in gasping stridulation like liquid fire in +his throat; on, the calm stars of the unemotional universe above his +head; on, the wind of the wide prairie lands striking his face with +their indefinable sweet scents which even clutching death did not deny +his turbulent senses; on, pain in every nerve; on, joints straining and +starting in their sockets; on, dragged, whipped, lashed from ditch to +ties' end, flung from rocking car to crumbling bank, where jagged rocks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span> +cut his face and freed his blood to streak coldly upon his cheek.</p> + +<p>There was no likelihood that the train would stop in many miles—even +now it was gaining speed, the engine over the crest of the grade. Only +for a post that he might snub that stubborn strand of leather upon! only +for a bridge where his swinging weight might break it!</p> + +<p>Faster—the train was going faster! The pain of his torture dulling as +overcharged nerves refused to carry the growing load, Morgan still clung +to his feet, pounding along in the dark. He was growing numb in body and +mind, as one overwhelmed by a narcotic drug, yet he clung to the +desperate necessity of keeping on his feet.</p> + +<p>How far he had come, how long he might yet endure, he had no thought to +measure. He lived only for the insistent, tenacious purpose of keeping +on his feet, rather than of keeping on his feet to live. He must run and +pant, under the lash of nature that would not let him drop down and die, +as long as a spark of consciousness remained or flying limbs could equal +the speed of the train, helped on by the drag of that rawhide strand +that would not break.</p> + +<p>No thought of death appalled him now as at first; its revolting terror +at that rope's end had no place in his thought this crowded, surging +moment. Only to live, to fight and live, to run, unfeeling feet striking +like wood upon the wayside stones, and run, as a maimed, scorched +creature before a fire, to fall into some cool place and live. And live! +and live! In spite of all, to live!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span></p> + +<p>And presently the ground fell away beneath his feet, a swish of branches +was about him, the soft, cool touch of leaves against his face. A moment +he was flung and tangled among willows—it was a strange revelation +through a chink of consciousness in that turmoil of life and death that +swept the identifying scent of willows into his nostrils—and then he +dropped, striking softly where water ran, and closed his eyes, thinking +it must be the end.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2><h3>THE AVATISM OF A MAN</h3> +</div> + +<p>Morgan knew that the cogs of the slow machinery by which he had been +hoisted from the saddle to the professorial chair had slipped. As he lay +there on his back in the shallow ripple of the Arkansas River, the long +centipede railroad bridge dark-lined across the broad stream, he turned +it in his mind and knew that it was so.</p> + +<p>He had gone back in that brief time of terrific torture to the plane +from which he had risen by hard and determined effort to make of himself +a man in the world of consequence and achievement; back to the savagery +of the old days when he rode the range in summer glare and winter storm. +For it was his life's one aim and intention now to rise from that cool +bed in the river presently and go back to Ascalon, try by sound of voice +those who had subjected him to this torture, separating by that test his +heroic friend from the guilty. The others he intended to kill, man by +man, down to the last unfeeling brute.</p> + +<p>The water was not more than two or three inches deep where he lay, but a +little way beyond he could hear it passing with greater volume among the +spiles of the bridge. Fortune had spared him a fall into the deeper +channel, where even a foot of water might have drowned him, strengthless +and fettered as he was. Fate had reserved him for this hour of +vengeance. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span> turned, wallowing in the shallow water to soak the +rawhide rope, which was already growing soft, the pressure and pain of +it considerably eased on his arms.</p> + +<p>He drank, and buried his face in the tepid water, grateful for life, +exulting in the fierce fire that rose in him, triumphing already in the +swift atonement he would call on those wretches to make. Back again to +the ethical standard of those old, hard-riding, hard-drinking, +hard-swearing days on the range, the refinements of his education +submerged, and not one regret for the slip.</p> + +<p>Morgan did not realize in that moment of surrender to the primitive +desires which clamored within him how badly he was wrenched and mauled. +He tried the rawhide, swelling his bound arms in the hope that the +slipknot would give a little, but was unable to bring pressure enough on +the rope to ease it in the least.</p> + +<p>Eager to begin his harvest of revenge before the men from the Nueces +struck south again over the long trail, Morgan determined to start at +once in search of somebody to free him from his bonds. He could not +return to Ascalon in this shameful plight, his ignominy upon him, an +object of derision. There must be somebody living along the river close +at hand who would cut his bonds and give him a plaster to stick over the +wound he could feel drawing and gaping in his cheek.</p> + +<p>When it came to getting to his feet, Morgan learned that his desire had +outgrown his strength. A sickness swept him as he struggled to his +knees; blood burst from his nostrils, the taste of blood was on his +tongue. Dizzy, sick to the core of his heart, sore with a thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span> +bruises, shot with a thousand pains which set up with every movement +like the clamor of harassing wolves, he dragged himself on his knees to +the edge of the water, where he lay on his face in the warm sand.</p> + +<p>He waited there a long time for the gathering of strength enough to +carry him on his quest of a friendly hand. Only the savage determination +to strike his enemies down, head by head, kept him from perishing as he +lay there sore and bruised, chilled to the marrow in his welling agony +even that hot summer night.</p> + +<p>Dawn was breaking when he at last found strength to mount the low bank +through the encumbering brush and vines. His arms were senseless below +the elbows, swollen almost to bursting of veins and skin by the gorged +blood. There was no choice in directions, only to avoid the town. He +faced up the river and trudged on, the cottonwood leaves beginning their +everlasting symphony, that is like the murmur of rain, as the wakening +wind moved them overhead.</p> + +<p>Morgan stumbled over tin cans at the edge of the tall grass when the +rising sun was shining across his unprotected eyes. He stood for a +little while, wondering at first sight if this were only another mirage +of the plagued imagination, such as had risen like ephemera while he lay +on the sand bar at the river's edge. He stood with weak legs braced wide +apart to fix his reeling senses on the sight—the amazing, comforting +sight, of a field of growing corn. Only a little field, more properly a +patch, but it was tall and green, in full tassel, the delicate sweet of +its blossoms strong on the dew-damp morning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span></p> + +<p>Beyond the field he could see the roof of a sod house, and a little of +the brown wall that rose not much higher than the corn. Grass had grown +on the roof, for it was made of strips of sod, also, and turned sere and +brown in the sun. A wire fence stood a prickly barrier between roaming +cattle and this little field of succulent fodder. Morgan directed his +course to skirt the field, and came at last to the cabin door.</p> + +<p>In front of the house there was no fence, but a dooryard that seemed to +embrace the rest of the earth. Around the door the ground was trampled +and bare; in front of the house three horses stood, saddled and waiting, +bridle reins on the ground. It looked like a cow camp to Morgan; it +seemed as if he had come back home. A dog rose slowly from where it lay +across the door, bristles rising, foot lifted as if the creature paused +between flight and attack, setting up such an alarm that the horses +bolted a little way and stood wondering.</p> + +<p>A woman came to the door, lifted her hands in silent astonishment, +leaning a little to see.</p> + +<p>"Heavens above! look at that man!" she cried, her words sounding as from +a great distance in Morgan's dulling ears.</p> + +<p>Morgan saw her start toward him, running. He tried to step forward to +meet her, but only his body moved in accord with his will. The earth +seemed to rise and embrace him, letting him down softly, as the arms of +a friend.</p> + +<p>It was a new pain that brought Morgan to his senses, the pain of +returning life to his half-dead arms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span> Somebody was standing beside him +holding these members raised to let the blood drain out of them, chafing +them, and there was a smell of camphor and strong spirits in the place.</p> + +<p>"The rope wouldn't 'a' slipped <i>down</i>, if they was tryin' to hang him, +anyhow," somebody said with conclusive finality.</p> + +<p>"Looks like they lassoed him and drug him," another said, full of the +awe that hushes the human voice when one stands beside the dead.</p> + +<p>"Whoever done it ought to be skinned alive!" a woman declared, and +Morgan thanked her in his heart for her sympathy, although there was a +weight of such absolute weakness on his eyes that he could not open them +to see her face.</p> + +<p>There was a dim sound of something being stirred in a glass, and the +nerve-waking scent of more ardent spirits.</p> + +<p>"If this don't fetch him to," said the voice of the first speaker, the +deep pectoral tone of a seasoned man, "you jump your horse and go for +the doctor, Fred."</p> + +<p>Morgan shook his head to throw that obstinate weight from his eyes, or +thought he shook it, but it was only the shadow of a movement. Slight as +it was it brought an exclamation of relief in another voice, a woman's +voice, also, tuned in the music of youth.</p> + +<p>"Oh! he moved!" she said. And she was the one who stood beside him, +holding aloft and chafing his blood-gorged arm.</p> + +<p>"Blamed if he didn't! Here—try a little of this, son."</p> + +<p>Morgan was gathering headway out of the fog so rapidly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span>now that he began +to feel ashamed of this helpless situation in which so many kind hands +were ministering to him as if he were a sick horse. He made a more +determined effort to open his eyes, succeeding this time, although it +seemed to call for as much strength to lift his lids as to shoulder a +sack of wheat. He saw a large hand holding a spoon hovering near his +mouth, and the outline of big shoulders in a red shirt. Morgan swallowed +what was offered him, to feel it go tingling through his nerves with +vivifying warmth, like a message of cheer over a telegraph wire. The +large man who administered the dose was delighted. He spoke +encouragingly, working the spoon faster, as a man blows eagerly when he +sees a flame start weakly in a doubtful fire. The woman with the voice +of youth, who stood on Morgan's left hand, gently put his arm down, as +if modesty would no longer countenance this office of tenderness to a +conscious man.</p> + +<p>"Any feelin' in your hands?" the man inquired, bending a whiskered face +down near Morgan's.</p> + +<p>"Plenty of it, thank you," Morgan replied, his voice stubborn as a rusty +hinge.</p> + +<p>"You'll be all right then, there's no bones broken as far as I can +locate 'em. You just stretch out and take it easy, you'll be all right."</p> + +<p>"I gave up—I gave up—too easy," Morgan said, slowly, like a very tired +man.</p> + +<p>"Lands alive! gave up!" said the matron of the household, who still held +Morgan's arm up to drain off the congested blood. "Look at your face, +look at your feet! Gave up—lands alive!"</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span></p> +<p>"You're busted up purty bad, old feller," said a young man who seemed to +appear suddenly at Morgan's feet, where he stood looking down with the +most friendly and feeling expression imaginable in his wholesome brown +face.</p> + +<p>"That cut on your face ain't deep, it could be closed up and stuck with +strips of plaster and only leave a shallow scar, but it ought to be done +while it's fresh," the boss of the ranch said.</p> + +<p>"I'd be greatly obliged to you," Morgan told him, by way of agreement to +the dressing of his wound.</p> + +<p>By the time the pioneer of the Arkansas had treated his mysteriously +injured patient's hurts, Morgan had come to himself completely. He was +relieved to know that his collapse at the threshold of that hospitable +home was due to the suffering of his bound arms, rather than any +internal rupture or concussion as he at first feared.</p> + +<p>Already his thoughts were running forward, his blood was pounding in his +arteries, in vengeful eagerness to take up the trail of the men who had +subjected him to this inhuman ordeal. He could not hope to repay them +cruelty for cruelty, for he was not a man who did much crippling when it +came to handling a gun, but if he had to follow them to the Nueces, even +to the Rio Grande, for his toll, then he would follow.</p> + +<p>The business that had brought him into the Kansas plains could wait; +there was but one big purpose in his life now. He was eager to be up, +with the weight of a certain dependable pistol in his holster, the feel +of a certain rifle in its scabbard on the saddle under his knee.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span></p> +<p>Sore and bruised as he was, sorer that he would be tomorrow, Morgan +wanted to get up as soon as the long rough cut on his cheek had been +comfortably patched with adhesive tape. He asked the rancher if he would +oblige him with a horse to go to Ascalon, where his trunk containing his +much-needed wardrobe was still in the baggage-room at the depot.</p> + +<p>"You couldn't ride to Ascalon this morning, son," the rancher told him, +severely kind.</p> + +<p>"You'll do if you can make it in a week," the young man added his +opinion cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and then some, the way it looks to me," the elder declared.</p> + +<p>Morgan started as if to spring from the low couch where they had laid +him when they carried him in, dusty and bloody, fearful and repulsive +sight of maimed flesh and torn clothing that he was.</p> + +<p>"I can't stay a week—I can't wait a day! They'll be gone, man!" he +said.</p> + +<p>"Maybe they will, son," the rancher agreed, gently pushing him back; +"maybe. But they'll leave tracks."</p> + +<p>"Yes, by God! they'll leave tracks!" Morgan muttered.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think I'd better send my boy over to town for the doctor?" +the rancher asked.</p> + +<p>"Not unless you're uneasy about me."</p> + +<p>"No, your head's all right and your bones are whole. You'll heal up, but +it'll take some time."</p> + +<p>Morgan said he felt th<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span>at more had been done for him already than any +number of doctors could have accomplished, for the service had been one +of humanity, with no thought of reward. They would let the doctor stay +in Ascalon, and Morgan would go to him if he felt the need coming on. +The rancher disclaimed credit for a service such as one man owed another +the world over, he said. But it was plain that he was touched by the +outspoken gratitude of this wreckage of humanity that had come halting +in bonds to his door.</p> + +<p>"I'm a stranger to this country," Morgan explained, "I arrived in +Ascalon yesterday—" pausing to ponder it, thinking it must have been +longer than a day ago—"yesterday"—with conviction, "a little after +noon. Morgan is my name. I came here to settle on land."</p> + +<p>"You're the man that took the new marshal's gun away from him," the +rancher said, nodding slowly. "My daughter knew you the minute she saw +you—she was over there yesterday after the mail."</p> + +<p>Morgan's heart jumped. He looked about the room for her, but she and her +mother had withdrawn.</p> + +<p>"I guess I made a mistake when I mixed up with him," Morgan said, as if +he excused himself to the absent girl.</p> + +<p>"The only mistake you made was when you handed him back his gun. You +ought to 'a' handed it back to a corpse," the rancher said.</p> + +<p>"We knew that feller he killed," the younger man explained, with a world +of significance in his voice.</p> + +<p>"He used to live up here in this country before he went to Abilene; he'd +come back to blow his money in Ascalon, I guess," the rancher said. "He +was one of them harmless bluffin' boys you could take by the ear and +lead around like he had a ring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span> in his nose."</p> + +<p>"That's what I told them," Morgan commented, in thoughtful, distracted +way.</p> + +<p>"You sized him up right. He wouldn't 'a' pulled his gun, quick as he was +to slap his hand on it and run a sandy. I guess it was just as well it +happened to him then as some other time. Somebody was bound to kill him +when he got away among strangers."</p> + +<p>The rancher, who introduced himself as Stilwell, asked for the details +of the killing, which Morgan gave, together with the trivial thing that +led up to it. The big rancher sighed, shaking his head sadly.</p> + +<p>"You ought to took his gun away from him and bent it around his fool +head," he said.</p> + +<p>"It would have been better for him, and for me, I guess," Morgan agreed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that marshal was purty sore on you for takin' his gun away from +him right out in public, it looks like," the rancher suggested, a bid in +his manner for the details of his misfortune which Morgan felt were his +by right of hospitality.</p> + +<p>"I ran into some of his friends later on. He'd turned the town over to +them, a bunch of cowpunchers just up from the Nueces."</p> + +<p>The rancher started at the word, exchanging a startled, meaning look +with his son.</p> + +<p>"That outfit that loaded over at Ascalon yesterday?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Yes; seven or eight of them stayed behind to look after the +horses—eight with the marshal, he's one of the outfit."</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span></p> +<p>"Did them fellers rope you and drag you away out here?" Stilwell +inquired, leaning over in the tensity of his feeling, his tanned face +growing pale, as if the thought of such atrocity turned his blood cold.</p> + +<p>"They hitched me to a freight train. The rope broke at the river."</p> + +<p>The rancher turned to his son again, making a motion with open hand +outflung as if displaying evidence in some controversy between them that +clinched it on his side without another word. The younger man came a +step nearer Morgan's couch, where he stood with grave face, hesitant, as +if something came forward in his mind to speak. The elder strode to the +door and looked out into the sun of early morning, and the cool shadows +of the cottonwood trees at the riverside which reached almost to his +walls.</p> + +<p>"To a train! God A'mighty—to a train!" Morgan heard him say.</p> + +<p>"How far is it from Ascalon to the river?" Morgan asked.</p> + +<p>"Over two miles! And your hands tied—God A'mighty!"</p> + +<p>"You take it easy, they'll not leave Ascalon till Sol Drumm, their boss, +comes back from Kansas City," the young man said. "We're layin' for him +ourselves, we've got a bill against him."</p> + +<p>"And we've got about as much show to collect it as we have to dip a +hatful of stars out of the river," Stilwell said, turning gloomily from +the door.</p> + +<p>"We'll se<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span>e about that!" the younger one returned, in high and defiant +stubbornness.</p> + +<p>"We've already lost upwards of five hundred head of stock from that +feller's trespass on our range," Stilwell explained. "That gang drove in +here three weeks ago to rest and feed up for market, payin' no attention +to anybody's range or anybody's warning to keep off. They had the men +with them to go where they pleased. Them Texas cattle come up here +loaded with fever ticks, and the bite of them little bugs means death to +a northern herd. They sowed ticks all over my range. I'm still a losin' +cattle, and Lord knows where it will stop."</p> + +<p>"You've been working to get a quarantine law passed, I remember," Morgan +said, feeling this outrage as if the cattle were his own.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but Congress is asleep, and them fellers down in Texas never shut +their eyes. I warned Drumm to keep off my range, asked him first like a +gentleman, but he drove in one night between my pickets and mixed his +poison cattle with mine out of pure cussidness. He claimed they got +away, and him with fifteen or twenty men to ride herd! It's cost me ten +thousand dollars, at the lowest figure, already, and more goin'. It +looks like it would clean me out."</p> + +<p>"You ought to have some recourse against him in law," Morgan said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I thought so, too. I went to the county attorney and wanted to +bring an attachment on Drumm's herd, but he told me there wasn't any law +he could act under, it was anybody's range as much as mine, Texas fever +or no Texas fever. I could sue him, he said, but it was a slim chance. +Well, I'm goin' to see another lawyer—I'll take it up with Judge +Thayer, and see what he can do."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span></p> + +<p>"Drumm'll pay it, down to the last dime!" the young man declared.</p> + +<p>"We can't hold him up and take it away from him, Fred," the older man +reproved. "That would be as big a crime as his."</p> + +<p>"He'll pay it!" Fred repeated, with what Morgan thought to be admirable +tenacity, even though his means to the desired end might be hard to +justify.</p> + +<p>They helped Morgan to another room, where they outfitted him with +clothing to replace his own shredded garments. Stilwell insisted that he +remain as his guest until his hurts were mended, although, he explained, +he could not stay at home to keep him company. His wife and daughter +would talk his arm off without help from the rest of the family. He +would call them in and introduce them.</p> + +<p>"My girl's got a new piano—lucky I sent for it before that Texas outfit +struck this range—she can try it out on you," Stilwell said, a laugh +still left in him for an amusing situation in spite of the ruin he +faced.</p> + +<p>Morgan could hear the girl and her mother talking in the kitchen, their +voices quite distinct at times as they passed an open door that he could +not see. Lame and aching, hands swollen and purple, he sat in a +rocking-chair by the open window, not so broken by his experiences nor +so depressed by his pains but he yet had the pleasure of anticipation in +meeting this girl. He had determined only a few hours ago that the +country was not big enough to hide her from him. Now Fate had jerked +him with rough hand to the end of his quest before it was fairly begun.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span></p> +<p>As he thought this, Stilwell came back, convoying his ample red-faced +wife, and almost as ample, and quite as red-faced, daughter. So, there +must have been more than one young lady after mail in Ascalon yesterday +afternoon, thought Morgan, as he got up ruefully, with much pain in his +feet and ankles, rather shamed and taken back, and bowed the best way he +could to this girl who was not <i>his</i> girl, after all his eager +anticipation.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2><h3>NEWS FROM ASCALON</h3> +</div> + +<p>"Down here in the river bottom, where the water rises close to the top +of the ground, you can raise a little corn and stuff, but take it back +on the prairie a little way and you can't make your seed back, year in +and year out. Plenty of them have come here from the East and tried +it—I suppose you must 'a' seen the traces of them scattered around as +you come through the country east of Ascalon."</p> + +<p>Morgan admitted that he had seen such traces, melancholy records of +failure that they were.</p> + +<p>"It's all over this country the same way. It broke 'em as fast as they +came, starved 'em and took the heart out of 'em and drove 'em away. You +can't farm this country, Morgan; no man ever learnt anything out of +books that will make him master of these plains with a plow."</p> + +<p>So spoke Stilwell, the cattleman, sitting at night before his long, low, +L-shaped sod house with his guest who had been dragged into his +hospitality at the end of a rope. Eight days Morgan had been sequestered +in that primitive home, which had many comforts in spite of the crudity +of its exterior. His soreness had passed from the green and +superficially painful stage to the deeper ache of bruised bones. He +walked with a limp, stiff and stoved in his joints as a foundered horse. +But his hands and arms had recovered their suppleness, and, like an +overgrown fledgling at the edge of the nest, he was thinking of +projecting a flight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span></p> + +<p>During the time Morgan had been in the Stilwell ranchhouse no news had +come to him from Ascalon. Close as they lived to the town, the Stilwells +had been too deeply taken up with their own problem of pending ruin due +to the loss of their herd from Texas fever infection, to make a trip +even to the post-office for their mail. Violet, the daughter, was on the +range more than half the time, doing what she could to drive the sick +cattle to the river where they might have a better chance to fight the +dread malady.</p> + +<p>Morgan's injuries had turned out to be deeper seated and more serious +than he had at first supposed. For several days he was racked with a +fever that threatened to floor him, due to the mental torture of that +terrible night. It had passed, and with it much of his pain, and he +would have gone to Ascalon for his reckoning with the men from the +Nueces two days ago if Stilwell had not argued the folly of attempting +an adjustment under the handicap of his injuries.</p> + +<p>Wait a few days longer, the rancher sagely advised, eat and rest, and +rub that good fiery horse liniment of his on the sore spots and swollen +joints. Even if they were gone, which Stilwell knew would not be the +case for Drumm would not have made it back from Kansas City yet, Morgan +could follow them. And to do that he must be sound and strong.</p> + +<p>Stilwell had put off even his own case against the Texas stockman, he +had been so urged for time in getting his sick cattle down to the shade +and water along the river. Now the job seemed over, for all he could +do, and was taking his ease at home this night, intending to go early in +the morni<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span>ng and put his case for damages against Drumm into Judge +Thayer's hands.</p> + +<p>Through Morgan's days of sickness and waiting for strength, he was +attended tenderly by Mrs. Stilwell, and sometimes of an afternoon, when +Violet came in from the hot, dry range, she would play for him on her +new piano. She played a great deal better than he had any reason to +expect of her, self-taught in her isolation on the banks of the shallow +Arkansas.</p> + +<p>Violet was a girl of large frame, large bones in her wrists, large +fingers to her useful, kindly ministering hands. Her face was somewhat +too long and thin to be called handsome, but it was refined by a +wistfulness that told of inner striving for something beyond the horizon +of her days there in her prairie-circled home. And now as the two men +talked outside the door, the new moonlight white on the dust of the +trampled yard, Violet was at her piano, playing a simple melody with a +soft, expressive tenderness as sweet to him as any music Morgan ever had +heard. For he understood that the instrument was the medium of +expression for this prairie girl's soul, reaching out from its shelter +of sod laid upon sod to what aspirations, following what longings, +mounting to what ambitions, none in her daily contact ever knew.</p> + +<p>Stilwell was downcast by the blow he had received in the loss of more +than half his herd through the Texas scourge. It had taken years of +hardship and striving, fighting drouth and winter storm, preying wolves +and preying men, to build the herd up to the point where profits were +about ready to be enjoyed.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span></p> +<p>Nothing but a frost would put an end to the scourge of Texas fever; in +those days no other remedy had been discovered. Before nature could send +this relief Stilwell feared the rest of his cattle would die, although +he had driven them from the contaminated range. If that happened he +would be wiped out, for he was too old, he said, to start at the bottom +and build up another herd.</p> + +<p>It was at this point that Morgan suggested Stilwell turn to the soil +instead of range cattle as a future business, a thing that called down +the cattleman's scorn and derision, and citation of the wreckage that +country had made of men's hopes. He dismissed that subject very soon as +one unworthy of even acrimonious debate or further denunciation, to +dwell on his losses and the bleakness of the future as it presented +itself through the bones of his dead cattle.</p> + +<p>As they sat talking, the soft notes of Violet's melody soothing to the +ears as a distant song, the young man Fred came riding in from Ascalon, +the bearer of news. He began to talk before he struck the ground, +breathlessly, like a man who had beheld unbelievable things.</p> + +<p>"That gang from Texas has took the town—everybody's hidin' out," he +reported.</p> + +<p>"Took the town?" said Stilwell, incredulously.</p> + +<p>"Stores all shut up, post-office locked and old man Flower settin' in +the upstairs winder with his Winchester across his leg waitin' for them +to bust in the door and steal the gover'ment money!"</p> + +<p>"Listen to that!" said Stilwell, as the young man stood there hat off, +mopping the sweat of excitement from his forehead. "Where's that +man-eatin' marshal feller at?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span></p> + +<p>"He's killin' off everybody in town but his friends—he's killed eight +men, a man a day, since he's been in office. He's got everybody lookin' +for a hole."</p> + +<p>"A man a day!" said Morgan, scarcely able to believe the news.</p> + +<p>"Who was they?" Stilwell inquired, bringing his chair down from its easy +slant against the sod wall, leaning forward to catch the particulars of +this unequaled record of slaughter.</p> + +<p>"I didn't hear," said Fred, panting faster than his hard-ridden horse.</p> + +<p>"I hope none of the boys off of this range around here got into it with +him," Stilwell said.</p> + +<p>"They say he's closed up all the gamblin' joints and saloons but +Peden's, and the bank's been shut four or five days, Judge Thayer and a +bunch of fellers inside of it with rifles. Tom Conboy told me the judge +had telegraphed to the governor asking him to send soldiers to restore +law and order in the town."</p> + +<p>"Law and order!" Stilwell scorned. "All the law and order they ever had +in that hell-hole a man'd never miss."</p> + +<p>"Where's the sheriff—what's he doing to restore order?" Morgan +inquired.</p> + +<p>"The sheriff ain't doin' nothing. I ain't been over there, but I know +that much," Stilwell said.</p> + +<p>"They say he's out after some rustlers," Fred replied.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and he'll stay out till the trouble's over and c<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span>ome back without a +hide or hair of a rustler. What else are they doin'?"</p> + +<p>"Rairin' and shootin'," said Fred, winded by the enormity of this +outlawry, even though bred in an atmosphere of violence.</p> + +<p>"Are they hittin' anybody, or just shootin' for noise?" Stilwell asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, I know they took a crack at me when I went out of Conboy's to git +my horse."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stilwell and Violet, who had hastened out on Fred's excited +arrival, exclaimed in concern at this, the mother going to her boy to +feel him over as for wounds, standing by him a little while with arm +around him.</p> + +<p>"Did you shoot back?" Stilwell wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"I hope I did," Fred replied.</p> + +<p>Stilwell got up, and stood looking at the moon a little while as if +calculating the time of night.</p> + +<p>"They need a man or two over there to clean that gang up," he said. +"Well, it ain't my business to do it, as long as they didn't hit you."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stilwell chided him sharply, perhaps having history behind her to +justify her alarm at these symptoms.</p> + +<p>"Let them fight it out among themselves, the wolves!" she said.</p> + +<p>Morgan had drawn a little apart from the family group, walking to the +corner of the house where he stood looking off toward Ascalon, still and +tense as if he listened for the sounds of conflict. He was dressed in +Stilwell's clothes, which were somewhat too roomy of body but nothing +too large otherwise, for both of them had the stature of proper men. +His feet were in slippers, his ankles bandaged and soaked with the +penetrating liniment designed alike f<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span>or the ailments of man and beast.</p> + +<p>Violet studied him as he stood there between her and the moon, his face +sterner for the ordeal of suffering that had tried his manhood in that +two-mile run beside the train, where nothing but a sublime defiance of +death had held him to his feet.</p> + +<p>He had told her of his seven-years' struggle upward from the cowboy's +saddle to a place of honor in the faculty of the institution where he +had beaten out the hard, slow path to learning; she knew of his purpose +in coming to the western Kansas plains. Until this moment she had +believed it to be a misleading and destructive illusion that would break +his heart and rive his soul, as it had the hearts and souls of thousands +of brave men and women before him.</p> + +<p>Now she had a new revelation, the moonlight on his face, bright in his +fair hair, picturing him as rugged as a rock uplifted against the dim +sky. She knew him then for a man such as she never had met in the narrow +circle of her life before, a man strong to live in his purpose and +strong to die in it if the need might be. He would conquer where others +had failed; the strength of his soul was written in his earnest face.</p> + +<p>"I think I'll go over to Ascalon," Morgan said presently, turning to +them, speaking slowly. "Will you let me have a horse?"</p> + +<p>"Go to Ascalon! Lands save us!" Mrs. Stilwell exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"No, no—not tonight!" Violet protested, hurrying forward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span> as if she +would stay him by force.</p> + +<p>"You wait till morning, son," Stilwell counseled calmly, so calmly, +indeed, that his wife turned to him sharply. "Maybe I'll go with you in +the morning."</p> + +<p>"You've got no business there—let them kill each other off if they want +to, but you keep out of it!" said his wife.</p> + +<p>"If you'll let me have a horse—" Morgan began again, with the +insistence of a man unmoved.</p> + +<p>"You forgot about our cattle, Mother," Stilwell chided, ignoring +Morgan's request. "I'm goin' to sue Sol Drumm, I'm goin' to have the +papers ready to serve on him the minute he steps off of the train. If +there's any way to make him pay for the damage he's done me I'm goin' to +do it."</p> + +<p>"There's more than one way," said Fred. "If the law can't——"</p> + +<p>"Then we lose," his father finished for him, in the calm resignation of +a just man.</p> + +<p>Morgan's intention of going to Ascalon to square accounts with his +persecutors as soon as he had the strength to warrant such a move was no +secret in the Stilwell family. Fred had offered his services at the +beginning, and the one cowboy now left out of the five but recently +employed by Stilwell had laid his pistol on the table and told Morgan +that he was the man who went with it, both of them at his service when +the hour of reckoning should arrive. Now Stilwell himself was beginning +to show the pistol itch in his palm.</p> + +<p>Morgan was grateful for all this uprising on the part of his new +friends in his behalf, to whom his suffering and the cruelty of his +ordeal appealed strongly for sympathy, but he could n<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span>ot accept any +assistance at their hands. There could be no satisfaction in justice +applied by any hand but his own. If otherwise, he might as well go to +the county attorney, lodge complaints, obtain warrants and send his +enemies to jail.</p> + +<p>No, it was a case for personal attention; it was a one-man job. What +they were to suffer for their great wrong against him, he must inflict +with his own weapon, like the savage Comanche whose camp fires were +scarcely cold in that place.</p> + +<p>So Morgan spoke again of going that night to Ascalon, only to be set +upon by all of them and argued into submission. Eager as Fred was to go +along and have a hand in the fray, he was against going that night. +Violet came and laid her good wholesome, sympathetic hand on Morgan's +arm and looked into his face with a plea in her eyes that was stronger +than words. He couldn't bear his feet in the stirrups with his ankles +all swollen and sore as they were, she said; wait a day or two—wait a +week. What did it matter if they should leave in the meantime, and go +back down the wild trail to Texas? So much the better; let them go.</p> + +<p>Morgan smiled to hear her say it would be better if they should get +away, for she was one of the forgiving of this world, in whose breast +the fire of vengeance would find no fuel to nurse its hot spark and +burst into raging flame. He yielded to their entreaties and reasoning, +agreeing to defer his expedition against his enemies until morning, but +not an hour longer.</p> + +<p>When the others had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span> gone to bed, Morgan went down to the river through +the broad notch in the low bank where the Santa Fé Trail used to cross. +This old road was brush-grown now, with only a dusty path winding along +it where the cattle passed to drink. The hoof-cut soil was warm and soft +to his bruised feet; the bitter scent of the willows was strong on the +cooling night as he brushed among them. Out across the broad golden bars +he went, seeking the shallow ripple to which the stream shrunk in the +summer days between rains, sitting by it when he came to it at last, +bathing his feet in the tepid water.</p> + +<p>There he sat for the cure of the water on his bruised, fevered joints, +raking the fire of his hatred together until it grew and leaped within +him like a tempest. As the Indian warrior watches the night out with +song of defiance and dance of death to inflame him to his grim purpose +of the dawn, so this man fallen from the ways of gentleness into the +abyss of savagery spurred himself to a grim and terrible frenzy by +visiting his wrath in anticipation upon his enemies.</p> + +<p>Unworthy as they were, obscure and trivial; riotous, ignorant, bestial +in their lives, he would lower himself to their level for one blood-red +hour to carry to them a punishment more terrible than the noose. As from +the dead he would rise up to strike them with terror. In the morning, +when the sun was striking long shadows of shrub and bunched bluestem +over the prairie levels; in the morning, when the wind was as weak as a +young fawn.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2><h3>THE HOUR OF VENGEANCE</h3> +</div> + +<p>The proscribed of the earth were sleeping late in Ascalon that morning, +as they slept late every morning, bright or cloudy, head-heavy with the +late watch and debaucheries of the night. Few were on the street in +pursuit of the small amount of legitimate business the town transacted +during the burning hours when the moles of the night lay housed in +gloom, when Morgan walked from the baggage-room of the railroad depot.</p> + +<p>Few who saw Morgan on the day of his arrival in Ascalon would have +recognized him now. He had been obliged to go to the bottom of his trunk +for the outfit that he treasured out of sentiment for the old days +rather than in any expectation of needing it again—the rig he had worn +into the college town, a matter of six hundred miles from his range, to +begin a new life. Now he had fallen from the eminence. He was going back +to the old.</p> + +<p>The gray wool shirt was wrinkled and stained by weather and wear, the +roomy corduroy trousers were worn from saddle chafing, the big spurs +were rusted of rowel and shank. But the boots were new—he had bought +them before leaving the range, to wear in college, laying them aside +with regret when he found them not just the thing in vogue—and they +were still brave in glossy bronze of quilted tops, little marred by +that last long ride out of his far-away past. His cream-colored hat was +battered and old, for he had worn it five years in all weather, crushed +from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span> the pressure of packing, but he pinched the tall crown to a point +as he used to wear it, and turned the broad brim back from his forehead +according to the habit of his former days.</p> + +<p>This had been his gala costume in other times, kept in the bunkhouse at +the ranch for days of fiesta, nights of dancing, and wild dissipation +when he rode with his fellows to the three-days' distant town. His old +pistol was in his holster, and his empty cartridge belt about his +middle, the rifle, in saddle holster, that he used to carry for wolves +and rustlers, in his hand.</p> + +<p>Morgan stood a moment, leaning the rifle against the depot end, to take +the bright silk handkerchief from about his neck, as if he considered it +as being too festive for the somber business before him. The station +agent stood at the corner of the building, watching him curiously.</p> + +<p>The horse that Morgan had borrowed from Stilwell lifted its head with a +start as he approached where it stood at the side of the station +platform, as if it questioned him on the reason for this transformation +and the honesty of his purpose. Morgan did not mount the horse, although +he walked with difficulty in the tight boots which had lain like the +shed habits of his past so many years unstretched by a foot. He went +leading the horse, rein over his arm, to the hitching rack in front of +the hotel, under the plank canopy of which Stilwell and his son waited +his coming.</p> + +<p>Stilwell had made it plain to Morgan at the beginning, to save his +feelings and his pride, that they were not attending him on the +expedition against his enemies with any intention of h<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span>elping him. Just +to be there in case of outside interference, and to enjoy the spectacle +of justice being done by a strong hand. Stilwell's account, personally, +was not against these men, he said, although they had driven their herd +upon his range and spread infection among his cattle. That would be +taken up with Sol Drumm when he came back from Kansas City with the +money from his cattle sale.</p> + +<p>Morgan went to the hardware store, two doors from the hotel, from which +he presently emerged with a coil of new rope, a row of new cartridges in +his belt, and pockets heavy with a reserve supply. Tom Conboy was +standing in his door, looking up and down the street in the manner of a +man who felt his position insecure. Morgan saw that he was haggard and +worn as from long vigils and anxieties, although he had about him still +an air of assurance and self-sufficiency. Morgan passed him in the door +and entered the office unrecognized, although Conboy searched him with a +disfavoring and suspicious eye.</p> + +<p>In the office there was evidence of conflict and turmoil. The showcase +was broken, the large iron safe lay overturned on the floor. The blue +door leading into the dining-room had been burst from its hinges, its +panels cracked, and now stood in the office leaning against the +partition like a champion against the ropes. Conboy turned from his +watch at the street door with reluctance, to see what the visitor +desired, and at the same moment Dora appeared in the doorless frame +within.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Mo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span>rgan!" she cried, incredulity, surprise, pleasure, mingled in her +voice.</p> + +<p>She paused a moment, eyes round, hands lifted, her pretty mouth agape, +but came on again almost at once, eagerness brushing all other emotions +out of her face. "Wherever in the world have you been? What in the name +of goodness is the matter with your face?" She turned Morgan a little to +let the light fall on his wound.</p> + +<p>Grim as Morgan's business was that morning, bitter as his savage heart, +he had a nook in his soul for sympathetic Dora, and a smile that came so +hard and vanished so quickly that it seemed it must have hurt him in the +giving more than the breaking of a bone.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mister</i> Morgan!" said Dora, hardly a breath between her last word and +the next, "what<i>ever</i> have you been doin' to your face?"</p> + +<p>"No niggers in Ireland, now—no-o-o niggers in Ireland!" Conboy warned +her, coming forward with no less interest than his daughter's to peer +into Morgan's bruised and marred face. "Well, well!"—with much surprise +altogether genuine, "you're back again, Mr. Morgan?"</p> + +<p>"Wherever <i>have</i> you been?" Dora persisted, no more interested in +niggers in Ireland than elsewhere.</p> + +<p>"I fell among thieves," Morgan told her, gravely. Then to Conboy: "Is +that gang from Texas stopping here?"</p> + +<p>"No, they lay up at Peden's on the floor where they happen to fall," +Conboy replied. "If there ever was a curse turned loose on a town that +gang—look at that showcase, look at that door, look at that safe. They +took the town last night, a decent woman didn't dare to show her face +outside the door and wasn't safe in the house. They tried to blow that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span> +safe with powder when I wouldn't open it and give them the money. But +they didn't even jar it—your money's in there, Mr. Morgan, safe."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it was awful!" said Dora. "Oh, you've got your gun! If some +man——"</p> + +<p>"Sh-h-h! No nig——"</p> + +<p>"Where's the marshal?" Morgan asked.</p> + +<p>"Took the train east last night. The operator told me he got a wire from +Sol Drumm, boss of the outfit, to meet him in Abilene today. He swore +them six ruffians in as deputies before he went and left them in charge +of the town."</p> + +<p>"Six? Where's the other one?"</p> + +<p>Conboy looked at him with quick flashing of his shifty eyes. "Don't you +know?" he asked, with significant shrewdness, smiling a little as if to +show his friendly appreciation of the joke.</p> + +<p>"What in the hell do you mean?" Morgan demanded.</p> + +<p>"No niggers in Ireland, now," Conboy said soothingly, his face growing +white. "One of them was killed down by the railroad track the night you +left. They said you shot him and hopped a freight."</p> + +<p>Morgan said no more, but turned toward the door to leave.</p> + +<p>"The inquest hasn't been held over him yet, we've been kept so busy with +the marshal's cases we didn't get around to him," Conboy explained. +"Maybe you can throw some light on that case?"</p> + +<p>"I can throw a lot of it," Morgan said, and wa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span>lked out with that word to +where he had left his horse.</p> + +<p>There Morgan cut six lengths from his new rope, drawing the pieces +through his belt in the manner of a man carrying string for sewing grain +sacks. He took the rifle from the saddle, filled its magazine, and +started toward Peden's place, which was on the next corner beyond the +hotel, on the same side of the square. When he had gone a few rods, +halting on his lame feet, alert as a hunter who expects the game to +break from cover, Stilwell and Fred got up from their apparently +disinterested lounging in front of the hotel and followed leisurely +after him.</p> + +<p>Many of the little business houses around the square were closed. There +was a litter of glass on the plank sidewalk, where proprietors stood +gloomily looking at broken windows, or were setting about replacing them +with boards after the hurricane of deviltry that swept the town the +night past. Those who were abroad in the sunlight of early morning +making their purchases for the day, moved with trepidation, putting +their feet down quietly, hastening on their way.</p> + +<p>An old man who walked ahead of Morgan appeared to be the only unshaken +and unconcerned person in this place of sleeping passions. He carried a +thick hickory stick with immense crook, which he pegged down in time to +his short steps, relying on it for support not at all, his lean old jaw +chopping his cud as nimbly as a sheep's. But when Morgan's shadow, +stretching far ahead, fell beside him, he started like a dozing horse, +whirled about with stick upraised, and stood so in attitude of menace +and defense until the stranger had passed on.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span></p> +<p>Conboy was alert in his door, watching to see what new nest of trouble +Morgan was about to stir with that threatening rifle. Others seemed to +feel the threat that stalked with this grim man. Life quickened in the +somnolent town as to the sound of a fire bell as he passed; people stood +watching after him; came to doors and windows to lean and look. A few +moments after his passing the street behind him became almost magically +alive, although it was a silent, expectant, fearful interest that +communicated itself in whispers and low breath.</p> + +<p>Who was this stranger with the mark of conflict on his face, this +unusual weapon in the brawls and tragedies of Ascalon held ready in his +hands? What grievance had he? what authority? Was he the bringer of +peace in the name of the law that had been so long degraded and defied, +or only another gambler in the lives of men? They waited, whispering, in +silence as of a deserted city, to see and hear.</p> + +<p>There was only one priest of alcohol attending the long altar where men +sacrificed their manhood in Peden's deserted hall that morning. He was +quite sufficient for all the demands of the hour, his only customers +being the unprofitable gang of cattle herders whom Morgan sought. True +to their training in early rising, no matter what the stress of the +night past, no matter how broken by alarm and storm, they were all +awake, like sailors called to their watch. They were improving while it +might last the delegated authority of Seth Craddock, which opened the +treasures of a thousand bottles at a word.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span></p> +<p>The gambling tables in the front of the house were covered with black +cloths, which draped them almost to the floor, like palls of the dead. +Down at the farther end of the long hall a man was sweeping up the +débris of the night, his steps echoing in the silence of the place. For +there was no hilarity in the sodden crew lined up at the bar for the +first drink of the day. They were red-eyed, crumpled, dirty; frowsled of +hair as they had risen from the floor.</p> + +<p>Peden's hall was not designed for the traffic of daylight. There was +gloom among its bare girders, shadows lay along its walls. Only through +the open door came in a broad and healthy band of light, which spread as +it reached and faltered as it groped, spending itself a little way +beyond the place where the lone bartender served his profitless +customers.</p> + +<p>Morgan walked into the place down this path of light unnoticed by the +men at the bar or the one who served them, for they were wrangling with +him over some demand that he seemed reluctant to supply. At the end of +the bar, not a rod separating them, Morgan stopped like a casual +customer, waiting his moment.</p> + +<p>The question between bartender and the gang quartered upon the town was +one of champagne. It was no drink, said the bartender, to lay the +foundation of a day's business with the bottle upon. Whisky was the +article to put inside a man's skin at that hour of the morning, and then +in small shots, not too often. They deferred to his experience, +accepting whisky. As they lined up with breastbones against the bar to +pour down the charge, Morgan threw his rifle down on them.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span></p> +<p>No chance to drop a hand to a gun standing shoulder to shoulder with +gizzards pressed against the bar; no chance to swerve or duck and make a +quick sling of it and a quicker shot, with the bore of that big rifle +ready to cough sixteen chunks of lead in half as many seconds, any one +of them hitting hard enough to drill through them, man by man, down to +the last head in the line. So their arms went up and strained high above +their heads, as if eager to show their desire to comply without +reservation to the unspoken command. Morgan had not said a word.</p> + +<p>The bartender, accepting the situation as generally inclusive, put his +hands up along with his deadbeat patrons. And there they stood one +straining moment, the man with the broom down in the gloom of the +farther end of the building, unconscious of what was going on, whistling +as he swept among the peanut hulls.</p> + +<p>Morgan signaled with his head for the bartender to come over the +barrier, which he did, with alacrity, and stood at the farther end of +the line, hands up, a raw-fisted, hollow-faced Irishman with bristling +short hair. Morgan jerked his head again, repeating the signal when the +bartender looked in puzzled fright into his face to read the meaning. +Then the fellow got it, and came forward, a vast relief spreading in his +combative features.</p> + +<p>Morgan indicated the rope ends dangling at his belt. Almost beaming, +quite triumphant in his eagerness, the bartender grasped his meaning at +a glance. He began tying the ruffians' hands behind their backs, and +tying them well, with a zest in his wo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span>rk that increased as he traveled +down the line.</p> + +<p>"Champagne, is it?" said he, mocking them, a big foot in the small of +the victim's back as he pulled so hard it made him squeal. "Nothing +short of champoggany wather will suit the taste av ye this fine marin', +and you with a thousand dollars' wort' of goods swilled into your +paunches the past week! I'll give you a dose of champoggany wather +you'll not soon forget, ye strivin' devils! This sheriff is the man +that'll hang ye for your murthers and crimes, ye bastes!" And with each +expletive a kick, but not administered in any case until he had turned +his head with sly caution to see whether it would be permitted by this +silent avenger who had come to Ascalon in the hour of its darkest need.</p> + +<p>While Morgan's captives cursed him, knowing now who he was, and cursed +the bartender whom they had overriden and mocked, insulted and abused in +the security of their collective strength and notorious deeds, the +shadow of two men fell across the threshold of Peden's door. There the +shadows lay through the brief moments of this little drama's enactment, +immovable, as though cast by men who watched.</p> + +<p>The porter came forward from his sweeping to look on this degradation of +the desperados, mocking them, returning them curse for curse, voluble in +picturesque combinations of damning sentences as if he had practiced +excommunication longer than the oldest pope who ever lived. In the +excess of his scorn for their fallen might he smeared his filthy broom +across their faces, paying back insult for insu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span>lt, bold and secure under +the protection of this stern eagle of a man who had dropped on Ascalon +as from a cloud.</p> + +<p>When the last man was bound, the last kick applied by the bartender's +great, square-toed foot, Morgan motioned his sullen captives toward the +door.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute—have something on the house," the bartender urged.</p> + +<p>Morgan lifted his hand in gesture at once silencing and denying, and +marched out after the heroes of the Chisholm Trail. Through it all he +had not spoken.</p> + +<p>They cursed Morgan as he drove them into the street, and surged against +their bonds, the only silent one among them the Dutchman, and the only +sober one. Now and then Morgan saw his face as the others bunched and +shifted in their struggles to break loose, his mocking, sneering, pasty +white face, his wide-set teeth small and white as a young pup's. His +eyes were hateful as a rattlesnake's; lecherous eyes, debased.</p> + +<p>Morgan herded them into the public square beyond the line of hitching +racks which stood like a skeleton fence between courthouse and business +buildings. People came pouring from every house to see, hurrying, +crowding, talking in hushed voices, wondering in a hundred conjectures +what this man was going to do. Gamblers and nighthawks, roused by the +very feeling of something unusual, hastened out half dressed, to stand +in slippers and collarless shirts, looking on in silent speculation.</p> + +<p>Citizens, respectable and otherwise, who had suffered loss and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span> +humiliation, danger and terror at the hands of these men, exulted now in +their downfall. Some said this man was a sheriff from Texas, who had +tracked them to Ascalon and was now taking them to jail to await a +train; some said he was a special government officer, others that the +governor had sent him in place of troops, knowing him to be sufficient +in himself. Boys ran along in open-mouthed admiration, pattering their +bare feet in the thick dust, as Morgan drove his captives down the +inside of the hitching racks; the outpouring of citizens, parasites, +outcasts of the earth, swept after in a growing stream.</p> + +<p>From all sides they came to witness this great adventure, unusual for +Ascalon in that the guilty had been humbled and the arrogant brought +low. Across the square they came running, on the courthouse steps they +stood. In front of the hotel there was a crowd, which moved forward to +meet Morgan as he came marching like an avenger behind his captives, who +were now beginning to show alarm, sobered by their unexampled situation, +sweating in the agony of their quaking hearts.</p> + +<p>At the hitching rack where his horse stood, Morgan halted the six men. +He took the remainder of his new rope from the saddle, laced it through +the bonds on the Texans' wrists, backed them up to the horizontal pole +of the hitching rack, and tied them there in a line, facing inward upon +the square. As he moved about his business with deliberate, yet swift +and sure hand of vengeance well plotted in advance, Morgan kept his +rifle leaning near, watching the crowd for any outbreak of friends who +might rise in defense of these men, or any movement that might thre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span>aten +interference with his plans.</p> + +<p>When he had finished binding the six men, backs to the rack, Morgan +beckoned a group of boys to him, spoke to them in undertone that even +the nearest in the crowd did not hear. Off the youngsters ran, so full +of the importance of their part in that great event that they would not +stay to be questioned nor halt for the briefest word.</p> + +<p>In a little while the lads came hurrying back, with empty goods boxes +and barrels, fragments of packing cases, all sorts of dry wood to which +they could lay their eager hands. This they piled where Morgan +indicated, to stand by panting, eyes big in excitement and wondering +admiration for this mighty man.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Conboy, standing at the edge of the sidewalk before her door, not +more than ten yards from the spot where Morgan was making these +unaccountable preparations, leaned with a new horror in her fear-haunted +eyes to see.</p> + +<p>"My God! he's goin' to burn them!" she said. "Oh, my God!"</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2><h3>THE PENALTY</h3> +</div> + +<p>Whatever the stranger's intention toward the rough riders of the +Chisholm Trail who had terrorized good and bad alike in Ascalon for a +week, whether to roast them alive as they stood in a row with backs to +the hitching rack, or to inflict some other equally terrible punishment; +or whether he was simply staking them there while he cooked his +breakfast cowboy fashion, not willing to trust them out of sight while +he regaled himself in a restaurant, nobody quite understood. Mrs. +Conboy's exclamation appeared to voice the general belief of the crowd. +Murmurs of disapproval began to rise.</p> + +<p>One of the leading moralists of the town, proprietor of a +knock-down-and-drag-out, was loudest in his protestations that such a +happening in the public square of Ascalon, in the broad light of day, +the assembled inhabitants looking on, would give the place a name from +which it never would recover. This fellow, a gross man of swinging +paunch, a goitre enlarging and disfiguring his naturally thick, ugly +neck, had scrambled from his bed in haste at the thrilling of the +general alarm of something unusual in the daylight annals of the town. +His bare feet were thrust into slippers, his great white shirt was +collarless, dainty narrow blue silk suspenders held up his +hogshead-measure pantaloons. The redness of unfinished sleep was in his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"I te<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span>ll you, men, this ain't a goin' to do—this ain't no town down +south where they take niggers out and burn 'em," he said. "I ain't got +no use for that gang, myself, but I've got the good of the town and my +business to consider, like all the rest of you have."</p> + +<p>There must have been in town that day forty or more cowboys from Texas +and the Nation, as the Cherokee country south was called. These for the +greater part were still sober, not having been paid off, still on duty +caring for the horses left behind them when the cattle were loaded and +shipped, or for the herds resting and grazing close by after the long +drive. They began to gather curiously around the fat man who had the +fair repute of Ascalon so close to his heart, listening to his efforts +to set a current of resentment against the stranger stirring in the awed +crowd. They began to turn toward Morgan now, with close talk among +themselves, regarding him yet as something more than a common man, not +keen to spring into somebody else's trouble and get their fingers +scorched.</p> + +<p>"What's he going to do with them?" one of these inquired.</p> + +<p>"Burn 'em," the fat man replied, as readily as if he had it from +Morgan's own mouth, and as strongly denunciatory as though the disgrace +of it reached to his fair fame and good business already. "You boys +ain't goin' to stand around here and see men from your own country burnt +like niggers, are you? Well, you don't look like a bunch that'd do +it—you don't look like it to me."</p> + +<p>"What did they do to him?" one of the cowboys asked, not greatly fired +by the fat man's sectional appeal.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span></p> +<p>Stilwell came loitering among them at that point, a man of their own +calling, sympathies, and traditions, with the shoulder-lurching gait of +a man who had spent most of his years in the saddle. He told them in a +few feeling, picturesque words the extent of Morgan's grievance against +the six, and left it with them to say whether he was to be interfered +with in his exaction of a just and fitting payment.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what he's goin' to do," Stilwell said, "but if he wants to +roast 'em and eat 'em"—looking about him with stern eyes—"this is his +day."</p> + +<p>"If he needs any help there's plenty of it here," said a cowboy from the +Nation, hooking his thumb with lazy but expressive movement under the +cartridge belt around his slim waist.</p> + +<p>The fat publican subsided, seeing his little ripple of protest flattened +out by the spirit of fair play. He backed to the sidewalk, where he +stood in conference with Tom Conboy, and there was heard a reference to +niggers in Ireland, pronounced with wise twisting of the head.</p> + +<p>Morgan selected, in the face of this little flurry of opposition and +defense, a box from among the odds and ends brought him by the boys, sat +on it facing his prisoners and broke bits of wood for a fire. People +began pressing a little nearer to see what was to come, but when Morgan, +with eye watchful to see even the shifting of a foot in the crowd, +reached for his rifle and laid it across his lap, there was an immediate +scramble to the sidewalk. This left twenty feet of dusty white road +unoccupied, a margin on the page where this remarkable incident in +Ascalon's recor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span>d of tragedies was being written.</p> + +<p>Midway of his line of captives, six feet in front of the nearest man, +Morgan kindled a fire, adding wood as the blaze grew, apparently as +oblivious of his surroundings as if in a camp a hundred miles from a +house. When he had the fire established to his liking, he took from his +saddle an iron implement, at the sight of which a murmur and a movement +of new interest stirred the crowd.</p> + +<p>This iron contrivance was a rod, little thicker than a man's finger, +which terminated in a flat plate wrought with some kind of open-work +device. This flat portion, which was about as broad as the span of a +man's two hands and perhaps six or eight inches long, appeared to be a +continuation of the handle, bent and hammered to form the crude pattern, +and the wonderment and speculation, contriving and guessing, all passed +out of the people when they beheld this thing. That was a cattle +country; they knew it for a branding iron.</p> + +<p>Morgan thrust the brand into the fire, piled wood around it, leaning +over it a little in watchful intent. This relic of his past he also had +retrieved from the bottom of his trunk along with boots and spurs, +corduroys and hat, and it had been a long time, indeed, since he heated +it to apply the Three Crow brand to the shoulder of a beast. That brand, +his father's brand in the early days in the Sioux country where he was +the pioneer cattleman, never had been heated to come in contact with +such base skins as these, Morgan reflected, and it would not be so +dishonored now if cattle were carrying it on any range.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span></p> + +<p>When the Indians killed his father and drove off the last of the herd, +the Three Crow became a discontinued brand in the Northwest. The son had +kept this iron which his father had carried at his saddle horn as a +souvenir of the times when life was not worth much between the Black +Hills and the Platte. The brand was not recorded anywhere today; the +brand books of the cattle-growers' associations did not contain it. But +it was his mark; he intended to set it on these cattle, disfiguration of +face for disfiguration, and turn them loose to return smelling of the +hot iron among their kind.</p> + +<p>Sodden with the dregs of last night's carousel, slow-headed, surly as +the Texans were when Morgan encountered them, they were all alert and +fully cognizant of their peril now. No rough jest passed from mouth to +mouth; there was no sneer, no laugh of bravado, no defiance. Some of +them had curses left in them as they sweated in the fear of Morgan's +silent preparations and lunged on their ropes in the hope of breaking +loose. All but the Dutchman appealed to the crowd to interfere, +promising rewards, making pledges in the name of their absent patron, +Seth Craddock, the dreaded slayer of men.</p> + +<p>Now and again one of them shouted a name, generally Peden's name, or the +name of some dealer or bouncer in his hall. Nobody answered, nobody +raised hand or voice to interfere or protest. During their short reign +of pillage and debauchery under the protection of the city marshal, the +members of the gang had not made a friend who cared to ris<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span>k his skin to +save theirs.</p> + +<p>To add to their disgrace and humiliation, their big pistols hung in the +holsters on their thighs. People, especially the men of the range, +remarked this full armament, marveling how the stranger had taken six +men of such desperate notoriety all strapped with their guns, but they +understood at once his purpose in allowing the weapons to hang under +their impotent hands. It was a mockery of their bravado, a belittlement +of their bluff and swagger in the brief day of their oppression.</p> + +<p>Morgan withdrew the brand from the fire, knocking the clinging bits of +wood from it against the ground.</p> + +<p>The Dutchman was first in the line at Morgan's right hand as he turned +from the fire with the branding iron red-hot in his hand. Near the +Dutchman stood Morgan's borrowed horse, drowsing in the sun with head +down, its weight on three legs, one ear set in its inherited caution to +catch the least alarm. From the first moment of his encounter with these +scoundrels Morgan had not lowered himself to address them a single word. +Such commands as he had given them had been in dumb show, as to driven +creatures. This rule of silence he held still as he approached the first +object of his vengeance.</p> + +<p>The Dutchman started back from the iron in sudden rousing from his +brooding silence, fear and hate convulsing his snarling face, shrinking +back against the timber of the hitching rack as far as he could +withdraw, where he stood with shoulders hunched about his neck, savage +as a chained wol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span>f. He began to writhe and kick as Morgan laid hold of +his neck to hold him steady for the cruel kiss of the iron.</p> + +<p>The fellow squirmed and lunged, with head lowered, trying to get on the +other side of the rack, his companions who were within reach joining in +kicking at Morgan, adding their curses and cries to the Dutchman's +silent fight to save his skin. They raised such a commotion of noise and +dust that it spread to the crowd, which pressed up with a great clamor +of derision, pity, laughter, and shrill cries.</p> + +<p>The cowboys, feeling themselves privileged spectators by reason of craft +affiliation, made a ring around the scene of punishment, shouting in +enjoyment of the spectacle, for it was quite in harmony with the cruel +jokes and wild pranks which made up the humorous diversions of their +lives.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to hog-tie that feller," said one, drawing nearer than the +rest in his interest.</p> + +<p>Morgan paused a moment, brand uplifted, as if he considered the friendly +suggestion. The Dutchman was cringing before him, head drawn between his +shoulders, face as near the ground as he could strain the ropes which +bound him. Morgan kicked the fellow's feet from under him, leaving him +hanging by his hands.</p> + +<p>The spectators cheered this adroit movement, laughing at the spectacle +of the Dutchman hanging face downward on his ropes, and Morgan, sweating +in the heat of the fire and sun, exertion and passion, careless of +everything, thoughtless of all but his unsatisfied vengeance, straddled +the Du<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span>tchman's neck as if he were a calf. He brought the iron down +within an inch or two of the Dutchman's face, calculating how much of +the crude device of three flying crows he could get between mouth and +ear, and as Morgan stood so with the hot iron poised, the Dutchman +choking between his clamping knees, a hand clutched his arm, jerking the +hovering brand away.</p> + +<p>Morgan had not heard a step near him through the turmoil of his hate, +nor seen any person approaching to interfere. Now he whirled, pistol +slung out, facing about to account with the one who dared break in to +stay his hand in the administration of a punishment that he considered +all too inadequate and humane.</p> + +<p>There was a girl standing by him, her restraining hand still on his arm, +the sun glinting in the gloss of her dark hair, her dark eyes fixed on +him in denial, in a softness of pity that Morgan knew was not for his +victims alone. And so in that revel of base surrender to his primal +passions she had come to him, she whom his heart sought among the faces +of women; in that manner she had found him, and found him, as Morgan +knew in his abased heart, at his worst.</p> + +<p>There was not a word, not the whisper of a word, in the crowd around +them. There was scarcely the moving of a breath.</p> + +<p>"Give me that iron, Mr. Morgan!" she demanded in voice that trembled +from the surge of her perturbed breast.</p> + +<p>Morgan stood confronting her in the fie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span>rce pose of a man prepared to +contend to the last extreme with any who had come to stay his hand in +his hour of requital. The glowing iron, from which little wavers of heat +rose in the sun, he grasped in one hand; in the other his pistol, elbow +close to his side, threatening the quarter from which interference had +come. Still he demurred at her demand, refusing the outstretched hand.</p> + +<p>"Give it to me!" she said again, drawing nearer, but a little space +between them now, so near he fancied her breath, panting from her open +lips, on his cheek.</p> + +<p>Silent, grim, still clouded by the vapors of his passion, Morgan stood +denying her, not able to adjust himself in wrench so sudden to the calm +plane of his normal life.</p> + +<p>"Not for their sake—for your own!" she pleaded, her hand gentle on his +arm.</p> + +<p>The set muscles of his pistol arm relaxed, the muzzle of the weapon +dropped slowly with the surge of dark passion in his breast.</p> + +<p>"They deserve it, and worse, but not from you, Mr. Morgan. Leave them to +the law—give me that iron."</p> + +<p>Morgan yielded it into her hand, slowly slipped his pistol back into the +holster, slowly raised his hand to his forehead, pushed back his hat, +swept his hand across his eyes like one waking from an oppressive dream. +He looked around at the silent people, hundreds of them, it seemed to +him, for the first time fully conscious of the spectacular drama he had +been playing before their astonished eyes.</p> + +<p>The Dutchman had struggled to his knees, where he leaned with neck +outstretched as if he waited the stroke of the headsman's sword, unable +to regain his feet. The girl looked with serious <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span>eyes into Morgan's +face, the hot branding iron in her hand.</p> + +<p>"I think you'd better lock them up in jail, Mr. Morgan," she said.</p> + +<p>Morgan did not reply. He stood with bent head, his emotions roiled like +a turgid brook, a feeling over him of awakening daze, such as one +experiences in a sweat of agony after dreaming of falling from some +terrifying height. Morgan had just struck the bottom of the precipice in +his wild, self-effacing dream. The shock of waking was numbing; there +was no room for anything in his righted consciousness but a vast, +down-bearing sense of shame. She had seen a side of his nature long +submerged, long fought, long ago conquered as he believed; the +vindictive, the savage part of him, the cruel and unforgiving.</p> + +<p>Public interest in the line of captives along the hitching rack was +waking in a new direction all around the sun-burned square. It was +beginning to come home to every staid and sober man in the assembly that +he had a close interest in the disposition of these men.</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that jail business and the law, Miss Retty," said a +severe dark man who pushed into the space where Morgan and the girl +stood. "We've been dressin' and feedin' and standin' the loss through +breakin' and stealin' these fellers have imposed on this town for a week +and more now, and I'm one that don't think much of lockin' them up in +jail to lay there and eat off of the county and maybe be turned loose +after a while. You'd just as well try to carry water up here from the +river in a gunny sack as convict a crook in this county any more."</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span></p> +<p>This man found supporters at once. They came pushing forward, the +resentment of insult and oppression darkening their faces, to shake +threatening fists in the faces of the Dutchman and his companions.</p> + +<p>"The best medicine for a gang like this is a cottonwood limb and a +rope," the man who had spoken declared.</p> + +<p>It began to look exceedingly dark for the unlucky desperadoes inside of +the next minute. The suggestion of hanging them immediately became an +avowed intention; preparations for carrying it into effect began on the +spot. While some ran to the hardware store for rope, others discussed +the means of employing it to carry out the public sentence.</p> + +<p>Hanging never had been popular in Ascalon, mainly because of the +barrenness of the country, which offered no convenient branches except +on the cottonwoods along the river. Wagon tongues upended and propped by +neckyokes had been known to serve in their time, and telegraph poles +when the railroad built through. But gibbets of this sort had their +shortcomings and vexations. There was nothing so comfortable for all +concerned as a tree, and trees did not grow by nature or by art in +Ascalon. So there was talk of an expedition to the river, where all the +six might be accommodated on one tree.</p> + +<p>The girl who had taken the branding iron from Morgan and cooled the heat +of his resentment and vengeance quicker than the iron had cooled, stood +looking about into the serious faces of the men who suddenly had +determined to finish for Morgan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span> the business he had begun. Her face was +white, horror distended her eyes; she seemed to have no words for a plea +against this rapidly growing plan.</p> + +<p>One of the doomed men behind her began to whimper and beg, appealing to +her in his mother's name to save him. He was a young man, whose weak +face was lined by the excesses of his unrestrained days in Ascalon. His +hat had fallen off, his foretop of brown hair straggled over his wild +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Come away from here," said Morgan, turning to her now, his voice rough +and still shaken by his subsiding passion. He took the hot iron from +her, thinking of the trough at the public well where he might cool it.</p> + +<p>"Don't let them do it," she implored, putting out her hands to him in +appeal.</p> + +<p>"Now Miss Rhetta, you'd better run along," a man urged kindly.</p> + +<p>Morgan stood beside her in the narrowing circle about the six men who +had been condemned by public sentiment in less than sixty seconds and +scarcely more words, the hot end of the branding iron in the dust at his +feet. He was silent, yet apparently agitated by a strong emotion, as a +man might be who had leaped a crevasse in fleeing a pressing peril, upon +which he feared to look back.</p> + +<p>She whom the man had called Rhetta picked up the young cowboy's hat and +put it on his head.</p> + +<p>"Hush!" she charged, in reply to his whimpering intercession for mercy. +"Mr. Morgan isn't going to let them hang you."</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span></p> +<p>Morgan started out of his thoughtful glooming as if a reviving wind had +struck his face, all alert again in a moment, but silent and inscrutable +as before. He leaned his brand against the hitching post, recovered his +rifle where it lay in the dust beside the scattered sticks of his fire, +making himself a little room as he moved about.</p> + +<p>Those who had talked of hanging the six now suspended sentence while +waiting the outcome of this new activity on the part of the avenger. A +man who came from somewhere with a coil of rope on his arm stood at the +edge of the newly widened circle with fallen countenance, like one who +arrived too late at some great event in which he had expected to be the +leading actor.</p> + +<p>Morgan began stripping belts and pistols from his captives, throwing the +gear at the foot of the post where his branding iron stood. When he had +stripped the last one he paused a moment as if considering something, +the weapon in his hand. The girl Rhetta had not added a word to her +appeal in behalf of the unworthy rascals who stood sweating in terror +before the threatening crowd. But she looked now into Morgan's face with +hopeful understanding, the color coming back to her drained cheeks, a +light of admiration in her eyes. As for Morgan, his own face appeared to +have cleared of a cloud. There was a gleam of deep-kindling humor in his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, there will not be any hanging in Ascalon this morning," he +announced.</p> + +<p>He threw t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span>he last pistol down with the others, nodded Stilwell to him, +whispered a word or two. Stilwell went shouldering off through the +crowd. Morgan sheathed his rifle in the battered scabbard that hung on +his saddle. In a little while Stilwell came back with a saw.</p> + +<p>Morgan took the tool and sawed through the pole to which his captives +were made fast. Stilwell held up the severed end while Morgan cut the +other, freeing from the bolted posts the four-inch section of pole to +which the cowboys were tied, leaving it hanging from the ropes at their +wrists, dangling a little below their hands.</p> + +<p>The late lords of the plains were such a dejected and altogether +sneaking looking crew, shorn of their power by the hands of one man, +stripped of their roaring weapons, tied like cattle to a hurdle, that +the vengeful spirit of Ascalon veered in a glance to humorous +appreciation of the comedy that was beginning before their eyes.</p> + +<p>The cowboys who had stood ready a few minutes past to help hang the +outfit, fairly rolled with laughter at the sight of this miserable +example of complete degradation, through which the meanness of their +kind was so ludicrously apparent. The citizenry and floating population +of the town joined in the merriment, and the lowering clouds of tragedy +were swept away on a gale of laughter that echoed along the jagged +business front.</p> + +<p>But the girl Rhetta was not laughing. Perplexed, troubled, she laid her +hand on Morgan's arm as he stood beside his horse about to mount.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with them now, Mr. Morgan?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"They're going to start for Texas down the Chisholm Trail," he said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span>, +smiling down at her from the saddle.</p> + +<p>And in that manner they set out from Ascalon, carrying the pole at their +backs, Morgan driving them ahead of him, starting them in a trot which +increased to a hobbling run as they bore away past the railroad station +and struck the broad trampled highway to the south.</p> + +<p>Afoot and horseback the town and the visitors in it came after them, +shooting and shouting, getting far more enjoyment out of it than they +would have got out of a hanging, as even the most contrary among them +admitted. For this was a drama in which the boys and girls took part, +and even the Baptist preacher, who had a church as big as a mouse trap, +stood grinning in appreciation as they passed, and said something about +it being a parallel of Samson, and the foxes with their tails tied +together being driven away into the Philistines' corn.</p> + +<p>The crowd followed to the rise half a mile south of town, where most of +it halted, only the cowboys and mounted men accompanying Morgan to the +river. There they turned back, also, leaving it to Morgan to carry out +the rest of his program alone, it being the general opinion that he +intended to herd the six beyond the cottonwoods on the farther shore and +despatch them clean-handed, according to what was owing to him on their +account.</p> + +<p>Morgan urged his captives on, still keeping them on the trot, although +it was becoming a staggering and wabbling progression, the weaker in +the line held up by the more enduring. They were experiencing in a small +and colorless measure, as faint <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span>by comparison, certainly, as the smell +of smoke to the feel of fire on the naked skin, what they had given +Morgan in the hour of their cruel mastery.</p> + +<p>At last one of them could stumble on no farther. He fell, dragging down +two others who were not able to sustain his weight. There Morgan left +them, a mile or more beyond the river, knowing they would not have far +to travel before they came across somebody who would set them free.</p> + +<p>The Dutchman, stronger and fresher than any of his companions, turned as +if he would speak when Morgan started to leave. Morgan checked his horse +to hear what the fellow might have to say, but nothing came out of the +ugly mouth but a grin of such derision, such mockery, such hate, that +Morgan felt as if the bright day contracted to shadows and a chill crept +into the pelting heat of the sun. He thought, gravely and soberly, that +he would be sparing the world at large, and himself specifically, future +pain and trouble by putting this scoundrel out of the way as a man would +remove a vicious beast.</p> + +<p>Whatever justification the past, the present, or the future might plead +for this course, Morgan was too much himself again to yield. He turned +from them, giving the Dutchman his life to make out of it what he might.</p> + +<p>From the top one of the ridges such as billowed like swells of the sea +that gray-green, treeless plain, Morgan looked back. All of them but +the Dutchman were either lying or sitting on the ground, beaten and +winded by the torture of their bonds an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span>d the hard drive of more than +three miles in the burning sun. The Dutchman still kept his feet, +although the drag of the pole upon him must have been sore and heavy, as +if he must stand to send his curse out after the man who had bent him to +his humiliation.</p> + +<p>And Morgan knew that the Dutchman was not a conquered man, nor bowed in +his spirit, nor turned one moment away from his thought of revenge. +Again the bright day seemed to contract and grow chill around him, like +the oncoming shadow and breath of storm. He felt that this man would +return in his day to trouble him, low-devising, dark and secret and +meanly covert as a wolf prowling in the night.</p> + +<p>The last look Morgan had of the Dutchman he was gazing that way still, +his face peculiarly white, the weight of the pole and his fallen +comrades dragging down on his bound arms. Morgan could fancy still, even +over the distance between them, the small teeth, wide set in the red +gums like a pup's, and the loathsome glitter of his sneering eyes.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2><h3>IN PLACE OF A REGIMENT</h3> +</div> + +<p>Morgan rode back to town in thoughtful, serious mood after conducting +the six desperadoes across the small trickle of the Arkansas River. He +was not satisfied with the morning's adventure, no matter to what extent +it reflected credit on his manhood and competency in the public mind of +Ascalon. He would have been easier in all conscience and higher in his +own esteem if it had not happened at all.</p> + +<p>He thought soberly now of getting his trunk over to Conboy's from the +station and changing back into the garb of civilization before meeting +that girl again, that wonderful girl, that remarkable woman who could +play a tune on him to suit her caprice, he thought, as she would have +fingered a violin.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer's little office, with the white stakes behind it marking +off the unsold lots like graves of a giant race, reminded Morgan of his +broken engagement to look at the farm. He hitched his horse at the rack +running out from one corner of the building, where other horses had +stood fighting flies until they had stamped a hollow like a buffalo +wallow in the dusty ground.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer got up from the accumulated business on his desk at the +sound of Morgan's step in his door, and came forward with welcome in his +beaming face, warmth of friendliness and admiration in every hair of +his beard, where the gray twinkled like laughter among the black.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span></p> +<p>"I asked the governor for a company of militia to put down the disorder +and outlawry in this town—I didn't think less than a company could do +it," said the judge.</p> + +<p>"Is he sending them?" Morgan inquired with polite interest.</p> + +<p>"No, I'm glad to say he refused. He referred me to the sheriff."</p> + +<p>"And the sheriff will act, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Act?" Judge Thayer repeated, turning the word curiously. "Act!"—with +all the contempt that could be centered in such a short +expression—"yes, he'll act like a forsworn and traitorous coward, the +friend to thieves that he's always been! We don't need him, we don't +need the governor's petted, stall-fed militia, when we've got one man +that's a regiment in himself!"</p> + +<p>The judge must shake hands with Morgan again, and clap him on the +shoulder to further express his admiration and the feeling of security +his single-handed exploit against the oppressors of Ascalon had brought +to the town.</p> + +<p>"I and the other officers and directors sat up in the bank four nights, +lights out and guns loaded, sweatin' blood, expecting a raid by that +gang. They had this town buffaloed, Morgan. I'm glad you came back here +today and showed us the pattern of a real, old-fashioned man."</p> + +<p>"I guess I was lucky," Morgan said, with modest depreciation of his +valor, exceedingly uncomfortable to stand there and hear this +loud-spoken praise of a deed he would rather have the public forget.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span></p> +<p>"Maybe you call it luck where you came from, but we've got another name +for it here in Ascalon."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry I couldn't keep my engagement to look at that farm, Judge +Thayer. You must have heard my reason for it."</p> + +<p>"Stilwell told me. It's a marvel you ever came back at all."</p> + +<p>"If the farm isn't sold——"</p> + +<p>"No," said the judge hastily, as if to turn him away from the subject. +"Come in and sit down—there's a bigger thing than farming on hand for +you if you can see your interests in it as I see them, Mr. Morgan. A +man's got to trample down the briars before he makes his bed sometimes, +you know—come on in out of this cussed sun.</p> + +<p>"Morgan, the situation in Ascalon is like this," Judge Thayer resumed, +seated at his desk, Morgan between him and the door in much the same +position that Seth Craddock had sat on the day of his arrival not long +before; "we've got a city marshal that's bigger than the authority that +created him, bigger than anything on earth that ever wore a star. Seth +Craddock's enlarged himself and his authority until he's become a curse +and a scourge to the citizens of this town."</p> + +<p>"I heard something of his doings from Fred Stilwell. Why don't you fire +him?"</p> + +<p>"Morgan, I approached him," said the judge, with an air of injury. "I +believe on my soul the old devil spared my life only because I had +befriended him in past days. There's a spark of gratitude in him that +the drenching of blood hasn't pu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span>t out. If it had been anybody else he'd +have shot him dead."</p> + +<p>"Hm-m-m-m!" said Morgan, grunting his sympathy, eyes on the floor.</p> + +<p>"Morgan, that fellow's killed eight men in as many days! He's got a +regular program—a man a day."</p> + +<p>"It looks like something ought to be done to stop him."</p> + +<p>"The old devil's shrewd, he's had legal counsel from no less illustrious +source than the county attorney, who's so crooked he couldn't lie on the +side of a hill without rollin' down it like a hoop. Seth knows he fills +an elective office, he's beyond the power of mayor and council to +remove. The only way he can be ousted is by proceedings in court, which +he could wear along till his term expired. We can't fire him, Morgan. +He'll go on till he depopulates this town!"</p> + +<p>"It's a remarkable situation," Morgan said.</p> + +<p>"He's a jackal, which is neither wolf nor dog. He's never killed a man +here yet out of necessity—he just shoots them down to see them kick, or +to gratify some monstrous delight that has transformed him from the man +I used to know."</p> + +<p>"He may be insane," Morgan suggested.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, but I don't think so. I can't abase my mind low enough to +fathom that man."</p> + +<p>"It's a wonder somebody hasn't killed him," Morgan speculated.</p> + +<p>"He never arrests anybody, there hasn't been a prisoner in the +calaboose since he took charge of this town. Notoriety has turned his +head, notoriety seems to put a halo around him that mak<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span>es a troop of +sycophants look up to him as a saint. Look here—look at this!"</p> + +<p>The judge held out a newspaper, shaking it viciously, his face clouded +with displeasure.</p> + +<p>"Here's a piece two columns long about that scoundrel in the <i>Kansas +City Times</i>—the notoriety of the town is obscured by the bloody +reputation of its marshal."</p> + +<p>"It must be gratifying to a man of his ambitions," Morgan commented, +glancing curiously over the story, his mind on the first victim of +Craddock's gun in that town.</p> + +<p>"It's a disgrace that some of us feel, whatever it may be to him. I +expected him to confine his gun to gamblers and crooks and these vermin +that hang around the women of the dance houses, but he's right-hand man +with them, they're all on his staff."</p> + +<p>Morgan looked up in amazement, hardly able to believe what he heard.</p> + +<p>"It's enough to wind any decent man," Judge Thayer nodded. "You remember +his first case—that fool cowboy he killed at the hotel?"</p> + +<p>"I was just thinking of him," Morgan said.</p> + +<p>"That's the kind he goes in for, cowboys from the range, green, innocent +boys, harmless if you take 'em right. Yesterday afternoon he killed a +young fellow from Glenmore. It's going to bring retaliation and reprisal +on us, it's going to hurt us in this contest over the county seat."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't wonder," said Morgan, hoping the reprisal would be swi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span>ft +and severe.</p> + +<p>"I think the man's blood mad," Judge Thayer speculated, in a hopeless +way. "It must be the outcome of all that slaughter among the buffalo. +He's not a brave man, he lacks the bearing and the full look of the eye +of a courageous man, but he carries two guns now, Morgan, and he can +sling out and shoot a man with incredible speed. And we've got him +quartered on us for nearly two years unless somebody from Glendora comes +over and nails him. We can't fire him, we don't dare to approach him to +suggest his abdication. Morgan, we're in a three-cornered hell of a +fix!"</p> + +<p>"Can't the fellow be prosecuted for some of these murders? Isn't there +some way the law can reach him?"</p> + +<p>"The coroner's jury absolves him regularly," the judge replied wearily. +"At first they did it because it was the routine, and now they do it to +save their hides. No, there's just one quick and sure way of heading +that devil off in his red trail that I can see, Morgan, and that's for +me to act while he's away. He's gone on some high-flyin' expedition to +Abilene, leaving the town without a peace officer at the mercy of +bandits and thieves. I have the authority to swear in a deputy marshal, +or a hundred of them."</p> + +<p>Morgan looked up again quickly from his speculative study of the boards +in Judge Thayer's floor, to meet the elder man's shrewd eyes with a look +of complete understanding. So they sat a moment, each reading the other +as easily as one counts pebbles at the bottom of a clear spring.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe I'm the man you're looking for," Morgan said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span></p> + +<p>"You're the only man that can do it, Morgan. It looks to me like you're +appointed by Providence to step in here and save this town from this +reign of murder."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Morgan, impatiently, discounting the judge's fervid words.</p> + +<p>"You can supplant him, you can strip him of his badge of office when he +steps from the train, and you're the one man that <i>can</i> do it!"</p> + +<p>Morgan shook his head, whether in denial of his attributed valor and +prowess, or in declination to assume the proffered honor, Judge Thayer +could not tell.</p> + +<p>"I believe you'd do it without ever throwing a gun down on him," Judge +Thayer declared.</p> + +<p>"I know he could!" said a clear, hearty, confident voice from the door.</p> + +<p>"Come in and help me convince him, Rhetta," Judge Thayer said, his +gray-flecked beard twinkling with the pleasure that beamed from his +eyes. "Mr. Morgan, my daughter. You have met before."</p> + +<p>Morgan rose in considerable confusion, feeling more like an abashed and +clumsy cowboy than he ever had felt before in his life. He stood with +his battered hat held flat against his body at his belt, turning the old +thing foolishly like a wheel, so unexpectedly confronted by this girl +again, before whom he desired to appear as a man, and the best that was +in the best man that he could ever be. And she stood smiling before him, +mischief and mastery in her laughing eyes, confident as one who had +subjugated him already, playing a tune on him, surely—a tune that came +like a little voice out of his heart.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span></p> +<p>"I didn't know, I didn't suspect," he said.</p> + +<p>"Of course not. She isn't anything like me." Judge Thayer laughed over +it, mightily pleased by this evidence of confusion in a man who could +heat his branding iron to set his mark on half a dozen desperadoes, yet +turned to dough before the eyes of a simple maid.</p> + +<p>"No more than a bird is like a bear," said Morgan, thinking aloud, +racing mentally the next moment to snatch back his words and shape them +in more conventional phrase. But too late; their joint laughter drowned +his attempt to set it right, and the world lost a compliment that might +have graced a courtier's tongue, perhaps. But, not likely.</p> + +<p>Morgan proffered the chair he had occupied, but Rhetta knew of one in +reserve behind the display of wheat and oats in sheaf on the table. This +she brought, seating herself near the door, making a triangle from which +Morgan had no escape save through the roof.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer resumed the discussion of the most vital matter in Ascalon +that hour, pressing Morgan to take the oath of office then and there.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't ask Mr. Morgan to take the office," said Rhetta when Judge +Thayer paused, "if I felt safe to stay in Ascalon another day with +anybody else as marshal."</p> + +<p>"That's a compelling reason for a man to take a job," Morgan told her, +looking for a daring moment into the cool clarity of her honest brown +eyes. "But I might make it worse instead of better. Trouble came to +this town with me; it seems to stick to my heels like a dog."</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span></p> +<p>"You got rid of most of it this morning—<i>that</i> gang will never come +back," she said.</p> + +<p>Morgan looked out of the open door, a thoughtfulness in his eyes that +the nearer attraction could not for the moment dispel. "One of them +will," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Oh, one!" said she, discounting that one to nothing at all.</p> + +<p>"The gamblers and saloon men are right about it," Morgan said, turning +to the judge; "this town will dry up and blow away as soon as it loses +its notorious name. If you want to kill Ascalon, enforce the law. The +question is, how many people here want it done?"</p> + +<p>"The respectable majority, I can assure you on that."</p> + +<p>"Nearly everybody you talk to say they'd rather have Ascalon a whistling +station on the railroad, where you could go to sleep in peace and get up +feeling safe, than the awful place it is now," Rhetta said. She removed +her sombrero as she spoke, and dropped it on the floor at her feet, as +though weary of the turmoil that vexed her days.</p> + +<p>Morgan noted for the first time that she was not dressed for the saddle +today as on the occasion of their first meeting, but garbed in becoming +simplicity in serge skirt and brown linen waist, a little golden bar +with garnets at her throat. Her redundant dark hair, soft in its dusky +shade as summer shadows in a deep wood, was coiled in a twisted heap to +fit the crown of her mannish sombrero. It came down lightly over the +tips of her ears in pretty disorder, due to the excitement of the +morning, and she was fair as a camelia blossom and fresh as an evening +primros<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span>e of her native prairie land.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't like to be the man that killed Ascalon, after all its highly +painted past," Morgan said, trying to turn it off lightly. "It might be +better for all the respectable people to go away and leave it wholly +wicked, according to its fame."</p> + +<p>"That might work to the satisfaction of all concerned, Mr. Morgan, if we +had wagons and tents, and nothing more," said the judge. "We could very +well pick up and pull out in that case. But a lot of us have staked all +we own on the future of this town and the country around it. We were +here before Ascalon became a plague spot and a by-word in the mouths of +men; we started it right, but it went wrong as soon as it was able to +walk."</p> + +<p>"It seems to have wandered around quite a bit since then," Morgan said, +sparing them a grin.</p> + +<p>"It's been a wayward child," Rhetta sighed. "We're ashamed of our +responsibility for it now."</p> + +<p>"It would mean ruination to most of us to pull out and leave it to these +wolves," said the judge. "We couldn't think of that."</p> + +<p>"Of course not, I was only making a poor joke when I talked of a +retreat," Morgan said. "Things will begin to die down here in a year or +two—I've seen towns like this before, they always calm down and take up +business seriously in time, or blow away and vanish completely. That's +what happens to most of them if they're let go their course—change and +shift, range breaking up into farms, cowboys going on, take care of +that."</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span></p> +<p>"I don't think Ascalon will go out that way—not if we can keep the +county seat," Judge Thayer said. "If you were to step into the breach +while that killer's away and rub even one little white spot in the +town——"</p> + +<p>Morgan seemed to interpose in the manner of throwing out his hand, a +gesture speaking of the fatuity and his unwillingness to set himself to +the task.</p> + +<p>"Not just temporarily, we don't mean just temporarily, Mr. Morgan, but +for good," Rhetta urged. "I want to take over editing the paper and be +of some use in the world, but I couldn't think of doing it with all this +killing going on, and a lot of wild men shooting out windows and +everything that way."</p> + +<p>"No, of course you couldn't," Morgan agreed.</p> + +<p>"The railroad immigration agent has been trying to locate a colony of +Mennonites here," Judge Thayer said, "fifty families or more of them, +but the notoriety of the town made the elders skittish. They were out +here this spring, liked the country, saw its future with eyes that +revealed like telescopes, and would have bought ten sections of land to +begin with if it hadn't been for two or three killings while they were +here."</p> + +<p>"It was the same way with those people from Pennsylvania," said Rhetta.</p> + +<p>"We had a crowd of Pennsylvania Dutch out here a week or two after the +Mennonites," the judge enlarged, "smellin' around hot-foot on the trail +as hounds, but this atmosphere of Ascalon and its bad influence on the +country wouldn't be good for their young folks, they said. So <i>they</i> +backed off. And that's the way it's gone, that's the way it will go. T<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span>he +blight of Ascalon falls over this country for fifty miles around, the +finest country the Almighty ever scattered grass seed over.</p> + +<p>"You saw the possibilities of it from a distance, Mr. Morgan; others +have seen it. Wouldn't you be doing humanity a larger service, a more +immediate and applicable service, by clearing away the pest spot, curing +the repulsive infection that keeps them away from its benefits and +rewards, than by plowing up eighty acres and putting in a crop of wheat? +A man's got to trample down his bed-ground, as I've said already, +Morgan, before he can spread his blankets sometimes. This is one of the +places, this is one of the times."</p> + +<p>Morgan thought it over, hands on his thighs, head bent a little, eyes on +his boots, conscious that the girl was watching him anxiously, as one on +trial at the bar watches a doubtful jury when counsel makes the last +appeal.</p> + +<p>"There's a lot of logic in what you say," Morgan admitted; "it ought to +appeal to a man big enough, confident enough, to undertake and put the +job through."</p> + +<p>He looked up suddenly, answering directly Rhetta Thayer's anxious, +expectant, appealing brown eyes. "For if he should fail, bungle it, and +have to throw down his hand before he'd won the game, it would be +Katy-bar-the-door for that man. He'd have to know how far the people of +this town wanted him to go before starting, and there's only one +boundary—the limit of the law. If they want anything less than that a +man had better keep hands off, for anything like a compromise between +black and white wou<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span>ld be a fizzle."</p> + +<p>Rhetta nodded, her bosom quivering with the pounding of her expectant +heart, her throat throbbing, her hands clenched as if she held on in +desperate hope of rescue. Judge Thayer said no more. He sat watching +Morgan's face, knowing well when a word too many might change the +verdict to his loss.</p> + +<p>"The question is, how far do they want a man to go in the regeneration +of Ascalon? How many are willing to put purity above profit for a while? +Business would suffer; it would be as dead here as a grasshopper after a +prairie fire while readjustment to new conditions shaped. It might be a +year or two before healthy legitimate trade could take the place of this +flashy life, and it might never rebound from the operation. A man would +want the people who are calling for law and order here to be satisfied +with the new conditions; he wouldn't want any whiners at the funeral."</p> + +<p>"New people would come, new business would grow, as soon as the news got +abroad that a different condition prevailed in this town," Judge Thayer +said. "I can satisfy you in an hour that the business men want what +they're demanding, and will be satisfied to take the risk of the +result."</p> + +<p>"I came out here to farm," Morgan said, unwilling to put down his plans +for a questionable and dangerous service to a doubtful community.</p> + +<p>"There'll not be much sod broken between now and late fall, from the +present look of things," the judge said. "We've had the longest dry +spell I've ever seen in this country—going on four weeks now without a +drop of rain. It comes that way on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span>ce every five or seven years, but that +also happens back in Ohio and other places men consider especially +favored," he hastened to conclude.</p> + +<p>"I didn't intend to break sod," Morgan reflected, "a man couldn't sow +wheat in raw sod. That's why I wanted to look at that claim down by the +river."</p> + +<p>"It will keep. Or you could buy it, and hire your crop put in while +you're marshal here in town."</p> + +<p>"And I could edit the paper. Between us we could save the county seat."</p> + +<p>Rhetta spoke quite seriously, so seriously, indeed, that her father +laughed.</p> + +<p>"I had forgotten all about saving the county seat—I was considering +only the soul of Ascalon," he said.</p> + +<p>"If you refuse to let father swear you in, Mr. Morgan, Craddock will say +you were afraid. I'd hate to have him do that," said Rhetta.</p> + +<p>"He might," Morgan granted, and with subdued voice and thoughtful manner +that gave them a fresh rebound of hope.</p> + +<p>And at length they had their will, but not until Morgan had gone the +round of the business men on the public square, gathering the assurance +of great and small that they were weary of bloodshed and violence, +notoriety and unrest; that they would let the bars down to him if he +would undertake cleaning up the town, and abide by what might come of it +without a growl.</p> + +<p>When they returned to Judge Thayer's office Morgan took the oath to +enforce the statutes of the state of Kansas and the ordinances of the +city of Ascalon, Rhetta standing by with palpitati<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span>ng breast and glowing +eyes, hands behind her like a little girl waiting her turn in a spelling +class. When Morgan lowered his hand Rhetta started out of her expectant +pose, producing with a show of triumph a short piece of broad white +ribbon, with CITY MARSHAL stamped on it in tall black letters.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer laughed as Morgan backed away from her when she advanced to +pin it on his breast.</p> + +<p>"I set up the type and printed it myself on the proof press," she said, +in pretty appeal to him to stand and be hitched to this sign of his new +office.</p> + +<p>"It's so—it's rather—prominent, isn't it?" he said, still edging away.</p> + +<p>"There isn't any regular shiny badge for you, the great, grisly Mr. +Craddock wore away the only one the town owns. Please, Mr. +Morgan—you'll have to wear <i>something</i> to show your authority, won't +he, Pa?"</p> + +<p>"It would be wiser to wear it till I can send for another badge, Morgan, +or we can get the old one away from Seth. Your authority would be +questioned without a badge, they're strong for badges in this town."</p> + +<p>So Morgan stood like a family horse while Rhetta pinned the ribbon to +the pocket of his dingy gray woolen shirt, where it flaunted its +unmistakable proclamation in a manner much more effective than any +police shield or star ever devised. Rhetta pressed it down hard with the +palm of her hand to make the stiff ribbon assume a graceful hang, so +hard that she must have felt the kick of the new officer's heart just +under it. And she looked up into his eyes with a glad, confident smile.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span></p> +<p>"I feel safe <i>now</i>," she said, sighing as one who puts down a wearing +burden at the end of a toilsome journey.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2><h3>THE HAND OF THE LAW</h3> +</div> + +<p>The stars came out over a strange, silent, astonished, confounded, +stupefied Ascalon that night. The wolf-howling of its revelry was +stilled, the clamor of its obscene diversions was hushed. It was as if +the sparkling tent of the heavens were a great bowl turned over the +place, hushing its stridulous merriment, stifling its wild laughter and +dry-throated feminine screams.</p> + +<p>The windows of Peden's hall were dark, the black covers were drawn over +the gambling tables, the great bar stood in the gloom without one priest +of alcohol to administer the hilarious rites across its glistening altar +boards.</p> + +<p>As usual, even more than usual, the streets around the public square +were lively with people, coming and passing through the beams of light +from windows, smoking and talking and idling in groups, but there was no +movement of festivity abroad in the night, no yelping of departing +rangers. It was as if the town had died suddenly, so suddenly that all +within it were struck dumb by the event.</p> + +<p>For the new city marshal, the interloper as many held him to be, the +tall, solemn, long-stepping stranger who carried a rifle always ready +like a man looking for a coyote, had put the lock of his prohibition on +everything within the town. Everything that counted, that is, in the +valuation of the proscribed, and the victims who came like ephemera on +the night wind to scorch and shrivel and be drained in their bright, +illusive fires. The law long flouted, made a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span> joke of, despised, had come +to Ascalon and laid hold of its alluring institutions with stern and +paralyzing might.</p> + +<p>Early in the first hours of his authority the new city marshal, or +deputy marshal, to be exact, had received from unimpeachable source, no +less than a thick volume of the statutes, that the laws of the state of +Kansas, which he had sworn to enforce, prohibited the sale of +intoxicating liquors; prohibited gambling and games of chance; +interdicted the operation of immoral resorts—put a lock and key in his +hand, in short, that would shut up the ribald pleasures of Ascalon like +a tomb. As for the ordinances of the city, which he also had obligated +himself to apply, Morgan had not found time to work down to them. There +appeared to be authority in the thick volume Judge Thayer had lent him +to last Ascalon a long time. If he should find himself running short +from that source, then the city ordinances could be drawn upon in their +time and place.</p> + +<p>Exclusive of the mighty Peden, the other traffickers in vice were +inconsequential, mere retailers, hucksters, peddlers in their way. They +were as vicious as unquenchable fire, certainly, and numerous, but +small, and largely under the patronage of the king of the proscribed, +Peden of the hundred-foot bar.</p> + +<p>And this Peden was a big, broad-chested, muscular man, whose neck rose +like a mortised beam out of his shoulders, straight with the back of his +head. His face was handsome in a bold, shrewd mold, but dark as if his +blood carried the taint of a baser race. He went about always dressed in +a long frock coat, with no vest to obscure the spread of his white shi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span>rt +front; low collar, with narrow black tie done in exact bow; +broad-brimmed white sombrero tilted back from his forehead, a cigar that +always seemed fresh under his great mustache.</p> + +<p>This mustache, heavy, black, was the one sinister feature of the man's +otherwise rather open and confidence-winning face. It was a cloud that +more than half obscured the nature of the man, an ambush where his +passions and dark subterfuges lay concealed.</p> + +<p>Peden had met the order to close his doors with smiling loftiness, easy +understanding of what he read it to mean. Astonished to find his offer +of money silently and sternly ignored, Peden had grown contemptuously +defiant. If it was a bid for him to raise the ante, Morgan was starting +off on a lame leg, he said. Ten dollars a night was as much as the +friendship of any man that ever wore the collar of the law was worth to +him. Take it or leave it, and be cursed to him, with embellishments of +profanity and debasement of language which were new and astonishing even +to Morgan's sophisticated ears. Peden turned his back to the new officer +after drenching him down with this deluge of abuse, setting his face +about the business of the night.</p> + +<p>And there self-confident defiance, fattened a long time on the belief +that law was a thing to be sneered down, met inflexible resolution. The +substitute city marshal had a gift of making a few words go a long way; +Peden put out his lights and locked his doors. In the train of his +darkness others were swallowed. Within two hours after nightfall the +town was submerged in gloom.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span></p> +<p>Threats, maledictions, followed Morgan as he walked the round of the +public square, rifle ready for instant use, pistol on his thigh. And the +blessing of many a mother whose sons and daughters stood at the perilous +crater of that infernal pit went out through the dark after him, also; +and the prayers of honest folk that no skulking coward might shoot him +down out of the shelter of the night.</p> + +<p>Even as they cursed him behind his back, the outlawed sneered at Morgan +and the new order that seemed to threaten the world-wide fame of +Ascalon. It was only the brief oppression of transient authority, they +said; wait till Seth Craddock came back and you would see this range +wolf throw dust for the timber.</p> + +<p>They spoke with great confidence and kindling pleasure of Seth's return, +and the amusing show that would attend his resumption of authority. For +it was understood that Seth would not come alone. Peden, it was said, +had attended to that already by telegraph. Certain handy gun-slingers +would come with him from Kansas City and Abilene, friends of Peden who +had made reputations and had no scruples about maintaining them.</p> + +<p>As the night lengthened this feeling of security, of pleasurable +anticipation, increased. This little break in its life would do the town +good; things would whirl away with recharged energy when the doors were +opened again. Money would simply accumulate in the period of stagnation +to be thrown into the mill with greater abandon than before by the +fools who stood around waiting for the show to resume.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span></p> +<p>And the spectacle of seeing Seth Craddock drive this simpleton clear +over the edge of the earth would be a diversion that would compensate +for many empty days. That alone would be a thing worth waiting for, they +said.</p> + +<p>Time began to walk in slack traces, the heavy wain of night at its slow +heels, for the dealers and sharpers, mackerels and frail, spangled women +to whom the open air was as strange as sunlight to an earthworm. They +passed from malediction and muttered threat against the man who had +brought this sudden change in their accustomed lives, to a state of +indignant rebellion as they milled round the square and watched him +tramp his unending beat.</p> + +<p>A little way inside the line of hitching racks Morgan walked, away from +the thronged sidewalk, in the clear where all could see him and a shot +from some dark window would not imperil the life of another. Around and +around the square he tramped in the dusty, hoof-cut street, keeping his +own counsel, unspeaking and unspoken to, the living spirit of the mighty +law.</p> + +<p>It was a high-handed piece of business, the bleached men and kalsomined +women declared, as they passed from the humor of contemplating Seth +Craddock's return to fretful chafing against the restraint of the +present hour. How did it come that one man could lord it over a whole +town of free and independent Americans that way? Why didn't somebody +take a shot at him? Why didn't they defy him, go and open the doors and +let this thirsty, money-padded throng up to the gambling tables and +bars?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span></p> + +<p>They asked to be told what had become of the manhood of Ascalon, and +asked it with contempt. What was the fame of the town based upon but a +bluff when one man was able to shut it up as tight as a trunk, and strut +around that way adding the insult of his tyrannical presence to the act +of his oppressive hand. There were plenty of questions and suggestions, +but nobody went beyond them.</p> + +<p>The moon was in mid-heaven, untroubled by a veil of cloud; the day wind +was resting under the edge of the world, asleep. Around and around the +public square this sentinel of the new moral force that had laid its +hand over Ascalon tramped the white road. Rangers from far cow camps, +disappointed of their night's debauch, began to mount and ride away, +turning in their saddles as they went for one more look at the lone +sentry who was a regiment in himself, indeed.</p> + +<p>The bleached men began to yawn, the medicated women to slip away. Good +citizens who had watched in anxiety, fearful that this rash champion of +the new order would find a bullet between his shoulders before midnight, +began to breathe easier and seek their beds in a strange state of +security. Ascalon was shut up; the howling of its wastrels was stilled. +It was incredible, but true.</p> + +<p>By midnight the last cowboy had gone galloping on his long ride to carry +the news of Ascalon's eclipse over the desolate gray prairie; an hour +later the only sign of life in the town was the greasy light of the +Santa Fé café, where a few lingering nondescripts were supping on cove +oyster stew. These came out at last, to stand a little while like +stran<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span>ded mariners on a lonesome beach watching for a rescuing sail, then +parted and went clumping their various ways over the rattling board +walks.</p> + +<p>Morgan stopped at the pump in the square to refresh himself with a +drink. A dog came and lapped out of the trough, stood a little while +when its thirst was satisfied, turning its head listening, as though it +missed something out of the night. It trotted off presently, in angling +gait like a ferry boat making a crossing against an outrunning tide. It +was the last living thing on the streets of the town but the weary city +marshal, who stood with hat off at the pump to feel the cool wind that +came across the sleeping prairie before the dawn.</p> + +<p>At that same hour another watcher turned from her open window, where she +had sat a long time straining into the silence that blessed the town. +She had been clutching her heart in the dread of hearing a shot, full of +upbraidings for the peril she had thrust upon this chivalrous man. For +he would not have assumed the office but for her solicitation, she knew +well. She stretched out her hand into the moonlight as if she wafted him +her benediction for the peace he had brought, a great, glad surge of +something more tender than gratitude in her warm young bosom.</p> + +<p>In a little while she came to the window again, when the moonlight was +slanting into it, and stood leaning her hands on the sill, her dark hair +coming down in a cloud over her white night dress. She strained again +into the quiet night, listening, and listening, smiled. Then she stood +straight, touche<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span>d finger tips to her lips and waved away a kiss into the +moonlight and the little timid awakening wind that came out of the east +like a young hare before the dawn.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2><h3>SOME FOOL WITH A GUN</h3> +</div> + +<p>Morgan was roused out of his brief sleep at the Elkhorn hotel shortly +after sunrise by the night telegrapher at the railroad station, who came +with a telegram.</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd like to have it as soon as possible," the operator +said, in apology for his early intrusion, standing by Morgan's bed, Tom +Conboy attending just outside the door with ear primed to pick up the +smallest word.</p> + +<p>"Sure—much obliged," Morgan returned, his voice hoarse with broken +sleep, his head not instantly clear of its flying clouds. The operator +lingered while Morgan ran his eye over the few words.</p> + +<p>"Much obliged, old feller," Morgan said, warmly, giving the young man a +quick look of understanding that must serve in place of more words, +seeing that Conboy had his head within the door.</p> + +<p>Morgan heard the operator denying Conboy the secret of the message in +the hall outside his door. Conboy had lived long enough in Ascalon to +know when to curb his curiosity. He tiptoed away from Morgan's door, +repressing his desire behind his beard.</p> + +<p>Knowing that he could not sleep again after that abrupt break in his +rest, Morgan rose and dressed. Once or twice he referred again to the +message that lay spread on his pillow.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span></p> +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Craddock wired Peden last night that he would arrive on number +seven at 1: 20 this afternoon</i>.</p></div> + +<p>That was the content of the message, not a telegram at all, but a +friendly note of warning from the night operator, who had come over to +the hotel to go to bed. The young man had shrewdly adopted this means to +cover his information, knowing that Peden's wrath was mighty and his +vengeance far-reaching. Nobody in town could question the delivery of a +telegram.</p> + +<p>Morgan had expected Craddock to hasten back and attempt to recover his +scepter and resume his sway over Ascalon, where the destructive sickle +of his passion for blood could be plied with safety under the shelter of +his prostituted office. But he did not expect him to return so soon. It +pleased him better that the issue was to be brought to a speedy trial +between them. While he had his feet wet, he reasoned, he would just as +well cross the stream.</p> + +<p>Conboy was sweeping the office, having laid the thick of the dust with a +sprinkling can. He paused in his work to give Morgan a shrewd, sharp +look.</p> + +<p>"Important news when it pulls a man out of bed this early," Conboy +ventured, "and him needin' sleep like you do."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Morgan, going on to the door.</p> + +<p>Conboy came after him, voice lowered almost to a whisper as he spoke, +eyes turning about as if he expected a spy to bob up behind his +counter.</p> + +<p>"I heard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span> it passed around late last night that Craddock was comin' +back."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't he expected to?" Morgan inquired, indifferently, wholly +undisturbed.</p> + +<p>Conboy watched him keenly, standing half behind him, to note any sign of +panic or uneasiness that would tell him which side he should support +with his valuable sympathy and profound philosophy.</p> + +<p>"From the way things point, I think they're lookin' for him back today," +he said.</p> + +<p>"The quicker the sooner," Morgan replied in offhand cowboy way.</p> + +<p>Conboy was left on middle ground, not certain whether Morgan would flee +before the arrival of the man whose powers he had usurped, or stand his +ground and shoot it out. It was an uncomfortable moment; a man must be +on one side or the other to be safe. In the history of Ascalon it was +the neutral who generally got knocked down and trampled, and lost his +pocketbook and watch, as happens to the gaping nonparticipants in the +squabbles of humanity everywhere.</p> + +<p>"From what I hear goin' around," Conboy continued, dropping his voice to +a cautious, confidential pitch, "there'll be a bunch of bad men along in +a day or two to help Craddock hold things down. It looks to me like it's +goin' to be more than any one man can handle."</p> + +<p>"It may be that way," Morgan said, lingering in the door, Conboy doing +his talking from the rear. Morgan was thinking the morning had a +freshness in it like a newly gathered flower.</p> + +<p>"It'll mean part closed and part open if that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span> man takes hold of this +town again," Conboy said. "Him and Peden they're as thick as three in a +bed. Close all of 'em, like you did last night, or give everybody a fair +whack. That's what I say."</p> + +<p>"Yes," abstractedly from Morgan.</p> + +<p>"It was kind of quiet and slow in town last night, slowest night I've +ever had since I bought this dump. I guess I'd have to move away if +things run along that way, but I don't know. Maybe business would pick +up when people got used to the new deal. Goin' to let 'em open tonight?"</p> + +<p>"Night's a long way off," Morgan said, leaving the question open for +Conboy to make what he could out of it.</p> + +<p>Conboy was of the number who could see no existence for Ascalon but a +vicious one, yet he was no partisan of Seth Craddock, having a soreness +in his recollection of many indignities suffered at the hands of the +city marshal's Texas friends, even of Craddock's overriding and sardonic +disdain. Yet he would rather have Craddock, and the town open, than +Morgan and stagnation. He came to that conclusion with Morgan's evasion +of his direct question. The interests of Peden and his kind were +Conboy's interests. He stood like a housemaid with dustpan and broom to +gather up the wreckage of the night.</p> + +<p>"When can I get breakfast?" Morgan inquired, turning suddenly, catching +Conboy with his new resolution in his shifty, flickering eyes, reading +him to the marrow of his bones.</p> + +<p>"It's a little early—not half-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span>past five," Conboy returned, covering his +confusion as well as he could by referring to his thick silver watch. +"We don't begin to serve till six, the earliest of 'em don't come in +before then. If you feel like turnin' in for a sleep, we'll take care of +you when you get up."</p> + +<p>Morgan said he had sleep enough to carry him over the day. Dora, +yawning, disheveled, appeared in the dining-room door at that moment, +tying her all-enveloping white apron around her like Poor Polly Bawn. +She blushed when she saw Morgan, and put up her hands to smooth her +hair.</p> + +<p>"I had the best sleep last night I can remember in a coon's age—I felt +so <i>safe</i>," she said.</p> + +<p>"You always was safe enough," Conboy told her, not in the best of humor.</p> + +<p>"Safe enough! I can show you five bullet holes in the walls of my room, +Mr. Morgan—one of 'em through the head of my bed!"</p> + +<p>"Pretty close," Morgan said, answering the animation of her rosy, +friendly face with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Never mind about bullet holes—you go and begin makin' holes in a piece +of biscuit dough," her father commanded.</p> + +<p>"When I get good and ready," said Dora, serenely. "You wouldn't care if +we got shot to pieces every night as long as we could get up in the +morning and make biscuits!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and some of you'd be rootin' around somebody else's kitchen for +biscuits to fill your craws if this town laid dead a little while +longer," Conboy fired back, his true feeling in the matter revealed.</p> + +<p>"I can get a jo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span>b of biscuit shooter any day," Dora told him, untroubled +by the outlook of disaster that attended upon peace and quiet. "I'd +rather not have no guests than drunks that come in stagger blind and +shoot the plaster off of the wall. It ain't so funny to wake up with +your ears full of lime! Ma's sick of it, and I'm sick of it, and it'd be +a blessin' if Mr. Morgan would keep the joints all shut till the drunks +in this town dried up like dead snakes!"</p> + +<p>"You, and your ma!" Conboy grumbled, bearing on an old grievance, an old +theme of servitude and discontent.</p> + +<p>Morgan recalled the gaunt anxiety of Mrs. Conboy's eyes, hollow of every +emotion, as they seemed, but unrest and straining fear. Dora had gone +unmarked yet by the cursed fires of Ascalon; only her tongue discovered +that the poison of their fumes had reached her heart.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to put strickenine in some of their biscuits!" Dora declared, +with passionate vehemence.</p> + +<p>"Tut-tut! no niggers——"</p> + +<p>"How's your face, Mr. Morgan?" Dora inquired, out of one mood into +another so quickly the transition was bewildering.</p> + +<p>"Face?" said Morgan, embarrassed for want of her meaning. "Oh," putting +his hand to the forgotten wound—"about well, thank you, Miss Dora. I +guess my good looks are ruined, though."</p> + +<p>Dora half closed her eyes in arch expression, pursing her lips as if she +meant to give him either a whistle or a kiss, laughed merrily, and ran +off to cut patterns in a sheet of biscuit dough. She left such a +clearness and good humor in the mo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span>rning air that Morgan felt quite light +at heart as he started for a morning walk.</p> + +<p>Morgan was still wearing the cowboy garb that he had drawn from the +bottom of his trunk among the things which he believed belonged to a +past age and closed period of his life's story. He had deliberated the +question well the night before, reaching the conclusion that, as he had +stepped out of his proper character, lapsed back, in a word, to +raw-handed dealings with the rough edges of the world, he would better +dress the part. He would be less conspicuous in that dress, and it would +be his introduction and credentials to the men of the range.</p> + +<p>Last night's long vigil, tramping around the square in his high-heeled, +tight-fitting boots, had not hastened the cure of his bruised ankles and +sore feet. This morning he limped like a trapped wolf, as he said to +himself when he started to take a look around and see whether any of the +outlawed had made bold to open their doors.</p> + +<p>Few people were out of bed in Ascalon at that hour, although the sun was +almost an hour high. As Morgan passed along he heard the crackling of +kindling being broken in kitchens. Here and there the eager smoke of +fresh fires rose straight toward the blue. No stores were open yet; the +doors of the saloons remained closed as the night before. Morgan paused +at the bank corner after making the round of the square.</p> + +<p>Ahead of him the principal residence street of the town stretched, the +houses standing in exclusive withdrawal far apart on large plots of +ground, a treeless, dusty, unlovely lane. Here the summer sun raked roof +and window with its untempered fire; he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span>re the winds of winter bombarded +door and pane with shrapnel of sleet and charge of snow, whistling on +cornice and eaves, fluttering in chimney like the beat of exhausted +wings.</p> + +<p>Morgan knew well enough how the place would appear in that bitter +season; he had lived in the lonely desolation of a village on the bald, +unsheltered plain. How did Rhetta Thayer endure the winter, he wondered, +when she could not gallop away into the friendly solitude of the clean, +unpeopled prairie? Where did she live? Which house would be Judge +Thayer's among the bright-painted dwellings along that raw lane? He +favored one of the few white ones, a house with a wide porch screened by +morning-glory vines, a gallant row of hollyhocks in the distance.</p> + +<p>Lawn grass had been sown in many of the yards, where it had flourished +until the scorching summer drouth. Even now there were little rugs of +green against north walls where the noonday shadows fell, but the rest +of the lawns were withered and brown. Some hardy flowers, such as +zinnias and marigolds, stood clumped about dooryards; in the kitchen +gardens tasseled corn rose tall, dust thick on the guttered blades.</p> + +<p>Morgan turned from this scene in which Ascalon presented its better +side, to skirmish along the street running behind Peden's establishment. +It might be well, for future exigencies, to fix as much of the geography +of the place in his mind as possible. He wondered if there had been a +back-door traffic in any of the saloons last night as he passed long +strings of empty beer kegs, concluding that it was v<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span>ery likely something +had been done in that way.</p> + +<p>Across the street from Peden's back door was a large vacant piece of +ground, a wilderness of cans, bottles, packing boxes, broken barrels. On +one corner, diagonally across from where Morgan stood, facing on the +other street, a ragged, weathered tent was pitched. Out of this the +sound of contending children came, the strident, commanding voice of a +woman breaking sharply to still the commotion that shook her unstable +home. Morgan knew this must be the home of the cattle thief whose case +Judge Thayer had undertaken. He wondered why even a cattle thief would +choose that site at the back door of perdition to pitch his tent and +lodge his family.</p> + +<p>A bullet clipping close past his ear, the sharp sound of a pistol shot +behind him, startled him out of this speculation.</p> + +<p>Morgan did not believe at once, even as he wheeled gun in hand to +confront the careless gun-handler or the assassin, as the case might +prove, that the shot could have been intended for him, but out of +caution he darted as quick as an Indian behind a pyramid of beer kegs. +From that shelter he explored in the direction of the shot, but saw +nobody.</p> + +<p>There was ample barrier for a lurking man all along the street on +Peden's side. From behind beer cases and kegs, whisky barrels, wagons, +corners of small houses, one could have taken a shot at him; or from a +window or back door. There was no smoke hanging to mark the spot.</p> + +<p>Morgan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span> slipped softly from his concealment, coming out at Peden's back +door. Bending low, he hurried back over the track he had come, keeping +the heaps of kegs, barrels, and boxes between him and the road. And +there, twenty yards or so distant, in a space between two wagons, he saw +a man standing, pistol in hand, all set and primed for another shot, but +looking rather puzzled and uncertain over the sudden disappearance of +his mark.</p> + +<p>Morgan was upon him in a few silent strides, unseen and unheard, his gun +raised to throw a quick shot if the situation called for it. The man was +Dell Hutton, the county treasurer. His face was white. There was the +look in his eyes of a man condemned when he turned and confronted +Morgan.</p> + +<p>"Who was it that shot at you, Morgan?" he inquired, his voice husky in +the fog of his fright. He was laboring hard to put a face on it that +would make him the champion of peace; he peered around with simulated +caution, as if he had rushed to the spot ready to uphold the law.</p> + +<p>Morgan let the pitiful effort pass for what it was worth, and that was +very little.</p> + +<p>"I don't know who it was, Hutton," he replied, with a careless laugh, +putting his pistol away. "If you see him, tell him I let a little thing +like that pass—once."</p> + +<p>Morgan did not linger for any further words. Several shock-haired +children had come bursting from the tent, their contention silenced. +They stood looking at Morgan as he came back into the road, wonder in +their muggy faces. Heads appeared at windows, back doors opened +cautiously, showing e<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span>yes at cracks.</p> + +<p>"Some fool shootin' off his gun," Morgan heard a man growl as he passed +under a window of a thin-sided house, from which the excited voices of +women came like the squeaks of unnested mice.</p> + +<p>"What was goin' on back there?" Conboy inquired as Morgan approached the +hotel. The proprietor was a little way out from his door, anxiety, +rather than interest, in his face.</p> + +<p>"Some fool shootin' off his gun, I guess," Morgan replied, feeling that +the answer fitted the case very well.</p> + +<p>He gave Dora the same explanation when she met him at the blue door of +the dining-room, trouble in her fair blue eyes. She looked at him with +keen questioning, not satisfied that she had heard it all.</p> + +<p>"I hope he burnt his fingers," she said.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2><h3>WILL HIS LUCK HOLD?</h3> +</div> + +<p>Dora escorted Morgan to a table apart from the few heavy feeders who +were already engaged, indicating to the other two girls who served with +her in the dining-room that this was her special customer and guest of +honor. She whirled the merry-go-round caster to bring the salt and +pepper to his hand; just so she placed his knife and fork, and plate +overturned to keep the flies off the business side of it. Then she +hurried away for his breakfast, asking no questions bearing on his +preferences or desires.</p> + +<p>A plain breakfast in those vigorous times was unvarying—beefsteak, ham +or bacon to give it a savor, eggs, fried potatoes, hot biscuits, coffee. +It was the same as dinner, which came on the stroke of twelve, and none +of your six-o'clock pretenses about <i>that</i> meal, except there was no +pie; identical with supper, save for the boiled potatoes and rice +pudding. A man of proper proportions never wanted any more; he could not +thrive on any less. And the only kind of a liver they ever worried about +in that time on the plains of Kansas was a white one. That was the only +disease of that organ known.</p> + +<p>Dora was troubled; her face reflected her unrest as glass reflects +firelight, her blue eyes were clouded by its gloom. She made a pretense +of brushing crumbs from the cloth where there were no crumbs, in order +to furnish an excuse to stoop and bring her lips nearer Morgan's ear.</p> + +<p>"H<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span>e's comin' on the one-twenty this afternoon—I got it straight he's +comin'. I thought maybe you'd like to know," she said.</p> + +<p>Morgan lifted his eyes in feigned surprise at this news, not having it +in his heart to cloud her generous act by the revelation of a suspicion +that it was no news to him.</p> + +<p>"You mean——?"</p> + +<p>"I got it straight," Dora nodded.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Miss Dora."</p> + +<p>"I hope to God," she said, for it was their manner to speak ardently in +Ascalon in those days, "you'll beat him to it when he gets off of the +train!"</p> + +<p>"A man can only do his best, Dora," he said gently, moved by her honest +friendship, simple wild thing though she was.</p> + +<p>"If I was a man I'd take my gun and go with you to meet him," she +declared.</p> + +<p>"I know you would. But maybe there'll not be any fuss at all."</p> + +<p>"There'll be fuss enough, all right!" Dora protested. "If he comes +alone—but maybe he'll not <i>come</i> alone."</p> + +<p>A man who rose from a near-by table came over to shake hands with +Morgan, and express his appreciation for the good beginning he had made +as peace officer of the town. Dora snatched Morgan's cup and hastened +away for more coffee. When she returned the citizen was on his way to +the door.</p> + +<p>"Craddock<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span> used to come in here and wolf his meals down," she said, +picking up her theme in the same troubled key, "just like it didn't +amount to nothing to kill a man a day. I looked to see blood on the +tablecloth every time his hand touched it."</p> + +<p>"It's a shame you girls had to wait on the brute," Morgan said.</p> + +<p>"Girls! he wouldn't let anybody but me wait on him." Dora frowned, her +face coloring. She bent a little, lowering her voice. "Why, Mr. Morgan, +what do you suppose? He wanted me to <i>marry</i> him!"</p> + +<p>"That old buffalo wrangler? Well, he <i>is</i> kind of previous!"</p> + +<p>"He's too fresh to keep, I told him. Marry <i>him</i>! He used to come in +here, Mr. Morgan, and put his hat down by his foot so he could grab it +and run out and kill another man without losin' time. He never used to +take his guns off and hang 'em up like other gentlemen when they eat. He +just set there watchin' and turnin' his mean old eyes all the time. He's +afraid of them, I know by the way he always tried to look behind him +without turnin' his head, never sayin' a word to anybody, he's afraid."</p> + +<p>"Afraid of whom, Dora?"</p> + +<p>"The ghosts of them murdered men!"</p> + +<p>Morgan shook his head after seeming to think it over a little while. "I +don't believe they'd trouble him much, Dora."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather wait on a dog!" she said, scorn and rebellion in her pretty +eyes.</p> + +<p>"You can marry somebody else and beat him on that game, anyhow. I'll +bet there are plenty of them standing around waiting."</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span></p> +<p>"O Mr. Morgan!" Dora was drowned in blushes, greatly pleased. "Not so +many as you might think," turning her eyes upon him with coquettish +challenge, "only Mr. Gray and Riley Caldwell, the printer on the +<i>Headlight</i>."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Gray, the druggist?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but he's too old for me!" Dora sighed, "forty if he's a day. He's +got money, though, and he's perfec'ly <i>grand</i> on the pieanno. You ought +to hear him play <i>The Maiden's Prayer</i>!"</p> + +<p>"I'll listen out for him. I saw him washing his window a while ago—a +tall man with a big white shirt."</p> + +<p>"Yes," abstractedly, "that was him. He's an elegant fine man, but I +don't give a snap for none of 'em. I wish I could leave this town and +never come back. You'll be in for dinner, won't you?" as Morgan pushed +back from the repletion of that standard meal.</p> + +<p>"And for supper, too, I hope," he said, turning it off as a joke.</p> + +<p>"I hope to God!" said Dora fervently, seeing no joke in the uncertainty +at all.</p> + +<p>Excitement was laying hold of Ascalon even at that early hour. When +Morgan went on the street after breakfast he found many people going +about, gathering in groups along the shady fronts, or hastening singly +in the manner of men bound upon the confirmation of unusual news. The +pale fish of the night were out in considerable numbers, leaking +cigarette smoke through all the apertures of their faces as they +grouped according to their kind to discuss the probabilities of the +day. Seth Craddock was coming back with fire in his red eyes; their +deliver<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span>er was on his way.</p> + +<p>There was no secret of Seth's coming any longer. Even Peden leered in +triumph when he met Morgan as he sauntered outside his closed door in +the peculiar distinction of his black coat, which the strong sun of that +summer morning was not powerful enough to strip from his broad back.</p> + +<p>None of the saloons or resorts made an attempt to open their doors to +business. The proprietors appeared to have, on the other hand, a secret +pleasure in keeping them closed, perhaps counting on the gain that would +be theirs when this brief prohibition should come to its end.</p> + +<p>Opposed to this pleasurable expectancy of the proscribed was the +uneasiness and doubt of the respectable. True, this man Morgan had taken +Seth Craddock's gun away from him once, but luck must have had much to +do with his preservation in that perilous adventure. Morgan had rounded +up the Texas men quartered on the town under Craddock's patronage, also, +but they were sluggish from their debauch, and he had approached them +with the caution of a man coming up on the blind side of a horse. +Yesterday that had looked like a big, heroic thing for one man to +accomplish, but in the light of reflection today it must be admitted +that it was mainly luck.</p> + +<p>Yes, Morgan had closed up the town last night, defying even Peden in his +own hall, where defiance as a rule meant business for the undertaker. +But the glamour of his morning's success was still over him at that +time; Peden and his bouncers were a little cautious, a little cowed. He +could not close<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span> the town up another night; murmurs of defiance were +beginning to rise already.</p> + +<p>And so the people who had applauded his drastic enforcement of the law +last night, became of no more support to Morgan today than a furrow of +sand. Luck was a great thing if a man could play it forever, they said, +but it was too much to believe that luck would hold even twice with +Morgan when he confronted Seth Craddock that afternoon.</p> + +<p>Morgan walked about the square that morning like a stranger. Few spoke +to him, many turned inward from their doors when they saw him coming, +afraid that a little friendship publicly displayed might be laid up +against them for a terrible reckoning of interest by and by. Morgan was +neither offended nor downcast by this public coldness in the quarter +where he had a right to expect commendation and support. He understood +too well the lengths that animosities ran in such a town as Ascalon. A +living coward was more comfortable than a dead reformer, according to +their philosophy.</p> + +<p>It was when passing the post-office, about nine o'clock in the morning, +that Morgan met Rhetta Thayer. She saw him coming, and waited. Her face +was flushed; indignation disturbed the placidity of her eyes.</p> + +<p>"They don't deserve it, the cowards!" she burst out, after a greeting +too serious to admit a smile.</p> + +<p>"Deserve what?" he inquired, looking about in mystification, wondering +if something had happened in the post-office to fire this indignation.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span></p> +<p>"The help and protection of a brave man!" she said.</p> + +<p>Morgan was so suddenly confused by this frank, impetuous appreciation of +his efforts, for there was no mistaking the application, that he could +not find a word. Rhetta did not give him much time, to be sure, but ran +on with her denunciation of the citizenry of the town.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't turn a hand for them again, Mr. Morgan—I'd throw up the +whole thing and let them cringe like dogs before that murderer when he +comes back! It's good enough for them, it's all they deserve."</p> + +<p>"You can't expect them to be very warm toward a stranger," he said, +excusing them according to what he knew to be their due.</p> + +<p>"They're afraid you can't do it, they're telling one another your luck +will fail this time. Luck! that's all the sense there is in <i>that</i> bunch +of cowards."</p> + +<p>"They may be right," he said, thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"You know they're not right!" she flashed back, defending him against +himself as though he were another.</p> + +<p>"I don't expect any generosity from them," he said, gentle in his tone +and undisturbed. "They're afraid if my luck should happen to turn +against me they'd have to pay for any friendship shown me here this +morning. Business is business, even in Ascalon."</p> + +<p>"Luck!" she scoffed. "It's funny you're the only lucky man that's struck +this town in a long time, then. If it's all luck, why don't some of them +try their hands at rounding up the crooks and killers of this town and +showing them the road the way you did that gang yesterday? Yes, I know +all about that kind of luck."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span></p> + +<p>Morgan walked with her toward Judge Thayer's office, whither she was +bound with the mail. Behind them the loafers snickered and passed quips +of doubtful humor and undoubted obscenity, but careful to present the +face of decorum until Morgan was well beyond their voices. No matter +what doubt they had of his luck holding with Seth Craddock, they were +not of a mind to make a trial of it on themselves.</p> + +<p>"I think the best thing to do with this town is just let it go till it +dries up and blows away," she said, with the vindictive impatience of +youth. "What little good there is in it isn't worth the trouble of +cleaning up to save."</p> + +<p>"Your father's got everything centered here, he told me. There must be a +good many honest people in the same boat."</p> + +<p>"Maybe we could sell out for something, enough to take us away from +here. Of course we expected Ascalon to turn out a different town when we +came here, the railroad promised to do so much. But there's nothing to +make a town when the cattle are gone. We might as well let it begin to +die right now."</p> + +<p>"You're gloomy this morning, Miss Thayer. You remember the Mennonites +that wanted to settle here and were afraid?"</p> + +<p>"There's no use for you to throw your life away making the country safe +for them."</p> + +<p>"Of course not. I hadn't thought of them."</p> + +<p>"Nor any of these cold-nosed cowards that turn their backs on you for +fear your luck's going to change. Luck! the fools!"</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span></p> +<p>"They don't figure in the case at all, Miss Thayer."</p> + +<p>"If it's on account of your own future, if you're trampling down a place +in the briars to make your bed, as pa called it, then I think you can +find a nicer place to camp than Ascalon. It never will repay the peril +you'll run and the blood you'll lose—have lost already."</p> + +<p>"I'm further out of the calculation than anybody, Miss Thayer."</p> + +<p>"I don't see what other motive there can be, then," she reflected, eyes +bent to the ground as she walked slowly by his side.</p> + +<p>"A lady asked me to undertake it. I'm doing it for her," he replied.</p> + +<p>"She was a thoughtless, selfish person!" Rhetta said, her deep feeling +stressed in the flush of her face, her accusation as vehement as if she +laid charges against another. "Last night she thought it over; she had +time to realize the danger she'd asked a generous stranger to assume. +She wants to withdraw the request today—she asks you to give it up and +let Ascalon go on its wicked way."</p> + +<p>"Tell her," said he gently, holding her pleading, pained eyes a moment +with his assuring gaze, "that a man can't drop a piece of work like this +and turn his back on it and walk away. They'd say in Ascalon that he was +a coward, and they'd be telling the truth."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I oughtn't have argued you into it!" she regretted, bitter in her +self-blame. "But the thought of that terrible, cruel man, of all he's +killed, all he will kill if he comes back—made a selfish coward of me. +We had gone through a week of t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span>error—you can't understand a woman's +terror of that kind of men, storming the streets at night uncurbed!"</p> + +<p>"A man can only guess."</p> + +<p>"I was so grateful to you for driving them away from here, for purifying +the air after them like a rain, that I urged you to go ahead and finish +the job, just as if we were conferring a great favor! I didn't think at +the time, but I've thought it all over since."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't worry about it any more. It is a great favor, a great +honor, to be asked to serve you at all."</p> + +<p>"You're too generous, Mr. Morgan. There are only a few of us here who +care about order and peace—you can see that for yourself this +morning—no matter what assurance they gave you yesterday. Let it go. If +you don't want to get your horse and ride away, you can at least resign. +You've got justification enough for that, you've seen the men that +promised to support you yesterday turn their backs on you when you came +up the street today. They don't want the town shut up, they don't want +it changed—not when it hits their pocketbooks. You can tell pa that, +and resign—or I'll tell him—it was my fault, I got you into it."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't expect me to do that—you don't expect it," he chided, his +voice grave and low.</p> + +<p>"I can want you to do it—I don't expect it."</p> + +<p>"Of course not. We'll not talk about it any more."</p> + +<p>They continued toward her father's office in silence, crossing the +stretch of barren in which the little catalpa tree stood. Rhetta looked +up into his face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span></p> + +<p>"You've never killed a man, Mr. Morgan," she said, more as a positive +statement than as a question.</p> + +<p>"No, I never have, Miss Thayer," Morgan answered her, as ingenuously +sincere as she had asked it.</p> + +<p>"I think I know it by the touch of a man's hand," she said, her face +growing pale from her deep revulsion. "I shudder at the touch of blood. +If you could be spared that in the ordeal ahead of you!"</p> + +<p>"There's no backing out of it. The challenge has passed," he said.</p> + +<p>"No, there's no way. He's coming—he knows you're waiting for him. But I +hope you'll not have to—I hope you'll come out of it <i>clean</i>! A curse +of blood falls on every man that takes this office. I wish—I hope, you +can keep clear of that."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2><h3>THE MEAT HUNTER COMES</h3> +</div> + +<p>The few courageous and hopeful ones who remained loyal to Morgan were +somewhat assured, the doubtful ones agitated a bit more in their +indecision, when he appeared on horseback a little past the turn of day. +These latter people, whose courage had leaked out overnight, now began +to weigh again their business interests and personal safety in the +balance of their wavering judgment.</p> + +<p>Morgan, on horseback, looked like a lucky man; they admitted that. Much +more lucky, indeed, than he had appeared that morning when he went +limping around the square. It was a question whether to come over to his +side again, openly and warmly, or to hold back until he proved himself +to be as lucky as he looked. A man might as well nail up his door and +leave town as fall under the disfavor of Seth Craddock. So, while they +wavered, they were still not quite convinced.</p> + +<p>Prominent among the business men who had revised their attitude on +reform as the shadow of Seth Craddock approached Ascalon was Earl Gray, +the druggist one of the notables on Dora Conboy's waiting list. +Druggist Gray was a man who wore bell-bottomed trousers and a moleskin +vest without a coat. His hair had a fetching crinkle to it, which he +prized above all things in bottles and out, and wore long, like the man +on the label.</p> + +<p>There <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span>was so much hair about Mr. Gray, counting mustache and all, that +his face and body seemed drained and attenuated by the contribution of +sustenance to keep the adornment flourishing in its brown abundance. For +Gray was a tall, thin, bony-kneed man, with long flat feet like wedges +of cheese. His eyes were hollow and melancholy, as if he bore a sorrow; +his nose was high and bony, and bleak in his sharp, thin-cheeked face.</p> + +<p>Gray expressed himself openly to the undertaker, in whom he found a +cautious, but warm supporter of his views. There would be fevers and +ills with Ascalon closed up, Gray said he knew very well, just as there +would be deaths and burials in the natural course of events under the +same conditions. But there would be neither patches for the broken, +stitches for the cut nor powders for the headaches of debauchery called +for then as now; and all the burying there would be an undertaker might +do under his thumb nail.</p> + +<p>They'd go to drugging themselves with boneset tea, and mullein tea, and +bitter-root powders and wahoo bark, said Gray. Likewise, they'd turn to +burying one another, after the ways of pioneers, who were as resourceful +in deaths and funerals as in drugs and fomentations. Pioneers, such as +would be left in that country after Morgan had shut Ascalon up and +driven away those who were dependent on one another for their skinning +and fleecing, filching and plundering, did not lean on any man. Such as +came there to plow up the prairies would be of the same stuff, +rough-barked men and women who called in neither doctor to be born nor +undertaker to be buried.</p> + +<p>It was a gloomy outlook,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span> the town closed up and everybody gone, said +Gray. What would a man do with his building, what would a man do with +his stock?</p> + +<p>"Maybe Craddock ain't no saint and angel, but he makes business in this +town," said Gray.</p> + +<p>"Makes business!" the undertaker echoed, with abstraction and looking +far away as if he already saw the train of oncoming, independent, +self-burying pioneers over against the horizon.</p> + +<p>"If this feller's luck don't go ag'in' him, you might as well ship all +your coffins away but one—they'll need one to bury the town in. What do +you think of him ridin' around the depot down there, drawin' a deadline +that no man ain't goin' to be allowed to cross till the one-twenty pulls +out? Kind of high-handed deal, I call it!"</p> + +<p>"I've got a case of shrouds comin' in by express on that train, two +cases layin' in my place waitin' on 'em," the undertaker said, +resentfully, waking out of his abstraction and apparent apathy.</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> have!" said Gray, eying him suddenly.</p> + +<p>"He stopped me as I was goin' over to wait around till the train come +in, drove me back like I was a cow. He said it didn't make no difference +how much business I had at the depot, it would have to wait till the +train was gone. When a citizen and a taxpayer of this town can't even +cross the road like a shanghai rooster, things is comin' to a hell of a +pass!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I ain't got no business at the depot this afternoon, or I bet you +a cracker I'd be over there," Gray boasted. "I think I'll close up a +while and go down to the hotel where I can see better—it's only forty +minutes till she's due."</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span></p> +<p>"Might as well, everybody's down there. You won't sell as much as a pack +of gum till the train's gone and this thing's off of people's minds."</p> + +<p>Gray went in for his hat, to spend a good deal of time at the glass +behind his prescription case setting it at the most seductive slant upon +his luxuriant brown curls. This was an extremely enticing small hat, +just a shade lighter brown than the druggist's wavy hair. It looked like +a cork in a bottle placed by a tipsy hand as Druggist Gray passed down +the street toward the hotel, to post himself where he might see how well +Morgan's luck was going to hold in this encounter with the meat hunter +of the Cimarron.</p> + +<p>As the undertaker had said, nearly everybody in Ascalon was already +collected in front and in the near vicinity of the hotel, fringing the +square in gay-splotched crowds. Beneath the canopy of the Elkhorn hotel +many were assembled, as many indeed, as could conveniently stand, for +that bit of shade was a blessing on the sun-parched front of Ascalon's +bleak street.</p> + +<p>Business was generally suspended in this hour of uncertainty, public +feeling was drawn as tight as a banjo head in the sun. In the courthouse +the few officials and clerks necessary to the county's business were at +the windows looking upon the station, all expecting a tragedy of such +stirring dimensions as Ascalon never had witnessed.</p> + +<p>The stage was set, the audience was in waiting, one of the principal +actors stood visible in the wings. With the rush of the passenger train +from the east Seth Craddock would make his dramatic entry, in true color +with his violent notoriety and prominen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span>ce in the cast.</p> + +<p>Unless friends came with Craddock, these two men would hold the stage +for the enactment of that swift drama alone. Morgan, silent, determined, +inflexible, had drawn his line around the depot, across which no man +dared to pass. No friend of Craddock should meet him for support of +warning word or armed hand; no innocent one should be jeopardized by a +curiosity that might lead to death.</p> + +<p>The moving question now was, had Peden's gun-notable friends joined +Craddock? If so, it would call for a vast amount of luck to overcome +their combined numbers and dexterity.</p> + +<p>Morgan was troubled by this same question as he waited in the saddle +where the sun bore hot upon him at the side of the station platform. +About there, at that point, the station agent had told him, the +smoking-car would stand when the train came to a stop, the engine at the +water tank. When Craddock came down out of the train, would he come +alone?</p> + +<p>Morgan was mounted on the horse borrowed from Stilwell, an agile young +animal, tractable and intelligent. A yellow slicker was rolled and tied +at the cantle of the saddle; at the horn a coil of brown rope hung, +pliant and smooth from much use upon the range among cattle. Morgan's +rifle was slung on the saddle in its worn scabbard, its battered stock, +from which the varnish had gone long ago in the hard usage of many +years, close to the rider's hand.</p> + +<p>It needed no announcement of wail<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span>ing whistle or clanging bell to tell +Ascalon of the approach of a train from the east. In that direction the +fall of the land toward the Arkansas River began many miles distant from +the town, seeming to blend downward from a great height which dimmed out +in blue haze against the horizon. A little way along this high pitch of +land, before it turned down the grade that led into the river valley, +the railroad ran transversely.</p> + +<p>The moment a train mounted this land's edge and swept along the straight +transverse section of track, it was in full sight of Ascalon, day or +night, except in stormy weather, although many miles away. A man still +had ample time to shine his shoes, pack his valise, put on his collar +and coat—if he wore them—walk to the depot and buy his ticket, after +the train came in sight on top of this distant hill.</p> + +<p>Once the train headed straight for Ascalon it dropped out of sight, and +one unused to the trend of things might wonder if it had gone off on +another line. Presently it would appear again, laboring up out of a dip, +rise the intervening billow of land, small as a toy that one could hold +in the hand, and sink out of sight again. This way it approached +Ascalon, now promising, now denying, drawing into plainer sight with +every rise.</p> + +<p>On this particular afternoon when the sun-baked people of Ascalon stood +waiting in such tensity of expectation that their minds were ready to +crack like the dry, contracting earth beneath their feet, it seemed that +nature had laid off that land across which the railroad ran with the +sole view of adding to the dramatic value of Seth Craddock's entry in +this historic hour. Certainly art could not ha<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span>ve devised a more +effective means of whetting the anxiety, straining the suspense, than +this.</p> + +<p>When the train first came in sight over the hill there was a murmur, a +movement of feet as people shifted to points believed to be more +advantageous for seeing the coming drama; watches clicked, comments +passed on the exactness to the schedule; breaths were drawn with fresh +tingling of hope, or falling of doubt and despair.</p> + +<p>Morgan was watching that far skyline for the first smoke, for the first +gleam of windows in the sun as the train swept round the curve heading +for a little while into the north. He noted the murmur and movement of +the watchers as it came in sight; wondered if any breast but one was +agitated by a pang of friendly concern, wondered if any hand loosed +weapon in its sheath to strike in his support if necessity should call +for such intervention. He knew that Rhetta Thayer stood in the shade of +the bank with her father and others; he was cheered by the support of +her presence to witness his triumph or fall.</p> + +<p>Now, as the train swept into the first obscuring swale, Morgan rode +around the depot again to see that none had slipped through either in +malice or curiosity. Only the station agent was in sight, pulling a +truck with three trunks on it to the spot where he estimated the +baggage-car would stop. Morgan rode back again to take his stand at the +point where arrivals by train crossed from depot into town. His left +hand was toward the waiting crowd, kept back by his injunction fifty +yards or more from the station; his r<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span>ight toward the track on which the +train would come.</p> + +<p>Conversation in the crowd fell away. Peden, garbed in his long coat, was +seen shouldering through in front of the hotel, the nearest point to the +set and waiting stage. As always, Peden wore a pistol strapped about him +on ornate belt, the holster carrying the weapon under the skirt of his +coat. His presence on the forward fringe of the crowd seemed to many as +an upraised hand to strike the waiting horseman in the back.</p> + +<p>Morgan saw Peden when he came and took his stand there, and saw others +in his employ stationed along the front of the line. He believed they +were there to throw their weight on Craddock's beam of the balance the +moment they should see him outmastered and outweighed.</p> + +<p>Because he mistrusted these men, because he did not know, indeed, +whether there was a man among all those who had pledged their moral +support who would lift a hand to aid him even if summoned to do so, +Morgan kept his attention divided, one eye on the signs and portents of +the crowd, one on keeping the depot platform clear.</p> + +<p>Morgan did not know whether even Judge Thayer and the men who had +guarded the bank with him would risk one shot in his defense if the +outlawed forces should sweep forward and overwhelm him. He doubted it +very much. It was well enough to delegate this business to a stranger, +one impartial between the lines, but they could not be expected to turn +their weapons on their fellow-townsmen and depositors in t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span>he bank, no +matter how their money came, no matter how much the law might lack an +upholding hand.</p> + +<p>The train came clattering over the switch, safety valve roaring, bell +ringing as gaily as if arriving in Ascalon were a joyous event in its +day. Conductor and brakeman stood on the steps ready to swing to the +platform; the express messenger lolled with bored weariness in the door +of his car, scorning the dangerous notoriety of the town by exposing to +the eye all the boxed treasure that it contained. Passengers crowded +platforms, leaning and looking, ready to alight for a minute, so they +might be able to relate the remainder of their lives how they braved the +perils of Ascalon one time and came out unsinged.</p> + +<p>A movement went over the watching people of the town, assembled along +its business front, as wind ripples suddenly a field of grain. Nobody +had breath for a word; dry lips were pressed tightly in the varying +emotions of hope, fear, expectancy, desire. Morgan was seen to be busy +for a moment with something about his saddle; it was thought he was +drawing his rifle out of its case.</p> + +<p>Nearly opposite where Morgan waited, the first coach of the train +stopped. Instantly, like children freed from school, the eager +passengers poured off for their adventurous breath of this most wicked +town's intoxicating air. Morgan's whole attention was now fixed on the +movement around the train. He shifted his horse to face that way, +risking what might develop behind him, one hand engaged with the bridle +rein, the other seemingly dropped careles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span>sly on his thigh.</p> + +<p>And in that squaring of expectation, that pause of breathless waiting, +Seth Craddock descended from the smoking-car, his alpaca coat carried in +the crook of his left elbow, his right hand lingering a moment on the +guard of the car step. The hasty ones who had waited on the car platform +were down ahead of him, standing a little way from the steps; others who +wanted to get off came pressing behind him, in their ignorance that they +were handling a bit of Ascalon's most infernal furnishing, pushing him +out into the timid crowd of their fellows.</p> + +<p>A moment Craddock stood, taller than the tallest there, sweeping his +quick glance about for signs of the expected hostility, the trinkets of +silver on the band of his costly new sombrero shining in the sun. Then +he came striding among the gaping passengers, like a man stalking among +tall weeds, something unmistakably expressive of disdain in his +carriage.</p> + +<p>There he paused again, and put on his coat, plainly mystified and +troubled by the absence of townspeople from the depot, and the sight of +them lined up across the square as if they waited a circus parade. All +that he saw between himself and that fringe of puzzling, silent people +was a cowboy sitting astraddle of his bay horse at the end of the +station platform.</p> + +<p>And as Craddock started away from the crowd of curious passengers who +were whispering and speculating behind him, pointing him out to each +other, wondering what notable he might be; as Craddock started down the +platform away from there, the voice of the conductor warning all to +clamber aboard, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span>the waiting cowboy tightened the reins a little, causing +his horse to prick up its ears and start with a thrill of expectancy +which the rider could feel ripple over its smooth hide under the +pressure of his knees.</p> + +<p>Craddock came on down the platform, turning his head on his long neck in +the way of a man entirely mystified and suspicious, alone, unsupported +by even as much as the shadow of a strange gun-slinger or local friend.</p> + +<p>What was passing through the fellow's head Morgan could pretty well +guess. There was a little break of humor in it, for all the tight-drawn +nerves, for all the chance, for all the desperation of the gathering +moment. The grim old killer couldn't make out whether it was through +admiration of him the people had gathered to welcome him home, or in +expectation of something connected with the arrival of the train. Two +rods or so from where Morgan waited him, Craddock stopped to look back +at the train, now gathering slow headway, and around the deserted +platform, down which the station agent came dragging a mail sack.</p> + +<p>It was when he turned again from this suspicious questioning into things +which gave him back no reply, that Craddock recognized the hitherto +unsuspected cowboy. In a start he stiffened to action, flinging hand to +his pistol. But a heartbeat quicker, like a flash of sunbeam from a +mirror, the coiled rope flew out from Morgan's high-flung arm.</p> + +<p>As the swift-running noose settled over Craddock's body, the h<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span>orse +leaped at the pressure of its rider's knees. Craddock fired as the +flying rope snatched him from his feet, the noose binding his arms +impotently to his sides; in his rage he fired again and again as he +dragged in ludicrous tangle of long, thrashing legs from the platform +into the dust.</p> + +<p>There, in a cloud of obscuring dust from the trampled road, the horse +holding the line taut, Morgan flung from the saddle in the nimble way of +a range man, bent over the fallen slayer of men a little while. When the +first of the crowd came breaking across the broad space intervening and +drew up panting and breathless in admiration of the bold thing they had +witnessed, Seth Craddock lay hog-tied and harmless on the ground, one +pistol a few feet from where he struggled in his ropes, the other in the +holster at his side.</p> + +<p>And there came Judge Thayer, in his capacity as mayor, officious and +radiant, proud and filled with a new feeling of safety and importance, +and took the badge of office from Craddock's breast, in all haste, as if +it were the most important act in this spectacular triumph, this +bloodless victory over a bloody man.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2><h3>WITH CLEAN HANDS</h3> +</div> + +<p>Seth Craddock was a defiant, although a fallen man. He refused to resign +the office of marshal of the third-class city of Ascalon when Morgan +released his feet at Judge Thayer's direction, allowing him to stand. +Somebody brought his hat and put it down harshly on his small, +turtle-like head, flaring out his big red ears. There he stood, +glowering, dusty, blood on his face from an abrasion he had got in the +rough handling at the end of Morgan's rope.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer said it made no difference whether he gave up the office +willingly, he was without a voice in the matter, anyhow. He was fired, +and that's all there was to it. But no, said Seth; not at all. The +statutes upheld him, the constitution supported him, and hell and +damnation and many other forces which he enumerated in his red-tongued +defiance, could not move him out of that office. He demanded to be +allowed to consult his lawyer, he glared around and cursed the curious +and unawed public which laughed at his plight and the figure he cut, +ordering somebody to go and fetch the county attorney, on pain of death +when he should come again into the freedom of his hands.</p> + +<p>But nobody moved, except to shift from one foot to the other and laugh. +The terror seemed to have departed out of Seth Craddock's name and +presence; a terrible man is no longer fearful when he has been dragged +publicly at the end of a cow rope and tied up in the public place like a +calf for the branding iron.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span></p> + +<p>The county attorney was discreet enough to keep his distance. He did not +come forward with advice on habeas corpus and constitutional rights. +Only Earl Gray, the druggist, with seven kinds of perfumery on his hair, +came out of the crowd with smirking face, ingratiating, servile, +offering Morgan a cigar. The look that Morgan gave him would have wilted +the tobacco in its green leaf. It wilted Druggist Gray. He turned back +into the crowd and eliminated himself from the day's adventure like +smoke on the evening wind.</p> + +<p>Peden was seen, soon after Craddock's dusty downfall, making his way +back to the shelter of his hall, a cloud on his dark face, a sneer of +contempt in his eyes. His bearing was proclamation that he had expected +a great deal more of Seth Craddock, and that the support of his +influence was from that moment withdrawn. But there was nothing in his +manner of a disturbed or defeated man. Those who knew him best, indeed, +felt that he had played only a preliminary hand and, finding it weak, +had taken up the deck for a stronger deal.</p> + +<p>Seth Craddock stood with his back to the station platform, hands bound +behind him, his authority gone. A little way to one side Morgan waited +beside his horse, his pistol under his hand, rifle on the saddle, not so +confident that all was won as to lay himself open to a surprise. Judge +Thayer was holding a session with Craddock, the town, good and bad, +looking on with varying emotions of mirth, disappointment, and disgust.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer unbuckled Craddock's belt and remaining pistol, picked up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span> +the empty weapon from the ground, sheathed it in the holster opposite +its once terrifying mate, and gave them to Morgan. Morgan hung them on +his saddle horn, and the wives and mothers of Ascalon who had trembled +for their husbands and sons when they heard the roar of those guns in +days past, drew great breaths of relief, and looked into each other's +faces and smiled.</p> + +<p>"We can't hold you for any of the killings you've done here, Seth, +though some of them were unjustified, we know," Judge Thayer said. +"You've been cleared by the coroner's jury in each case, there's no use +for us to open them again. But you'll have to leave this town. Your +friends went yesterday, escorted by Mr. Morgan across the Arkansas +River. You can follow them if you want to—you might overtake 'em +somewhere down in the Nation—you'll have to go in the same direction, +in peace if you will, otherwise if you won't."</p> + +<p>"I'm marshal of this town," Seth still persisted, in the belief that +forces were gathering to his rescue, one could see. "The only way I'll +ever leave till I'm ready to go'll be in a box!"</p> + +<p>Certainly, Seth did not end the defiance and the declaration that way, +nor issue it from his mouth in such pale and commonplace hues. Judge +Thayer argued with him, after his kindly disposition, perhaps not a +little sorry for the man who had outgrown his office and abused the +friend who had elevated him to it.</p> + +<p>Seth remained as obdurate as a trapped wolf. He roved his eyes around, +craned his long, wrinkled neck, looking for the succor that was so long +in coming. He repeated, with blasting enlargeme<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span>nt, that the only way +they could send him out of Ascalon would be in a box.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer drew apart to consult Morgan, in low tones. Morgan was +undisturbed by Craddock's unbending opinion that he had plenty of law +behind him to sustain his contention that he could not be removed from +office. It did not matter how much ammunition a man had if he couldn't +shoot it. It was Morgan's opinion, given with the light of humor +quickening in his eyes, that they ought to take Craddock at his word.</p> + +<p>"Ship him out?" said Judge Thayer.</p> + +<p>"In a box," Morgan nodded, face as sober as judgment, the humor growing +in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"But we can't butcher the fellow like a hog!" Judge Thayer protested.</p> + +<p>"Live hogs are shipped in boxes, right along," Morgan explained.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer saw the light; his pepper-and-salt whiskers twinkled and +spread around his mouth, and rose so high in their bristling over his +silent laughter that they threatened his eyes. He turned to Craddock, +forcing a sober front.</p> + +<p>"All right, Seth, we'll take you up on it. You're going out of town in a +box," he said.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer ordered the undertaker to bring over a coffin box, the +longest one he had. The word ran like a prairie fire from those who +heard the order given, that they were going to shoot Craddock for his +crimes and bury him on the spot.</p> + +<p>There was not a little disappoin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span>tment, but more relief, in the public +mind when it became understood that Craddock was not to be shot. As a +mockery of his past oppression and terrible name, he was to be nailed up +in a box and shipped out like a snake. And so it turned out again in +Ascalon that comedy came in to end the play where tragedy had begun it.</p> + +<p>Morgan bore no part in this unexpected climax to his hard-straining and +doubt-clouded day. He stood by watchful and alert, a great peace in his +mind, a great lightness. He had come through it according to Rhetta +Thayer's wish, according to his own desire, with no man's blood upon his +hands.</p> + +<p>There were many willing ones who came forward to make light the labor of +Seth Craddock's packing. They unbound his hands with derision and +bundled him into the capacious long box against his strivings and curses +with scorn. Morgan suggested the enclosure of a jug of water. Let him +frizzle and fry, they said. They'd bore an auger hole or two in the box +to give him air, and that was greater humanity than he deserved. Morgan +insisted on at least a bottle of water, and had his way, against +grumbling.</p> + +<p>The undertaker officiated, as if it were a regular funeral, putting the +long screws in the stout lid while citizens sat on it to hold the +explosive old villain down. They fastened him in as securely as if he +were a dead man, in all sobriety, boxed up againt the worms of the +grave.</p> + +<p>Then the question rose of where to send him, and how. On the first part +of it the public was of undivided mind. No matter where he went, or in +what direction, let it be far. On the second division there was some +argument. Some held for shipping him by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span> freight, as livestock, and some +were for express as the quickest way to the end of a long journey. For +the farther out of sight he could be carried in the shortest possible +time, they said, the better for all concerned.</p> + +<p>There the station agent was called in to lend the counsel of his +official position. A man could not be shipped by freight if alive, he +said. He could be sent as a corpse is sent, by paying the rate of a fare +and a half and stowing him in the baggage-car with trunks and dogs. The +undertaker was of the same opinion, which he expressed gravely, with +becoming sadness and gloom.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer wrote the address on the shipping tag, the undertaker +tacked it on Seth Craddock's case, and then the amazed people of Ascalon +came forward surrounding the case, and read: </p> + +<div style="margin: auto; width: 12em; font-style: italic"> +<p style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 0">Chief of Police,</p> +<p style="text-align: right; margin-top: 0">Kansas City, Missouri.</p> +</div> + +<p>That was the consignee of the strangest shipment ever billed out of +Ascalon. People wondered what the chief of police would do with his +gift. They wished him well of it, with all their hearts.</p> + +<p>Meantime Seth Craddock, with the blood of eight men on his hands, was +making more noise in the coffin box than a sack of cats. It was a most +undignified way for a man of his sanguinary reputation to accept this +humiliation at the hands of a public that he had outraged. A mule in a +box stall could not have made a greater clatter with heels against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span> +planks than the fallen city marshal of Ascalon drummed up with his on +the stout end of the coffin box. He cursed as he kicked, and called in +muffled voice on the friends of his brief day of power to come and set +him free.</p> + +<p>But the sycophants who had hung to his heels like hand-fed dogs when +power glorified him like a glistening garment and exalted him high above +other men, turned out as all time-servers and cowardly courtiers always +finish when the object of their transitory adulation falls with his +belly in the dust. They sneered, they jeered, they turned white-shirted +coatless backs upon his box with derisive, despising laughter on their +night-pale faces. Seth Craddock was a mighty man as long as he had a +license to walk about and slay, but fastened up in a box like a corpse +for shipment at the rate of the dead, he was only a hull and an empty +husk of a man.</p> + +<p>They said he was a coward; they had known it all along. It called for a +coward to shoot men down like rabbits. That was not the way of a brave +and worthy man. This great moral conclusion they reached readily enough, +Seth Craddock securely caged before them. If Morgan's rope had missed +its mark, if a snarl had shortened it a foot; if Craddock had been a +second sooner in starting to draw his gun, this wave of moral exaltation +would not have descended upon Ascalon that day.</p> + +<p>There was some concern over the holding quality of the box. People +feared Craddock might burst out of it before going far, and return +against them for the reckoning so volubly threaten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span>ed. The undertaker +quieted these fears by tapping the box around with his hammer, pointing +out its reenforced strength with melancholy pride. A ghost might get out +of it if some other undertaker put the lid on, he said, but even that +thin and vaporous thing would have to call for help if <i>he</i> screwed him +shut in that most competent container of the mortal remains of man.</p> + +<p>Thus assured, the citizens carried the box in festive spirit, with more +charity and kindness toward old Seth than he deserved, and stood it on +end in the shadow of the depot. There was an auger hole on a level with +Seth's eye, through which he could glower out for his last look on +Ascalon, and the people who gathered around to deride him and triumph in +his overthrow.</p> + +<p>Through this small opening Seth cursed them, checking such of them off +by name as he recognized, setting them down in his memory for the +vengeance he declared he would return speedily and exact. There he +stood, like Don Quixote in his cage, his red eye to the hole, swearing +as terribly as any man that marched in that hard-boiled army in Flanders +long ago.</p> + +<p>Those who had been awed by his grim silence in the days when he ruled +above all law in Ascalon, were surprised now by his volubility. Under +provocation Craddock could say as much as the next man, it appeared. +Unquestionably, he could express his limited thoughts in words luridly +strange. He wearied of this arraignment at last, and subsided. Long +before the train came he lapsed into his natural blue sulkiness, +remaining as quiet behind his auger hole as one ready for the grave.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span></p> +<p>They loaded Craddock on a truck when the train from the west whistled, +trundled him down the platform and posted him ready to load in the +baggage-car, attended by a large, jubilant crowd. There was so much +hilarity in this gathering for a funeral, indeed, and so much profanity, +denunciation, and threat issuing out of the coffin box—for Seth broke +out again the minute they moved him—that the baggage-man aboard the +train demurred on receiving the shipment. He closed the door against the +eager citizens who mounted the truck to shove the box aboard, leaving +only opening enough for him to stand flatwise in and shout up the +platform to the conductor.</p> + +<p>This conductor was a notable man in his day on that pioneer railroad. He +was a bony, irascible man, fiery of face, with a high hook nose that had +been smashed to one side in some battle when he was construction foreman +in his days of lowly beginning. He wore a pistol strapped around his +long coat, which garment was braided and buttoned like an ambassador's, +and he was notable throughout the land of cattle and cards as a man who +could reach far and hit hard. If Seth Craddock had applied to him for +instruction in invective and profanity, veteran that he was he would +have been put at the very foot of the primer class.</p> + +<p>Now this mighty man came striding down the platform, thrusting his way +through the crowd with no gentle elbow, hand on his gun, displeasure +ready to explode from his mouth. The baggage-man asked advice on +accepting the proffered box, with fare and a half ticket attached as in +the case of a corpse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span></p> + +<p>The conductor remarked, with terrible sarcasm, that the corpse was the +noisiest one he ever had encountered, even in that cursed and benighted +and seven times outcast hole. He knocked on the box and demanded of the +occupant an account of himself, and the part he was bearing in this +pleasant little episode, this beautiful little joke.</p> + +<p>Seth lifted up his muffled voice to say that it was no joke, at least to +him. He explained his identity and denounced his captors, swearing +vengeance to the last eyebrow. The conductor faced the crowd with +disdainful severity.</p> + +<p>What were they trying to play off on him, anyhow? Who did they suppose +he was? Maybe that was fun in Ascalon, but his company wasn't going to +carry no man from nowhere against his will and be sued for it. Burn him +and box up the ashes, boil him and bottle the soup; reduce him by any +comfortable means they saw fit, according to their humane way, fetch him +there in any guise but that of a living man, and the company would haul +him to Hades if they billed him to that destination.</p> + +<p>But not in his present shape and form; not as a living, swearing, +suit-threatening man. Take him to hell out of there, the conductor +ordered in rising temper. Don't insult him and his road by coming around +there to make them a part in their idle, life-wasting, time-gambling, +blasted to the seventh depth of Hades tricks.</p> + +<p>The baggage-man closed the door, the conductor gave the signal to pull +out, and the train departed, leaving Seth Craddock on the truck, the +rather shamed and dampened citizens standing around<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span>. They concluded they +would have to hang him, after all their trouble for a more romantic, +picturesque, and unusual exit. And hanging was such a common, ordinary +way of getting rid of a distasteful man that the pleasure was taken out +of their day.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer was firmly against hanging. He ordered the undertaker to +open the box, which he did with fear and trembling, seeing in a future +hour the vengeance of Seth Craddock descending on his solemn head. +Craddock, sweat-drenched and weak from his rebellion and the heat of his +close quarters, sat up with scarcely a breath left in him for a curse. +Judge Thayer delivered him to Morgan, with instructions to lock him up.</p> + +<p>The city calaboose was an institution apart from the county jail. Due to +some past rivalry between the county and city officials, the palatial jail +was closed to offenders against the lowly and despised-by-the-sheriff +town ordinances. So, out of its need, the city had built this little +house with bars across the one small window, and a barred door formed of +wagon tires to close outside the one of wood.</p> + +<p>No great amount of business ever had been done in this calaboose, for +minor infractions of the law were not troubled with in that town. If +there ever was anybody left over from a shooting he usually went along +about his business or his pleasure until the coroner's jury assembled +and let him off. The last man confined in the calaboose had stolen a +bottle of whisky, a grave and reprehensible offense which set all the +town talking and speculating on the proper punishment. This poor bug had +made a fire of his hay beddin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span>g in the night, and perished as miserably +as everybody said he deserved. The charred boards in one corner still +attested to his well-merited end.</p> + +<p>Morgan was not at all confident of the retaining powers of the +calaboose, neither was he greatly concerned. He believed that if +Craddock could break out he would make a streak away from Ascalon, +hooked up at high speed, never to return. It was not in the nature of a +man humbled from a high place, mocked by the lowly, derided by those +whom he had oppressed, contemned by the false friends he had favored, to +come back on an errand of revenge. The job was too general in a case +like Craddock's. He would have to exterminate most of the town.</p> + +<p>They left him in the calaboose with whatever reflections were his. The +window was too high in the wall for anybody on the outside to see in, or +for Craddock, tall as he was, to see anything out of it but the sky. +Public interest had fallen away since he was neither to be shipped out +nor hanged, only locked up like a whisky thief. Only a few boys hung +around the calaboose, which stood apart in the center of at least half +an acre of ground, as if ashamed of its office in a community that used +it so seldom when it was needed so often.</p> + +<p>Morgan returned to the square for his horse, rather dissatisfied now +with the day's developments. It was going to be troublesome to have this +fellow on his hands. Judge Thayer should not have interfered with the +last decree of public justice. It would have been over with by now.</p> + +<p>Rhet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span>ta Thayer was in the door of the newspaper office. She came to the +edge of the sidewalk as Morgan approached, leading his horse. She did +not reflect the public satisfaction from her handsome face and troubled +eyes that Ascalon in general enjoyed over Craddock's humiliation. Morgan +wondered why.</p> + +<p>"I asked too much of you, Mr. Morgan," she said, coming at once to the +matter that clouded her honest eyes.</p> + +<p>"You couldn't ask too much of me," he returned, with no unction of +flattery, but the cheerfully frank expression of an ingenuous heart.</p> + +<p>"I didn't realize the disadvantage you would be under, I didn't know +what I expected of you when I urged you into this. Meeting that +desperate man with a rope instead of a gun!"</p> + +<p>"You didn't know I was going to meet him with a rope," he said.</p> + +<p>He stood before her, hat in hand, wholesomely honest in his homely +ruggedness, a flush of embarrassment tinging his face. The sun in his +short hair seemed laughing, picking out little flecks of gold as mica +flakes in the sea waves turn and flash.</p> + +<p>"You might have been killed! When I saw him throw his hand to his gun! +Oh! it was terrible!"</p> + +<p>"So you're the editor now?" he said, cheerfully, trying to turn her from +this disturbing subject.</p> + +<p>"My heart jumped clear out of my mouth when you threw your rope!"</p> + +<p>"It came over and helped me," he said, in manner sincere and grav<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span>e.</p> + +<p>A little flame of color lifted in her pale cheek. She looked at the +dusty road, her hand pressed to her bosom as if to make certain that the +truant heart had come back to her like a dove to its cote out of the +storm. She looked up presently, and smiled a bit; looked down again, the +hot blood writing a confession in her face.</p> + +<p>"I hope it did," she said.</p> + +<p>Morgan felt himself in such a suffocation of strange delight he could +find no word that seemed the right word, and left it to silence, which, +perhaps was best. He looked at the road, also, as if he would search +with her there for grains of gold, or for lost hearts which leap out of +maidens' breasts, in the white dust marked by many feet.</p> + +<p>Together they looked up, faces white, breath faltering on dry lips. So +the fire leaps in a moment such as this and enwraps the soul. It is no +mystery, it is no process of long distillation. In a moment; so.</p> + +<p>"Here are his guns," said he, his voice trembling as if it strained in +leaping the subject that lay in its door to go back to the business of +the day.</p> + +<p>"His guns!" she repeated after him, shuddering at the thought.</p> + +<p>"Hang them over your desk—you might need them, now you're the editor."</p> + +<p>She accepted them from his hand, but dubiously, holding them far out +from contact with her dress as something unclean. Morgan reproached +himself for offering her these instruments which had sent so many men +to sudden, undefended death. He reached to relieve her hand.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span></p> +<p>"Let me do it for you, Miss Thayer."</p> + +<p>"No," she denied him, putting down her qualm, clutching the heavy belt +firmly. "It is a notable trophy, a great distinction you're giving me, +Mr. Morgan. I'm afraid you'll think I'm a coward," smiling wanly as she +lifted her face.</p> + +<p>"You're not afraid to edit the paper. That seems to me the most +dangerous job in town."</p> + +<p>"Most dangerous job in town!" she reproved him, giving him to understand +very plainly that she could name one attended by greater perils. +"They've only killed <i>one</i> editor, so far."</p> + +<p>"Can you shoot?" he asked, as seriously concerned as if the fate of +editors in Ascalon darkened over her already.</p> + +<p>"Everybody in this town can shoot," she sighed. "It's every boy's +ambition to own and carry a pistol, and most of them do."</p> + +<p>"I hope you'll never have to defend the independence of the press with +arms," he said, making a small pleasantry of it. "More than likely +they're gentlemen enough to let you say whatever you want to, and make +no kick."</p> + +<p>"The <i>Headlight</i> is going to be an awful joke with Riley Caldwell and me +getting it out. But I'm not going to try to please anybody. That way I +may please them all."</p> + +<p>"It sounds like the sensible way. Have you edited before?"</p> + +<p>"I used to help Mr. Smith, the editor they killed. That wa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span>s in the +summer vacation, just. I taught school the rest of the time."</p> + +<p>"You must have been the busiest person in town," he said, with pride in +her activities as if they had touched his own life long ago.</p> + +<p>"I'm a poor stick of an editor, I'm afraid, though—I seem to be all +mussed up with legal notices and this sudden flood of news. And I can't +set type worth a cent!"</p> + +<p>"Just let the news go," he suggested, not without concern for the part +he might bear in her chronicle of late events in Ascalon.</p> + +<p>"Let the news go!" She censured him with her softly chiding eyes. "I +wish I could write like Mr. Smith—I'd wake this town up! Poor man, his +coat is hanging in the office by the desk, so suggestive of him it makes +me cry. I haven't had the heart to take it away—it would seem like +expelling his spirit from the place. He was a slender, gentle little +man, more like a minister than an editor. It took an awful coward to +shoot him down that way."</p> + +<p>"You're right; I met him," Morgan said, remembering Dell Hutton among +the wagons, his smoking gun in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Sneaking little coward!"</p> + +<p>"Well, he'll hardly sling his gun down on you," Morgan reflected, as if +he communed with himself, yet thinking that Hutton scarcely would be +beyond even that.</p> + +<p>"Hardly," she replied, in abstraction. "What are you going to do with +that old brigand you've got locked in the calaboose?"</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span></p> +<p>"I expect we'll turn him loose in the morning. There doesn't seem to be +anything we can hold him for, guilty as he is."</p> + +<p>"If he'll leave, and never come back," doubtfully. "I'm glad now it +turned out the way it did, I'm so thankful you didn't have to—that you +came through <i>without blood on your hands</i>!"</p> + +<p>"It would have been a calamity the other way," he said.</p> + +<p>When Morgan went his way presently, leaving her in the door of the +little boxlike newspaper office, from where she gave him a parting +smile, it was with a revised opinion of the day's achievements. He felt +peculiarly exalted and satisfied. He had accomplished something, after +all.</p> + +<p>Whatever this was, he did not confess, but he smiled, and felt renewed +with a lifting gladness, as he went on to the livery barn, his horse at +his heels.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2><h3>A BONDSMAN BREATHES EASIER</h3> +</div> + +<p>There was a little ripple, more of mirth than excitement or concern, in +Ascalon next morning when it became known that Seth Craddock had kicked +a hole in the burned corner of the calaboose and leaked out of it into +the night.</p> + +<p>Let him go; it was as well that way as any, they said, since it relieved +them at once of the charge of his keep and the trouble of disposing of +him in the end. He never would come back to that town, let him ravage in +other parts of the world as he might. What the town had lost in +notoriety by his going would be offset by the manner of his degradation, +already written at length by the local correspondent of the <i>Kansas City +Times</i> and sent on to be printed with a display heading in a prominent +position in that paper and copied by other papers all over the land.</p> + +<p>Seth Craddock and his reign were behind the closed door of the past, +through which he was not likely to kick a hole and emerge again, after +his manner of going from the calaboose. That matter off the town's mind, +it ranged itself along the shady side of the street to watch the present +contest between the law and those who lived beyond it.</p> + +<p>Up to this point it appeared that the law was going to have it according +to its mandate. Peden made no attempt to open his place on the night +following Craddock's deposition, the lesser lights following his +virtuous example.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span></p> +<p>But there was in this quiescent confidence, in this lull almost +threatening, something similar to the impertinent repression of an +incorrigible child who yields to authority immediately above him, +knowing that presently it will be overruled. Something was clouding up +to break over Ascalon; the sleepiest in the town was aware of that.</p> + +<p>How much more keenly, then, was this charged atmosphere sensed and +explored with the groping hand of trepidation by Rhetta Thayer, finely +tuned as a virtuoso's violin. She knew something was hatching in that +Satan's nest of iniquity that would result in an outbreak of defiance, +but what form it would take, and when, she could not determine, although +friends tried to sound for her the bottom of this pit.</p> + +<p>Morgan knew it; all the scheme was as plain to him as the line of +hitching racks around the square. They were waiting to gather force, +when they meant to rise up and crush him, fling wide their doors, invite +the outlawed of the world in, and proceed as in the past. All there was +to be done was wait the uncovering of their hands.</p> + +<p>Meantime, there was a breathing spell between, a spell of pleasant hours +in the little newspaper office, reading the exchanges, helping on the +arrangement of such news as the town and country about it yielded, and +having many a good laugh over their bungling of the job, himself and the +pretty, brown-eyed editor, that was better for their bodies and souls +than all the physic on Druggist Gray's shelves. And not one line +concerning Morgan's adventures appeared in the <i>Headlight</i> during that +time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span></p> + +<p>In this manner, Ascalon enjoyed as it might three days of peace out of +this summer solstice. The drouth was aggravating in its duration and +growing hardships. Many families in town were without water, and obliged +to carry it from the deep well in the public square. Numberless cattle +were being driven to the loading pens for shipment to market, weeks +ahead of their day of doom, unfattened, unfit. The range was becoming a +barren; disaster threatened over that land with a torch in its +blind-striking hand.</p> + +<p>On the evening of this third day, between sunset and twilight, Rhetta +Thayer stopped Morgan as he was passing the <i>Headlight</i> office at the +beginning of his nightly patrol. She was disturbed by an agitation that +she could not conceal; her eyes stood wide as if some passing terror had +opened their windows.</p> + +<p>"He shot at you, and you didn't tell me!" she said, reproachfully, +facing him just inside the door.</p> + +<p>"Well, he isn't much of a shot," Morgan told her, cheerful assurance in +his words. "I can assure you I was at no time in any danger."</p> + +<p>"Oh! you didn't tell me!" she said, her voice little above a whisper on +her quick-coming breath.</p> + +<p>"It didn't amount to anything," Morgan discounted, wondering how she had +heard of it. "All that puzzled me was why the little rat did it—I never +stepped in front of him anywhere."</p> + +<p>"That woman in the tent—the rustler's wife—told me—she told me just +a little while ago. Oh! if he—if he'd have hit you!"</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span></p> +<p>"The kids all came running out of the tent—I thought he'd hit one of +them," Morgan said, humorously, thinking only to calm her great +agitation and quiet her friendly—if there could be no dearer +interest—concern.</p> + +<p>"It was Peden got him to do it," she declared.</p> + +<p>"Peden? Why should Hutton go out to do that fellow's gunning?"</p> + +<p>"Dell Hutton's gambling the county's money, he killed Mr. Smith because +he charged him with it! Pa knows it, pa's on his bond, and if he keeps +on losing the county funds there on Peden's game we'll have to make it +good. It will take everything we've got—if he keeps on."</p> + +<p>"That's bad, that's mighty bad," Morgan said, deeply concerned, +curiously awakened to the inner workings of things in Ascalon. "Still, I +don't see what connection I have in it, why he'd want to take a shot at +me on the quiet that way."</p> + +<p>"He shoots from behind, he shot Mr. Smith in the back, and it was at +night, besides. Don't you see how it was? Peden must have bribed him to +do it, promised to make good his losses, or something like that."</p> + +<p>"Plain as a wagon track," Morgan said.</p> + +<p>"I don't know why I ever got you into this tangle," she lamented, "I +don't know what made me so selfish and so blind."</p> + +<p>"It's just one more little complication in Ascalon's sickness," he +comforted her, "it doesn't amount to beans. The poor little fool was so +scared that morning he could hardly lift his gun. He'll never make +another break."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span></p> + +<p>"If I only thought he wouldn't! He's as treacherous as a snake, you +can't tell where he's sneaking to bite you. Give it up, Mr. Morgan, +won't you, please?" She turned to him suddenly, appealing with her eyes, +with her wistful lips, with every line of her sympathetic, anxious face.</p> + +<p>"Give it up?" he repeated, her meaning not quite clear.</p> + +<p>"The office, I mean. Surely, as I coaxed you into taking it, I've got a +right to ask you to give it up. You've done what you took the place to +do, you've got Craddock out of it and away from here. Your work's done, +you can quit now with a good conscience and no excuse to anybody."</p> + +<p>"Why," said Morgan, reflectively, "I don't believe I could quit right +now, Miss Rhetta. There's something more to come, it isn't quite +finished yet."</p> + +<p>"There's a great deal more to come, the end of all this fighting and +killing and grinning treachery never will come!" she said, in great +bitterness. "What's the use of one man putting his life against all this +viciousness? There's no cure for the curse of Ascalon but time. Let it +go, Mr. Morgan—I beg you to give it up."</p> + +<p>Morgan took the hand that she reached out to him in her appeal. The +great fervor of her earnest heart had drawn the blood away from it, +leaving it cold. He clasped it, tightly, to warm it in his big palm, and +spoke comfortingly, yet he would not, could not, tell her that he would +give over the office and leave the town to its devices. The work he had +begun on her account, at her appeal, was not finished. He want<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span>ed to give +her a peace that would make permanent the placidity of her eyes such as +had warmed his heart during those three days. But he could not tell her +that.</p> + +<p>"If it goes on," she said, sad that he would not yield to her appeal, +"you'll have to—you'll have to—do what the rest of them have done. And +I don't want you to do that, Mr. Morgan. I want you to keep clean."</p> + +<p>"As it must be, so it will be," he said. "But I don't see any reason why +I can't keep on the way I've started. There's nobody doing any shooting +here now."</p> + +<p>"They're only waiting," she said.</p> + +<p>"I'll have to watch them a little longer, then," he told her; "somebody +might shoot your windows out."</p> + +<p>He led her away from the subject of Ascalon's dangers and unrest, its +sinister ferment and silent threat, but she would come back to it in a +little while, and to Dell Hutton, who shot men in the back.</p> + +<p>"He's over there in the courthouse now—that's his office where you see +the light—trying to doctor up his books to hide his stealing, I know," +she declared.</p> + +<p>Morgan left her, his rifle in his hand, to go on his patrol of the town +according to his nightly program. As he tramped around the square, he +watched the light in the courthouse window, thinking of the account on +his own books against the old-faced young man who labored there alone to +hide his peculations for a little while longer. And so, watching and +considering, thinking and devising, the night came down over him, +guardian of the peace of Ascalon, where there was no peace.</p> + +<p>Rhetta T<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span>hayer, leaving the <i>Headlight</i> office at nine o'clock, saw two +men come down the courthouse steps, shadowy and indistinct in the dusk +of starlight and early night. She paused on her way, wondering, and her +wonder and mystification grew when she saw them cut across the square in +the direction of Peden's dark and silent hall. One of them was Dell +Hutton. The other she had no need to name.</p> + +<p>When Dell Hutton, county treasurer, deposited three thousand dollars of +the county's funds in the bank next morning, a certain man who stood +surety on his bond wiped the sweat of vast relief from his forehead. And +when Rhetta heard of it, she smiled, and the incense of gratitude rose +out of her heart for the strong-handed man who had stopped this leak in +the slender finances of the county, a thing which he believed he was +holding secret in the simplicity of his honest soul.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2><h3>THE CURSE OF BLOOD</h3> +</div> + +<p>Sensitive as a barometer to every variation, every shading, in public +sentiment and sympathy, Morgan patroled the town nightly until the +streets were deserted. Night by night he felt, rather than saw, the +growing insolence of the pale feeders on the profits of vice, the +confidence in some approaching triumph gleaming in their furtive eyes.</p> + +<p>None of the principals, few of the attendant vultures, had left Ascalon. +The sheriff had returned from his excursion after cattle thieves, and, +contrary to the expectation of anybody, had brought one lean and hungry, +hound-faced man with him and locked him up in jail.</p> + +<p>But the sheriff was taking no part in the new city marshal's campaign in +the town, certainly not to help him. If he worked against him in the way +his fat, big-jowled face proclaimed that it was his habit to work, no +evidence of it was in his manner when he met Morgan. He was a friendly, +puffy-handed man, loud in his hail and farewell to the riders who came +in from the far-off cow camps to see for themselves this wide-heralded +reformation of the godless town of Ascalon.</p> + +<p>These visitors, lately food for the mills of the place, walked about as +curiously as fowls liberated in a strange yard after long confinement in +a coop. They looked with uncomprehending eyes on the closed doors of +Peden's famous temple of excesses; they turned respectful eyes on Morgan +as he passed them in his silent, determined rounds. And presently, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span>fter +meeting the white-shirted, coatless dealers, lookout men, <i>macquereaux</i>, +they began to have a knowing look, an air of expectant hilarity. After a +little they usually mounted and rode away, laughing among themselves +like men who carried cheerful tidings to sow upon the way.</p> + +<p>In that manner Ascalon remained closed five nights, nobody contesting +the authority of the new marshal, not a shot fired in the streets. On +the afternoon of the sixth day an unusual tide of visitors began to set +in to this railroad port of Ascalon. By sundown the hitching rack around +the square was packed with horses; Dora Conboy told Morgan she never had +waited on so many people before in her hotel experience.</p> + +<p>At dusk Morgan brought his horse from the livery stable, mounted with +his rifle under the crook of his knee. At nine o'clock Peden threw open +his doors, the small luminaries which led a dim existence in his +effulgence following suit, all according to their preconcerted plan.</p> + +<p>There was a shout and a break of wild laughter, a scramble for the long +bar with its five attendants working with both hands; a scrape of +fiddles and a squall of brass; a squeaking of painted and bedizened +drabs, who capered and frisked like mice after their long inactivity. +And on the inflow of custom and the uprising of jubilant mirth, Peden +turned his quick, crafty eyes as he stood at the head of the bar to +welcome back to his doors this golden stream.</p> + +<p>Close within Peden's wide door, one on either<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span> hand, two vigilant +strangers stood, each belted with two revolvers, each keeping a hand +near his weapons. One of these was a small, thin-faced white rat of a +man; the other tall, lean, leathery; burned by sun, roughened by +weather. A shoot from the tree that produced Seth Craddock he might have +been, solemn like him, and grim.</p> + +<p>Dell Hutton, county treasurer, cigar planted so far to one corner of his +wide thin mouth that wrinkles gathered about it like the leathery folds +of an old man's skin, came to Peden where he stood at the bar.</p> + +<p>"All's set for him," he said, drawing his eyes small as he peered around +through the fast-thickening smoke.</p> + +<p>"Let him come!" said Peden, watching the door with expectant, vindictive +eyes.</p> + +<p>The news of Peden's defiance swept over the town like a taint on the +wind. Not only that Peden had opened his doors to the long-thirsting +crowd gathered by the advertised news of a big show for that night, but +that he had posted two imported gun-fighters inside his hall with +instructions to shoot the city marshal if he attempted to interfere. +With the spread of this news men began to gather in front of Peden's to +see what the city marshal was going to do, how he would accept this +defiance, if he meant to accept it, and what the result to him would be.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer came down to the square without his alpaca coat, his +perturbation was so great, looking for Morgan, talking of swearing in a +large number of deputies to uphold the law.</p> + +<p>This was received coldly by the men of Asca<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span>lon. Upholding the law was +the city marshal's business, they said. If he couldn't do it alone, let +the law drag; let it fall underfoot, where it seemed the best place for +it in that town, anyhow. So Judge Thayer went on, looking around the +square for Morgan, not finding him, nor anybody who had seen him within +the last half hour.</p> + +<p>Rhetta was working late in the <i>Headlight</i> office, preparing for the +weekly issue of the paper. This disquieting news had come in at her door +like the wave of a flood. She had no thought of work from that moment, +only to stand at the door listening for the dreaded sound of shooting +from the direction of Peden's hall.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer found her standing in the door when he completed his search +around the square, his heart falling lower at every step.</p> + +<p>"He's gone! Morgan's deserted us!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Gone!" she repeated in high scorn. "He'll be the last to go."</p> + +<p>"I can't find him anywhere—I've hunted all over town. Nobody has seen +him. I tell you, Rhetta, he's gone."</p> + +<p>"I wish to heaven he would go! What right have we got to ask him to give +his life to stop the mean, miserable squabbles of this suburb of hell!"</p> + +<p>"I think you'd better run along home now—Riley will go with you. Why, +child, you're cold!"</p> + +<p>He drew her into the office, urging her to put on her bonnet and go.</p> + +<p>"I'll stay here and see it out," she said. "Oh, if he would go, if he +would go! But he'll never go."</p> + +<p>She threw herself into the cha<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span>ir beside her littered desk, hands +clenched, face white as if she bore a mortal pain, only to leap up again +in a moment, run to the door, and listen as if she sought a voice out of +the riotous sound.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer had none of this poignant concern for Morgan's welfare. He +was not a little nettled over his failure to find the marshal, and that +officer's apparent shunning of duty in face of this mocking challenge to +his authority.</p> + +<p>"Why, Rhetta, you wanted him to take the office, you urged him to," he +reminded her. "I don't understand this sudden concern for the man's +safety in disregard of his oath and duty, this—this—unaccountable——"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know him then—I didn't <i>know</i> him!" she said, in piteous low +moan.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer looked at her with a sudden sharp turning of the head, as +if her words had expressed something beyond their apparent meaning. He +came slowly to the door, where he stood beside her a little while in +silence, hand upon her shoulder tenderly.</p> + +<p>"I'll look around again," he said, "and come back in a little while."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, in Peden's place the celebrants at the altar of alcohol were +rejoicing in this triumph of personal liberty. Where was this man-eating +city marshal? What had become of that knock-kneed horse wrangler from +Bitter Creek they had heard so much about? They drank fiery toasts to +his confusion, they challenged him in the profane emphasis of scorn. +Upon what was his fame based? they wanted to be told. The mere +corraling of certain stupid drunk men; the lucky throw of a rope. <i>He</i> +neve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span>r had killed a man!</p> + +<p>With the mounting of their hastily swilled liquor the hilarious patrons +of Peden's hall became more contemptuous of the city marshal. His +apparent avoidance of trouble, his unaccountable absence, his failure to +step up and meet this challenge from Peden, became a grievance against +him in their inflamed heads.</p> + +<p>They had counted on him to make some kind of a bluff, to add something +either of tragedy or comedy to this big show. Now he was hiding out, and +they resented it in the proper spirit of men deprived of their rights. +They began to talk of going out to find him, of dragging him from his +hole and starting a noise behind him that would scare him out of the +country.</p> + +<p>Peden encouraged this growing notion. If Morgan wouldn't bring his show +there, go after him and make him stand on his hind legs like a dog. +After a few more drinks, after a dance, after another stake on the +all-devouring tables of chance. They turned to these diversions in the +zest of long abstinence, in the redundant vitality of youth, mocking all +restraint, insolent of any reckoning of circumstance or time.</p> + +<p>Peden distended with satisfaction to see the free spending, the free +flinging of money into his games. A little virtuous recess seemed to be +profitable; it was like giving a horse a rest. His two guards waited at +the door, his lookout at the faro table swept the hall from his high +chair with eyes keen to mark any hostile invasion. Morgan never could +come six feet inside his door.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span></p> +<p>Well satisfied with himself and the beginning of that night's business, +exceedingly comfortable in the thought that this defiance of the law +would bring a newer and wider notoriety to himself and the town of which +he was the spirit, Peden sauntered among the boisterous merrymakers on +his floor.</p> + +<p>Dancers were worming and shuffling in close embrace, couples breaking +out of the whirl now and then to rush to the bar; players stood deep +around the tables; men reached over each other's shoulders to take their +drinks from the bar. All was haste and hilarity, all a crowding of +pleasure with hard-pursuing feet, a snatching at the elusive thing with +rough boisterous hands, with loud laughter, with wild yells.</p> + +<p>Pleasure, indeed, seemed on the flight before these coarse revelers, who +pursued it blindfold down the steeps of destruction unaware.</p> + +<p>Peden shouldered his way through the throng toward the farther end of +the long bar, nodding here with a friendly smile, stopping now and then +to shake hands with some specially favored patron, throwing commands +among his female entertainers from his cold, hard, soulless eyes as he +passed along.</p> + +<p>And in that sociable progression down his thronging hall, ten feet from +the farther end of his famous bar, Peden came face to face with Morgan, +as grim as judgment among the crowd of wastrels and women of poisoned +lips, who fell back in breathless silence to let him pass.</p> + +<p>Morgan was carrying his rifle; his pistol hung at his side<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span>. The big +shield of office once worn by Seth Craddock was pinned on the pocket of +his shirt; his broad-brimmed hat threw a shadow over his stern face.</p> + +<p>Peden stopped with a little start of withdrawal at sight of Morgan, +surprised out of his poise, chilled, perhaps, at the thought of the long +pistol shot between this unexpected visitor and the hired killers at his +front door, the way between them blocked by a hundred revelers.</p> + +<p>So, this was the cunning of this range wolf, to come in at his back door +and fall upon him in surprise! Peden's resentment rose in that second of +reflection with the dull fire that spread in his dark face. He flung his +hand to his revolver, throwing aside the skirt of his long coat.</p> + +<p>"Let your gun stay where it is," Morgan quietly advised him. "Get these +people out of here, and close this place."</p> + +<p>"Show me your authority!" Peden demanded, scouting for a moment of +precious time.</p> + +<p>The musicians in the little orchestra pit behind Morgan ceased playing +on a broken note, the shuffle of dancing feet stopped short. Up the long +bar the loud hilarity quieted; across the hall the clash of pool balls +cut sharply into the sudden stillness. As quickly as wind makes a rift +in smoke the revelers fell away from Morgan and Peden, leaving a fairway +for the shooting they expected to begin at the door. Peden stood as he +had stopped, hand upon his gun.</p> + +<p>Morgan stepped up to him in one long, quick stride, rifle muzzle close +against Peden's broad white shirt front. In that second of hesitant +delay, that breath of portentous bluff, Morgan had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span>read Peden to the +roots. A man who had it in him to shoot did not stop at anybody's word +when he was that far along the way.</p> + +<p>"Clear this place and lock it up!" Morgan repeated.</p> + +<p>The temperature of the crowded hall seemed to fall forty degrees in the +second or two Morgan stood pushing his rifle against Peden's breastbone. +Those who had talked with loud boasts, picturesque threats, high-pitched +laughter, of going out to find this man but a little while before, were +silent now and cold around the gills as fish.</p> + +<p>Morgan was watching the two men at the front door while he held Peden up +those few seconds. He knew there was no use in disarming Peden, to turn +him loose where he could get fifty guns in the next two seconds if he +wanted them. He believed, in truth, there was not much to fear from this +fellow, who depended on his hired retainers to do his killing for him. +So, when Peden, watching Morgan calculatively, shifted a little to get +himself out of line so he would not stand a barrier between his +gun-slingers and their target and longer block the opening of operations +to clear the hall of this upstart, Morgan let him go. Then, with a +sudden bound, Peden leaped across into the crowd.</p> + +<p>A moment of strained waiting, quiet as the empty night, Morgan standing +out a fair target for any man who had the nerve to pull a gun. Then a +stampede in more of sudden fear than caution by those lined up along +the bar, and the two hired killers at the front of the house began to +shoot.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span></p> + +<p>Morgan pitched back on his heels as if mortally hit, staggered, thrust +one foot out to stay his fall. He stood bracing himself in that manner +with out-thrust foot, shooting from the hip.</p> + +<p>Three shots he fired, the roar of his rifle loud above the lighter sound +of the revolvers. With the third shot Morgan raised his gun. In the +smoke that was settling to the floor the taller of the gunmen lay +stretched upon his face. The other, arms rigidly at his sides, held a +little way from his body, head drooping to his chest, turned dizzily two +or three times, spinning swiftly in his dance of death, gave at the +knees, settled down gently in a strange, huddled heap.</p> + +<p>Dead. Both of them dead. The work of one swift moment when the blood +curse fell on this new, quick-handed marshal of Ascalon.</p> + +<p>There was a choking scream, and a woman's cry. "Look out! look out!"</p> + +<p>Peden, on the fringe of a crowd of shrinking, great-eyed women, ghastly +in the painted mockery of their fear, fired as Morgan turned. Morgan +blessed the poor creature who was woman enough in her debauched heart to +cry out that warning, as the breath of Peden's bullet brushed his face. +Morgan could not defend himself against this assault, for the coward +stood with one shoulder still in the huddling knot of women, and fired +again. Morgan dropped to the floor, prone on his face as the dead man +behind him.</p> + +<p>Peden came one cautious step from his shelter, leaning far over to see, +a smile of triumph baring his gleaming teeth; another step, while the +crowd broke the stifling quiet with shifted feet. Morg<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span>an, quick as a +serpent strikes, raised to his elbow and fired.</p> + +<p>Morgan had one clear look at Peden's face as he threw his arms high and +fell. Surprise, which death, swift in its coming had not yet overtaken, +bulged out of his eyes. Surprise: no other emotion expressed in that +last look upon this life. And Peden lay dead upon his own floor, his hat +fallen aside, his arms stretched far beyond his head, his white cuffs +pulled out from his black coat sleeves, as if he appealed for the mercy +that was not ever for man or woman in his own cold heart.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2><h3>UNCLEAN</h3> +</div> + +<p>Earl Gray came down the street hatless, the big news on his tongue. +Rhetta Thayer, in the door of the <i>Headlight</i> office, where she had +stood in the pain of one crucified while the shots sounded in Peden's +hall, stopped him with a gasped appeal.</p> + +<p>Dead. Peden and the gun-slingers he had brought there to kill Morgan; +any number of others who had mixed in the fight; Morgan himself—all +dead, the floor covered with the dead. That was the terrible word that +rolled from Gray's excited tongue. And when she heard it, Rhetta put out +her hands as one blind, held to the door frame a moment while the blood +seemed to drain out of her heart, staring with horrified eyes into the +face of the inconsequential man who had come in such avid eagerness to +tell this awful tale.</p> + +<p>People were hastening by in the direction of Peden's, scattered at +first, like the beginning of a retreat, coming then by twos and threes, +presently overflowing the sidewalk, running in the street. Rhetta stood +staring, half insensible, on this outpouring. Riley Caldwell, the young +printer, rushed past her out of the shop, his roached hair like an +Algonquin's standing high above his narrow forehead, his face white as +if washed by death.</p> + +<p>Impelled by a desire that was commanding as it was terrifying, moved by +a hope that was only a shred of a raveled dream, Rhetta joined the +moving tide that set toward Peden's door. Dead—Morgan was dead! Because +she had asked him, he had set his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span> hand to this bloody task. She had sent +him to his death in her selfish desire for security, in her shrinking +cowardice, in her fear of riot and blood. And he was dead, the light was +gone out of his eyes, his youth and hope were sacrificed in a cause that +would bring neither glory nor gratitude to illuminate his memory.</p> + +<p>She began to run, out in the dusty street where he had marched his +patrol that first night of his bringing peace to Ascalon; to run, her +feet numb, her body numb, only her heart sentient, it seemed, and that +yearning out to him in a great pain of pity and stifling labor of +remorse. It was only a little way, but it seemed heavy and long, impeded +by feet that could not keep pace with her anguish, swift-running to +whisper a tender word.</p> + +<p>The lights were bright in Peden's hall, a great crowd leaned and +strained and pushed around its door. There were some who asked her +kindly to go away, others who appealed earnestly against her looking +into the place, as Rhetta pushed her way, panting like an exhausted +swimmer, through the crowd.</p> + +<p>Nothing would turn her; appeals were dim as cries in drowning ears. +Gaining the door, she paused a moment, hands pressed to her cheeks, hair +fallen in disorder. Her eyes were big with the horror of her thoughts; +she was breathless as one cast by breakers upon the sand. She looked in +through the open door.</p> + +<p>Morgan was standing like a soldier a little way inside the door, his +rifle carried at port arms, denying by the very sternness of his pose +the passage of any foot across that threshold of trage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span>dy. There was +nothing in his bearing of a wounded man. Beyond him a few feet lay the +bodies of the two infamous guards who had been posted at the door to +take his life; along the glistening bar, near its farther end, Peden +stretched with face to the floor, his appealing hands outreaching.</p> + +<p>A gambling table had been upset, chairs strewn in disorder about the +floor, when the rabble was cleared out of the place. Only Morgan +remained there with the dead men, like a lone tragedian whose part was +not yet done.</p> + +<p>Rhetta looked for one terrifying moment on that scene, its tragic detail +impressed on her senses as a revelation of lightning leaps out of the +blackest night to be remembered for its surrounding terror. And in that +moment Morgan saw her face; the horror, the revulsion, the sickness of +her shocked soul. A moment, a glance, and she was gone. He was alone +amidst the blood that the curse of Ascalon had led his hand to pour out +in such prodigality in that profaned place.</p> + +<p>Long after the fearful waste of battle had been cleared from Peden's +floor, and the lights of that hall were put out; long after the most +wakeful householder of Ascalon had sought his bed, and the last horseman +had gone from its hushed streets, Morgan walked in the moonlight, +keeping vigil with his soul. The curse of blood had descended upon him, +and she whose name he could speak only in his heart, had come to look +upon his infamy and flee from before his face.</p> + +<p>Time had saved him for this excruciating hour;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span> all his poor adventures, +slow striving, progression upward, had been designed to culminate in the +mockery of this night. Fate had shaped him to his bitter ending, drawing +him on with lure as bright as sunrise. And now, as he walked slowly in +the moonlight, feet encumbered by this tragedy, he felt that the essence +had been wrung out of life. His golden building was come to confusion, +his silver hope would ring its sweet chime in his heart no more. From +that hour she would abhor him, and shrink from his polluted hand.</p> + +<p>He resented the subtle indrawing of circumstance that had thrust him in +the way of this revolting thing, that had thrust upon him this infamous +office that carried with it the inexorable curse of blood. Softly, +against the counsel of his own reason, he had been drawn. She who had +stared in horror on the wreckage of that night had inveigled him with +gentle word, with appeal of pleading eye.</p> + +<p>This resentment was sharpened by the full understanding of his +justification, both in law and in morals, for the slaying of these +desperate men. Duty that none but a coward and traitor to his oath would +have shunned, had impelled him to that deed. Defense of his life was a +justification that none could deny him. But she had denied him that. She +had fled from the lifting of his face as from a thing unspeakably +unclean.</p> + +<p>He could not chide her for it, nor arraign her with one bitter thought. +She had hoped it would be otherwise; her last word had been on her best +hope for him in a place where such hope could have no fruition—that he +would pass untainted by the bloody curse that fell on men in this place. +It could not be.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span></p> + +<p>Because he had taken Seth Craddock's pistol away from him on that first +day, she had believed him capable of the superhuman task of enforcing +order in Ascalon without bloodshed. Sincere as she had been in her +desire to have him assume the duties of peace officer, she had acted +unconsciously as a lure to entangle him to his undoing.</p> + +<p>Very well; he would clean up the town for her as she had looked to him +to do, sweep it clear of the last iniquitous gun-slinger, the last +slinking gambler, the last drab. He would turn it over to her clean, +safe for her day or night, no element in it to disturb her repose. At +what further cost of life he must do this, he could not then foresee, +but he resolved that it should be done. Then he would go his way, +leaving his new hopes behind him with his old.</p> + +<p>Although it was a melancholy resolution, owing to its closing provision, +it brought him the quiet that a perturbed mind often enjoys after the +formation of a definite plan, no matter for its desperation. Morgan went +to the hotel, where Tom Conboy was still on duty smoking his cob pipe in +a chair tilted back against a post of his portico.</p> + +<p>"Well, the light's out up at Peden's," said Conboy, feeling a new and +vast respect for this man who had proved his luck to the satisfaction of +all beholders in Ascalon that night.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Morgan, wearily, pausing at the door.</p> + +<p>"They'll never be lit again in this man's town," Conboy went on, "and +I'm one that's glad to see 'em go. Some of these fellers around town was +sayin' tonight that Ascalon will be dead in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span>shell inside of three +weeks, but I can't see it that way. Settlers'll begin to come now, that +hall of Peden's'll make a good implement store, plenty of room for +thrashin' machines and harvesters. I may have to put up my rates a +little to make up for loss in business till things brighten up, but I'd +have to do it in time, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Morgan, as listlessly as before.</p> + +<p>"They say you made a stand with that gun of yours tonight that beat +anything a man ever saw—three of 'em down quicker than you could strike +a match! I heard one feller say—man! look at that badge of yours!"</p> + +<p>Conboy got up, gaping in amazement. Morgan had stepped into the light +that fell through the open door, passing on his way to bed. The metal +shield that proclaimed his office was cupped as if it had been held +edgewise on an anvil and struck with a hammer. Morgan hastily detached +the badge and put it in his pocket, plainly displeased by the discovery +Conboy had made.</p> + +<p>"Bullet hit it, square in the center!" Conboy said. "It was square over +your heart!"</p> + +<p>"Keep it under your hat!" Morgan warned, speaking crossly, glowering +darkly on Conboy as he passed.</p> + +<p>"No niggers in Ireland," said Conboy, knowingly; "no-o-o niggers in +Ireland!"</p> + +<p>Morgan regretted his oversight in leaving the badge in place. He had +intended to remove it, long before. As he went up the complaining stairs +he pressed his hand to the sore spot over his heart where the bullet +almost had driven the badge into his flesh. Pretty sore, but not as sore +as it was deep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span>er within his breast from another wound, not as sore as +that other hurt would be tomorrow, and the heavy years to come.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2><h3>AS ONE THAT IS DEAD</h3> +</div> + +<p>"I feel like I share his guilt," said Rhetta, voice sad as if she had +suffered an irreparable loss.</p> + +<p>"He's not guilty," said Violet, stoutly, standing in his defense.</p> + +<p>Rhetta had fled from Ascalon that morning, following the terrible night +of Morgan's sanguinary baptism. Racked by an agony of mingled remorse +for her part in this tragedy and the loss of some valued thing which she +would not bring her heart to acknowledge, only moan over and weep, and +bend her head to her pillow through that fevered night, she had taken +horse at sunrise and ridden to Stilwell's ranch, for the comfort of +Violet, whose sympathy was like balm to a bruise. Rhetta had come +through the night strained almost to breaking. All day she had hidden +like one crushed and shamed, in Stilwell's house, pouring out to Violet +the misery of her soul.</p> + +<p>Now, at night, she was calmer, the haunting terror of the scene which +rose up before her eyes was drawing off, like some frightful thing that +had stood a menace to her life. But she felt that it never would dim +entirely from her recollection, that it must endure, a hideous picture, +to sadden her days until the end.</p> + +<p>The two girls had gone to the river, where the moonlight softened the +desert-like scene of barren bars, and twinkled in the ripples of shallow +water which still ran over against the farther shore. They were sitting +near the spot where Morgan had laved his bruised feet in the river not +many nights past. A w<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span>hippoorwill was calling in the tangle of +cottonwoods and grapevines that grew cool and dark on a little island +below them, its plaint as sad as the mourner's own stricken heart.</p> + +<p>"I begged him to give up the office and let things go," said Rhetta, +pleading to mitigate her own blame, against whom no blame was laid.</p> + +<p>"You'd have despised him for it if he had," said Violet.</p> + +<p>"But he wouldn't do it, and now this has happened, and he's a man-killer +like the rest of them. Oh it's terrible to think about!"</p> + +<p>"Not like the rest of them," Violet corrected, in her firm, gentle way. +"He had to stand up like a man for what he was sworn to do, or run like +a dog. Mr. Morgan wouldn't run. Right or wrong, he wouldn't run from any +man!"</p> + +<p>"No," said Rhetta, sadly, "he wouldn't run."</p> + +<p>"You talk like you wanted him to!"</p> + +<p>"I don't think I would," said Rhetta.</p> + +<p>"Then what <i>do</i> you expect of a man?" impatiently. "If he stands up and +fights he's either got to kill or be killed."</p> + +<p>"Don't—don't, Violet! It seems like killing is all I hear—the sound of +those guns—I hear them all the time, I can't get them out of my ears!"</p> + +<p>"Suppose," said Violet, looking off across the runlet sparkling, +gurgling like an infant across the bar, "it was him you saw when you +looked in there, instead of the others. You'd have been satisfied then, +I suppose?"</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span></p> +<p>"Violet! how can you say such awful things!"</p> + +<p>"Well, somebody had to be killed. Do you suppose Mr. Morgan killed them +just for fun?"</p> + +<p>"They say, they were talking all over town that night—last night—and +saying the same thing this morning, that he didn't give them a show, +that he just turned his rifle on them and killed them before he knew +whether they were going to shoot or not!"</p> + +<p>"Well, they lie," said Violet, with the calmness of conviction.</p> + +<p>"I suppose he had a right to do what he did, but he doesn't seem like +the same man to me now. I feel like I'd lost something—some friendship +that I valued, I mean, Violet—you know what I mean."</p> + +<p>"I know as well as anything," said Violet, smiling to herself, head +turned away, the moonlight on her good, kind face.</p> + +<p>"I feel like somebody had died, and that he—they—that he——"</p> + +<p>"And you ought to be thankful it isn't so!" said Violet, sharply, "but I +don't believe you are."</p> + +<p>"I never want to see him again, I'll always think of him standing there +with that terrible gun in his hands, those dead men around him on the +floor!"</p> + +<p>"You may have to go to him on your knees yet, and I hope to God you will +Rhetta Thayer!" Violet said.</p> + +<p>"If you'd seen somebody—somebody that you—that was—if you'd seen him +like I saw him, you wouldn't blame me so," Rhetta defended, beginning +again to cry, and bend her head upon her hands and moan like a mother +who had lost a child.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span></p> + +<p>Violet was moved out of her harshness at once. She put her arm around +the weeping girl, whose sorrow was too genuine to admit a doubt of its +great depth, and consoled her with soft words.</p> + +<p>"And he looked so big to me, and he was so <i>clean</i>, before that," Rhetta +wailed.</p> + +<p>"He's bigger than ever, he's as blameless as a lamb," said Violet. +"After a little while you'll see it different, he'll be the same to +you."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't touch his hand!" said Rhetta, shuddering at the thought.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," said Violet, soothingly; "never mind."</p> + +<p>Violet said no more, but took Rhetta by the hand, and it was wet with +tears from her streaming cheeks. There was peace in the night around +them, for all the turmoil there might be in human hearts, for night had +eased the throbbing, drouth-cursed earth of its burning, and called the +trumpeters of the greenery out along the riverside.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid he'll come," said Rhetta by and by.</p> + +<p>"Why should he come?" asked Violet, stroking back the other's hair.</p> + +<p>"He's got one of your horses—I'm afraid he'll come to bring it home."</p> + +<p>"You only hope he will," said Violet, in her assured, calm way.</p> + +<p>"Violet!" But there was not so much chiding in the word as a cry of +pain, a confession of despair. He would not come; and she knew he would +not come.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2><h3>WHINERS AT THE FUNERAL</h3> +</div> + +<p>Joe Lynch, the bone man, stopped at the well in the public square to +pour water on his wagon tires. A man was pestered clean out of his +senses by his tires coming off, his felloes shrinking up like a fried +bacon rind in that dry weather, Joe said. It beat his time, that drouth. +He had been through some hot and dry spells in the Arkansaw Valley, but +never one as dry and hot as this.</p> + +<p>He told Morgan this as he poured water slowly on his wheels to swell the +wood and tighten the tires, there at the town well in the mid-morning of +that summer day. It was so hot already, the ceaseless day wind blowing +as if it trailed across a fire, that one felt shivers of heat go over +the skin; so hot that the heat was bitter to the taste, and shade was +only an aggravation.</p> + +<p>This was almost a week after Morgan's forceful assertion of the law's +supremacy in Ascalon, when Peden and his assassins fell in their +insolence. It seemed that day as if Ascalon itself had fallen with +Peden, and the blood of life had drained out of its body. There was a +quietude over it that seemed the peace of death.</p> + +<p>"I never thought, the day I hauled you into this town," said Joe, his +high rasping voice harmonizing well with his surroundings, like a +katydid on a dead limb, "you'd be the man to put the kibosh on 'em and +close 'em up like you done. I never saw the bottom drop out of no place +as quick as it's fell out of this town, and I've saw a good many go up +in my day. The last of them gamblers pulled out a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span>couple of days ago, I +hauled his trunk over to the depot. He went a cussin', and he pulled the +hole in after him, I guess, on all the high-kickin' this town'll ever +do. Well, I ain't a carin'; I've been waitin' my time."</p> + +<p>"You were wiser than some of them, you knew it would come," Morgan said, +glad to meet this bone-gathering philosopher in the desert he had made +of Ascalon, and stand talking with him, foot on his hub in friendly way.</p> + +<p>"Not so much bones," said Joe reflectively, as if he had weighed the +possibilities long ago and now found them coming out according to +calculation, "as bottles. Thousands of bottles, every boy in this town's +out a pickin' up bottles for me. I reckon I'll have a couple of carloads +of nothing but bottles. Oh-h-h, they'll be <i>some</i> bones, but the +skeleton of this town is bottles. That's why I tell 'em it never will +pick up no more. You've got to build a town on something solider'n a +bottle if you want it to stand up."</p> + +<p>"I believe you," Morgan said.</p> + +<p>"You've worked yourself out of a job. They won't no more need a marshal +here'n they will a fish net."</p> + +<p>Morgan shook his head, got out his pipe, struck a match on the bleached +forehead of a buffalo skull in Joe's wagon.</p> + +<p>"No. I'm leaving town in a week or two—when I make sure it <i>is</i> dead, +that they'll never come back and start the games again."</p> + +<p>"They never will," said Joe, shaking a positive head. "P<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span>eden was the +guts of this town; it can't never be what it was without him. So you're +goin' to leave the country, air you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Give up that fool notion you had about raising wheat out here on this +pe-rairie, heh?"</p> + +<p>"Gave it up," Morgan replied, nodding in his solemn, expressive way.</p> + +<p>"Well, you got <i>some</i> sense hammered into you, anyhow. I told you right +at the jump, any man that thought he could farm in this here country +should be bored for the simples. Look at that range, look at them cattle +that's droppin' dead of starvation and want of water all over it. Look +at them cattlemen shippin' out thousands of head that ain't ready for +market all along this railroad every day. This range'll be as bare of +stock by fall, I tell you, as the pa'm of my hand's bare of hairs. +Bones? I'll have more bones to pick up than ever was in this country +before. Ascalon ain't all that's dead—the whole range's gone up. +This'll clean 'em all out. It's the hottest summer and the longest dry +spell that ever was."</p> + +<p>"It couldn't be much worse."</p> + +<p>"Worse!" Joe looked up from his pouring in his reprovingly surprised +way, stopping his dribbling stream on the wagon wheel. "You hang around +here a month longer and see what worse is! I'm goin' to begin pickin' up +bones over on Stilwell's range in about a week; I'm givin' them wolves +and buzzards time to clean 'em up a little better. About then you'll see +the cattlemen begin to fight for range along the river where their +stock can eat the leaves off of the bushes and find a bunch of bluestem +onc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span>e in a while that ain't frizzled and burnt up. You'll begin to see +the wolf side to some of these fellers in this country then."</p> + +<p>Joe rumbled on to the car that he was loading, his tires being tight +enough to hold him that far. Morgan sauntered down the shady side of the +street, meeting few, getting what ease he could out of life with his +pipe. He had put off his cowboy dress only that morning, feeling it out +of place in the uneventful quiet of the town. He had not carried his +rifle since the night of his battle in Peden's hall. Today he was +beginning to consider leaving off his revolver. A pocketknife for +whittling would be about all the armament a man would need in Ascalon +from that time forward.</p> + +<p>Earl Gray was leaning on one long leg in the door of his drug-store, oil +on his fluffy brown hair. He was melancholy and downcast, plainly +resentful in his bearing toward Morgan as the contriver of this business +stagnation. He swept his hand around the emptiness of the town as Morgan +drew near, giving voice to his contemplation.</p> + +<p>"Look at it—not a dime been spent around this square this morning! I +ain't sold but one box of pills in two days! If it wasn't for the little +trade in t'backer and cigars of a night when the cowboys come in, I'd +have to lock up and leave. I will anyhow—I can see it a-comin'."</p> + +<p>Morgan leaned against the building close by the door, the indolence of +the day over him. There was nothing to do but hear the dying town's +complaint. He was not a doctor; he had nothing to prescribe. He realized +that the merchants had been hit har<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span>d by this sudden paralysis. It would +not have been so much like disaster if the town had been left to die in +its own way, as time and change would have attended to more slowly.</p> + +<p>Morgan could not tell Druggist Gray, whose trade in pills had come to a +standstill; he could not tell the hardware merchant, whose traffic in +firearms and ammunition had fallen away; he could not explain to the +proprietor of the Santa Fé café, or any of the other merchants of the +town who had come to regret their one spasm of virtue, induced by fear, +that he had not considered either their prosperity or their loss when he +closed up the saloons and gambling-houses and drove the proscribed of +the law away. They were squealing now, exactly as he had known they +would squeal in spite of their assurance before the event. Let them +squeal, let them stagnate, let dust settle on their wares that no man +came to buy.</p> + +<p>For the security of somebody's sleep, for the tranquillity of somebody's +dreams; for the peace of two brown eyes, for the safety of a short +little white hand, strong and comforting just to see—for these, for +these alone, he had closed up the riotous places and swept away like a +purging fire the chaff and pestilence of Ascalon. He could not tell them +this. Even her he could not tell.</p> + +<p>Earl Gray, giving off perfume to the hot winds, was pursuing his +complaint.</p> + +<p>"The undertaker's packin' up to leave, goin' to ship his stock today. I +wish I could go with him, but a man's got to have a place to light +before he starts out with a drug stock."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't suppose anybody's sorry to see him go," Morgan said. "I think +it's a good sign."</p> + +<p>"They'll bury each other, as I told him, and they'll drug each other +with mullein tea, as I told him the other day," Gray said, +acrimoniously. "Yes, and they'll be eatin' each other before spring! I'd +like to know what they're goin' to live on, the few that's left in this +town—a little cow-punchin', a little clerkin' in the courthouse and +gittin' jury and witness fees. That won't keep no town alive."</p> + +<p>"Judge Thayer's got a big colonization project going that looks good, he +says. If he puts it through things will begin to pick up."</p> + +<p>"Them Mennonites, I guess. They ain't the kind of people a man wants to +see come in here—whiskers all over 'em, never sell 'em a cake of +shavin' soap or a razor from Christmas to doomsday. Them fellers don't +shave, they never shave; they grow up from the cradle with whiskers all +over 'em."</p> + +<p>"They'll need horse liniment, and stuff like that."</p> + +<p>"There might be a livin' here for a drug-store if settlers begun to come +in," Gray admitted, picking up a little hope. "They say this sod gives +off fevers and chills when it's broke up. Something poison in it."</p> + +<p>Tom Conboy was on the sidewalk before his door, casting his eyes up and +down the street as if on the lookout for somebody that owed him a bill. +He was in bed when Morgan left the hotel on his early round, and there +was a look about him still of fustiness and the cobwebs of sleep.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span></p> +<p>"If a man was to take a sack of meal and empty it, and spread the sack +down flat, he'd have something like this man's town's got to be," Conboy +complained. "Dead, not a breath left in it. I saw a couple of buzzards +sailin' around over the square a while ago. I've been lookin' to see +them light on the courthouse tower."</p> + +<p>"It is a little quiet, but they all say it will begin to pick up in a +day or two," Morgan prevaricated, with a view to reeling him out, having +no other diversion.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what it's goin' to pick up on," Conboy sighed. "Two for +breakfast outside of the regulars. I used to have twenty to thirty-five +up to a week ago."</p> + +<p>"Court will convene next month," Morgan reminded him by way of cheer.</p> + +<p>"It'll bring a few," Conboy allowed, "not many, and all of them big +eaters. You don't make anything off of a man that rides thirty or forty +miles before breakfast when you sit him down to a twenty-five cent +meal."</p> + +<p>Morgan said he was not a hotel man, but it seemed pretty plain even to +him that there could be no wide border of profit in any such +transaction.</p> + +<p>"No, it was those night-working men, dealers, bartenders, and that +crowd, that were the light and profitable eaters. A man that drinks +heavy all night don't get up with a thirty-mile appetite in him next +day. Well, they're gone; they'll never come back to this man's town."</p> + +<p>"You were one of the men that wanted the town cleaned up."</p> + +<p>"No niggers in Ireland, now, Morgan—no-o-o niggers in Ire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span>land!"</p> + +<p>Conboy made a warning of his peculiar expression, as if he halted Morgan +on ground that was dangerous to advance over as far as another word. It +was impressive, almost threatening, given in his deep voice, with grave +eye and face suddenly stern, but Morgan knew that it was all on the +outside.</p> + +<p>"Cowboys don't any more than hit the ground here till they hop on their +horses and leave," Conboy continued. "Nothing to entertain them, no +interest for a live man in a dead town, where the only drink he can get +is out of the well. There was just three horses tied along the square +last night, where there used to be fifty or a hundred. I'll have to +leave this man's town; I can't stand the pressure."</p> + +<p>"A man with a little nerve ought to swallow his present losses for his +future gains," Morgan said, beginning to grow tired of this whining.</p> + +<p>"If I could see any future gains comin' my way I'd gamble on them with +any man," Conboy returned with some spirit. "I'm goin' over to Glenmore +this afternoon and see what it looks like there. That's the comin' town, +it seems to me; good crops over there in the valley, no cattle starvin'. +They may bend the railroad around to touch that town, too—they're +talkin' of it. That's sure to happen if Glenmore wins the county seat +this fall. Then you'll see skids put under every house in this town and +moved over there. Ascalon will be a name some of us old-timers will +remember twenty years from now, and that's all."</p> + +<p>"If Judge Thayer and the railroad colonization a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span>gent put through a big +deal they've got going, I don't see why this town shouldn't pick up +again on a healthy business foundation," Morgan said.</p> + +<p>"Them Pennsylvania Dutch?" Conboy scoffed. "They're not the kind of +people that ever stay in a hotel, they carry their blankets with 'em and +flop down under their wagons like Indians. When they come to town they +bring a basket of grub along, they don't spend money for a meal in any +man's hotel. You put Pennsylvania Dutch into this country and there'll +never be another coroner's jury called!"</p> + +<p>Morgan knocked the ashes out of his short, clubby little pipe, put it in +his shirt pocket behind his badge, and went on. He paused at the door of +the <i>Headlight</i> office to look within, hoping to see a face that had +been missing since the night of his great tragedy. Only Riley Caldwell, +the printer, was there, working furiously, as if fired by an ambition +that Ascalon, dead or alive, could not much longer contain. The +droop-shouldered alpaca coat once worn by the editor now dead, hung +beside the desk, like the hull he had cast when he took flight away from +the troubles of his much-harassed life.</p> + +<p>Only the day before Judge Thayer had told Morgan that Rhetta was still +at Stilwell's ranch, whither she had gone to compose herself after the +strain of so much turmoil. Morgan could only feel that she had gone +there to avoid him, shrinking from the sight of his face.</p> + +<p>There was not much warmth in Morgan's reception by the business men of +Ascalon around the square that morning, hot as the weather was. It +seemed as if some messenger had gone before him crying his coming, as a +jaybird goes setting up an ala<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span>rm from tree to tree before the squirrel +hunter in the woods.</p> + +<p>Earnest as their solicitations had been for him to assume the office of +marshal, voluble as their protestations in the face of fear and +insecurity of life and property that they would accept the result +without a whimper, there were only a few who stood by their pledges like +men. These were the merchants of solider character, whose dealings were +with the cattlemen and homesteaders. The hope of these merchants was in +the coming of more homesteaders, according to Judge Thayer's dream. They +were the true patriots and pioneers.</p> + +<p>While these few commended Morgan's stringent application of the letter +and spirit of the state and town laws, their encouragement was only a +flickering candle in the general gloom of the place. Morgan knew the +grunters were saying behind his back that he had gone too far, farther +than their expectations or instructions. All they had expected of him +was that he knock off the raw edges, suppress the too evident, abate the +promiscuous banging around of guns by every bunch of cowboys that +arrived or left, and to cut down a little on the killing, at least +confine it to the unprofitable class.</p> + +<p>They admitted they didn't want the cowboys killed off the way Craddock +had been doing it, giving the town a bad name. But to shut the saloons +all up, to go and shoot Peden down that way and kill the town with him, +that was more than they had given him license for. So they growled +behind his back, afraid of him as they feared lightning, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span>out any +ground for such fear in the world.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer appeared to be the only man in town who was genuinely happy +over the result of Morgan's sweeping out the encumbering rubbish that +blocked the country's progress by its noisome notoriety. But through all +the judge's glow of gratitude for duty well done, Morgan was conscious +of a peculiar aloofness, not exactly fear such as was unmistakable in +many others, but a withdrawing, as if something had fallen between them +and changed their relations man to man.</p> + +<p>Morgan knew that it was the blood of slain men. He was to this man, and +to another of far greater consequence to Morgan's peace and happiness, +like a pitcher that had been defiled.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer's friendliness was unabated, but it was the sort of +friendliness that did not offer the hand, or touch the arm when walking +by Morgan's side, as in the early hours of their acquaintance. Useful +this man, to the work that must be done in this place to make it fit, +and safe, and secure for property and life, but unclean. That was what +Judge Thayer's attitude proclaimed, as plainly as printed words.</p> + +<p>This morning when Judge Thayer encountered Morgan on the street, not far +from the little catalpa tree that was having a bitter struggle against +wind and drouth, he invited the city marshal to accompany him to his +office. News that would tickle his ears, he said; big news.</p> + +<p>The biggest of this big news was that the railroad company <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span>was going to +establish a division point there at once. The railroad officials had +given Judge Thayer to understand, directly, that this decision had come +as a result of the town waking up and shedding its leprous skin. They +felt that it would be a safe place for their employees to live now, with +the pitfalls closed, the temptations removed. And the credit, Judge +Thayer owned, was Morgan's alone.</p> + +<p>But there was more news. The eastern immigration agents of the railroad +were spreading the news of Ascalon's pacification with gratifying +result. Already parties of Illinois and Indiana farmers, who had been +looking to that country for a good while, were preparing to come out and +scout for locations.</p> + +<p>"They're getting tired of farming that high-priced land, Morgan. They're +wearing it out, it costs them more for fertilizers than they take off of +it. They're coming here, where a man can plow a furrow forty miles long, +we tell them—and it's the gospel truth, a hundred miles, or two hundred +if he wanted to—and never hit a stump."</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer got up at that point, and stood in his door looking at the +dull sky sullen with heat; looking at the glimmer that rose like +impalpable smoke from the hard surface of the cracked, baked earth.</p> + +<p>"But I wish we could get a good rain before they begin to come," he +sighed, "and I think—" cautiously, with a sly wink at Morgan—"we're +going to get it. I've got a man here right now working on it, along +scientific principles, Morgan—entirely scientific."</p> + +<p>"A rainmaker?" said Morgan, his incredulity plain in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span> his tone.</p> + +<p>"He came to me highly recommended by bankers and others in Nebraska, +where he undoubtedly brought rain, and in Texas, where the proof is +indisputable. But I'm doing it solely on my own account," Judge Thayer +hastened to explain, "carrying the cost alone. He's under contract to +bring a copious rain not later than seven days from today."</p> + +<p>"What's the bill?" Morgan asked, amused by this man's eager credulity.</p> + +<p>"One hundred dollars on account, four hundred to be paid the day he +delivers the rain—provided that he delivers it within the specified +time. I've bound him up in a contract."</p> + +<p>"I think he'll win," said Morgan, drily, looking meaningly at the murky +sky.</p> + +<p>"It's founded on science, pure science, Morgan," Judge Thayer declared, +warmly. "I'm telling you this in confidence, not another soul in town +knows it outside of my own family. We'll keep it a pleasant secret—I +want to give the farmers and cattlemen of this valley the present of a +surprise. When the proper time comes I'll announce the responsible +agency, I'll show that crowd over at Glenmore where the progressive +people of this county live, I'll prove to the doubters and knockers +where the county seat belongs!"</p> + +<p>"It's a great scheme," Morgan admitted. "How does the weather doctor +work?"</p> + +<p>"Chemicals," Judge Thayer whispered, mysteriously; "sends up vapors day +and night, invisible, mainly, but potent, causing, as near as I can +come to it from his explanation—which is technical and thoroughly +scientific, Morgan—" this severe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span>ly, as if to rebuke the grin that +dawned on Morgan's face. "Causing, as near as I can come to it, a +dispersion of the hot belt of atmosphere, this superheated belt that +encircles the globe in this spot like a flame of fire, causing a break +in this belt, so to speak, drilling a hole in it, bringing down the +upper frigid air."</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer looked with triumph at Morgan when he delivered this, +sweating a great deal, as if the effort to elucidate this scientific +man's methods of conspiring against nature to beat it out of a rain were +equal to a ten-mile walk in the summer sun.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said Morgan, with more respect in his voice and manner than +he felt. "And then what happens?"</p> + +<p>"Why, when the cold and the hot currents meet, condensation is the +natural result," said the judge. "Plain, simple, scientific as a +fiddle."</p> + +<p>"Just about," said Morgan.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer passed it, either ignoring it as a fling beneath the notice +of a scientific man, or not catching the note of ridicule.</p> + +<p>"He's at work in my garden now," he said, "sending up his invisible +vapors. I want to center the downpour from the heavens over this +God-favored spot, right over this God-favored spot of Ascalon."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2><h3>ASCALON CURLS ITS LIP</h3> +</div> + +<p>It was the marvel and regret of people who made their adventures +vicariously, and lived the thrill of them by reading the newspapers, +that Ascalon had come to a so sudden and unmistakable end of its +romance. For a little while there was hope that it might rise against +this Cromwell who had reached out a long arm and silenced it; for a few +days there was satisfaction in reading of this man's exploits in this +wickedest of all wicked towns, for newspapers sent men to study him, and +interview him, and write of his conquest of Ascalon on the very battle +ground.</p> + +<p>Little enough they got out of Morgan, who met them kindly and talked of +the agricultural future of the country lying almost unpeopled beyond the +notorious little city's door. Such as they learned of his methods of +taming a lawless community they got from looser tongues than the city +marshal's.</p> + +<p>Even from Chicago and St. Louis these explorers among the fallen temples +of adventure came, some of them veterans who had talked with Jesse James +in his day but recently come to a close. They waited around a few days +for the shot that would remove this picturesque crusader, not believing, +any more than the rest of the world, including Ascalon itself, believed +that this state of quiescence could prevail without end.</p> + +<p>While they waited, sending off long stories by telegraph to their +papers every night, they saw the exodus of the proscribed begin, +increase, and end. The night-flitting women went first, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span>urged away by +the necessities of the flaccid fish which lived upon their shame. The +gamblers and gamekeepers followed close behind.</p> + +<p>A little while the small saloon-keepers who had nosed the floor and +licked up the crumbs which fell from Peden's bar hung around, hoping +that it was a flurry that would soon subside. They had big eyes for +future prosperity, the overlord being now out of the way, and talked +excitedly among themselves, even approached Morgan through an emissary +with proposals of a handsome subsidy.</p> + +<p>But when they saw a Kansas City gambler come and strip Peden's hall of +its long bar and furnishings, of its faro tables and doctored roulette +wheels, load them all on a car and ship them to his less notorious but +safer town, they knew it was the end. Ascalon had fallen with its most +notable man, never to rise up again.</p> + +<p>The last of the correspondents left on the evening of the day that Judge +Thayer set the rainmaker to work. He sent the obituary of Ascalon, as he +believed, ahead of him by wire.</p> + +<p>Not that Ascalon was as dead as it appeared on the surface, or the +gamblers would make it out to be. True, the undertaker's business had +gone, and he with it; Druggist Gray's trade in the bromides and +restoratives in demand after debauches, and repairs for bunged heads +after the nightly carousels, had fallen away to nothing; the Elkhorn +hotel and the Santa Fé café were feeding few, and the dealers in +vanities and fancies, punctured hosiery, lacy waists, must pack up and +follow those upon whom they had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span>prospered.</p> + +<p>But there was as much business as before in lumber and hardware, +implements, groceries, and supplies for the cattle ranches and the many +settlers who were arriving without solicitation or proclamation and +establishing themselves to build success upon the ruins of failure left +by those who had gone before.</p> + +<p>It was only the absence of the wastrels and those who preyed upon them, +and the quiet of nights after raucous revelry, that made the place seem +dead. Ascalon was as much alive as any town of its kind that had no more +justification for being in the beginning. It had more houses than it +could use now, since so many of its population had gone; empty stores +were numerous around the square, and more would be seen very soon. The +fair was over, the holiday crowd was gone. That was all.</p> + +<p>Rhetta Thayer came back the same evening the last correspondent faced +away from Ascalon. Morgan saw her in the <i>Headlight</i> office, where she +worked late that night to overtake her accumulated affairs, her pretty +head bent over a litter of proofs. Her door stood open as he passed, but +he hastened by softly, and did not return that way again.</p> + +<p>He felt that she had gone away from Ascalon on his account, fearful that +she would meet him with blood fresh upon his hands. The attitude of +Judge Thayer was but a faint reflection of her own, he was sure. It was +best that they should not meet again, for blood had blotted out what +had seemed the beginning of a tender regard between them. That was at an +end.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span></p> + +<p>During the next few days little was seen of Morgan in Ascalon. When he +was not riding on long excursions into the outlying country he could +have been found, if occasion had arisen demanding his presence on the +square, in the station agent's office at the depot. There he spent hours +hearing the little agent, whose head was as bald as a grasshopper's, +nothing but a pale fringe from ear to ear at the back of his neck, +recount the experiences that had fallen in his way during his +five-years' occupancy of that place.</p> + +<p>This period covered the most notorious history of the town. In that +time, according to the check the agent had kept on them, no fewer than +fifty-nine men had met violent death on the street and in the caves of +vice in Ascalon. This man also noted keenly every arrival in these slack +days, duly reporting them all to Morgan, for whom he had a genuine +friendship and respect. So there was little chance of anybody slipping +in to set a new brewing of trouble over the dying embers of that +stamped-out fire.</p> + +<p>Morgan avoided the <i>Headlight</i> office, for there was a sensitive spot in +his heart that Rhetta's abhorrence of him hurt keenly. But more than +that he had the thought of sparing her the embarrassment of a meeting, +even of his shadow passing her door.</p> + +<p>Twice he saw her at a distance in the street, and once she stood waiting +as if to speak to him. But the memory of her face at Peden's door that +night was with him always; he could not believe she would seek a +meeting out of a spontaneous and honest desire to see him. Only because +their lives were thrown together for a little while in that dice-box of +fate, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span>nd avoidance seemed studied and a thing that might set foolish +tongues clapping, she paused and looked his way as if waiting for him to +approach. She was serving convention, not with a wish of her heart. So +he believed, and turned the other way.</p> + +<p>Cattlemen from the range at hand, and several from Texas who had driven +their herds to finish on the far-famed Kansas grass for the fall market, +were loading great numbers of cattle in Ascalon every day. The drouth +was driving them to this sacrifice. Lean as their cattle were, they +would be leaner in a short time.</p> + +<p>This activity brought scores of cowboys to town daily. Under the old +order business would have been lively at night, when most of the +herdsmen were at leisure. As it was, they trooped curiously around the +square, some of them who had looked forward on the long drive to a +hilarious blowout at the trail's end resentfully sarcastic, but the +greater number humorously disposed to make the most of it.</p> + +<p>Sober, these men of the range were very much like reservation Indians in +town on a holiday. They walked slowly around and around the square, +looking at everything closely, saying little, to dispose themselves +along the edge of the sidewalk after a while and smoke. There were no +fights, nobody let off a gun. When Morgan passed them on his quiet +rounds, they nudged each other, and looked after him with low comments, +for his fame had gone far in a little while.</p> + +<p>These men had no quarrel with Morgan, disapp<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span>ointed of their revelry, +thirsty after their long waiting, sour as some of them were over finding +this oasis of their desert dry. They only looked on him with silent +respect. Nobody cared to provoke him; it was wise to give the road when +a fellow met that man. So they talked among themselves, somewhat +disappointed to find that Morgan was not carrying his rifle about with +him these peaceful days, unusual weapon for a gun-fighting man in that +country.</p> + +<p>In this way, with considerable coming and going through its doors, yet +all in sobriety and peace, Ascalon passed the burning, rainless summer +days. But not without a little cheer in the hard glare of the parching +range, not without a laugh and a chuckle, and a grin behind the hand. +The town knew all about the rainmaker at work behind the shielding rows +of tall corn in Judge Thayer's garden. An undertaking of such scope was +too big to sequester in any man's back yard.</p> + +<p>Whether the rainmaker believed in his formula, or whether he was a plain +fraud who was a little sharper on weather conditions than most men, and +good on an estimate of a drouth's duration, he seemed to be doing +something to earn his money. Day and night he kept something burning in +a little tin stove with a length of pipe that came just above the corn, +sending up a smoke that went high toward the cloudless sky before the +wind began to blow in the early morning hours, and after it ceased at +evening, after its established plan. During the day this smoke dispersed +very generally over town, causing some coughing and sneezing, and not a +little swearing and scoffing.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span></p> +<p>Sulphur, mainly, the doctor and Druggist Gray pronounced the chemical to +be. It was a sacrilege, the Baptist preacher declared, an offering to +Satan, from the smell of it, rather than a scientific assault upon the +locked heavens to burst open the windows and let out a dash of rain. If +the effort of the mysterious stranger brought anything at all, it would +bring disaster, the preacher declared. A cyclone, very likely, and +lightning, in expression of the Almighty's wrath.</p> + +<p>Those who did not accept it wrathfully, as the preacher, or resentfully, +as Druggist Gray, from whom the experimenter bought none of his +chemicals, or humorously, as the doctor and many of higher intelligence, +had a sort of sneaking hope that something might come of it. If the rain +man could stir up a commotion and fetch a soaker, it would be the +salvation of that country. The range would revive, streams would flow, +water would come again into dry wells, and the new farmers who had come +in would be given hope to hang on another year and by their trade keep +Ascalon from perishing utterly.</p> + +<p>But mainly the disposition was to laugh. Judge Thayer was a well-meaning +man, but easy. He believed he was bringing a doctor in to cure the +country's sickness, where all of his hopes were staked out in town lots, +when he had brought only a quack. A hundred dollars, even if the faker +made no more, was pretty good pay for seven days' work, they said. A +dollar's worth of sulphur would cover his expenses. And if it happened +to turn out a good guess, and a rain did blow up on time, Judge Thayer +was just fool enough to give the fellow a letter that would help him p<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span>ut +his fraud through in another place.</p> + +<p>It did not appear, as the days passed, that the rainmaker was driving +much of a hole in the hot air that pressed down upon that tortured land. +No commotion was apparent in the upper regions, no cloud lifted to cut +off for an hour the shafts of the fierce sun. Ascalon lay panting, +exhausted, dry as tow, the dust of driven herds blowing through its +bare, bleak streets.</p> + +<p>Gradually, as dry burning day succeeded the one in all particulars like +it that had gone before, what little hope the few had in Judge Thayer's +weather doctor evaporated and passed away. Those who had scoffed at the +beginning jeered louder now, making a triumph of it. The Baptist +preacher said the evil of meddling in the works of the Almighty was +becoming apparent in the increasing severity of the hot wind. Ascalon, +for its sins past and its sacrilege of the present, was to writhe and +scorch and wither from the face of the earth.</p> + +<p>For all this, interest in the rainmaker's efforts did not lax. People +sniffed his smoke, noting every change in its flavor, and pressed around +Judge Thayer's garden fence trying to get a look at the operations. +Judge Thayer was not a little indignant over the scoffings and +denunciations, and this impertinent curiosity to pry upon what he gave +them to understand was his own private venture.</p> + +<p>Keep off a safe distance from this iniquitous business, he warned with +sarcasm; don't lean on the fence and risk the wrath of the Almighty. +Let the correction of Providence fall on his own shoulders, which had +been carrying the sins of Ascalon a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span>long time; don't get so close as to +endanger their wise heads under the blow. At the same time he gave them +to understand that if any rain came of the efforts of his weather doctor +it would be his, the judge's, own private and individual rain, wrung +from denying nature by science, and that science paid for by the judge's +own money.</p> + +<p>The scoffers laughed louder at this, the sniffers wrinkled their noses a +little more. But the Baptist preacher only shook his head, the hot wind +blowing his wide overalls against his thin legs.</p> + +<p>Morgan stood aloof from doubters, hopers, scoffers, and all, saying no +word for or against the rainmaker. Every morning now he took a ride into +the country, to the mystification of the town, coming back before the +heat mounted to its fiercest, always on hand at night to guard against +any outbreak of violence among the visitors.</p> + +<p>There were not a few in town who watched him away each morning in the +hope that something would overtake him and prevent his return; many more +who felt their hearts sink as he rode by their doors with the fear that +each ride would be his last. Out there in the open some enemy might be +lying behind a clump of tangled briars. These women's prayers went with +the city marshal as he rode.</p> + +<p>On a certain morning Morgan overtook Joe Lynch, driving toward town with +his customary load of bones. Morgan walked his horse beside Joe's wagon +to chat with him, finding always a charm of originality and rather more +than superficial thinking about the old fellow that was refreshing in +the int<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span>ellectual stagnation of the town.</p> + +<p>"Is that rain-crow feller still workin' over in town?" Joe inquired as +soon as greetings had passed.</p> + +<p>"I suppose he is, I don't believe his seven days are up yet."</p> + +<p>"This is his sixth, I'm keepin' notches on him. I thought maybe he'd +skinned out. Do you think he'll be able to fetch it?"</p> + +<p>"I hope he can, but I've got my doubts, Joe."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and I've got more than doubts. Science is all right, I reckon, as +fur as I ever heard, but no science ain't able to rake up clouds in the +sky like you'd rake up hay in a field and fetch on a rain. Even if they +did git the clouds together, how're they goin' to split 'em open and let +the rain out?"</p> + +<p>"That would be something of a job," Morgan admitted.</p> + +<p>"You've got to have lightnin' to bust 'em, and no science that ever was +can't make lightnin', I'm here to tell you, son. If some feller <i>did</i> +happen on how it was done, what do you reckon'd become of that man?"</p> + +<p>"Why, they do make it, Joe—they make it right over at Ascalon, keep it +in jars under that table at the depot. Didn't you ever see it?"</p> + +<p>"That ain't the same stuff," Joe said, with high disdain, almost +contempt. "Wire lightnin' and sky lightnin' ain't no more alike than +milk's like whisky. Well, say that science <i>did</i> make up a batch of sky +lightnin'—but I ain't givin' in it can be done—how air they goin' to +git up to the clouds, how're they goin' to make it do the bustin' at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span> +right time?"</p> + +<p>"That's more than I can tell you, Joe. It's too deep for me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, or any other man. They'd let it go all at once and cause a +waterspout, that's about what they'd do, and between a waterspout and a +dry spell, give me the dry spell!"</p> + +<p>"I never was in one, but I've seen 'em tearin' up the hills."</p> + +<p>"Then you know what they air. It'd suit me right up to the han'le if +this feller could bring a rain, for I tell you I never saw so much +sufferin' and misery as these settlers are goin' through out here on +this cussid pe-rairie right now. Some of these folks is haulin' water +from the river as much as thirty mile!"</p> + +<p>"I notice all the creeks and branches are dry. But it's only a little +way to plenty of water all over this country if they'll dig. Some of +them have put down wells during this dry spell and hit all the water +they need. There's a sheet of water flowing under this country from the +mountains in Colorado."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you git out!"</p> + +<p>"Just the same as the Arkansas River, only spread out for miles," Morgan +insisted. "A drouth here doesn't mean anything to that water supply; +I've been riding around over this country trying to show people that. +Most of them think I'm crazy—till they dig."</p> + +<p>"I don't guess you're cracked yit," Joe allowed, "but you will be if you +stay in this country. If it wasn't for the bones you wouldn't find me +hangin' around here—I'd make for Wyoming. They tell me there's any +amount of bones that's neve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span>r been touched up in that country."</p> + +<p>"I noticed several other wagons out gathering bones. They'll soon clean +them up here, Joe."</p> + +<p>"They're all takin' to it," Joe said, with the resentment of a man who +feels competition, "hornin' in on my business, what's mine by rights of +bein' the first man to go into it in this blame country. Let 'em—let +'em run their teams down scourin' around after bones—I'll be here to +pick up the remains of 'em all. I was here first, I've stuck through the +rushes of them fellers that's come into this country and dried up, and +I'll be here when this crowd of 'em dries up. Them fellers haul in bones +and trade 'em at the store for flour and meal, they don't git half out +of 'em what I do out of mine, and they're hurtin' the business, drivin' +it down to nothin'."</p> + +<p>"Hotter than usual this morning," Morgan remarked, not so much +interested in bones and the competition of bones.</p> + +<p>"Wind's dying down; I noticed that some time ago. Goin' to leave us to +sizzle without any fannin'. Ruther have it that way, myself. This +eternal wind dries a man's brains up after a while. I'd say, if I was +anywhere else, it was fixin' up to rain."</p> + +<p>"Or for a cyclone."</p> + +<p>"Too late in the season for 'em," Joe declared, not willing to grant +even that diversion to the drouth-plagued land of bones.</p> + +<p>Joe reverted to the bones; he could not keep away from b<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span>ones. There was +not much philosophy in him today, not much of anything but a plaint and +a denunciation of competition in bones. Morgan thought the wind must be +having its effect on Joe's brains; they seemed to be so hydrated that +morning they would have rattled against his skull. Morgan considered +riding on and leaving him, at the risk of giving offense, dismissing the +notion when they rose a hill and looked down on Ascalon not more than a +mile away.</p> + +<p>"I believe there's a cloud coming up over there," said Morgan, pointing +to the southwest.</p> + +<p>"Which?" said Joe, rousing as briskly as if he had been doused with a +bucket of water. "Cloud? No, that ain't no cloud. That's dust. More wind +behind that, a regular sand storm. Ever been through one of 'em?"</p> + +<p>"In Nebraska," Morgan replied, with detached attention, watching what he +still believed to be a cloud lifting above the hazy horizon.</p> + +<p>"Nothin' like the sand storms in this country," Joe discounted, never +willing to yield one point in derogative comparison between that land +and any other. "Feller told me one time he saw it blow sand so hard here +it started in wearin' a knot hole in the side of his shanty in the +evenin', and by mornin' the whole blame shack was gone. Eat them boards +up clean, that feller said. Didn't leave nothin' but the nails. But I +always thought he was stretchin' it a little," Joe added, not a gleam of +humor to be seen anywhere in the whole surface of his wind-dried face.</p> + +<p>"That's a cloud, all right," Morgan insisted, passing the reduction by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span> +attrition of the settler's shack.</p> + +<p>"Cloud?" said Joe, throwing up his head with renewed alertness. He +squinted a little while into the southwest. "Bust my hub if it <i>ain't</i> a +cloud! Comin' up, too—comin' right along. Say, do you reckon that +rain-crow feller brought that cloud up from somewheres?"</p> + +<p>"He didn't have anything to do with it," Morgan assured him, grinning a +little over the quick shift in the old man's attitude, for there was awe +in his voice.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't reckon," said Joe thoughtfully, "but it looks kind of +suspicious."</p> + +<p>The cloud was lifting rapidly, as summer storms usually come upon that +unprotected land, sullen in its threat of destruction rather than +promise of relief. A great dark fleece rolled ahead of the green-hued +rain curtain, the sun bright upon it, the hush of its oncoming over the +waiting earth. No breath of wind stirred, no movement of nature +disturbed the silent waiting of the dusty land, save the lunging of +foolish grasshoppers among the drooping, withered sunflowers beside the +road as the travelers passed.</p> + +<p>"I'm goin' to see if I can make it to town before she hits," said Joe, +lashing out with his whip. "Lordy! ain't it a comin'!"</p> + +<p>"I think I'll ride on," said Morgan, feeling a natural desire for +shelter against that grim-faced storm.</p> + +<p>The oncoming cloud had swept its flank across the sun before Morgan rode +into town, and in the purple shadow of its threat people stood before +their houses, watching it unfold. In Judge Thayer's garden—it was the +house Morgan had fixed on that first morning of his exploration—the +rainmaker was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span> firing up vigorously, sending up a smoke of such density +as he had not employed in his labors before. This black column rose but +a little way, where it flattened against the cool current that was +setting in ahead of the storm, and whirled off over the roofs of Ascalon +to mock the scoffers who had laughed in their day.</p> + +<p>Morgan stabled his horse and went to the square, where many of the +town's inhabitants were gathered, all faces tilted to watch the storm. +Judge Thayer was there, glorifying in the success of his undertaking, +sparing none of those who had mocked him for a sucker and a fool. A cool +breath of reviving wind was moving, fresh, sweet, rain-scented; as +hopeful, as life-giving, as a reprieve to one chained among faggots at +the stake of intolerance.</p> + +<p>"It looks like you're going to win, Judge," Morgan said.</p> + +<p>"Win? I've won! Look at it, pourin' rain over at Glenmore, the advance +of it not three miles from here! It'll be here inside of five minutes, +rainin' pitchforks."</p> + +<p>But it did not happen so. The rain appeared to have taken to dallying on +the way, in spite of the thickening of clouds over Ascalon. Straining +faces, green-tinted in the gloomy shadow of the overhanging cloud, +waited uplifted for the first drops of rain; the dark outriders of the +storm wheeled and mingled, turned and rolled, low over the dusty roofs; +lightning rived the rain curtain that swept the famished earth, so near +at hand that the sensitive could feel it in their hair; deep thunder +sent its tremor through the ground, jarring the windows of Ascalon that +ha<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span>d looked in their day upon storms of human passion which were but +insect strife to this.</p> + +<p>Yet not a drop of rain fell on roof, on trampled way, on waiting face, +on outstretched hand, in all of Ascalon.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer was seen hurrying from the square, making for home and the +weather doctor, who was about to let the rain escape.</p> + +<p>"He's goin' to head it off," said one of the scoffers to Morgan, +beginning to feel a return of his exultation.</p> + +<p>"It's goin' to miss us," said Druggist Gray, his head thrown back, his +Adam's apple like an elbow of stovepipe in his thin neck.</p> + +<p>"We may get a good shower out of one end of it," Conboy still hoped, +pulling for the rain as he might have boosted for a losing horse.</p> + +<p>"Nothing more than a sprinkle, if that much," said the station agent, +shaking his head, which he had bared to the cool wind.</p> + +<p>"He's got him firin' up like he was tryin' to hive a swarm of bees," one +reported, coming from the seat of scientific labors.</p> + +<p>"It's breakin', it's passin' by us—we'll not get a drop of it!"</p> + +<p>So it appeared. Overhead the swirling clouds were passing on; in the +distance the thunder was fainter. The wind began to freshen from the +track of the rain, the pigeons came out of the courthouse tower for a +look around, light broke through the thinning clouds.</p> + +<p>Not more than a mile or two southward of Ascalon the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span>rain was falling in +a torrent, the roar of it still quite plain in the ears of those whose +thirst for its cooling balm was to be denied. The rain was going on, +after soaking and reviving Glenmore, which place Judge Thayer would have +given a quarter of his possessions to have had it miss.</p> + +<p>A mockery, it seemed, a rebuke, a chastisement, the way nature conducted +that rain storm. Judge Thayer urged the rainmaker to his greatest +efforts to stop it, turn it, bring it back; smoke green and black went +up in volumes, to stream away on the cool, refreshing wind. Sulphur and +rosin and pitch were identified in that smoke as surely as the spectrum +reveals the composition of the sun. But the wind was against the +rainmaker; nature conspired to mock him before men as the quack that he +was.</p> + +<p>The gloom of storm cleared from the streets of Ascalon, the worn and +tired look came back into faces that had been illumined for a little +while with hope. Farther away, fainter, the thunder sounded, dimmer the +murmur of the withdrawing rain.</p> + +<p>The cool wind still blew like whispered consolation for a great, a +pangful loss, but it could not soften the hard hearts of those who had +stood with lips to the fountain of life and been denied. The people +turned again to their pursuits, their planning, their gathering of +courage to hold them up against the blaze of sun which soon must break +upon them for a parching season again. The dust lay deep under their +feet, gray on their roofs where shingles curled like autumn leaves in +the sun. The rainmaker sent up his vain, his fatuous, foolish, +infinitesimal breath of smoke. The rain went on its way.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span></p> + +<p>"Aw, hell!" said Ascalon, in its derisive, impious way; "Aw, hell!"</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2><h3>MADNESS OF THE WINDS</h3> +</div> + +<p>Ascalon's temper was not improved by the close passing of the rain, +which had refreshed but a small strip of that almost limitless land. The +sun came out as hot as before, the withering wind blew from the +southwest plaguing and distorting the fancy of men. Everybody in town +seemed sulky and surly, ready to snap at a word. The blight of +contention and strife seemed to be its heritage, the seed of violence +and destruction to be sown in the drouth-cursed soil.</p> + +<p>The judgment of men warped in that ceaseless wind, untempered by green +of bough overhead or refreshing turf under foot. There was no justice in +their hearts, and no mercy. Morgan himself did not escape this infection +of ill humor that rose out of the hard-burned earth, streamed on the hot +wind, struck into men's brains with the rays of the penetrating sun. Not +conscious of it, certainly, any more than the rest of them in Ascalon +were aware of their red-eyed resentment of every other man's foot upon +the earth. Yet Morgan was drilled by the boring sun until his view upon +life was aslant. Resentment, a stranger to him in his normal state, grew +in him, hard as a disintegrated stone; scorn for the ingratitude of +these people for whom he had imperiled his life rose in his eyes like a +flame.</p> + +<p>More than that, Morgan brooded a great deal on the defilement of blood +he had suffered there, and the alienation, real or fancied, that it had +brought of such friends as he valued in that town.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span> By an avoidance now +unmistakably mutual, Morgan and Rhetta Thayer had not met since the +night of Peden's fall.</p> + +<p>One thing only kept Morgan there in the position that had become +thankless in the eyes of those who had urged it upon him in the +beginning. That was the threatened vengeance of Peden's friends. He was +giving them time to come for their settlement; he felt that he could not +afford to be placed in the light of one who had fled before a threat. +But it seemed to him, on the evening of the second day after the rain +storm's passing, that he had waited long enough. The time had come for +him to go.</p> + +<p>There were a few cowboys in town that evening, and these as quiet as +buzzards on a fence as they sat along the sidewalk near the hotel +smoking their cigarettes. The wind had fallen, leaving a peace in the +ears like the cessation of a hateful turmoil. There was the promise of a +cool night in the unusual clearness of the stars. Morgan rode away into +the moonless night, leaving the town to take care of its own dignity and +peace.</p> + +<p>Morgan's thought was, as he rode away into the early night, to return +Stilwell's horse, come back to Ascalon next day, resign his office and +leave the country. Not that his faith in its resources, its future +greatness and productivity when men should have learned how to subdue +it, was broken or changed. His mind was of the same bent, but +circumstances had revised his plans. There was with him always, even in +his dreams, a white, horror-stricken face looking at him in the pain of +accusation, repulsion, complete abhorrence, where he stood in that plac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span>e +of blood.</p> + +<p>This was driving him away from the hopes he had warmed in his heart for +a day. Without the sweet flower he had hoped to fend and enjoy, that +land would be a waste to him. He could not forget in going away, but +distance and time might exorcise the spirit that attended him, and dim +away the accusing pain of that terrified face.</p> + +<p>Ascalon's curse of blood had descended to him; it was no mitigation in +her eyes that he had slain for her. But he had brought her security. +Although he had paid the tremendous price, he had given her nights of +peace.</p> + +<p>Even as this thought returned to him with its comfort, as it came always +like a cool breath to preserve his balance in the heat and turmoil of +his regret and pain, Rhetta Thayer came riding up the dim road.</p> + +<p>Her presence on that road at night was a greater testimonial to her +confidence in the security he had brought to Ascalon and its borders +than her tongue might have owned. She was riding unattended where, ten +days ago, she would not have ventured with a guard. It gave Morgan a +thrill of comfort to know how completely she trusted in the security he +had given her.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Morgan!" she said, recognizing him with evident relief. Then, +quickly, in lively concern. "Who's looking after things in town +tonight?"</p> + +<p>"I left things to run themselves," he told her quietly, but with +something in his voice that said things might go right or wrong for any +further concern he had of them.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span></p> +<p>"Well," she said, after a little silence, "I don't suppose you're needed +very much."</p> + +<p>"That's what the business men are saying," he told her, sarcasm in his +dry tone.</p> + +<p>"I don't mean it that way," she hastened to amend. "You've done us a +great service—we'll never be able to pay you——"</p> + +<p>"There isn't any pay involved," he interposed, almost roughly. "That's +what's worrying those nits around the square, they say they can't carry +a marshal's pay with business going to the devil since the town's +closed. Somebody ought to tell them. There never will be any bill."</p> + +<p>"You're too generous," she said, a little spontaneous warmth in her +voice.</p> + +<p>"Maybe I can live it down," he returned.</p> + +<p>"It's such a lovely cool night I couldn't stay in," she chatted on, +still laboring to be natural and at ease, not deceiving him by her +constraint at all, "after such a hard day fussing with that old paper. +We missed an issue the week—last week—we're getting out two in one +this time. Why haven't you been in? you seem to be in such a hurry +always."</p> + +<p>"I wanted to spare you what you can't see in the dark," he said, the +vindictive spirit of Ascalon's insanity upon him.</p> + +<p>"What I can't see in the dark?" she repeated, as if perplexed.</p> + +<p>"My face."</p> + +<p>"You shoul<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span>dn't say that," she chided, but not with the hearty sincerity +that a friend would like to hear. "Are you going back to town?"</p> + +<p>"I'll ride with you," he granted, feeling that for all her friendly +advances the shadow of his taint lay between them.</p> + +<p>They were three miles or more from town, the road running as straight as +a plumbline before them. A little way they jogged on slowly, nothing +said. Rhetta was the first to speak.</p> + +<p>"What made you run away from me that day I wanted to speak to you, Mr. +Morgan?"</p> + +<p>"Did you want to, or were you just—<i>did</i> you want to speak to me that +day, Miss Thayer?" Morgan's heart began to labor, his forehead to sweat, +so hard was the rebirth of hope.</p> + +<p>"And you turned right around and walked off!"</p> + +<p>"You can tell me now," he suggested, half choking on the commonplace +words, the tremor of his springing hope was so great.</p> + +<p>"I don't remember—oh, nothing in particular. But it looks so strange +for us—for you—to be dodging me—each other—that way, after we'd +<i>started</i> being friends before everybody."</p> + +<p>"Only for the sake of appearances," he said sadly. "I hoped—but you ran +away and hid for a week, you thought I was a monster."</p> + +<p>Foolish, perhaps, to cut down the little shoot of hope again, when a +gentle breath, a soft word, might have encouraged and supported it. But +it was out of his mouth, the fruit of his brooding days, in his +resentfulness of her injustice, her ingratitude for his sacrifice, as +he believed. He saw her turn from him, as if a revulsion of the old +feeling swept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span> her.</p> + +<p>"Don't judge me too harshly, Mr. Morgan," she appealed, still looking +away.</p> + +<p>Morgan was melted by her gentle word; the severity of the moment was +dissolved in a breath.</p> + +<p>"If we could go on as we began," he suggested, almost pleading in his +great desire.</p> + +<p>"Why, aren't we?" she asked, succeeding well, as a woman always can in +such a situation, in giving it a discouraging artlessness.</p> + +<p>"You know how they're kicking and complaining all around the square +because I've shut up the town, ruined business, brought calamity to +their doors as they see it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know."</p> + +<p>"They forget that they came to me with their hats in their hands and +asked me to do it. Joe Lynch says the hot wind has dried their reason up +like these prairie springs. I believe he's right. But I didn't shut the +town up for them, I didn't go out there with my gun like a savage and +shoot men down for them, Miss Thayer. If you knew how much you were——"</p> + +<p>"Don't—don't—Mr. Morgan, please!"</p> + +<p>"I think there's something in what Joe Lynch says about the wind," he +told her, leaning toward her, hand on the horn of her saddle. "It warps +men, it opens cracks in their minds like the shrunk lumber in the houses +of Ascalon. I think sometimes it's getting its work in on me, when I'm +lonesome and disappointed."</p> + +<p>"You ought to come in and t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span>alk with me and Riley sometimes."</p> + +<p>"I've often felt like going to them, whining around about the town being +killed," he went on, pursuing his theme as if she had not spoken, "and +telling them they didn't figure in my calculations at the beginning nor +come in for any of my consideration at the end—if this is the end. +There was only one person in my thoughts, that one person was Ascalon, +and all there was in it, and that was you. When I took the job that day, +I took it for you."</p> + +<p>"Not for me alone!" she hastened to disclaim, as one putting off an +unwelcome responsibility, unfriendly denial in her voice.</p> + +<p>"For you, and only you," he told her, earnestly. "If you knew how much +you were to me——"</p> + +<p>"Not for me alone—I was only one among all of them," she said, spurring +her horse in the vehemence of her disclaimer, causing it to start away +from Morgan with quick bound. She checked it, waiting for him to draw up +beside her again. "I'd hate to think, Mr. Morgan—oh, you can't want me +alone to take the responsibility for the killing of those men!"</p> + +<p>Morgan rode on in silence, head bent in humiliation, in the sad +disappointment that fell on him like a blow.</p> + +<p>"If it could have been done, if I could have brought peace and safety to +the women of Ascalon without bloodshed, I'd have done it. I wanted to +tell you, I tried to tell you——"</p> + +<p>"Don't—don't tell me any more, Mr. Morgan—please!"</p> + +<p>She drew across the road, widening the space between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span> them as she spoke. +Perhaps this was due to the unconscious pressure on the rein following +her shrinking from his side, from the thought of his touch upon her +hand, but it wounded Morgan's humiliated soul deeper than a thousand +unkind words.</p> + +<p>"No, I'll never tell you," he said sadly, but with dignity that made the +renunciation noble.</p> + +<p>Rhetta seemed touched. She drew near him again, reaching out her hand as +if to ease his hurt.</p> + +<p>"It was different before—before <i>that night</i>! you were different, all +of us, everything. I can't help it, ungrateful as I seem. You'll forgive +me, you'll understand. But you were <i>different</i> to me before then."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was different," Morgan returned, not without bitterness in his +slow, deep, gentle voice. "I never killed a man for—I never had killed +a man; there was no curse of blood on my soul."</p> + +<p>"Why is it always necessary to kill in Ascalon?" she asked, wildly, +rebelliously. "Why can't anything be done without that horrible ending!"</p> + +<p>"If I knew; if I had known," he answered her, sadly.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, Mr. Morgan. You know how I feel about it all."</p> + +<p>"I know how you feel," he said, offering no word of forgiveness, as he +had spoken no word of reminder where a less generous soul might have +spoken, nor raised a word of blame. If he had a thought that she must +have known when she urged him to the defense of the defenseless in +Ascalon, what the price of such guardianship must be, he kept it sealed +in his heart.</p> + +<p>They rode on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span> The lights of Ascalon came up out of the night to meet +their eyes as they raised the last ridge. There Morgan stopped, so +abruptly that she rode on a little way. When he came up to her where she +waited, he was holding out his hand.</p> + +<p>"Here is my badge—the city marshal's badge," he said. "If you can bear +the thought of touching it, or touch it without a thought, I wish you +would return it to Judge Thayer for me. I'm not needed in Ascalon any +longer, I'm quitting the job tonight. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>Morgan laid the badge in her hand as he spoke the last word, turned his +horse quickly, rode back upon their trail. Rhetta wheeled her horse +about, a protest on her lips, a sudden pang in her heart that clamored +to call him back. But no cry rose to summon him to her side, and Morgan, +gloomy as the night around him, went on his way.</p> + +<p>But the lights of Ascalon were blurred as if she looked on them through +a rain-drenched pane when Rhetta faced again to go her way alone, the +marshal's badge clutched in her hand. Remorse was roiling in her breast; +the corrosive poison of regret for too much said, depressed her generous +heart.</p> + +<p>If he had known how to accomplish what he had wrought without blood, he +had said; if he had known. Neither had she known, but she had expected +it of him, she had set him to the task with an unreasonable condition. +Blood was the price. Ascalon exacted blood, always blood.</p> + +<p>The curse of blood, he had said, was on his soul, his voice trembling +with the deep, sad vibration that might have risen from a broken heart. +Yes, there was madness in the wind, in the warping sun, in the hard +earth that denied and mocked the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span>dearest desires of men. It had struck +her, this madness that hollowed out the heart of a man like a worm, +leaving it an unfeeling shell.</p> + +<p>Rhetta had time for reflection when she reached home, and deeper +reflection than had troubled the well of her remorse as she rode. For +there in the light of her room she saw the bullet-mark on the dented +badge, which never had come quite straight for all Morgan's pains to +hammer out its battle scars. A little lead from the bullet still clung +in the grooves of letters, unmistakable evidence of what had marred its +nickled front.</p> + +<p>Conboy had regarded Morgan's warning to keep that matter under his hat, +for he had learned the value of silence at the right time in his long +experience in that town. Nobody else knew of the city marshal's close +escape the night of his great fight. The discovery now came to Rhetta +Thayer with a cold shudder, a constriction of the heart. She stared with +newly awakened eyes at the badge where it lay in her palm, her pale +cheeks cold, her lips apart, shocked by the sudden realization of his +past peril as no word could have expressed.</p> + +<p>Hot thoughts ran in thronging turmoil through her brain, thoughts before +repressed and chilled in her abhorrence of that flood of blood. For her +he had gone into that lair of murderous, defiant men, for her he had +borne the crash of that ball just over his heart. For there he had worn +the badge—just over his honest heart. Perhaps because she had thought +his terrible work had been unjustified, as the spiteful and vicious +told, she had recoiled from him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span>, and the recollection of him standing on +grim guard among the sanguinary wreckage of that awful place. If he had +known any other way, he had said; if he had known!</p> + +<p>Not for the mothers of Ascalon, of whom he had spoken tenderly; not for +the men who came cringing to beg their redemption from the terror and +oppression of the lawless at his hand. Not for them. But for her. So he +had said not half an hour past.</p> + +<p>But he had said no word to remind her where reminder was needed, not an +accusation had he uttered where accusation was so much deserved, that +would bring back to her the plain, hard fact that it was at her earnest +appeal he had undertaken the regeneration of that place.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, he had spoken as if he had assumed the task +voluntarily, to give her the security that she now enjoyed. She had sent +him to this work, expecting him to escape the curse of blood that had +fallen. But she had not shown him the means. And when it fell on him, +saddening his generous heart, she had fled like an ingrate from the +sight of his stern face. Now he was gone, leaving her to the +consideration of these truths, which came rushing in like false +reserves, too late.</p> + +<p>She put out the light and sat by the open window, the scarred badge +between her hands, warming it tenderly as if to console the hurt he had +suffered, wondering if this were indeed the end. This evidence in her +hand was like an absolution; it left him without a stain. The +justification was there presented that removed her deep-seated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span> +abhorrence of his deed. In defense of his own life he had struck them +down. His life; most precious and most dear. And he was gone.</p> + +<p>Was this, indeed, the end? For her romance that had lifted like a bright +flower in an unexpected place for a little day, perhaps; for Ascalon, +not the end. Something of unrest, as an impending storm, something of +the night's insecurity, troubled her as she sat by the window and told +her this. The sense of peace that had made her nights sweet was gone; a +vague terror seemed growing in the silent dark.</p> + +<p>This feeling attended her when she went to bed, harassed her sleep like +a fever, woke her at early dawn and drew her to the window, where she +leaned and listened, straining to define in the stillness the thing that +seemed to whisper a warning to her heart.</p> + +<p>There was nothing in the face of nature to account for this; not a cloud +was on the sky. The town, too, lay still in the mists of breaking +morning, its houses dim, its ways deserted. Alarm seemed unreasonable, +but her heart quivered with it, and shrunk within her as from a chilling +wind. There was no warder at the gate of Ascalon; the sentry was gone.</p> + +<p>Rhetta turned back to her bed, neither quieted of her indefinable +uneasiness nor inclined to resume her troubled sleep. After a little +while she rose again, and dressed. Dread attended her, dread had brooded +on her bosom while she slept uneasily, like a cat breathing its poisoned +breath into her face.</p> + +<p>Dawn had widened when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span> she went to the window again, the mist that clung +to the ground that morning in the unusual coolness was lifting. A +horseman rode past the corner at the bank, stopped his horse in the +middle of the street, turned in his saddle and looked around the quiet +square.</p> + +<p>Other riders followed, slipping in like wolves from the range, seven or +eight of them, their horses jaded as if they had been long upon the +road. Cowboys in with another herd to load, she thought. And with the +thought the first horseman, who had remained this little while in the +middle of the street gazing around the town, rode up to the hitching +rack beside the bank and dismounted. Rhetta gasped, drawing back from +the window, her heart jumping in sudden alarm.</p> + +<p>Seth Craddock!</p> + +<p>There could be no mistaking the man, slow-moving when he dismounted, +tall and sinewy, watchful as a battered old eagle upon its crag. With +these ruffians at his back, gathered from the sweepings of no knowing +how many outlawed camps, he had come in the vengeance that had gathered +like a storm in his evil heart, to punish Ascalon and its marshal for +his downfall and disgrace.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2><h3>A SUMMONS AT SUNRISE</h3> +</div> + +<p>Three horses were standing in Stilwell's yard, bridle reins on the +ground, as three horses had stood on the morning that Morgan first found +his tortured way to that hospitable door. In the house the Stilwell +family and Morgan were at breakfast, attended by Violet, who bore on +biscuits and ham to go with the coffee that sent its cheer out through +the open door as if to find a traveler and lead him to refreshment. +Behind the cottonwoods along the river, sunrise was about to break.</p> + +<p>"I'm gittin' so I can't wake up of a morning when I sleep in a house," +Stilwell complained, his broad face radiating humor. "I guess I'll have +to take the blankets ag'in, old lady."</p> + +<p>"I guess you can afford to sleep till half-past three in the morning +once in a while," Mrs. Stilwell said complacently. "Why, Mr. Morgan, +that man didn't sleep under a roof once a month the first five or six +years we were on this range! He just laid out like a coyote anywhere +night overtook him, watchin' them cattle like they were children. Now, +what's come of it!"</p> + +<p>This last bitter note, ranging back to their recent loss from Texas +fever, took the cheer out of Stilwell's face. A brooding cloud came over +it; his merry chaff was stilled.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and Drumm'll pay for them eight hundred head of stock he killed +for us, if I have to trail him to his hole in Texas!" Fred declared. +"Suit or no suit, that man's goin' to pay."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't like to hear you talk that way, honey," his mother chided.</p> + +<p>"Suit!" Fred scoffed; "what does that man care about a suit? He'll never +show his head in this country any more, the next drive he makes he'll +load west of here and we'll never know anything about it. There's just +one way to fix a man like him, and I know the receipt that'll cure <i>his</i> +hide!"</p> + +<p>"If he ever drives another head of stock into this state I'll hear of +it, and I'll attach him. It'll be four or five years before the +railroad's built down into that country, he'll have to drive here or +nowheres. I'll set right here on this range till he comes."</p> + +<p>"Did the rain strike any of your range?" Morgan inquired, eager to turn +them away from this gloomy matter of loss and revenge.</p> + +<p>"Yes, we got a good soakin' over the biggest part of it. Plenty of water +now, grass jumpin' up like spring. It's the purtiest country, Cal, a man +ever set eyes on after a rain."</p> + +<p>"And in the spring," said Mrs. Stilwell, wistfully.</p> + +<p>"And when the wild roses bloom along in May," said Violet. "There's no +place in the world as pretty as this country then."</p> + +<p>"I believe you," Morgan told them, nodding his head in undivided assent. +"Even dry as it is around Ascalon and that country north, it gets hold +of a man."</p> + +<p>"You buy along on the river here somewhere, Cal, and put in a nice +little herd. It won't take you long to make a start, and a good start. +This country ain't begun to see the cattle it wi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span>ll——"</p> + +<p>"Somebody comin'," said Violet, running to the door to see, a plate of +hot biscuits in her hand.</p> + +<p>"Seems to be in a hurry for this early in the day," Stilwell commented, +listening to the approach of a galloping horse. He was not much +interested; horsemen came and went past that door at all hours of the +day and night, generally in a gallop.</p> + +<p>"It's Rhetta!" Violet announced from the door, turning hurriedly to put +the plate of biscuits on the table, where it stood before unheeding +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Rhetta?" Mrs. Stilwell repeated, getting up in excitement. "I wonder +what——"</p> + +<p>Rhetta was at the door, the dust of her arrival making her indistinct to +those who hurried from the unfinished breakfast to learn the cause of +this precipitous visit. Morgan saw her leaning from the saddle, her +loosely confined hair half falling down.</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Morgan here?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>The girl's voice trembled, her breath came so hard Morgan could hear its +suspiration where he stood. It was evident that she labored under a +tremendous strain of anxiety, arising out of a trouble that Morgan was +at no loss to understand. Yet he remained in the background as Stilwell +and Fred crowded to the door.</p> + +<p>"Why, Rhetty! what's happened?" Stilwell inquired, hurrying out, +followed by his wife and son. Violet was already beside her perturbed +visitor, looking up into her terror-blanched face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, they've come, they've come!" Rhetta gasped.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who?" Stilwell asked, mystified, laying hold of her bridle, shaking it +as if to set her senses right. "Who's come, Rhetty?"</p> + +<p>"I came for Mr. Morgan!" she panted, as weak, it seemed, as a wounded +bird. "I thought he came here—he had your horse."</p> + +<p>"He's here, honey," Mrs. Stilwell told her, consoling her like a hurt +child.</p> + +<p>Morgan did not come forward. He stood as he had risen from his chair at +the table, one hand on the cloth, his head bent as if in a travail of +deepest thought. The shaft of tender new sunlight reaching in through +the open door struck his shoulders and breast, leaving his face in the +shadow that well suited the mood darkening over his soul like a storm. A +thousand thoughts rose up and swirled within him, a thousand harsh +charges, a thousand seeds of bitterness. Rhetta, leaning to peer under +the lintel of the low door, could see him there, and she reached out her +hand, appealing without a word.</p> + +<p>"He is here, honey," Mrs. Stilwell repeated, assuringly, comfortingly.</p> + +<p>"Tell him—tell him—Craddock's come!" Rhetta said.</p> + +<p>"Craddock?" said Stilwell, pronouncing the name with inflection of +surprise. "Oh, I thought something awful had happened to somebody." He +turned with the ease of indifference in his manner, to go back and +finish his meal. "Well, didn't you look for him to come back? I knew all +the time he'd come."</p> + +<p>Morgan lifted his he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span>ad. The sun, broken by Rhetta's shadow, brightened +on the floor at his feet, and spread its beam upon his breast like a +golden stole. The old wound on his check bone was a scar now, irregular, +broad from the crude surgery that had bound it but illy. Its dark +disfigurement increased the somber gravity of his face, sunburned and +wind-hardened as any ranger's who rode that prairie waste. From where he +stood Morgan could not see the girl's face, only her restless hand on +the bridle rein, the brown of her riding skirt, the beginning of white +at her waist.</p> + +<p>"There ought to be men enough in Ascalon to take care of Craddock," +Violet said.</p> + +<p>"He's not alone, some of those Texas cowboys are with him," Rhetta +explained, her voice firmer, her words quicker. "Mr. Morgan is still +marshal—he gave me his badge, but please tell him I didn't—I forgot to +turn it in with his resignation."</p> + +<p>"I don't see that it's Cal's fight this time, Rhetty," Stilwell said. +"He's done enough for them yellow pups over in Ascalon, to be yelped at +and cussed for savin' their dirty hides."</p> + +<p>"They're looking for him, they think he's hiding!"</p> + +<p>"Well, let 'em look. If they come over here they'll find him—Cal ain't +makin' no secret of where he's at. And they'll find somebody standin' +back to back with him, any time they want to come." Stilwell's +resentment of Ascalon's ingratitude toward his friend was plainer in his +mouth than print.</p> + +<p>"They're going to burn the town to drive him out!" Rhetta said, gasping +in the terror that shook her heart.</p> + +<p>"I guess it'll be big enough to hol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span>d all the people that's in it when +they're through," said Stilwell, unfeelingly.</p> + +<p>"Here's his badge," said Rhetta, offering it frantically. "Tell him he's +still marshal!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you can come for him—now!" said Violet, accusingly. "I told +you—you remember now what I told you!"</p> + +<p>"O Violet, Violet! If you knew what I've paid for that—if you knew!"</p> + +<p>"Not as much as you owe him, if it was the last drop of blood in your +heart!" said Violet. And she turned away, and went and stood by the +door.</p> + +<p>"They'll burn the town!" Rhetta moaned. "Oh, isn't anybody going to help +me—won't you call him, Violet?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Violet. "He can hear you—he'll come if he wants to—if he's +fool enough to do it again!"</p> + +<p>"Violet!" her mother cautioned.</p> + +<p>"How many are with him?" Fred inquired.</p> + +<p>"Seven or eight—I didn't see them all. Pa's collecting a posse to guard +the bank—they're going to rob it!"</p> + +<p>"They're welcome to all I've got in it," Stilwell said. "You better come +in and have a cup of coffee, Rhetty, before——"</p> + +<p>"The one they call the Dutchman's there, and Drumm——"</p> + +<p>"Drumm?" Fred and his father spoke like a chorus, both of them jumping +to alertness.</p> + +<p>"And some others of that gang Mr. Morgan drove out of town. They were +setting the hotel afire when I left!"</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span></p> +<p>Stilwell did not wait for all of it. He was in the house at a jump, +reaching down his guns which hung beside the door. Close after him Fred +came rushing in, snatching his weapons from the buffalo horns on the +wall.</p> + +<p>"I'm goin' to git service on that man!" Stilwell said. "Are you goin' +with us, Cal?"</p> + +<p>But Cal Morgan did not reply. He went to the bedroom where he had slept, +took up his gun, stood looking at it a moment as if considering +something, snatched his hat from the bedpost and turned back, buckling +his belt. Mrs. Stilwell and Violet were struggling with husband and +brother to restrain them from rushing off to this battle, raising a +turmoil of pleading and protesting at the door.</p> + +<p>As Morgan passed Stilwell, who was greatly impeded in his efforts to +buckle on his guns by his wife's clinging arms and passionate pleadings +to remain at home, Fred broke away from his sister and ran for the +kitchen door.</p> + +<p>"Let Drumm go—let all of them go—let the cattle go, let everything go! +none of it's worth riskin' your life for!" Stilwell's affectionate good +wife pleaded with him.</p> + +<p>"Now, Mother, I'm not goin' to git killed," Morgan heard Stilwell say, +his very assurance calming. But the poor woman, who perhaps had +recollections of past battles and perils which he had gone through, +burst out again, weeping, and clung to him as if she could not let him +go.</p> + +<p>Mor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span>gan paused a moment at the threshold, as if reconsidering something. +Violet, who had stood leaning her head on her bent arm, weeping that +Fred was rushing to throw his life away, lifted her tearful face, +reached out and touched his arm.</p> + +<p>"Must you go?" she asked.</p> + +<p>For reply Morgan put out his hand as if to say farewell. She took it, +pressed it a moment to her breast, and ran away, choked on the grief she +could not utter. Morgan stepped out into the sun.</p> + +<p>Rhetta Thayer stood at the door, a little aside, as if waiting for him, +as if knowing he would come. She was agitated by the anxious hope that +spoke out of her white face, but restrained by a fear that could not +hide in her wide-straining eyes. She moved almost imperceptibly toward +him, her lips parted as if to speak, but said nothing.</p> + +<p>As Morgan lifted his hand to his hat in grave salute, passing on, she +offered him the badge of his office which she had held gripped in her +hand. He took it, inclining his head as in acknowledgment of its safe +keeping through the night, and hastened on to one of the horses that +stood dozing on three legs in the early sun.</p> + +<p>As he left her, Rhetta followed a few quick steps, a cry rising in her +heart for him to stay a moment, to spare her one word of forgiveness out +of his grim, sealed lips. But the cry faltered away to a great, stifling +sob, while tears rose hot in her eyes, making him dim in her sight as he +threw the rein over the horse's head, starting the animal out of its +sleep with a little squatting jump. She stood so, stretching out her +hands to him, while he, unbending in his stern answer to the challenge +of duty, unseeing in the hard bitterness of his heart, swung into the +saddl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span>e and rode away.</p> + +<p>Rhetta groped for her saddle, blind in her tears. Morgan was hidden by +the dust that hung in the quiet morning behind him as she mounted and +followed.</p> + +<p>Half a mile or so along the road, Fred passed her, bending low as he +rode, as if his desire left the saddle and carried him ahead of his +horse; a little while, and Stilwell thundered by, leaving her last and +alone on that road leading to what adventures her heart shrunk in her +bosom to contemplate.</p> + +<p>Ahead of her the smoke of Ascalon's destruction rose high.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2><h3>IN THE SQUARE AT ASCALON</h3> +</div> + +<p>Morgan had time for a bitter train of reflection as he rode, never +looking behind him to see who came after. Whether Stilwell would yield +to his wife's appeal and remain at home, whether Fred could be bent from +his fiery desire to be avenged on the author of their calamity, he took +no trouble to surmise. He only knew that he, Calvin Morgan, was rushing +again to combat at the call of this girl whose only appeal was in the +face of dreadful peril, whose only service was that of blood.</p> + +<p>She had come again, this time like a messenger bearing a command, to +call him back to a duty which he believed he had relinquished and put +down forever. And solely because it would be treasonable to that duty +which still clung to him like a tenacious cobweb, he was riding into the +smoke of the burning town.</p> + +<p>So he told himself as he galloped on, but never believing for a moment +in the core of his heart that it was true. Deep within him there was a +response to a more tender call than the stern trumpeting of duty—the +answer to an appeal of remorseful eyes, of a pleading heart that could +not bear the shame of the charge that he was hiding and afraid. For her, +and his place of honor in her eyes, he was riding to Ascalon that hour. +Not for Ascalon, and those in it who had snarled at his heels. For her, +not the larger duty of a sworn officer of the law riding to defend and +protect the lives and property under his jurisdiction.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span></p> +<p>Morgan pulled up his horse at the edge of town, to consider his +situation. He had left Stilwell's in such haste, and in the midst of +such domestic anguish, that he had neglected to bring one of the +rancher's rifles with him. His only weapon was his revolver, and the +ammunition at his belt was scant, due to the foolish security of the +days when he believed Seth Craddock never would return. He must pick up +a gun somewhere, and ammunition.</p> + +<p>There was some scattered shooting going on in the direction of the +square, but whether the citizens were gathering to the defense of the +town, or the raiders were firing admonitory shots to keep them indoors, +Morgan could not at that distance tell. He rode on, considering his most +urgent necessity of more arms, concluding to ride straight for Judge +Thayer's house and borrow his buffalo rifle.</p> + +<p>He swung into the road that led past Judge Thayer's house, which +thoroughfare entered the square at the bank corner, still about a +quarter of a mile away. As he came round the turn of the road he saw, a +few hundred yards ahead of him, a man hurrying toward the square with a +gun in his hand. A spurt of speed and Morgan was beside him, leaning +over, demanding the gun.</p> + +<p>It was the old man who had jumped out of his reverie on the morning of +Morgan's first return to Ascalon, and menaced him with the crook of his +hickory stick. The veteran was going now without the comfort of his +stick, making pretty good time, eager in the rousing of fires long +stilled in his cooling heart. He began trotting on when he recogniz<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span>ed +Morgan, shouting for him to hurry.</p> + +<p>"Lend me your gun, Uncle John—I left mine in the hotel," Morgan said.</p> + +<p>"Hell, what'll I do then?" said Uncle John, unwilling to give it up.</p> + +<p>Morgan was insistent. He commandeered the weapon in the name of the law. +That being the case, Uncle John handed it up to him, with a word of +affection for it, and a little swearing over his bad luck.</p> + +<p>It was a double-barreled buffalo rifle, a cap-and-ball gun of very old +pattern, belonging back in the days of Parkman and the California Trail, +and the two charges which it bore were all that Morgan could hope to +expend, for Uncle John carried neither pouch nor horn. But Morgan was +thankful for even that much, and rode on.</p> + +<p>A little way ahead a man, hatless, wild-haired, came running out from +his dooryard, having witnessed Morgan's levying on Uncle John's gun and +read his reason for it. This citizen rushed into the road and offered a +large revolver, which Morgan leaned and snatched from his hand as he +galloped by. But it hadn't a cartridge in its chambers, and its caliber +was not of Morgan's ammunition. Still, he rode on with it in his hand, +hoping that it might serve its turn.</p> + +<p>Morgan galloped on toward the square, where a great volume of smoke hid +the courthouse and all of the town that lay before the wind. He hoped to +meet somebody there with a gun worth while, although he had no +immediate plan for pitching into the fight and using it. That must be +fixed for him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span> by circumstances when he confronted them.</p> + +<p>Women and children stood in the dooryards watching the fire that was +cutting through the thin-walled buildings on that side of the +square—the hotel side—as if they were strawboard boxes. They were +silent in the great climax of fear; they stood as people stand, +straining and waiting, watching the approach of a tornado, no safety in +flight, no refuge at hand. There was but one man in sight, and he was +running like a jack rabbit across the staked ground behind Judge +Thayer's office, heading for the prairie. It was Earl Gray, the +druggist. He was covering sixteen feet at a jump. When he saw Morgan +galloping into the town, Gray stopped, darted off at an angle as if he +were going on some brave and legitimate excursion, and disappeared.</p> + +<p>The Elkhorn hotel was well under way of destruction, its roof already +fallen, its thin walls bending inward, perforated in a score of places +by flames. The head of the street was unguarded; Morgan rode on and +halted at the edge of the square.</p> + +<p>Smoke blotted out everything in the square, except for a little shifting +by the rising wind which revealed the courthouse, the pigeons in wild +flight around the tower. There was not a man in sight, neither raider +nor defender. Across on the other side of the square, as if they +defended that part from being set on fire, the citizens were doing some +shooting with rifles, even shotguns, as Morgan could define by the +sound. The raiders were there, for they were answering with shot and +yell.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span></p> +<p>Morgan caught the flutter of a dress at the farther corner of the +bank—a little squat brick building this was—where some woman stood and +watched. He rode around, and at the sound of his approach a gun-barrel +was trained on him, and a familiar fair head appeared, cheek laid +against the rifle stock in a most determined and competent way.</p> + +<p>"Dora! don't shoot!" Morgan shouted. In a moment he was on the ground +beside her, and Dora Conboy was handing him his own rifle, pride and +relief in her blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"I knew you'd come, I told them you'd come!" she said.</p> + +<p>"How did you save it—what are you doing here, Dora?" he asked in +amazement.</p> + +<p>"I was layin' for Craddock! If he'd 'a' come around that corner—but it +was you!"—with a sigh of relief.</p> + +<p>"Have you got any shells, Dora?"</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't have time to grab anything but your gun—I run to your +room when they set the hotel afire and drove us out."</p> + +<p>"You're the bravest man in town!" he praised her, patting her shoulder +as if she were a very little girl, indeed. "Where are they all?"</p> + +<p>"They've locked Riley, and Judge Thayer, and all the men that's got a +fight in 'em up in jail with the sheriff. Pa got away—he's over there +where you hear that shootin'—but he can't hit nothin'!" Dora said, in +hopeless disgust.</p> + +<p>Morgan saw with r<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span>elief that the magazine of his rifle was full, and a +shot in the barrel. He took Dora by the hand, turning away from his +haste to mount as if it came to him as an after-thought to thank her for +this great help.</p> + +<p>"There's going to be a fight, Dora," he said. "You'd better get behind +the bank, and keep any of the women and children there that happen +along. You're a brave, good little soul, I'll never forget you for what +you've done for me today. Please take care of this gun—it belongs to +Uncle John."</p> + +<p>He was up in the saddle with the last word, and gone, galloping into the +pitchy black smoke that swirled like a turgid flood from burning Ascalon +across the square.</p> + +<p>Morgan's thought was to locate the raiders' horses and cut them off, if +it should be that some of the rascals were still on foot setting fires, +as it seemed likely from the smell of kerosene, that they were. It would +increase his doubtful chances to meet as many of them on foot as +possible. This was his thought.</p> + +<p>He made out one mounted man dimly through the blowing smoke, watching in +front of the Santa Fé café, but recently set on fire. This fellow +doubtless was stationed there on the watch for him, Morgan believed, +from the close attention he was giving the front door of the place, out +of which a volume of grease-tainted smoke rolled. He wondered, with a +little gleam of his saving humor, what there was in his record since +coming to Ascalon that gave them ground for the belief that it was +necessary to burn a house to bring him out of it to face a fight.</p> + +<p>Morgan rode on a little way across the square, not twenty yards b<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span>ehind +this raider, the sound of his horse silenced in the roar of fire and +growing wind. The heat of the place was terrific; burning shingles +swirled on the wind, coals and burning brands fell in a rain all over +the square. At the corner of the broad street that came into the square +at Peden's hall, another raider was stationed.</p> + +<p>The citizens who were making a weak defense were being driven back, the +sound of firing was behind the stores, and falling off as if the raiders +pressed them hard. Morgan quickly concluded that Craddock and the rest +of the outfit were over there silencing this resistance, probably in the +belief that he was concerned in it.</p> + +<p>This seemed to be his moment for action, yet arresting any of them was +out of the question, and he did not want to be the aggressor in the +bloodshed that must finish this fiendish morning's work. Hopeless as his +situation appeared, justified as he would have been in law and reason +for opening fire without challenge, he waited the further justification +of his own conscience. They had come looking for him; let them find him +here in their midst.</p> + +<p>Fire was rising high among the stripped timbers of Peden's hall, purging +it of its debauchery and blood. On the rising wind the flames were +licking up Gray's drug-store, the barber shop beside it, the newspaper +office, the Santa Fé café and the incidental small shops between them +and Peden's like a windrow of burning straw. A little while would +suffice to see their obliteration, a little longer to witness the +destruction of the town if the wind should carry the coals and blazing +shingles to other roofs, dry as th<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span>e sered grasses of the plain.</p> + +<p>The sound of this fire set by Seth Craddock in celebration of his return +to Ascalon was in Morgan's ears like the roar of the sea; the heat of it +drew the tough skin of his face as he rode fifty yards from it into the +center of the square. There he stopped, his rifle across his breast, +waiting for the discovery.</p> + +<p>The man in the street near Peden's was the first to see and recognize +him as he waited there on his horse in the pose of challenge, in the +expectant, determined attitude of defense. This fellow yelled the alarm +and charged, breakneck through the smoke, shooting as he came.</p> + +<p>Morgan fired one shot, offhand. The charging horse reared, stood so a +moment as rigidly as if fixed by bronze in that pose, its rider leaning +forward over its neck. Then, in whatever terrible pang that such sudden +stroke of death visits, it flung itself backward, the girths snapping +from its distended belly. The rider was flung aside, where Morgan saw +him lying, head on one extended arm, like a dog asleep in the sun.</p> + +<p>The others came whooping their triumphant challenge and closed in on +Morgan then, and the battle of his life began.</p> + +<p>How many were circling him as he stood in the center of the square, or +as close to the center as he could draw, near the courthouse steps, +Morgan did not know. Some had come from behind the courthouse, others +from the tame fight with the citizens back of the stores not yet on +fire.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span></p> +<p>The dust that rose from their great tumult of charge and galloping +attack, mingling with the smoke that trailed the ground, was Morgan's +protection and salvation. Nothing else saved him from almost immediate +death in the fury of their assault.</p> + +<p>Morgan fired at the fleeting figures as they moved in obscurity through +this stifling cloud, circling him like Indians of the plains, shouting +to each other his location, drawing in upon him a little nearer as they +rode. He turned and shifted, yet he was a target all too plain for +anything he could do to lessen his peril.</p> + +<p>A horse came plunging toward him through the blinding swirl, plain for a +flash of wild-flying mane and tossing rein, its saddle empty, fleeing +from the scene of fire-swept conflict as if urged on by the ghost of the +rider it had lost.</p> + +<p>Bullets clipped Morgan's saddle as the raiders circled him in a wild +fête of shots and yells. One struck his rifle, running down the barrel +to the grip like a lightning bolt, spattering hot lead on his hand; +another clicked on the ornament of the Spanish bit, frightening his +horse, before that moment as steady as if at work on the range. The +shaken creature leaped, bunching its body in a shuddering knot. Blood +ran from its mouth in a stream.</p> + +<p>A shot ripped through the high cantle of the saddle; one seared Morgan's +back as it rent his shirt. The horse leaped, to come down stiff-legged +like an outlaw, bleeding head thrust forward, nose close to the ground. +Then it reared and plunged, striking wildly with fore feet upon the +death-laden air.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span></p> +<p>In leaping to save himself from entanglement as the creature fell, +Morgan dropped his rifle. Before he could recover himself from the +spring out of the saddle, the horse, thrashing in the paroxysm of death, +struck the gun with its shod fore foot, snapping the stock from the +barrel.</p> + +<p>Dust was in Morgan's eyes and throat, smoke burned in his scorched +lungs. The smell of blood mingling with dust was in his nostrils. The +heat of the increasing fire was so great that Morgan flung himself to +the ground beside his horse, with more thought of shielding himself from +that torture than from the inpouring rain of lead.</p> + +<p>How many were down among the raiders he did not know; whether the people +had heard the noise of this fight and were coming to his assistance, he +could not tell. Dust and smoke flew so thick around him that the +courthouse not three rods away, was visible only by dim glimpses; the +houses around the square he could not see at all.</p> + +<p>The raiders flashed through the smoke and dust, here seen in a rift for +one brief glance, there lost in the swathing pall that swallowed all but +their high-pitched yells and shots. Morgan was certain of only one thing +in that hot, panting, brain-cracking moment—that he was still alive.</p> + +<p>Whether whole or hurt, he did not know, scarcely considered. The marvel +of it was that he still lived, like a wolf at the end of the chase +ringed round by hounds. Lived, lead hissing by his face, lead lifting +his hair, lead knocking dirt into his eyes as he lay along the carcass +of his horse, h<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span>is body to the ground like a snake.</p> + +<p>Morgan felt that it would be his last fight. In the turmoil of smoke and +dust, his poor strivings, his upward gropings out of the dark; his glad +inspirations, his thrilling hopes, must come to an obscure end. It was a +miserable way to die, nothing to come out of it, no ennobling sacrifice +demanding it to lift a man's name beyond his day. In the history of this +violent place, this death-struggle against overwhelming numbers would be +only an incident. Men would say, in speaking of it, that his luck failed +him at last.</p> + +<p>Morgan discovered with great concern that he had no cartridges left but +those in the chambers of his revolver. He considered making a dash for +the side of the square not yet on fire, where he might find support, at +least make a further stand with the arms and ammunition every +storekeeper had at hand.</p> + +<p>As these thoughts swept him in the few seconds of their passing, Morgan +lay reserving his precious cartridges. The momentary suspension of his +defense, the silence of his rifle's defiant roar, which had held them +from closing in, perhaps led his assailants to believe him either dead +or disabled. They also stopped shooting, and the capricious wind, now +rising to a gale as it rushed into the fiery vacuum, bent down and +wheeled away the dust and smoke like a curtain suddenly drawn aside.</p> + +<p>Craddock and such of his men as were left out of that half-minute +battle were scattered about the square in a more or less definite circle +around the spot where Morgan lay behind his horse, th<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span>e nearest to him +being perhaps thirty yards away. The citizens of the town who had been +resisting the raiders, had come rushing to the square at the diversion +of the fight to that center. These began firing now on the raiders from +windows and doors and the corners of buildings. Craddock sent three of +his men charging against this force, now become more courageous and +dangerous, and with two at his side, one of whom was the Dutchman, he +came riding over to investigate Morgan's situation.</p> + +<p>Morgan could see the Dutchman's face as he spurred on ahead of the +others. Pale, with a pallor inborn that sun and wind could not shade, a +wide grin splitting his face, the Dutchman came on eagerly, no doubt in +the hope that he would find a spark of conscious life in Morgan that he +could stamp out in some predesigned cruelty.</p> + +<p>The Dutchman was leaning forward as he rode, revolver lifted to throw +down for a quick shot. When he had approached within two lengths of his +horse, Morgan lifted himself from the ground and fired. The Dutchman +sagged over the horn of his saddle like a man asleep, his horse +galloping on in panic. As it passed Morgan the Dutchman pitched from the +saddle, drug a little way by one encumbered foot, the frantic horse +plunging on. Fred Stilwell, closely followed by his father, came riding +into the square.</p> + +<p>Morgan leaped to his feet, new hope in him at sight of this friendly +force. Craddock's companion turned to meet Fred with the fire of two +revolvers. One of the three sent a moment before to dislodge the +citizens, turned back to join this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span> new battle.</p> + +<p>Morgan had marked this man as Drumm from the beginning. He was a florid, +heavy man, his long mustache strangely white against the inflamed +redness of his face. He carried a large roll covered with black oilcloth +behind his saddle.</p> + +<p>Morgan wasted one precious cartridge in a shot at this man as he passed. +The raider did not reply. He was riding straight to meet Stilwell and +Fred, to whom Craddock also turned his attention when he saw Morgan's +rifle broken on the ground. It was as if Craddock felt him out of the +fight, to be finished at leisure.</p> + +<p>Morgan left his dubious shelter of the fallen horse and ran to meet his +friends, hoping to reach one of them and replenish his ammunition. Fred +Stilwell was coming up with the wind, his dust blowing ahead of him on +the sweeping gale. At his first shot the man who had left Craddock's +side to attack him pitched from his saddle, hands thrown out before him +as if he dived into eternity. The next breath Fred reeled in his saddle +and fell.</p> + +<p>The man with the oilcloth roll at his saddle yelled in exultation, +lifting his gun high in challenge to Stilwell, who rode to meet him. A +moment Stilwell halted where Fred lay, as if to dismount, then galloped +furiously forward to avenge his fall. The two raiders who had gone +against the townsmen, evidently believing that the battle was going +against them, spurred for the open country.</p> + +<p>Craddock was bearing down on Morgan, the fight being apportioned now +man to man. Morgan heard Stilwell's big gun roaring when he turned to +face Craddock, vindictive, grim, who came ridi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span>ng upon him with no word +of challenge, no shout of triumph in what seemed his moment of victory.</p> + +<p>Morgan was steady and unmoved. The ground was under his feet, his arm +was not disturbed by the rock of a galloping horse. He lifted his weapon +and fired. Craddock's horse went down to its knees as if it had struck a +gopher hole, and Craddock, horseman that he was, pitched out of the +saddle and fell not two yards from Morgan's feet.</p> + +<p>In falling, Craddock dropped his gun. He was scrambling for it when +Morgan, no thought in him of mercy, threw his weapon down for the +finishing shot. The hammer clicked on an empty shell. And Craddock, on +hands and knees, agile as a bear, was reaching one long hairy arm to +clutch his lost gun.</p> + +<p>Morgan threw himself headlong upon the desperado, crushing him flat to +the ground. With a sprawling kick he sent Craddock's gun far out of +reach, and they closed, with the weapons nature had given them, for the +last struggle in the drama of their lives.</p> + +<p>The stage was empty for them of anything that moved, save only +Craddock's horse, which Morgan's last shot, confident as he was when he +aimed it, had no more than maimed with a broken leg. To the right of +them Fred Stilwell lay, his face in the dust, his arms outspread, his +hat close by; on the other hand the Dutchman's body sprawled, his legs, +flung out as if he had died running. And near this unsightly wreckage of +a worthless wretch Morgan's horse stretched, in the lazy posture of an +animal asleep in a sunny pasture.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">313</a></span></p> +<p>Behind them the fire that was eating one side of the square away rose +and bent, roared and crackled, sighed and hissed, flinging up long +flames which broke as they stabbed into the smoke. Morgan felt the fire +hot on his neck as he bent over Craddock, throwing the strain of every +tendon to hold the old villain to the ground.</p> + +<p>Craddock writhed, jointless as a snake, it seemed, under the grip of +Morgan's hand at his spiney throat, squirmed and turned and fought to +his knees. They struggled and battled breast to breast, until they stood +on their feet, locked in a clinch out of which but one of them, Morgan +was determined, should come a living man.</p> + +<p>Morgan had dropped his empty revolver when he flung himself on Craddock. +There was no inequality between them except such as nature had given in +the strength of arm and back. They swayed in silent, terrible +determination each to have the other's life, and Morgan had a glimpse, +as he turned, of women and children watching them from the corner near +the bank, huddled groups out of which he knew many a hope went out for +his victorious issue.</p> + +<p>Craddock was a man of sinews as hard as bow strings; his muscles were +like dried beef. Strong as Morgan was, he felt that he was losing +ground. Then, by some trick learned perhaps in savage camps, Craddock +lifted him, and flung him with stunning force against the hard ground.</p> + +<p>There they rolled, clawing, striking, grappling at each other's +throats. As if surf made sport of them on the shelving sands they +rolled, one upper-most now, the other then. And th<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span>ey fought and rolled +until Morgan felt something hard under his oppressed back, and groped +for it in the star-shot agony of sinewy fingers choking out his life. +His empty gun. It seemed that he grasped it in delirium, and struck with +it in the blindness of hovering death.</p> + +<p>When Morgan staggered to his feet there was blood in his mouth; the +sound of the fiery turmoil around him was hushed in the roar of blood in +his ears. He stood weakly a moment, looking at the pistol in his hand. +The blow he had laid along Craddock's head had broken the cylinder pin. +Meditatively Morgan looked at it again, then threw it down as an +abandoned and useless thing. It fell close by where Craddock lay, blood +running from a wound on his temple.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2><h3>ABSOLUTION</h3> +</div> + +<p>Morgan stood looking down on the man whom he had overcome in the climax +of that desperate hour, wondering if he were dead. He did not stoop to +investigate; from where he stood no sign of life disturbed Craddock's +limp body. Morgan was thinking now that they would say of him in Ascalon +that luck had been with him to the last.</p> + +<p>Not prowess, at any rate; he did not claim to that. Perhaps luck was as +good a name as any for it, but it was something that upheld his hand and +stimulated his wit in crises such as he had passed in Ascalon that +eventful fortnight.</p> + +<p>A band of men came around the corner past Peden's hall, now only a +vanishing skeleton of beams, bringing with them the two raiders who had +attempted to escape by that avenue to the open prairie. The two were +still mounted, the crowd that surrounded them was silent and ominous. +Morgan waited until they came up, when, with a sign toward Craddock, +which relinquished all interest in and responsibility for him to the +posse comitatus, he turned away to hasten to Fred Stilwell's side.</p> + +<p>Tom Conboy had reached the fallen youth—he was little more than a +boy—and was kneeling beside him, lifting his head.</p> + +<p>"God! they killed a woman over there—and a man!" Conboy said.</p> + +<p>"Is he dead?" Morgan inquired, his voice hoarse a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">316</a></span>nd strange.</p> + +<p>"He's shot through the lung, he's breathin' through his back," Conboy +replied, shaking his head sadly. "But I've seen men live shot up worse +than Fred is," he added. "It takes a big lot of lead to kill a man +sometimes."</p> + +<p>"We must carry him out of this heat," Morgan said.</p> + +<p>They carried him across the square to that part of the business front +the fire had not yet leaped over to and taken, and laid him in a little +strip of shade in front of the harness store. Conboy hurried off to see +if he could find the doctor.</p> + +<p>Morgan wadded a handkerchief against the wound in Fred's back, whence +the blood bubbled in frothy stream at every weak inspiration, and let +him down gently upon that insufficient pad to wait the doctor, not +having it in his power to do more. He believed the poor fellow would die +with the next breath, and looked about to see if Stilwell were in sight. +Stilwell was nowhere to be seen, his pursuit of Drumm having led him +far. But approaching Morgan were five or six men carrying guns, their +faces clouded with what seemed an unfriendly severity.</p> + +<p>"We want to have a word or two with you over in the square," one of them +said.</p> + +<p>Morgan recognized all of them as townsmen. He looked at them in +undisguised surprise, completely lost for the meaning of the blunt +request.</p> + +<p>"All right," he said.</p> + +<p>"The doctor will be h<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">317</a></span>ere in a minute, he's gone for his case," one of +them volunteered.</p> + +<p>Relieved by the word, Morgan thanked him, and returned with them to the +place where a growing crowd of men stood about Seth Craddock and the two +prisoners who had been taken in their attempt to escape. Craddock was +sitting on the ground, head drooping forward, a man's knee at his back. +And Earl Gray, a revolver in his hand, no hat on, his hair flying forty +ways, was talking.</p> + +<p>"If he'd 'a' been here tendin' to duty under his oath, in place of +skulkin' out and leavin' the town wide open to anybody that wanted to +set a match to it, this thing wouldn't 'a' happened, I tell you, +gentlemen. Look at it! look at my store, look at the <i>ho</i>-tel, look at +everything on that side of the square! Gone to hell, every stick of it! +And that's the man to blame!"</p> + +<p>Gray indicated Morgan with a thrust of his gun, waving one hand +dramatically toward the ruin. A sound, more a growl than a groan, ran +through the crowd, which now numbered not fewer than thirty or forty +men.</p> + +<p>The sight of the destruction was enough, indeed, to make them growl, or +even groan. Everything on that side of the square was leveled but a few +upstanding beams, the fire was rioting among the fallen rafters, eating +up the floors that had borne the trod of so many adventurous feet. The +hotel was a ruin, Gray's store only a recollection, the little shops +between it and Peden's long, hollow skeleton of a barn already coals.</p> + +<p>Men, women, and children were on the roofs of buildings across the +street from Peden's, pouring precious water over the fires which sprang +from falling brands. It seemed that this shower of fire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">318</a></span> must overwhelm +them very soon, and engulf the rest of the business houses, making a +clean sweep of everything but the courthouse and the bank. The +calaboose, in its isolation, was still safe.</p> + +<p>"Where was you last night?" Gray demanded, insolence in his narrow face +as he turned again to Morgan, poking out with his gun as if to vex the +answer from him as one prods a growl from a dog.</p> + +<p>"None of your —— business!" Morgan replied, rising into a rage as +sudden as it was unwise, the unworthiness of the object considered. He +made a quick movement toward Gray as he spoke, which brought upon him +the instant restraint of many hands.</p> + +<p>"You don't grab no gun from nobody here!" one said.</p> + +<p>"Why wasn't you here attendin' to business when that gang rode in this +morning?" one at Morgan's side demanded. It was the barber; his shop was +gone, his razors were fused among the ashes.</p> + +<p>Morgan ignored him, regretting at once the flash of passion that had +betrayed him into their hands. For they were madmen—mad with the +torture of hot winds and straining hopes that withered and fell; mad +with their losses of that day, mad with the glare of sun of many days, +and the stricken earth under their bound and sodden feet; mad with the +very bareness of their inconsequential lives.</p> + +<p>Seth Craddock heaved up to his knees, struggled to his feet with quick, +frantic lumbering, like a horse clambering out of the mire. He stood +weaving, his red eyes watching those around him, p<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">319</a></span>erhaps reading +something of the crowd's threat in the growl that ran through it, +beginning in the center as it died on the edge, quieting not at all. His +hat was off, dust was in his hair, a great welted wound was black on his +temple, the blood of it caked with dust on his face.</p> + +<p>The two prisoners on horseback, one of them wounded so badly his life +did not seem worth a minute's reprieve, were pulled down; all were +bunched with Morgan in the middle of the mob. Gray began again with his +denunciation, Morgan hearing him only as the wind, for his attention was +fixed on the activities of Dell Hutton, working with insidious swiftness +and apparent success among the mob.</p> + +<p>Hutton did not look at Morgan as he passed with low word from man to +man, sowing the poison of his vindictive hate against this man who had +compelled him to be honest once against his bent. A moment Hutton paused +in conference with the blacksmith, and that man came forward now, +silenced Gray with a word and pushed him aside.</p> + +<p>The blacksmith was a knotty short man of Slavic features, a cropped +mustache under his stubby nose. His shop was burning in the ruin of that +tragic morning; the blame of it was Morgan's. Others whose business +places had been erased in the fire were recognized by Morgan in the +crowd. The proprietor of the Santa Fé café, the cobbler, the Mexican who +sold tamales and chili—none of them of any consequence ordinarily, but +potent of the extreme of evil now, merged as they were into that +unreasoning thing, the mob.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">320</a></span></p> + +<p>There were murmured suggestions, rejections; talk of the cross-arms on +the telegraph poles, which at once became determined, decisive. Men +pushed through the press with ropes. Seth Craddock looked across at +Morgan, and cursed him. One of the prisoners, the unwounded man, a youth +no older than Fred Stilwell, began to beg and cry.</p> + +<p>Morgan had not been alarmed up to the moment of his seeing Hutton +inflaming the crowd against him, for the mob was composed of men whose +faces were for the greater part familiar, mild men in their way, whom +the violence in which they had lived had passed and left untouched. But +they held him with strong hands; they were making ready a noose to throw +over his head and strangle his life out in the shame that belongs to +murderers and thieves.</p> + +<p>This had become a matter beyond his calculation; this should not be. +There were guns in men's hands all about him where guns did not belong. +Morgan threw his determination and strength into a fling that cleared +his right arm, and began a battle that marked for life some of them who +clung to him and tried to drag him down.</p> + +<p>They were crushing him, they were overwhelming him. Only a sudden jerk +of the head, a dozen determined, silent men hanging to him, saved +Morgan's neck from the flung rope. The man who cast it cursed; was +drawing it back with eager haste to throw again, when Rhetta Thayer +came.</p> + +<p>She c<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">321</a></span>ame pushing through the mad throng about Morgan, he heard her +command to clear the way; she was beside him, the mystery of her swift +passage through the mob made plain. Seth Craddock's guns, given her as a +trophy of that day when Morgan lassoed the meat hunter, were in her +hands, and in her eyes there was a death warrant for any wretch that +stood in her way. She gave the weapons to Morgan, her breathing audible +over the hush that fell in the failing of their cowed hearts.</p> + +<p>"Drop your guns!" Morgan commanded.</p> + +<p>There was a panic to comply. Steel and nickel, ivory handle, old navy +and new Colt's, flashed in the sun as they were dropped in the little +open space at Morgan's feet.</p> + +<p>"Clear out of here!"</p> + +<p>Morgan's sharp order was almost unnecessary. Those on the edge of the +crowd were beginning already to sneak off; a little way, looking back +over shoulders, and they began to run. They dispersed like dust on the +wind, leaving behind them their weapons which would identify them for +the revenge this terrible, invincible, miraculously lucky man might come +to their doors and exact.</p> + +<p>The thought was terrifying. They did not stop at the margin of the +square to look back to see if he pressed his vengeance at their heels. +Only the shelter of cyclone cellar, sequestered patches of corn, the +willows along the distant river, would give them the respite from the +terror of this outreaching hand necessary to a full, free breath.</p> + +<p>The sheriff had released himself from jail, with Judge Thayer and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">322</a></span>the +valorous Riley Caldwell, and twenty or more others who had been locked +up with them. The sheriff, humiliated, resentful, red with the anger +that choked him—for it was safe now to be as angry as he could lash +himself—came stalking up to where Morgan held Craddock and the +unwounded raider off from the tempting heap of weapons thrown down by +the mob. The sheriff began to abuse Craddock, laying to him all the +villainy of ancestry and life that his well-schooled tongue could shape. +Morgan cut him off with a sharp word.</p> + +<p>"Take these men and lock them up!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, Mr. Morgan, you bet your life I'll lock 'em up!" the sheriff +agreed.</p> + +<p>"Hold them for a charge of arson and murder," Judge Thayer commanded +sternly. "And see that you <i>do</i> hold them!"</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer came on to where Morgan stood, the surrendered weapons at +his feet, Rhetta beside him, pride higher than the heavens in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"I can't apologize for them, I can't even try," said the judge, with a +humility in his word and manner quite new and strange, indicating the +members of the fast-scattering mob. He made himself as small as he felt +by his way of approaching this man who had pitched his life like a coin +of little value into the gamble of that tragic day.</p> + +<p>"Never mind trying—it's only an incident," Morgan told him, full of +another thought.</p> + +<p>"I'll see that he locks Craddock and the other two up safe, then I'll +have these guns picked up for evidence. I'm going to lay an information +against every man of them in that mob with the prosec<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">323</a></span>uting attorney!"</p> + +<p>"Let them go, Judge Thayer—I'd never appear against them," Morgan said.</p> + +<p>Judge Thayer appeared to be dazed by the events of that day, crowded to +their fearful climax of destruction of property and life. He was lacking +in his ready words, older, it seemed, by many years, crushed under the +weight of this terrible calamity that had fallen on his town. He went +away after the sheriff, leaving Morgan and Rhetta, the last actors on +the stage in the drama of Ascalon's downfall, alone.</p> + +<p>Beyond them the fire raged in the completion of the havoc that was far +beyond any human labor to stay. The heat of it was scorching even where +they stood; coals, blazing fragments, were blown about their feet on the +turbulent wind. The black-green smoke still rose in great volume, +through which the sun was red. On the flank of the fire those who +labored to confine its spread shouted in the voice of dismay. It was an +hour of desolation; it was the day of doom.</p> + +<p>"Thank you for my life," said Morgan. "I've put a new valuation on it +since you've gone to so much trouble to save it."</p> + +<p>"Don't speak cynically about it, Mr. Morgan!" she said, hurt by his +tone.</p> + +<p>"I'm not cynical," he gravely assured her. "My life wasn't worth much to +me this morning when I left Stilwell's. It has acquired a new value +now."</p> + +<p>All this time Morgan had stood holding Seth Craddock's big revolvers in +his hands, as if he distrusted the desolation of the fire-sown square. +Now he sheathed one of them in his holster, and thrust<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">324</a></span> the other under +his belt. His right hand was bleeding, from wounds of the bullet that +had struck his rifle-barrel and sprayed hot lead into his flesh, and +from the blows he had dealt in his fury amongst the mob.</p> + +<p>Rhetta put out her hand and took his, bleeding and torn and +battle-maimed as it was, and lifted it tenderly, and nestled it against +her cheek.</p> + +<p>"Dear, brave hand!" she said.</p> + +<p>"You're not afraid of it now!" he wondered, putting out his free hand as +if he offered it also for the absolution of her touch.</p> + +<p>"It was only the madness of the wind," she told him, the sorrow of her +penance in her simple words.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">325</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2><h3>SUNSET</h3> +</div> + +<p>Evening saw the fires of Ascalon subdued and confined. With the falling +of the wind the danger of the disaster spreading to embrace the entire +town decreased almost to safety, although the wary, scorched townsmen +stood watch over the smoldering coals which lay deep where the principal +part of Ascalon lately stood.</p> + +<p>Fred Stilwell had been taken to Judge Thayer's house, where his mother +and Violet attended him. The doctor said youth and a clean body would +carry him through. As for Drumm, whose bullet had brought the young man +down, his horse with the black saddle-roll had stood hitched to Judge +Thayer's fence until evening, when the sheriff came with a writ of +attachment in Stilwell's favor and took it away. Drumm's body was lying +on a board in the calaboose, diverted for that dark day in Ascalon's +history into a morgue.</p> + +<p>The sheriff reported that the Texas cattleman had carried more than +fifty thousand dollars in currency behind his saddle. That was according +to the custom of the times, and usage of the range, where many a man's +word was as good as his bond, but no man's check was as good as money.</p> + +<p>Tom Conboy was already hiring carpenters to rebuild the hotel, his eye +full of the business that would come to his doors when the railroad +shops were running, and the trainmen of the division point were there +to be housed and fed. Dora and Riley had been wandering around town all +afternoon, very much li<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">326</a></span>ke two pigeons looking for a place to nest.</p> + +<p>And so evening found peace in Ascalon, after all its tragedy and pain.</p> + +<p>Calvin Morgan and Rhetta Thayer stood at the bank corner at sunset, +looking down the square where the great gap in its front made the scene +unfamiliar. Morgan's disabled hand was bandaged; there was a cross of +surgical tape on his chin, closing a deep cut where some citizen had +tapped him with a revolver in the last fight of that tumultuous day.</p> + +<p>Little groups of desolate, disheartened people stood along the line of +hitching racks; dead coals, which the wind had sown as living fire over +the square, littered the white dust. Morgan had taken off his badge of +office, having made a formal resignation to Judge Thayer, mayor of the +town. Nobody had been sworn in to take his place, for, as Judge Thayer +had said, it did not appear as if any further calamity could be left in +store among the misfortunes for that town, except it might be an +earthquake or a cyclone, and a city marshal, even Morgan, could not fend +against them if they were to come.</p> + +<p>"You have trampled your place among the thorns," said Rhetta.</p> + +<p>"It looks like I've pulled a good deal down with me," he returned, +viewing the seat of fire with a softening of pity in his grave face.</p> + +<p>"All that deserves to rise will rise again," she said in confidence. +"It's a good thing it burned—it's purged of its old shame and old +monuments of corruption. I'm glad it's gone."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">327</a></span></p> + +<p>There was a quiet over the place, as if the heart of turbulence had been +broken and its spirit had taken flight. In the southwest, in the faces +of the two watchers at the margin of this ruin, a vast dark cloud stood +like a landfall rising in the mariner's eye out of the sea. It had been +visible since four o'clock, seeming to hesitate as if nature intended +again to deny this parched and suffering land the consolation of rain. +Now it was rising, already it had overspread the sunset glow, casting a +cool shadow full of promise over the thirsting prairie wastes.</p> + +<p>"It will rain this time," Rhetta prophesied. "It always comes up slowly +that way when it rains a long time."</p> + +<p>"A rain will work wonders in this country," he said, his face lifted to +the promise of the cloud.</p> + +<p>"And wisdom and faith will do more," she told him, her voice tender and +low.</p> + +<p>"And love," said he, voice solemn as a prophet's, yet gentle as a +dove's.</p> + +<p>"And love," she whispered, the wind, springing like an inspiration +before the rain, lifting her shadowy hair.</p> + +<p>Joe Lynch came driving into the stricken square down the road beside +them, bringing a load of bones.</p> + +<p>"Had to burn the town to fetch a rain, huh?" said Joe, his ghostly dry +old face tilted to catch the savor of the wind. So saying, he drove on, +and paused not in his labor of off-bearing the waste of failure that +must be cleared for the new labor of wisdom, faith, and love.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">328</a></span></p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Thirty years will do for a cottonwood what two centuries will do for an +oak. Thirty years had built the cottonwoods of great girth, and lifted +them in dignity high above the roof of Calvin Morgan's white farmhouse, +his great barns and granaries. Elm trees, bringing their blessings of +wide-spreading branch more slowly, led down a broad avenue to the white +manse with its Ionian portico. Over the acres of smooth, luxuriant green +lawn, the long shadows of closing day reached like the yearning of men's +unfinished dreams.</p> + +<p>Before the house a broad roadway, smooth as a city boulevard, ran +straight to the bright, clean, populous city where Ascalon, with its +forgotten shame and tragedies, once stood. And far and away, over the +swell of gentle ridge, into the dip of gracious valley, spread the +benediction of growing wheat. Wisdom and faith and love had worked their +miracle. This land had become the nation's granary; it was a land +redeemed.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Under the giant cottonwoods, gray-green of leaf as the desert grasses +were gray-green in the old cattle days, the brown walls, the low roof, +of a sod house stood, the lawn clipped smooth around its humble door, +lilac clumps green beside its walls, sweet honeysuckle clambering over +its little porch. And there came, in the tender last beams of the +setting sun, a man and woman to its door.</p> + +<p>Not old, not bent, not gnarled by the rac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">329</a></span>k of blind-groping, undirected +toil, for such of the chosen out of nature's nobility are never old. +Hair once dark as woodland shadows was shot with the sunlight of many +years; hair once bright as the mica tossed by joyous waves upon a sunny +beach was whitened now by the unmelting snows of winters numbered +swiftly in the brief calendar of man. But shoulders were unbent by the +burdens which they had borne joyously, and their feet went quickly as +lovers' to a tryst.</p> + +<p>This little sod house stood with all its old-time furnishings, like a +shrine, and on this day, which seemed to be an anniversary, it had been +brightened with vases of flowers. This man and this woman, not old, +indeed, entered and stood within its door, where the light was dimming +through the little window high in the thick wall. The man crossed the +room, and stood where a belt with holsters hung upon the wall. She drew +near him, and lifted his great hand, and nestled it against her cheek.</p> + +<p>"Old Seth Craddock's guns," he said, musing as on a recurring memory.</p> + +<p>"His guns!" she murmured, drawing closer into the shadow of his +strength.</p> +<p> </p> + +<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes</h3> +<ol> +<li>The author's consistent use of a lower-case letter following an +exclamation point or a question mark inside quoted dialect has +been retained.</li> +<li>Other punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards.</li> +<li>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</li> +</ol> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAIL'S END***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 20712-h.txt or 20712-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/1/20712">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/7/1/20712</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Ogden, Illustrated +by P. V. E. Ivory + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Trail's End + + +Author: George W. Ogden + + + +Release Date: February 28, 2007 [eBook #20712] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAIL'S END*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/c/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustration. + See 20712-h.htm or 20712-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/1/20712/20712-h/20712-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/1/20712/20712-h.zip) + + + + + +TRAIL'S END + +by + +G. W. OGDEN + +Author of +The Duke of Chimney Butte, +The Flockmaster of Poison Creek, +The Land of Last Chance, Etc. + +Frontispiece by P. V. E. Ivory + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Morgan, grim as judgment, stood among the crowd of +wastrels and women of poisoned lips (Page 229)] + + +Grosset & Dunlap +Publishers New York +Made in the United States of America + +Copyright +A. C. McClurg & Co. +1921 +Published September, 1921 +Copyrighted in Great Britain + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I The Unconquered Land 1 + II The Meat Hunter 11 + III First Blood 23 + IV The Optimist Explains 36 + V Ascalon Awake 54 + VI Riders of the Chisholm Trail 65 + VII A Gentle Cowboy Joke 77 + VIII The Atavism of a Man 87 + IX News from Ascalon 101 + X The Hour of Vengeance 111 + XI The Penalty 124 + XII In Place of a Regiment 141 + XIII The Hand of the Law 157 + XIV Some Fool With a Gun 165 + XV Will His Luck Hold? 176 + XVI The Meat Hunter Comes 187 + XVII With Clean Hands 199 + XVIII A Bondsman Breathes Easier 216 + XIX The Curse of Blood 223 + XX Unclean 234 + XXI As One That Is Dead 241 + XXII Whiners at the Funeral 245 + XXIII Ascalon Curls Its Lip 259 + XXIV Madness of the Winds 277 + XXV A Summons at Sunrise 290 + XXVI In the Square at Ascalon 299 + XXVII Absolution 315 + XXVIII Sunset 325 + + + + + +TRAIL'S END + +CHAPTER I + +THE UNCONQUERED LAND + + +Bones. + +Bones of dead buffalo, bones of dead horses, bones of dead men. The +tribute exacted by the Kansas prairie: bones. A waste of bones, a +sepulcher that did not hide its bones, but spread them, exulting in its +treasures, to bleach and crumble under the stern sun upon its sterile +wastes. Bones of deserted houses, skeletons of men's hopes sketched in +the dimming furrows which the grasses were reclaiming for their own. + +A land of desolation and defeat it seemed to the traveler, indeed, as he +followed the old trail along which the commerce of the illimitable West +once was borne. Although that highway had belonged to another +generation, and years had passed since an ox train toiled over it on its +creeping journey toward distant Santa Fe, the ruts of old wheels were +deep in the soil, healed over by the sod again, it is true, but seamed +like scars on a veteran's cheek. One could not go astray on that broad +highway, for the eye could follow the many parallel trails, where new +ones had been broken when the old ones wore deep and rutted. + +Present-day traffic had broken a new trail between the old ones; it +wound a dusty gray line through the early summer green of the prairie +grass, endless, it seemed, to the eyes of the leg-weary traveler who +bent his footsteps along it that sunny morning. This passenger, afoot on +a road where it was almost an offense to travel by such lowly means, was +a man of thirty or thereabout, tall and rather angular, who took the +road in long strides much faster than the freighters' trains had +traveled it in the days of his father. He carried a black, dingy leather +bag swinging from his long arm, a very lean and unpromising repository, +upon which the dust of the road lay spread. + +Despite the numerous wheel tracks in the road, all of them apparently +fresh, there was little traffic abroad. Not a wagon had passed him since +morning, not a lift had been given him for a single mile. Now, mounting +a ridge toward which he had been pressing forward the past hour, which +had appeared a hill of consequence in the distance, but now flattened +out to nothing more than a small local divide, he put down his bag, +flung his dusty black hat beside it, and stood wiping his face with a +large turkey-red handkerchief which he unknotted from about his neck. + +His face was of that rugged type common among the pioneers of the West, +lean and harsh-featured, yet nobly austere, the guarantee of a soul +above corruption and small trickery, of a nature that endures patiently, +of an anger slow to move. There were bright hues as of glistening metal +in his close-cut light hair as he stood bareheaded in the sun. + +Sheep sorrel was blooming by the wheel tracks of the road, purple and +yellow; daisy-like flowers, with pale yellow petals and great wondering +hearts like frightened eyes, grew low among the short grass; countless +strange blooms spread on the prairie green, cheering for their brief day +the stern face of a land that had broken the hearts of men in its +unkindness and driven them away from its fair promises. The traveler +sighed, unable to understand it quite. + +All day he had been passing little sod houses whose walls were +crumbling, whose roofs had fallen in, whose doors beckoned in the wind a +sad invitation to come in and behold the desolation that lay within. +Even here, close by the road, ran the grass-grown furrows of an +abandoned field, the settler's dwelling-place unmarked by sod or stone. +What tragedy was written in those wavering lines; what heartbreak of +going away from some dear hope and broken dream! Here a teamster was +cutting across the prairie to strike the road a little below the point +where the traveler stood. Extra side boards were on his wagon-box, as +they used to put them on in corn-gathering time back in the traveler's +boyhood home in Indiana. The wagon was heaped high with white, dry +bones. + +Bones. Nothing left to haul out of that land but bones. The young man +took up his valise and hat and struck off down the road to intercept the +freighter of this prairie product, hoping for an invitation to ride, +better pleased by the prospect of resting living bones on dead dry ones +than racking them in that strain to reach the town on the railroad, his +journey's end, on foot before nightfall. + +The driver's hat was white, like his bones; it drooped in weather-beaten +limpness about his ears, hiding his face, but he appeared to have an +hospitable heart in spite of the cheerlessness of his pursuit. Coming to +the road a little before the traveler reached the point of conjunction, +he drew the team to a stand, waiting his approach. + +"Have a ride?" the freighter invited, edging over on the backless spring +seat as he spoke, making room. + +The bone-wagon driver was a hollow-framed man, who looked as if he had +starved with the country but endured past all bounds of hardship and +discouragement. He looked hungry--hungry for food, hungry for change, +hungry for the words of men. His long gray mustache hung far below his +stubble-covered chin; there was a pallor of a lingering sickness in his +skin, which the hot sun could not sere out of it. He sat dispiritedly on +his broken seat, sagging forward with forearms across his thighs. + +"Footin' it over to Ascalon?" he asked, as the traveler mounted beside +him. + +"Yes sir, I'm headin' that way." + +"Come fur?" + +"Well, yes," thoughtfully, as if he considered what might be counted far +in that land of unobstructed horizons, "I have come a considerable +little stretch." + +"I thought maybe you was one of them new settlers in here, goin' over to +Ascalon to ketch the train," the bone man ventured, putting his inquiry +for further particulars as politely as he knew how. + +"I'm not a settler yet, but I expect to try it here." + +"You don't tell me?" + +"Yes sir; that's my intention." + +"Where you from?" + +"Iowa." + +The bone man looked his passenger over with interest, from his feet in +their serviceable shoes, to his head under his round-crowned, +wide-brimmed black hat. + +"A good many of 'em used to come in here from Ioway and Newbrasky in the +early days," he said. "You never walked plumb from there, did you?" + +"I thought of stopping at Buffalo Creek, back fifteen or twenty miles, +but I didn't like the country around there. They told me it was better +at Ascalon, so I just struck out to walk across the loop of the railroad +and take a close look at the land as I went along." + +"You must be something of a walker," the bone man marveled. + +"I used to follow a walking cultivator across an eighty-acre cornfield," +the traveler replied. + +"Yes, that'll stretch a feller's legs," the bone man admitted, +reminiscently. "Nothing like follerin' a plow to give a man legs and +wind. But they don't mostly walk around in this country; they kind of +suspicion a man when they see him hoofin' it." + +"There doesn't seem to be many of them to either walk or ride," the +traveler commented, sweeping a look around the empty land. + +"It used to be full of homesteaders all through this country--I seen 'em +come and I seen 'em go." + +"I've seen traces of them all along the railroad for the last hundred +miles or more. It must have been a mighty exodus, a sad thing to see." + +"Accordin' to the way you look at it, I reckon," the bone man reflected. +"They're comin' to this country ag'in, flocks of 'em. This makes the +third time they've tried to break this part of Kansas to ride, and I +don't know, on my soul, whether they'll ever do it or not. Maybe I'll +have more bones to pick up in a year or two." + +"It seems to be one big boneyard; I saw cars of bones on every sidetrack +as I came through." + +"Yes, I tell folks that come here and try to farm that bones was the +best crop this country ever raised, and it'll be about the only one. I +come in here with the railroad, I used to drive a team pickin' up the +buffaloes the contractors' meat hunter killed." + +"You know the history of its ups and downs, then," the young man said, +with every evidence of deep interest. + +"I guess I do, as well as any man. Bones was the first freight the +railroad hauled out of here, and bones'll be the last. I follered the +railroad camps after they built out of the buffalo country and didn't +need me any more, pickin' up the bones. Then the settlers begun to come +in, drawed on by the stuff them railroad colonization agents used to put +in the papers back East. The country broke their backs and drove 'em out +after four or five years. Then I follered around after _them_ and picked +up the bones. + +"Yes, there used to be some familiar lookin' bones among 'em once in a +while in them times. I used to bury that kind. A few of them settlers +stuck, the ones that had money to put in cattle and let 'em increase on +the range. They've done well--you'll see their ranches all along the +Arkansaw when you travel down that way. This is a cattle country, son; +that's what the Almighty made it for. It never can be anything else." + +"And there was another wave of immigration, you say, after that?" the +passenger asked, after sitting a while in silence turning over what the +old pioneer had said. + +"Yes, wave is about right. They come in by freight trainload, cars of +horses and cattle, and machinery for farmin', from back there in Ohio +and Indiany and Ellinoi--all over that country where things a man plants +in the ground grows up and comes to something. They went into this +pe-rairie and started a bustin' it up like the ones ahead of 'em did. +Shucks! you can turn a ribbon of this blame sod a hundred miles long and +never break it. What can a farmer do with land that holds together that +way? Nothin'. But them fellers planted corn in them strips of sod, +raised a few nubbins, some of 'em, some didn't raise even fodder. It run +along that way a few years, hot winds cookin' their crops when they did +git the ground softened up so stuff would begin to make roots and grow, +cattle and horses dyin' off in the winter and burnin' up in the fires +them fool fellers didn't know how to stop when they got started in this +grass. They thinned out year after year, and I drove around over the +country and picked up their bones. + +"That crowd of settlers is about all gone now, only one here and there +along some crick. Bones is gittin' scarce, too. I used to make more +when I got four dollars a ton for 'em than I do now when they pay me +ten. Grind 'em up to put on them farms back in the East, they tell me. +Takin' the bones of famine from one place to put on fat in another. +Funny, ain't it?" + +The traveler said it was strange, indeed, but that it was the way of +nature for the upstanding to flourish on the remains of the fallen. The +bone man nodded, and allowed that it was so, world without end, +according to his own observations in the scale of living things from +grass blade to mankind. + +"How are they coming in now--by the trainload?" the traveler asked, +reverting to the influx of settlers. + +"These seem to be a different class of men," the bone man replied, his +perplexity plain in his face. "I don't make 'em out as easy as I did the +ones ahead of 'em. These fellers generally come alone, scoutin' around +to see the lay of the country--I run into 'em right along drivin' livery +rigs, see 'em around for a couple or three weeks sometimes. Then they go +away, and the first thing I know they're back with their immigrant car +full of stuff, haulin' out to some place somebody went broke on back in +the early days. They seem to be a calculatin' kind, but no man ain't +deep anough to slip up on the blind side of this country and grab it by +the mane like them fellers seems to think they're doin'. It'll throw +'em, and it'll throw 'em hard." + +"It looks to me like it would be a good country for wheat," the traveler +said. + +"Wheat!" + +The bone man pulled up on his horses, checking them as if he would stop +and let this dangerous fellow off. He looked at the traveler with +incredulous stare, into which a shading of pity came, drawing his +naturally long face longer. "I'd just as well stop and let you start +back right now, mister." He tightened up a little more on the lines. + +There was merriment in the stranger's gray eyes, a smile on his homely +face that softened its harsh lines. + +"Has nobody ever tried it?" he inquired. + +"There's been plenty of fools here, but none that wild that I ever heard +of," the bone man said. "You're a hundred miles and more past the +deadline for wheat--you'd just as well try to raise bananers here. +Wheat! it'd freeze out in the winter and blow out by the roots in the +spring if any of it got through." + +The traveler swept a long look around the country, illusive, it seemed, +according to its past treatment of men, in its restful beauty and secure +feeling of peace. He was silent so long that the bone man looked at him +again keenly, measuring him up and down as he would some monstrosity +seen for the first time. + +"Maybe you're right," the young man said at last. + +The bone man grunted, with an inflection of superiority, and drove on, +meditating the mental perversions of his kind. + +"Over in Ascalon," he said, breaking silence by and by, "there's a +feller by the name of Thayer--Judge Thayer, they call him, but he ain't +never been a judge of nothin' since I've knowed him--lawyer and land +agent for the railroad. He brings a lot of people in here and sells 'em +railroad land. He says wheat'll grow in this country, tells them +settlers that to fetch 'em here. You two ought to git together--you'd +sure make a pair to draw to." + +"Wouldn't we?" said the stranger, in hearty humor. + +"What business did you foller back there in Ioway?" inquired the bone +man, not much respect in him now for the man he had lifted out of the +road. + +"I was a professional optimist," the traveler replied, grave enough for +all save his eyes. + +The bone man thought it over a spell. "Well, I don't think you'll do +much in Ascalon," he said. "People don't wear specs out here in this +country much. Anybody that wants 'em goes to the feller that runs the +jewelry store." + +The stranger attempted no correction, but sat whistling a merry tune as +he looked over the country. The bone man drove in silence until they +rose a swell that brought the town of Ascalon into view, a passenger +train just pulling into the station. + +"Octomist! Wheat!" said the bone man, with discount on the words that +left them so poor and worthless they would not have passed in the +meanest exchange in the world. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE MEAT HUNTER + + +There was one tree in the city of Ascalon, the catalpa in front of Judge +Thayer's office. This blazing noonday it threw a shadow as big as an +umbrella, or big enough that the judge, standing close by the trunk and +holding himself up soldierly, was all in the shade but the gentle swell +of his abdomen, over which his unbuttoned vest gaped to invite the +breeze. + +Judge Thayer was far too big for the tree, as he was too big for +Ascalon, but, scholar and gentleman that he was, he made the most of +both of them and accepted what they had to offer with grateful heart. +Now he stood, his bearded face streaming sweat, his alpaca coat across +his arm, his straw hat in his hand, his bald head red from the +parboiling of that intense summer day, watching a band of Texas drovers +who had just arrived with three or four thousand cattle over the long +trail from the south. + +These lank, wide-horned creatures were crowding and lowing around the +water troughs in the loading pens, the herdsmen shouting their +monotonous, melancholy urgings as they crowded more famished beasts into +the enclosures. Judge Thayer regarded the dusty scene with troubled +face. + +"And so pitch hot!" said he, shaking his head in the manner of a man who +sees complications ahead of him. He stood fanning himself with his hat, +his brows drawn in concentration. "Twenty wild devils from the Nueces, +four months on the trail, and this little patch of Hades at the end!" + +The judge entered his office with that uneasy reflection, leaving the +door standing open behind him, ran up his window shades, for the sun had +turned from the front of his building, took off his collar, and settled +down to work. One could see him from the station platform, substantial, +rather aristocratic, sitting at his desk, his gray beard trimmed to a +nicety, one polished shoe visible in line with the door. + +Judge Thayer's office was a bit removed from the activities of Ascalon, +which were mainly profane activities, to be sure, and not fit company +for a gentleman even in the daylight hours. It was a snubby little +building with square front like a store, "Real Estate" painted its width +above the door. On one window, in crude black lettering: + + WILLIAM THAYER + ATTORNEY + + NOTARY + +On the other: + + MAYOR'S OFFICE + +The office stood not above two hundred feet from the railroad station, +at the end of Main Street, where the buildings blended out into the +prairie, unfenced, unprofaned by spade or plow. Beyond Judge Thayer's +office were a coal yard and a livery barn; behind him the lots which he +had charted off for sale, their bounds marked by white stakes. + +Ascalon, in those early days of its history, was not very large in +either the territory covered or the inhabitants numbered, but it was a +town of national notoriety in spite of its size. People who did not live +there believed it to be an exceedingly wicked place, and the farther one +traveled from Ascalon, in any direction whatever, the faster this ill +fame increased. It was said, no farther off than Kansas City, that +Ascalon was the wickedest place in the United States. So, one can image +what character the town had in St. Louis, and guess at the extent of its +notoriety in Pittsburg and Buffalo. + +Porters on trains had a holy fear of Ascalon. They announced the train's +approach to it with suppressed breath, with eyes rolling white in fear +that some citizen of the proscribed town might overhear and defend the +reputation of his abiding-place in the one swift and incontrovertible +argument then in vogue in that part of the earth. Passengers of +adventurous nature flocked to the station platform during the brief +pause the train made at Ascalon, prickling with admiration of their own +temerity, so they might return home and tell of having set foot in the +wickedest town in the world. + +And that was the fame of Ascalon, new and raw, for the greater part of +it, as it lay beside the railroad on that hot afternoon when Judge +Thayer stood in the shade of his little catalpa tree watching the Texans +drive their cattle into the loading pens. + +Before the railroad reached out across the Great Plains, Ascalon was +there as a fort, under another name. The railroad brought new +consequence, new activities, and made it the most important loading +place for Texas cattle, driven over the long route on their slow way to +market. + +It was a cattle town, living and fattening on the herds which grazed the +vast prairie lands surrounding it, and on the countless thousands which +came northward to its portal over the Chisholm Trail. As will have been +gathered from the scene already passed, agriculture had tried and failed +in that land. Ascalon was believed to be, in truth, far beyond the limit +of that gentle art, which was despised and contemned by the men who +roamed their herds over the free grass lands, and the gamesters who +flourished at their expense. + +Not that all in Ascalon were vicious and beyond the statutory and moral +laws. There was a submerged desire for respectability in the grain of +even the worst of them which came to the front at times, as in defense +of the town's reputation, and on election day, when they put in such a +man as Judge Thayer for mayor. With a man like Judge Thayer at the head +of affairs, all charges of the town's utter abandonment to the powers of +evil seemed to fall and fade. But the judge, in reality, was only a +pillar set up for dignity and show. They elected him mayor, and went on +running the town to suit themselves, for the city marshal was also an +elective officer, and in his hands the scroll of the law reposed. + +Now, in these summer days, there was a vacancy in this most important +office, three months, only, after election. The term had almost two +years to run, the appointment of a man to the vacancy being in the +mayor's hands. As a consequence there was being exerted a great deal of +secret and open pressure on the mayor in favor of certain favorites. It +was from a conference with several of the town's financial powers that +the mayor had returned to his office when you first beheld him under his +catalpa tree. The sweat on his face was due as much to internal +perplexity as outward heat, for Judge Thayer was a man who wanted to +please his friends, and everybody that counted in Ascalon was his +friend, although they were not all friends among themselves. + +No later than the night before the vacancy in the marshalship had +fallen; it would not do to allow the town to go unbridled for even +another night. A strong man must be appointed to the place, and no fewer +than three candidates were being urged by as many factions, each of +which wanted its peculiar interests especially favored and protected. So +Judge Thayer was in a sweat with good reason. He wished in his honest +soul that he could reach out and pick up a disinterested man somewhere, +set him into the office without the strings of fear or favor on him, and +tell him to keep everybody within the deadline, regardless of whose +business prospered most. + +But there were not men raining down every day around Ascalon competent +to fill the office of city marshal. Out of the material offered there +was not the making of one side of a man. Two of them were creatures of +the opposing gambling factions, the other a weak-kneed fellow with the +pale eyes of a coward, put forward by the conservative business men who +deplored much shooting in the name of the law. + +How they were to get on without much shooting, Judge Thayer did not +understand. Not a bit of it. What he wanted was a man who would do more +shooting than ever had been done before, a man who would clean the place +of the too-ready gun-slingers who had gathered there, making the town's +notoriety their capital, invading even the respectable districts in +their nightly debaucheries to such insolent boldness that a man's wife +or daughter dared not show her ear on the street after nightfall. + +Judge Thayer put the town's troubles from him with a sigh and leaned to +his work. He was preparing a defense for a cattle thief whom he knew to +be guilty, but whose case he had undertaken on account of his wife and +several small children living in a tent behind the principal +gambling-house. Because it seemed a hopeless case from the jump, Judge +Thayer had set his beard firmer in the direction of the fight. Hopeless +cases were the kind that had come most frequently his way all the days +of his life. He had been fronting for the under pup so long that his own +chances had dwindled down to a distant point in his gray-headed years. +But there was lots of satisfaction behind him to contemplate even though +there might not be a great deal of prosperity ahead. That helped a man +wonderfully when it came to casting up accounts. So he was bent to the +cattle thief's case when a man appeared in his door. + +This was a tall, bony man with the dust of the long trail on him; a +sour-faced man of thin visage, with long and melancholy nose, a lowering +frown in his unfriendly, small red eyes. A large red mustache drooped +over his mouth, the brim of his sombrero was pressed back against the +crown as if he had arrived devil-come-headlong against a heavy wind. + +Judge Thayer took him for a cattleman seeking legal counsel, and invited +him in. The visitor shifted the chafed gear that bore his weapon, as if +to ease it around his gaunt waist, and entered, removing his hat. He +stood a little while looking down at Judge Thayer, a disturbance in his +weathered face that might have been read for a smile, a half-mocking, +half-humorous expression that twitched his big mustache with a catlike +sneer. + +"You're the mayor of this man's town, are you, Judge?" he asked. + +As the visitor spoke, Judge Thayer's face cleared of the perplexity that +had clouded it. He got up, beaming welcome, offering his hand. + +"Seth Craddock, as sure as little apples! I knew you, and I didn't know +you, you old scoundrel! Where have you been all these years?" + +Seth Craddock only expanded his facial twitching at this friendly +assault until it became a definite grin. It was a grin that needed no +apology, for all evidence was in its favor that it was so seldom seen by +the eyes of men that it could be forgiven without a plea. + +"I've been ridin' the long trail," said Seth. + +"With that bunch that just arrived?" + +"Yeh. Drove up from the Nueces. I'm quittin'." + +"The last time I saw you, Seth, you were butchering two tons of buffalo +a day for the railroaders. I often wondered where you went after you +finished your meat contract." + +"I scouted a while for the gover'ment, but we run out of Indians. Then I +went to Texas and rode with the rangers a year or two." + +"I guess you kept your gun-barrel hot down in that country, Seth?" + +"Yeh. Once in a while it was lively. Dyin' out down there now, quiet as +a school." + +"So you turned back to Kansas lookin' for high life. Heard of this burg, +I guess?" + +"I kind of thought something might be happenin' off up here, Judge." + +"And I was sitting here frying out my soul for the sight of a full-sized +man when you stepped in the door! Sit down; let's you and me have a +talk." + +Seth drew a dusty chair from against the wall and arranged himself in +the draft between the front and back doors of the little house. He +leaned his storm-beaten sombrero against the leg of his chair near his +heel, as carefully as if making preparations for quick action in a +hostile country, shook his head when the judge offered a cigar, shifted +his worn cartridge belt a bit with a movement that appeared to be as +unconscious as unnecessary. + +"What's restin' so heavy on your mind, Judge?" he inquired. + +"Our city marshal stepped in the way of a fool feller's bullet last +night, and all the valuable property in this town is lying open and +unguarded today." + +"Don't nobody want the job?" + +"Many are called, or seem to feel themselves nominated, but none is +appointed. The appointment is in my hands; the job's yours if you'll do +an old friend a favor and take it. It pays a hundred dollars a month." + +Seth's heavy black hair lay in disorder on his high, sharp forehead, +sweated in little ropes, more than half concealing his immense ears. He +smoothed it back now with slow hand, holding a thoughtful silence; +shifted his feet, crossed his legs, looked out through the open door +into the dusty street. + +"How does the land lay?" he asked at length. + +"You know the name of the town, everybody knows the name of the town. +Well, Seth, it's worse than its name. It's a job; it's a double man's +job. If it was any less, I wouldn't lay it down before you." + +"Crooks run things, heh?" + +"I'm only a knot on a log. The marshal we had wasn't worth the powder +that killed him. Oh-h, he did kill off a few of 'em, but what we need +here is a man that can see both sides of the street and behind him at +the same time." + +"How many folks have you got in this man's town by now, Judge?" + +"Between six and seven hundred. And we could double it in three months +if we could clean things up and make it safe." + +"How would you do it, Judge? marry everybody?" + +"I mean we'd bring settlers in here and put 'em on the land. The +railroad company could shoot farmers in here by the hundreds every month +if it wasn't for the hard name this town's got all over the country. A +good many chance it and come as it is. We could make this town the +supply point for a big territory, we could build up a business that'd +make us as respectable as we're open and notorious now. For I tell you, +Seth, this country around here is God Almighty's granary--it's the wheat +belt of the world." + +Seth made no reply. He slewed himself a little to sweep the country over +beyond the railroad station with his sullen red eyes. The heat was +wavering up from the treeless, shrubless expanse; the white sun was over +it as hot as a furnace blast. From the cattle pens the dusty, hoarse +cries of the cowboys sounded, "Ho, ho, ho!" in what seemed derision of +the judge's fervent claims. + +"A lot of us have staked our all on the outcome here in Ascalon, we +fellows who were here before the town turned out to be the sink-hole of +perdition that it is today. We built our homes here, and brought our +families out, and we can't afford to abandon it to these crooks and +gamblers and gun-slingers from the four corners of the earth. I let them +put me in for mayor, but I haven't got any more power than a stray dog. +This chance to put in a marshal is the first one I've had to land them a +kick in the gizzards, and by Jeems River, Seth, I want to double 'em +up!" + +"It looks like your trick, Judge." + +"Yes, if I had the marshal with me the two of us could run this town the +way it ought to be run. And we'd keep the county seat here as sure as +sundown." + +"Considerin' a change?" + +"The folks over in Glenmore are--the question will come to a vote this +fall. The county seat belongs here, not away off there at Glenmore, +seven miles from the railroad." + +"What's your chance?" + +"Not very heavy right now. We can out-vote them in town, but the +country's with Glenmore, all on account of our notorious name. Folks +hate to come in here to court, it's got so bad. But we could do a lot of +cleaning up between now and November, Seth." + +Seth considered it in silence, his red eyes on the dusty activities of +his late comrades at the cattle pens. He shifted his dusty feet as if +dancing to his slow thoughts, scraping his boot soles grittily on the +floor. + +"Yes, I reckon we could, Judge." + +"Half the people in Glenmore want to come over to the railroad. They'd +vote with us if they could be made to feel this was a town to bring +their families to." + +Seth seemed to take this information like a pill under his tongue and +dissolve it in his reflective way. Judge Thayer left him to his +ruminations, apparently knowing his habits. After a little Seth reached +down for his hat in the manner of a man about to depart. + +"All right, Judge; we'll clean up the town and part its hair down the +middle," he said. + +Judge Thayer did not give vent to his elation on Seth Craddock's +acceptance of the office of city marshal, although his satisfaction +gleamed from his eyes and radiated from his kindly face. He merely shook +hands with his new officer in the way of men sealing a bargain, swore +him in, and gave him the large shield which had been worn by the many +predecessors of the meat hunter in that uncomfortable office, three of +whom had gone out of the world with lead enough in them to keep them +from tossing in their graves. + +This ceremony ended, Seth put his hat firmly on his small, reptilian +head, adding greatly to the ferociousness of his thirsty countenance by +his way of pulling the sombrero down upon his ears. + +"Want to walk around with me and introduce me and show me off?" he +asked. + +"It'll be the biggest satisfaction in ten years!" Judge Thayer +declared. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +FIRST BLOOD + + +Judge Thayer had completed the round of Ascalon's business section with +the town's new peace officer, introducing him in due form. They stood +now in front of the hotel, the plank awning of which extended over the +sidewalk breaking the sun, Judge Thayer about to go his way. + +"We've got to change this condition of things, Seth," he said, sweeping +his hand around the quiet square, where nothing seemed awake but a few +loafers along the shady fronts: "we've got to make it a day town instead +of a night roost for the buzzards that wake up after sundown." + +Seth did not answer. He stood turning his red eyes up and down the +street, as if calculating distances and advantages for future +emergencies. And as he looked there came driving into the somnolent +square two men on a wagonload of bones. + +"Old Joe Lynch; he's loadin' another car of bones," Judge Thayer said. + +"He used to pick up meat for me," said Seth in his sententious way, +neither surprised nor pleased on finding this associate of his +adventurous days here in this place of his new beginning. + +Joe Lynch drove across the farther side of the square, a block away from +the two officials of Ascalon. There he stopped only long enough to allow +his passenger to alight, and continued on to the railroad siding where +his car stood. + +Judge Thayer lingered under the hotel awning, where the breeze struck +refreshingly, perhaps making a pretense of being cooled that was greater +than his necessity, curious to see who it was Lynch had brought to town +on his melancholy load. The passenger, carrying his flat bag, came on +toward the hotel. + +"He's a stranger to me," said the judge. His interest ending there, he +went his way to take up again the preparation of his case in defense of +the cattle thief whom he knew to be a thief, and nothing but a thief. + +Seth Craddock, the new marshal, glanced sharply at the stranger as he +approached the hotel. It was nothing more severe than Seth's ordinary +scrutiny, but it appeared to the traveler to be at once hostile and +inhospitable, the look of a man who sneered out of his heart and carried +a challenge in his eyes. The stranger made the mental observation that +this citizen was a sour-looking customer, who apparently resented the +coming of one more to the mills of Ascalon's obscene gods. + +There was a cluster of flies on the open page of the hotel register, +where somebody had put down a sticky piece of chocolate candy and left +it. This choice confection covered three or four lines immediately below +the last arrival's name, its little trickling rivulets, which the flies +were licking up, spreading like a spider's legs. There was nobody in the +office to receive the traveler's application for quarters, but evidence +of somebody in the remote parts of the house, whence came the sound of a +voice more penetrating than musical, raised in song. + + With her apurn pinned round her, + He took her for a swan, + But oh and a-las, it was poor Pol-ly Bawn. + +So she sang, the words of the ancient ballad cutting through the +partition like a saw. There was a nasal quality in them, as if the +singer were moved to tears by the pathos of Poor Polly's end. The +traveler laid a finger on the little bell that stood on the cigar case, +sending his alarm through the house. + +The song ceased, the blue door with DINING-ROOM in pink across its +panels, shut against the flies, opened with sudden jerk, as if by a +petulant hand. There appeared one who might have been Polly Bawn +herself, taken by the white apron that shrouded her figure from +shoulders to floor. She stood a moment in the door, seeing that it was a +stranger, half closing that gay portal to step behind it and give her +hair that swift little adjustment which, with women the world over, is +the most essential part of the toilet. She appeared smiling then, +somewhat abashed and coy, a fair short girl with a nice figure and +pretty, sophisticated face, auburn curls dangling long at her ears, a +precise row of bangs coming down to her eyebrows. She was a pink and +white little lady, quick on foot, quicker of the blue eyes which +measured the waiting guest from dusty feet to dusty hat in the glance +that flashed over him in business-like brevity. + +"Was you wishin' a room?" she inquired. + +"If you can accommodate me." + +"Register," she said, in voice of command, whirling the book about. At +the same time she discovered the forgotten confection, which she removed +to the top of the cigar case with an annoyed ejaculation under her +breath that sounded rather strong. She applied her apron to the page, +not helping it much, spreading the brown paste rather than removing it. + +"You'll have to skip three or four lines, mister, unless you've got a +'delible pencil." + +"No, I haven't. I'll write down here where it's dry." + +And there the traveler wrote, the girl looking on sharply, spelling the +letters with silently moving lips as the pen trailed them: + + Calvin Morgan, Des Moines, Ia. + +"In and out, or regular?" the girl asked, twisting the book around to +verify the upside-down spelling of his name. + +"I expect it will be only for a few days," Morgan replied, smiling a +little at the pert sufficiency of the clerk. + +"It's a dollar a day for board and room--in advance in this man's town." + +"Why in this man's town, any more than any other man's town?" the guest +inquired, amused. + +"What would you think of a man that would run up a three weeks' bill and +then walk out there and let somebody put a bullet through him?" she +returned by way of answer. + +"I think it would be a mean way to beat a board bill," he told her, +seriously. "Do they do that right along here?" + +"One smarty from Texas done it three or four months ago. Since then it's +cash in advance." + +Morgan thought it was a very wise regulation for a town where perils +were said to be so thick, all in keeping with the notoriety of Ascalon. +He made inquiry about something to eat. The girl's face set in +disfavoring cast as she tossed her head haughtily. + +"Dinner's over long ago," she said. + +Morgan made amends for this unwitting breach of the rules, wondering +what there was in the air of Ascalon that made people combative. Even +this fresh-faced girl, not twenty, he was sure, was resentful, snappish +without cause, inclined to quarrel if a word got crosswise in a man's +mouth. As he turned these things in mind, casting about for some place +to stow his bag, the girl smiled across at him, the mockery going out of +her bright eyes. Perhaps it was because she felt that she had defended +the ancient right of hostelers to rise in dignified front when a +traveler spoke of a meal out of the regular hour, perhaps because there +was a gentleness and sincerity in the tall, honest-looking man before +her that reached her with an appeal lacking in those who commonly came +and went before her counter. + +"Put your grip over there," she nodded, "and I'll see what I can find. +If you don't mind a snack--" she hesitated. + +"Anything--a slab of cold meat and a cup of coffee." + +"I'll call you," she said, starting for the blue door. + +The girl had reached the dining-room door when there entered from the +street a man, lurching when he walked as if the earth tipped under him +like the deck of a ship. He was a young and slender man, dressed rather +loudly in black sateen shirt and scarlet necktie, with broad blue, +tassel-ornamented sleeve holders about his arms. He wore neither coat +nor vest, but was belted with a pistol and booted and spurred, his +calling of cowboy impressed in every line. + +The girl paused, hand on the door, waiting to see what he wanted, and +turned back when he rested his arms on the cigar case, clicking the +glass with a coin. While she was making change for him, the cowboy stood +with his newly bought cigar in his mouth, scanning the register. He +seemed sober enough when standing still, save for the vacant, +liquor-dead look of his eyes. + +"Who wrote that?" he asked, pointing to Morgan's name. + +"That gentleman," the girl replied, placing his change before him. + +The cowboy picked up his money with numb fingers, fumbled to put it in +his pocket, dropping it on the floor. He kicked at it with a curse and +let it lie, scowling meantime at Morgan with angry eyes. + +"Too good to write your name next to mine, are you?" he sneered. "Afraid +it'd touch your fancy little handwritin', was you?" + +"I didn't know it was your name, pardner," Morgan returned, conciliating +him as he would an irresponsible child. "Why, I'd walk a mile to write +my name next to yours any day. There was something on the book----" + +"You spit on it! You spit on my name!" the foolish fellow charged, +laying hand to his pistol. "A man that's too good to write his name next +to mine's too good to stay in the same house with me. You'll hit the +breeze out of here, pardner, or you'll swaller lead!" + +The girl came swiftly from behind the counter, and ran lightly to the +door. Morgan put up his hand to silence the young man, knowing well that +he could catch his slow arm before he could drag his gun two inches from +the holster. + +"Keep your gun where it is, old feller," he suggested, rather than +warned, in good-natured tone. "I didn't mean any insult, but I'll take +my hat off and apologize to you if you want me to. There was a piece of +candy on the book right----" + +"I'll put a piece of hot iron in your guts!" the cowboy threatened. He +leaned over the register, hand still on his pistol, and tore out the +offending page, crumpling it into a ball. "You'll eat this, then you'll +hit the road back where you come from!" + +The girl was beckoning to somebody from the door. Morgan was more +annoyed and shamed by his part in this foolish scene than he was +disturbed by any feeling of danger. He stood watching the young man's +shooting arm. There was not more than five feet between them; a step, a +sharp clip on the jaw, and the young fool would be helpless. Morgan was +setting himself to act, for the cowboy, whose face was warrant that he +was a simple, harmless fellow when sober, was dragging on his gun, when +one came hastening in past the girl. + +This was a no less important person than the new city marshal, whom +Morgan had seen without knowing his official standing, as he arrived at +the hotel. + +"This man's raisin' a fuss here--he's tore the register--look what he's +done--tore the register!" the indignant girl charged. + +"You're arrested," said the marshal. "Come on." + +The cowboy stood mouthing his cigar, a weak look of scorn and derision +in his flushed face. His right hand was still on his pistol, the wadded +page of the register in the other. + +"You'd better take his gun," Morgan suggested to the marshal, "he's so +drunk he might hurt himself with it." + +Seth Craddock fixed Morgan a moment with his sullen red eyes, in which +the sneer of his heart seemed to speak. But his lips added nothing to +the insult of that disdainful look. He jerked his head toward the door +in command to his prisoner to march. + +"Come out! I'll fight both of you!" the cowboy challenged, making for +the door. He was squarely in it, one foot lifted in his drunken +balancing to step down, when Seth Craddock jerked out his pistol between +the lifting and the falling of that unsteady foot, and shot the +retreating man in the back. The cowboy pitched forward into the street, +where he lay stretched and motionless, one spurred foot still in the +door. + +Morgan sprang forward with an exclamation of shocked protest at this +unjustified slaughter, while the girl, her blue eyes wide in horror, +shrunk against the counter, hands pressed to her cheeks, a cry of +outraged pity ringing from her lips. + +"Resist an officer, will you?" said the city marshal, as he strode +forward and looked down on the first victim in Ascalon of the woeful +harvest his pistol was to reap. So saying, as if publishing his +justification, he sheathed his weapon and walked out, as little moved as +if he had shot the bottom out of a tomato can in practice among friends. + +A woman came hastening from the back of the house with dough on her +hands, a worn-faced woman, whose eyes were harried and afraid as if they +had looked on violence until horror had set its seal upon them. She +exclaimed and questioned, panting, frantic, holding her dough-clogged +fingers wide as she bent to look at the slain man in her door. + +"It was the new marshal Judge Thayer was in here with just after +dinner," the girl explained, the pink gone out of her pretty face, the +reflection of her mother's horror in her eyes. + +"My God!" said the woman, clutching her breast, looking with a wilder +terror into Morgan's face. + +"Oh, I wish they'd take him away! I wish they'd take him away!" the girl +moaned, cringing against the counter, covering her face with her hands. + +Outside a crowd collected around the fallen man, for common as death by +violence was in the streets of Ascalon, the awe of its swift descent, +the hushing mystery of its silence, fell as coldly over the hearts of +men there as in the walks of peace. Presently the busy undertaker came +with his black wagon to gather up this broken shape of what had been a +man but a few minutes past. + +The marshal did not trouble himself in the case further. Up the street +Morgan saw him sauntering along, unmoved and unconcerned, from all +outward show, as if this might have been just one incidental task in a +busy day. Resentment rose in Morgan as he watched the undertaker and his +helper load the body into the wagon with unfeeling roughness; as he saw +the marshal go into a saloon with a crowd of noisy fellows from the +stock pens who appeared to be applauding his deed. + +This appeared to Morgan simply murder in the name of the law. That +bragging, simple, whisky-numbed cowboy could not have hurt a cat. All +desire for dinner was gone out of Morgan's stomach, all thought of +preparing it from the girl's mind. She stood in the door with her +mother, watching the black wagon away with this latest victim to be +crushed in Ascalon's infernal mill, twisting her fingers in her apron, +her face as white as the flour on her mother's hands. The undertaker's +man came hurrying back with a bucket of water and broom. The women +turned away out of the door then, while he briskly went to work washing +up the dark little puddle that spread on the boards of the sidewalk. + +"Dora, where's your pa?" the elder woman asked, stopping suddenly as she +crossed the room, her face drawn in a quick stroke of fear, her hands +lifted to ease the smothering in her breast again. + +"I don't know, Ma. He ain't been around since dinner." + +The woman went to the door again, to lean and peer up and down the +street with that great anxiety and trouble in her face that made it old, +and distorted the faint trace of lingering prettiness out of it as if +it had been covered with ashes. + +"He's comin'," she said presently, in voice of immeasurable relief. She +turned away from the door without allowing her glance to fall directly +on the wet spot left by the undertaker's man. + +Mother and daughter talked together in low words, only a few of which +now and then reached Morgan as he stood near the counter where the +mutilated register lay, turning this melancholy event in his thoughts. +He recovered the torn crumpled page from the floor, smoothed and +replaced it in the book. A man came in, the woman turning with a quick +glad lighting of the face to meet him. + +"O Tommy! I was worried to death!" she said. + +Tom Conboy, proprietor of the Elkhorn, as the hotel was called, grunted +in discount of this anxiety as he turned his shifty eyes to the +stranger, flicking them on and off like a fly. He saw the coins dropped +by the cowboy, picked them up, put them in his pocket, face red from +what evidently was unaccustomed effort as he straightened his back. + +"You seem to be gettin' mighty flush with money around this joint," he +said, severe censure in his tone. + +"He dropped it--the man the marshal shot dropped it--it was his," the +girl explained. "I wouldn't touch it!" she shuddered, "not for anything +in the world!" + +"Huh!" said Conboy, easily, entirely undisturbed by the dead man's money +in his pocket. + +"My God! I wish he hadn't done it here!" the woman moaned. + +"I didn't think he'd shoot him or I wouldn't 'a' called him," the girl +pleaded, pity for the deed in her shocked voice. "He didn't need to do +it--he didn't have to do it, at all!" + +"Sh-h-h! No niggers in Ireland, now--no-o-o niggers in Ireland!" + +Conboy shook his head at her as he spoke, pronouncing this rather +amazing and altogether irrelevant declaration with the utmost gravity, +an admonitory, cautioning inflection in his naturally grave and resonant +voice. The girl said no more on the needless sacrifice of the young +man's life. + +"I was goin' to get this gentleman some dinner," she said. + +"You'd better go on and do it, then," her father directed, gently enough +for a man of his stamp, rather surprisingly gentle, indeed, Morgan +thought. + +Tom Conboy was a short-statured man, slight; his carefully trimmed gray +beard lending a look of serious wisdom to his face which the shiftiness +of his insincere eyes at once seemed to controvert. He wore neither coat +nor vest, but a white shirt with broad starched bosom, a large gold +button in its collarless neckband. A diamond stud flashed in the middle +of his bosom; red elastic bands an inch broad, with silver buckles, held +up the slack of the sleeves which otherwise would have enveloped his +hands. + +"Are you goin' to stay in the office a while now, Tommy, and look after +things while Dora and I do the work?" the woman asked. + +"I've got to get the jury together for the inquest," Conboy returned, +with the briskness of a man of importance. + +"Will I be wanted to give my testimony at the inquest, do you suppose?" +Morgan inquired. "I was here when it happened; I saw the whole thing." + +He spoke in the hope that he might be given the opportunity of relieving +the indignation, so strong in him that it was almost oppressive, before +the coroner's jury. Tom Conboy shook his head. + +"No, the marshal's testimony is all we'll need," Conboy replied. +"Resistin' arrest and tryin' to escape after arrest. That's all there +was to it. These fellers'll have to learn better than that with this new +man. I know him of old--he's a man that always brings in the meat." + +"But he didn't try to escape," Morgan protested. "He was so drunk he +didn't know whether he was coming or going." + +Conboy looked at him disfavoringly, as if to warn him to be discreet in +matters of such remote concern to him as this. + +"Tut, tut! no niggers in Ireland," said he, shaking his head with an +expression between a caution and a threat. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE OPTIMIST EXPLAINS + + +Not more than two hours after the tragedy at the Elkhorn hotel, of which +he was the indirect cause, Calvin Morgan appeared at Judge Thayer's +little office. The judge had finished his preparation for the cattle +thief's case, and now sat ruminating it over his cob pipe. He nodded +encouragingly as Morgan hesitated at the door. + +"Come in, Mr. Morgan," he invited, as cordially as if introductions had +passed between them already and relations had been established on a +footing pleasant and profitable to both. + +Morgan smiled a little at this ready identification, remembering the +torn page of the hotel register, which all the reading inhabitants of +the town who were awake must have examined before this. He accepted the +chair that Judge Thayer pushed toward him, nodding to the bone-wagon man +who came sauntering past the door at that moment, the long lash of his +bullhide whip trailing in the dust behind him. + +"You've come to settle with us, I hear?" said the judge. + +"I'm looking around with that thought, sir." + +"I don't know how you'll do at the start in the optical way, Mr. +Morgan--I'm afraid not much. I'd advise watch repairing and jewelry in +addition. This town is going to be made a railroad division point +before long, I could get you appointed watch inspector for the company. +Now, I've got a nice little storeroom----" + +"I'm afraid you've got me in the wrong deck," Morgan interrupted, +unwilling to allow the judge to go on building his extravagant fancy. "I +could no more fix a watch than I could repair a locomotive, and +spectacles are as far out of my line as specters." + +Judge Thayer's face reddened above his thick beard at this easy and +fluent denial of all that he had constructed from a hasty and indefinite +bit of information. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Morgan. It was Joe Lynch, the fellow that drives +the bone wagon, who got me wrong. He told me you were an oculist." + +"I think that was his rendition of optimist, perhaps," Morgan said, +laughing with the judge's hearty appreciation of the twist. "I told him, +in response to a curious inquiry, that I was an optimist. I've tried +hard--very hard, sometimes--to live up to it. My profession is one that +makes a heavy drain on all the cheerfulness that nature or art ever +stocked a man with, Judge Thayer." + +"It sounds like you might be a lawyer," the judge speculated, "or maybe +a doctor?" + +"No, I'm simply an agriculturist, late professor of agronomy in the Iowa +State Agricultural College. It takes optimism, believe me, sir, to try +to get twenty bushels of wheat out of land where only twelve grew +before, or two ears of corn where only two-thirds of one has been the +standard." + +"You're right," Judge Thayer agreed heartily; "it takes more faith, +hope, and courage to be a farmer than any other calling on earth. I +often consider the risks a farmer must take year by year in comparison +with other lines of business, staking his all, very frequently, on what +he puts into the furrows, turning his face to God when he has sown his +seed, in faith that rains will fall and frosts will be stayed. It is +heroic, sometimes it is sublimely heroic. And you are going to try your +fortunes here on the soil?" + +"I've had my eye on this country a good while in spite of the dismal +tales of hardship and failure that have come eastward out of it. I've +looked to it as the place for me to put some of my theories to the test. +I believe alfalfa, or lucerne, as it is called back East, will thrive +here, and I'm going to risk your derision and go a little farther. I +believe this can be made the greatest wheat country in America." + +Judge Thayer brought his hand down with a smack of the palm that made +his papers fly, his face radiating the pleasure that words alone could +not express. + +"I've been telling them that for seven years, Morgan!" he said. + +"Hasn't it ever been tried out?" + +"Tried out? They don't stay long enough to try out anything, Morgan. +They're here today and gone tomorrow, cursing Kansas as they go, +slandering it, branding it as the Tophet of the earth. We've never had +the right kind of people here, they didn't have the courage, the faith, +and the vision. If a man hasn't got the grit and ability to stick +through his losses at any game in this life, Morgan, he'll never win. +And he'll never be anything but a little loser, put him down where you +will." + +"I've met hundreds of them dragging their bones out of Kansas the past +four or five years," Morgan nodded. "From what I can gather by talking +with them, the trouble lies in their poverty when they come here. As you +say, they're not staked to play this stiff game. A man ought to +provision himself for a campaign against this country like he would for +an Arctic expedition. If he can't do it, he'd better stay away." + +"I guess there's more to that than I ever stopped to consider myself," +Judge Thayer admitted. "It is a hard country to break, but there are men +somewhere who can subdue it and reap its rewards." + +"I tried to induce the railroad company to back me in an experimental +farm out here, but the officials couldn't see it," Morgan said. "I'm +going to tackle it now on my lonesome. The best proof of a man's +confidence in his own theories is to put them into practice himself, +anyway." + +"These cattlemen around here will laugh at you and try to discourage +you, Morgan. I'm the standing joke of this country because I still stick +to my theory of wheat." + +"The farmers in Iowa laughed their teeth loose when we book farmers at +the college told them they could add a million bushels a year to the +corn crop of the state by putting a few more grains on the ends of the +cobs. Well, they did it, just the same, in time." + +"I heard about that," nodded the judge, quite warmed up to this +long-backed stranger. + +"Failure is written all over the face of this country," Morgan +continued; "I took a long tramp across it this morning. But I believe +I've got the formula that will tame it." + +"I believe you, I believe you can do it," Judge Thayer indorsed him, +with enthusiasm. "I believe you've brought the light of a new epoch into +this country, I believe you're carrying the key that's going to unlock +these prairies and liberate the gold under the grass roots." + +"It may be nothing but a dream," said Morgan softly, his eyes fixed on +the blue distances through the open door. "Maybe it will break me and +scatter my bones on the prairie for that old scavenger of men to haul +away." + +Judge Thayer shook his head in denial of this possibility, making note +of this rugged dreamer's strong face, strong arms, large, capable hands. + +"We're not away out West, as most people seem to think," he said, "only +a little past the middle of the state. My observation through several +years here has been that it rains about as much and as often in this +part of the country as it does in the eastern part of the state, enough +to make two crops in three, anyway, and that's as good as you can count +on without irrigation anywhere." + +Morgan agreed with a nod. Judge Thayer went on, "The trouble is, this +prairie sheds water like the roof of a house, shoots it off so quick +into the draws and creeks it never has a chance to soak in. Plow it, I +tell 'em, and keep on plowin' it, in season and out; fix it so it can +soak up the rain and hold it. Is that right?" + +"You've got the key to it yourself," Morgan told him, not a little +surprised to hear this uncredited missionary preaching the very doctrine +that men of Morgan's profession had found so hard to make converts to in +the prairie country. + +"But it will be two or three years, at least, before you can begin your +experiment with wheat," Judge Thayer regretted. "By that time I'm afraid +the settlers that are taking up land around here now will be broken and +discouraged, gone to spread the curse against Kansas in the same old +bitterness of heart." + +"I hope to find a piece of land that somebody has abandoned or wants to +sell, that has been farmed a year or two," Morgan confided. "If I can +get hold of such a place I'll be able to put in a piece of wheat this +fall--even a few acres will start me going. I could enlarge my fields +with my experience." + +Judge Thayer said he believed he had the very place Morgan was looking +for, listed for sale. But there were so many of them listed for sale, +the owners gone, their equities long since eaten up by unpaid taxes, +that it took the judge a good while to find the particulars in this +special case. + +"Man by the name of Gerhart, mile and a half west of town--that would +bring him pretty near the river--offers his quarter for three hundred +dollars. He's been there about four years, wife died this spring. I +think he's got about eighty acres broken out. Some of that land ought to +be in pretty good shape for wheat by now." + +As the day was declining to evening, and Judge Thayer's supper hour was +near, they agreed on postponing until morning the drive out to look at +the dissatisfied settler's land. Morgan was leaving when the judge +called him back from the door. + +"I was just wondering whether you'd ever had any editorial experience?" +he said. + +"No, I've never been an editor," Morgan returned, speculating alertly on +what might be forthcoming. + +"We--our editor--our editor," said the judge, fumbling with it as +if he found the matter a difficult one to fit to the proper words, +"fell into an unfortunate error of judgment a short time ago, +with--um-m-m--somewhat melancholy--melancholy--" the judge paused, as if +feeling of this word to see that it fitted properly, head bent +thoughtfully--"results. Unlucky piece of business for this community, +coming right in the thick of the contest for the county seat. There's a +fight on here, Mr. Morgan, as you may have heard, between Ascalon, the +present county seat, and Glenmore, a God-abandoned little flyspeck on +the map seven miles south of here." + +"I hadn't heard of it. And what happened to the editor?" + +"Oh, one of our hot-headed boys shot him," said the judge, out of +patience with such trivial and hasty yielding to passion. "Since then +I've been getting out the paper myself--I hold a mortgage on the +property, I'll be obliged to foreclose to protect myself--with the help +of the printer. It's not much of a paper, Morgan, for I haven't got the +time to devote to it with the July term of court coming on, but I have +to get it out every week or lose the county printing contract. There's a +hungry dog over at Glenmore looking on to snatch the bone on the least +possible excuse, and he's got two of the county commissioners with him." + +"No, I'm not an editor," Morgan repeated, speculatively, as if he saw +possibilities of distinction in that road. + +"Without the press, we are a community disarmed in the midst of our +enemies," said the judge. "Glenmore will overwhelm us and rob us of our +rights, without a champion whose voice is as the voice of a thousand +men." + +"I'd never be equal to that," Morgan said, shaking his head in all +seriousness. "Is the editor out of it for good? Is he dead?" + +"They have a devilish peculiarity of seldom wounding a man here in +Ascalon, Mr. Morgan. I've wished more than once they were not so cursed +proficient. The poor fellow fell dead, sir, at the first shot, while he +was reaching for his gun." + +"I've seen something of their proficiency here," Morgan said, with plain +contempt. + +Judge Thayer looked at him sharply. "You refer to that affair at the +hotel this afternoon?" + +"It was a brutal and uncalled-for sacrifice of human life! it was murder +in the name of the law." + +"I think you are somewhat hasty and unjust in your criticism, Mr. +Morgan," the judge mildly protested. "I know the marshal to be a +cool-headed man, a man who can see perils that you and I might overlook +until too late for our own preservation. The fellow must have made some +break for his gun that you didn't see." + +"I hope it was that way," Morgan said, willing to give the marshal every +shadow of justification possible. + +"I've known Seth Craddock a long time; he was huntin' buffalo for the +railroad contractors when I first came to this country. Why, I appointed +Seth to the office not more than an hour before that mix-up at the +hotel." + +"He's beginning early," Morgan said. + +"The man that's going to clean this town up must begin early and work +late," Judge Thayer declared. "An officer that would allow a man to run +a bluff on him wouldn't last two hours." + +"I suppose not," Morgan admitted. + +"As I told Seth when I swore him in, what we want in Ascalon is a +marshal that will use his gun oftener, and to better purpose, than the +men that have gone before him. This town must be purified, the offal of +humanity that makes a stench until it offends the heavens and spreads +our obscene notoriety to the ends of the earth, must be swept out before +we can induce sober and substantial men to bring their families into +this country." + +"It looks reasonable enough," Morgan agreed. + +"Hell's kettle is on the fire in this town, Mr. Morgan; the devil's own +stew is bubbling in it. If I could induce you to defer your farming +experiment a few months, as much as I approve it, anxious as I am to see +you demonstrate your theories and mine, I believe we could accomplish +the regeneration of this town. With a man of Craddock's caliber on the +street, and you in the _Headlight_ office speaking with the voice of a +thousand men, we could reverse public opinion and draw friends to our +side. Without some such support, I view the future with gloom and +misgiving. Glenmore is bound to displace us as the capital of this +county; Ascalon will decline to a whistling station by the side of the +track." + +"I'm afraid I wouldn't care to hitch up with Mr. Craddock in the +regeneration of Ascalon," Morgan said. "We'd pull so hard in opposite +directions we'd break the harness." + +Judge Thayer expressed his regret while he slipped on his black alpaca +coat, asking Morgan to wait until he locked his door, when he would walk +with him as far as the hotel corner. On the way they met a young man who +came bowling along with a great air of importance and self-assurance, a +fresh cigar tilted up in his mouth to such an angle that it threatened +the brim of his large white hat. + +Judge Thayer introduced this man as Dell Hutton, county treasurer. +Hutton wrung Morgan's hand with ardent grip, as if he welcomed him into +the brotherhood of the elect in Ascalon, speaking out of the corner of +his mouth around his cigar. He was a thin-mouthed man of twenty-five, or +perhaps a year or two older, with a shrunken weazenness about his face +that made him look like a very old man done over, and but poorly +renovated. His eyes were pale, with shadows in them as of inquiry and +distrust; his stature was short, his frame slight. + +Hutton seemed to be deeply, even passionately, interested in the venture +Morgan had come to make in that country. He offered his services in any +exigency where they might be applied, shaking hands again with hard +grip, accompanied by a wrinkling of his thin mouth about his cigar as he +clamped his jaws in the fervor of his earnestness. But he appeared to be +under a great pressure to go his way, his eyes controverting the +sincerity of his words the while. + +"He's rather a young man to be filling such a responsible position," +Morgan ventured as they resumed their way. + +"Dell wasn't elected to the office," Judge Thayer explained. "He's +filling out his father's term." + +"Did he--die?" Morgan inquired, marveling over the mortality among the +notables of the town. + +"He was a victim of this feud in the rivalry for the county seat," Judge +Thayer explained, with sadness. "It was due to Hutton, more than any +other force, that we didn't lose the county seat at the last +election--he kept the cattlemen lined up, was a power among them, +followed that business a long time himself. Yes. He was the first man +that ever drove a herd of cattle from Texas to load for market when this +railroad was put through. Some of those skulkers from Glenmore shot him +down at his door two months after he took office." + +"I thought the boy looked like he'd been trained on the range," Morgan +said, thoughtfully. + +"Yes, Dell was raised in the saddle, drove several trips from Texas up +here. Dell"--softly, a little sorrowfully, Morgan thought--"was the +other principal in that affair with our late editor." + +"Oh, I see. He was exonerated?" + +"Clear case of self-defense, proved that Smith--the editor was +Smith--reached for his gun first." + +Morgan did not comment, but he thought that this seemed a thing easily +proved in Ascalon. He parted from the judge at the bank corner, which +was across the way from the hotel. + +The shadow of the hotel fell far into the public square, and in front of +the building, their chairs placed in what would have been the gutter of +the street if the thoroughfare had been paved, their feet braced with +probably more comfort than grace against the low sidewalk, a row of men +was stationed, like crows on a fence. There must have been twenty or +more of them, in various stages of undress from vest down to suspenders, +from bright cravats flaunting over woolen shirts and white shirts, and +striped shirts and speckled shirts, to unconfined necks laid bare to the +breeze. + +Whether these were guests waiting supper, or merely loafers waiting +anything that might happen next, Morgan had not been long enough in town +to determine. He noticed the curious and, he thought, unfriendly eyes +which they turned on him as he approached. And as Morgan set foot on the +sidewalk porch of the hotel, Seth Craddock, the new city marshal, rose +out of the third chair on the end of the row nearest him, hand lifted in +commanding signal to halt. + +"You've just got time to git your gripsack," Craddock said, coming +forward as he spoke, but stopping a little to one side as if to allow +Morgan passage to the door. + +"Time's no object to me," Morgan returned, good-humored and undisturbed, +thinking this must be one of the jokes at the expense of strangers for +which Ascalon was famous. + +Some of the loafers were standing by their chairs in attitude of +indecision, others sat leaning forward to see and hear. Traffic both +ways on the sidewalk came to a sudden halt at the spectacle of two men +in a situation recognized at a glance in quick-triggered Ascalon as +significant, those who came up behind Morgan clearing the way by edging +from the sidewalk into the square. + +"The train'll be here in twelve minutes," Craddock announced, watch in +his palm. + +"On time, is she?" Morgan said indifferently, starting for the door. + +Again Seth Craddock lifted his hand. Those who had remained seated along +the gutter perch up to this moment now got to their feet with such haste +that chairs were upset. Craddock put his hand casually to his pistol, as +a man rests his hand on his hip. + +"You're leavin' on it," he said. + +"I guess you've got the wrong man," Morgan suggested, noting everything +with comprehensive eye, not a little concerned by the marshal's +threatening attitude. If this were going to turn out a joke, Morgan +wished it might begin very soon to show some of its risible features on +the surface, in order that he might know which way to jump to make the +best figure possible. + +"No, I ain't got no wrong man!" Craddock returned, making mockery of +the words, uttering them jeeringly out of the corner of his mouth. He +blasted Morgan with the glare of his malevolent red eyes, redder now +than before his weapon had moistened the street of Ascalon with blood. +"You're the feller that's been shootin' off your mouth about murder in +the name of the law, and you bein' able to take his gun away from that +feller. Well, kid, I'm afraid it's goin' to be a little too rough for +you in this town. You're leavin'--you won't have time to git your +gripsack now, you can write for it!" + +Morgan felt the blood flaming into his face with the hot swell of anger. +A moment he stood eye to eye with Craddock, fighting down the defiance +that rose for utterance to his lips. Then he started again toward the +hotel door. + +Craddock whipped out his pistol with arm so swift that the eye +multiplied it like a spoke in a quick-spinning wheel. He stood holding +the weapon so, his wrist rather limber, the muzzle of the pistol +pointing in the general direction of Morgan's feet. + +"Maybe you can take a gun away from me, little feller?" Craddock +challenged in high mockery, one nostril of his long nose twitching, +lifting his mustache on that side in a snarl. + +"Don't point that gun at me, Craddock!" Morgan warned, his voice +unshaken and cool, although the surge of his heart made his seasoned +body vibrate to the finger tips. + +"Scratch gravel for the depot!" Craddock commanded, lowering the muzzle +of his gun as if he intended to hasten the going by a shot between the +offender's feet. + +The men were separated by not more than two yards, and Morgan made no +movement to widen the breach immediately following the marshal's command +to go. On the contrary, before any that saw him standing there in +apparent indecision, and least of all among them Seth Craddock, could +measure his intention, Morgan stepped aside quicker than the watchers +calculated any living man could move, reached out his long arm a flash +quicker than he had shifted on his feet, and laid hold of the city +marshal's hairy wrist, wrenching it in a twist so bone-breaking that +nerves and muscles failed their office. Nobody saw exactly how he +accomplished it, but the next moment Morgan stepped back from the city +marshal, that officer's revolver in his hand. + +"Mr. Craddock," he said, in calm, advisory way, "I expect to stay around +this part of the country some little time, and I'll be obliged to come +to Ascalon once in a while. If you think you're going to feel +uncomfortable every time you see me, I guess the best thing for you to +do is leave. I'm not saying you must leave, I don't set myself up to +tell a man when to come and go without I've got that right over him. I +just suggest it for your comfort and peace of mind. If you stay here +you'll have to get used to seeing me around." + +Craddock stood for a breath glaring at the man who had humiliated him in +his new dignity, clutching his half-paralyzed wrist. He said nothing, +but there was the proclamation of a death feud in his eyes. + +"Give him a gun, somebody!" said a fool in the crowd that pressed to +the edge of the sidewalk at the marshal's back. + +Tom Conboy, standing in his door ten feet away, interposed quickly, +waving the crowd back. + +"Tut, tut! No niggers in Ireland, now!" he said. + +"He can have this one," said Morgan, still in the same measured, calm +voice. He offered the pistol back to its owner, who snatched it with +ungracious hand, shoved it into his battered scabbard, turned to the +crowd at his back with an oath. + +"Scatter out of here!" he ordered, covering his degradation as he might +in this tyrannical exercise of authority. + +Morgan looked into the curious faces of the people who blocked the +sidewalk ahead of him, withdrawn a discreet distance, not yet venturing +to come on. Except for the red handkerchief that he had worn about his +neck, he was dressed as when he arrived in Ascalon in Joe Lynch's wagon, +coatless, the dust of the road on his shoes. In place of the bright +handkerchief he now wore a slender black necktie, the ends of it tucked +into his gray woolen shirt. + +He felt taller, rawer, more angular than nature had built him as he +stood there looking at the people who had gathered like leaves against a +rock in a brook. He was ashamed of his part in the public show, sorry +that anybody had been by to witness it. In his embarrassment he pushed +his hat back from his forehead, looking around him again as if he would +break through the ranks and hide himself from such confusing publicity. + +The crowd was beginning to disperse at Seth Craddock's urging, although +those who had come to a stand on the sidewalk seemed timid about passing +Morgan. They still held back as if to give him room, or in uncertainty +whether it was all over yet. Perhaps they expected Craddock to turn on +Morgan again when he had cleared a proper space for his activities. + +As for Morgan, he had dismissed the city marshal from his thoughts, for +something else had risen in his vision more worthy the attention of a +man. This was the face of a girl on the edge of the crowd in front of +him, a tall, strong, pliant creature who leaned a little as if she +looked for her reflection in a stream. She was garbed in a brown duck +riding skirt, white waist with a bright wisp of cravat blowing at her +breast like the red of bittersweet against snow. Her dusty sombrero +threw a shadow over her eyes, but Morgan could see that they were dark +and friendly eyes, as no shadow but night could obscure. The other faces +became in that moment but the incidental background for one; his heart +lifted and leaped as the heart moves and yearns with tender quickening +at the sound of some old melody that makes it glad. + +Morgan stepped back, thinking only of her, seeing only her, making a way +for her, only, to pass. That others might follow was not in his mind. He +stepped out of the way for her. + +She came on toward him now, one finished, one refined, among that press +of crudity, one unlooked for in that place of wild lusts and dark +passions unrestrained. She carried a packet of newspapers and letters +under her bent arm, telling of her mission on the street; the thong of +her riding quirt was about her wrist. Her soft dark hair was low on her +neck, a flush as of the pleasure that speaks in bounding blood when +friend meets friend glowed in her face. Morgan removed his hat as she +passed him. She looked into his face and smiled. + +The little crowd broke and followed, but Morgan, oblivious to the +movement around him, stood on the sidewalk edge looking after her, his +hat in his hand. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +ASCALON AWAKE + + +Ascalon was laid out according to the Spanish tradition for arranging +towns that dominated the builders of the West and Southwest in the days +when Santa Fe extended its trade influence over a vast territory. +Although Ascalon was only a stage station in the latter days of traffic +over the Santa Fe Trail, its builders, when it came occasion to expand, +were men who had traded in that capital of the gray desert wastes at the +trail's end, and nothing would serve them but a plaza, with the +courthouse in the middle of it, the principal business establishments +facing it the four sides around. + +There were many who called it _the plaza_ still, especially visitors +from along the Rio Grande who came driving their long-horned, +lean-flanked cattle northward over the Chisholm Trail. Santa Fe, at its +worst, could not have been dustier than this town of Ascalon, and +especially the plaza, or public square, in these summer days. Galloping +horses set its dust flying in obscuring clouds; the restless wind that +blew from sunrise till sunset day in and day out from the southwest, +whipped it in sudden gusts of temper, and drove it through open doors, +spreading it like a sun-defying hoarfrost on the low roofs. All +considered, Ascalon was as dry, uncomfortable, unpromising of romance, +as any place that man ever built or nature ever harassed with wearing +wind and warping sun. + +The courthouse in the middle of the public square was built of bricks, +of that porous, fiery sort which seem so peculiarly designed to the +monstrous vagaries of rural architecture. Here in Ascalon they fitted +well with the arid appearance of things, as a fiery face goes best with +white eyebrows, anywhere. + +The courthouse was a two-storied structure, with the cupola as +indispensable to the old-time Kansas courthouse as a steeple to a +church. The jail was in the basement of it, thus sparing culprits a +certain punishment by concealing the building's raw, red, and crude +lines from the eye. Not that anybody in jail or out of it ever thought +of this advantage, or appreciated it, indeed, for Ascalon was proud of +the courthouse, and fired with a desire and determination to keep it +there in the plaza forever and a day. + +There were precedents before them, and plenty of them in that part of +the country, where county seats had been changed, courthouses of red +bricks and gray stones put on skids and moved away, leaving desolation +that neither maledictions could assuage nor oratory could repair. For +prosperity went with the courthouse in those days, and dignity, and +consequence among the peoples of the earth. + +Hitching racks, like crude apparatus for athletic exercises, were built +around the courthouse, with good driving distance between them and the +plank sidewalks. Here the riders from distant ranges tied their jaded +mounts, here such as made use of wagons in that land of horseback-going +men hitched their teams when they drove in for supplies. + +There was not a shrub in the courthouse square, not the dead and +stricken trunk of a tree standing monument of any attempt to mitigate +the curse of sun. There was not a blade of grass, not a struggling, +wind-blown flower. Only here and there chickweed grew, spreading its +green tracery over the white soil in such sequestered spots as the hoofs +of beast and the feet of men did not stamp and chafe and wear; and in +the angles of the courthouse walls, the Russian thistle, barbed with its +thousand thorns. Men did not consider beauty in Ascalon, this Tophet at +trail's end, save it might be the beauty of human flesh, and then it +must be rouged and powdered, and enforced with every cosmetic mixture to +win attention in an atmosphere where life was lived in a ferment of ugly +strife. + +There was in Ascalon in those bloody days a standing coroner's jury, of +which Tom Conboy was the foreman, composed of certain gamblers and town +politicians whose interests were with the vicious element. To these men +the wide notoriety of the town was capital. Therefore, it was seldom, +indeed, that anybody was slain in Ascalon without justification, +according to the findings of this coroner's jury. In this way the +gamblers and divekeepers, and such respectable citizens as chose to +exercise their hands in this exhilarating pastime, were regularly +absolved. + +The result of this amicable agreement between the county officials and +the people of the town was that Ascalon became, more than ever, a refuge +for the outlawed and proscribed of other communities. Every train +brought them, and dumped them down on the station platform to find their +way like wolves to their kind into the activities of the town. + +Gamblers and gun-slingers, tricksters and sharpers, attended by the +carrion flock of women who always hover after these wreckers and +wastrels, came to Ascalon by scores. It began to appear a question, in +time, of what they were to subsist upon, even though they turned to the +ravening of one another. + +But the broad notoriety of Ascalon attended to this, bringing with the +outlawed and debased a fresh and eager train of victims. The sons of +families came from afar, sated with the diversions and debaucheries of +eastern cities, looking for strange thrills and adventures to heat their +surfeited blood. Unsophisticated young men came, following the lure of +romance; farm boys from the midwestern states came, with a thought of +pioneering and making a new empire of the plow, as their fathers had +smoothed the land in the states already called old. + +All of these came with money in their pockets, and nearly all of them, +one day first or last, became contributors to the support of Ascalon's +prostituted population. New victims came to replace the plucked, new +crowds of cowherders rode in from the long trails to the south, relays +of them galloped night after night from the far ranches stretching along +the sandy Arkansas. There was no want of grain to sow in the gaping +furrows struck out by the hands of sin in the raw, treeless, unpainted +city of Ascalon. + +And into all this fever of coming and going, this heartbreak of shame +and loss, of quickly drawn weapon, of flash, despairing cry, and +death--this sowing of recklessness and harvesting of despair--into all +this had come Calvin Morgan, a man with a clean heart, a clean purpose +in his soul. + +Ascalon once had been illuminated at night about the public square by +kerosene lamps set on posts, after the manner of gas lights in a city, +but the expense of supplying glass day after day to repair the damage +done by roysterers during the night had become so heavy that the town +had abandoned lights long before Morgan's advent there. Only the posts +stood now, scarred by bullets, gnawed by horses which had stood hitched +to them forgotten by their owners who reveled their wages in Ascalon's +beguiling fires. At the time of Morgan's coming, starlight and +moonlight, and such beams as fell through the windows of houses upon the +uneven sidewalk around the square, provided all the illumination that +brightened the streets of Ascalon by night. + +On the evening of his mildly adventurous first day in the town, Morgan +sat in front of the Elkhorn hotel, his chair in the gutter, according to +the custom, his feet braced comfortably against the outer edge of the +sidewalk, flanked by other guests and citizens who filled the remaining +seats. Little was said to him of his encounter with the new city +marshal, and that little Morgan made less, and brought to short ending +by his refusal to be led into the matter at all. And as he sat there, +chatting in desultory way, the fretting wind died to a breath, the line +of men in the chairs grew indistinct in the gloom of early night, and +Ascalon rose up like a sleeping wolf, shaking off the drowse of the day, +and sat on its haunches to howl. + +This awakening began with the sound of fiddles and pianos in the big +dance hall whose roof covered all the vices which thrive best in the +dark. Later a trombone and cornet joined the original musical din, +lifting their brassy notes on the vexed night air. Bands of horsemen +came galloping in, yelping the short, coyote cries of the cattle lands. +Sometimes one of them let off his pistol as he wheeled his horse up to +the hitching rack, the relief of a simple mind that had no other +expression for its momentary exuberance. + +Sidewalks became thronged with people tramping the little round of the +town's diversions, but of different stamp from those who had sparsely +trickled through its sunlight on legitimate business that afternoon. +Cowboys hobbled by in their peggy, high-heeled gait, as clumsy afoot as +penguins; men in white shirts without coats, their skin too tender to +withstand the sun, walked with superior aloofness among the sheep which +had come to their shearing pens, preoccupied in manner, yet alert, +watching, watching, on every hand. + +Now and then women passed, but they, also, were of the night, gaudily +bedecked in tinsel and glittering finery that would have been fustian by +day to the least discriminating eye. Respectability was not abroad in +Ascalon by night. With the last gleam of day it left the stage to +wantonness. + +As the activity of the growing night increased, high-pitched voices of +cowboys who called figures of the dances quavered above the confusion of +sounds, a melancholy note in the long-drawn syllables that seemed a +lament for the waste of youth, and a prophecy of desolation. When the +music fell to momentary silence the clash of pool balls sounded, and the +tramp of feet, and quavering wild feminine laughter rising sharply, +trailing away to distance as if the revelers sailed by on the storm of +their flaming passions, to land by and by on the shores of morning, +draggled, dry-lipped, perhaps with a heartache for the far places left +behind forever. + +Morgan was not moved by a curiosity great enough to impel him to make +the round. All this he had seen before, time over, in the frontier towns +of Nebraska, with less noise and open display, certainly, for here in +Ascalon viciousness had a nation-wide notoriety to maintain, and must +intensify all that it touched. He was wondering how the townspeople who +had honest business in life managed to sleep through that rioting, with +the added chance of some fool cowboy sending a bullet through their thin +walls as he galloped away to his distant camp, when Tom Conboy came +through the sidewalk stream to sit beside him in a gutter chair. + +The proprietor of the Elkhorn hotel appeared to be under a depression of +spirits. He answered those who addressed him in short words, with manner +withdrawn. Morgan noted that the diamond stud was gone out of the desert +of Conboy's shirt bosom, and that he was belted with a pistol. Presently +the man on Conboy's other hand, who had been trying with little result +to draw him into a conversation, got up and made his way toward the +bright front of the dance hall. Conboy touched Morgan's knee. + +"Come into the office, kind of like it happened, a little while after +me," he said, speaking in low voice behind his hand. He rose, stretching +and yawning as if to give his movements a casual appearance, stood a +little while on the edge of the sidewalk, went into the hotel. Morgan +followed him in a few minutes, to find him apparently busy with his +accounts behind the desk. + +A little while the proprietor worked on his bookkeeping, Morgan lounging +idly before the cigar case. + +"Some fellers up the street lookin' for you," Conboy said, not turning +his head. + +"What fellows? What do they want?" + +"That bunch of cowboys from the Chisholm Trail." + +"I don't know them," said Morgan, not yet getting the drift of what +Conboy evidently meant as a warning. + +"They're friends of the city marshal; he belonged to the same outfit," +Conboy explained, ostensibly setting down figures in his book. + +"Thank you," said Morgan, starting for the door. + +"Where you goin' to?" Conboy demanded, forgetting caution and possible +complications in his haste to interpose. + +"To find out what they want." + +"There's no sense in a man runnin' his arm down a lion's throat to see +if he's hungry," Conboy said, making a feint now of moving the cigar +boxes around in the case. + +"This town isn't so big that they'd miss a man if they went out to hunt +him. Where are they?" + +"I left them at Peden's, the big dance hall up the street. Ain't you got +a gun?" + +"No," Morgan returned thoughtfully, as if he had not even considered one +before. + +"The best thing you can do is to take a walk out into the country and +forget your way back, kid. Them fellers are goin' to be jangled up just +about right for anything in an hour or so more. I'd advise you to +go--I'll send your grip to you wherever you say." + +"You're very kind. How many of them are there?" + +"Seven besides Craddock, the rest of them went to Kansas City with the +cattle you saw leave in them three extras this evening. Craddock's +celebratin' his new job, he's leadin' 'em around throwin' everything +wide open to 'em without a cent to pay. 'Charge it to me' he said to +Peden--I was there when they came in--'charge it to me, I'm payin' this +bill.' You know what that means." + +"I suppose it means that the collection will be deferred," Morgon said, +grinning over the city marshal's easy cut to generosity. + +"Indefinitely postponed," said Conboy, gloomily. "I'm goin' to put all +my good cigars in the safe, and do it right now." + +"Here's something you may put in the safe for me, too," said Morgan, +handing over his pocketbook. + +"Ain't you goin' to leave town?" Conboy asked, hand stayed hesitantly to +take the purse. + +"I've got an appointment with Judge Thayer to look at a piece of land in +the morning," Morgan returned. + +"Well, keep out enough to buy a gun, two of 'em if you're a +double-handed man," Conboy counseled. + +"I've got what I need," said Morgan, putting the purse in Conboy's hand. + +"I'd say for you to take a walk out to Judge Thayer's and stay all night +with him, but them fellers will be around here a couple of weeks, I +expect--till the rest of the outfit comes back for their horses. Just +one night away wouldn't do you any good." + +"I couldn't think of it," said Morgan, coldly. + +"You know your business, I guess," Conboy yielded, doubtfully, "but +don't play your luck too far. You made a good grab when you took that +feller's gun away from him, but you can't grab eight guns." + +"You're right," Morgan agreed. + +"If you're a reasonable man, you'll hit the grit out of this burg," +Conboy urged. + +"You said they were at Peden's?" + +"First dance house you come to, the biggest one in town. You don't need +to tip it off that I said anything. No niggers in Ireland, you know." + +"Not a nigger," said Morgan. + +As he stepped into the street, Morgan had no thought of going in any +direction save that which would bring him in conjunction with the men +who sought him. If he began to run at that stage of his experiences, he +reasoned, he would better make a streak of it that would take him out of +the country as fast as his feet would carry him. If those riders of the +Chisholm Trail were going to be there a week or two, he could not dodge +them, and it might be that by facing them unexpectedly and talking it +over man to man before they got too far along in their spree, the +grievance they held against him on Seth Craddock's account could be +adjusted. + +He had come to Ascalon in the belief that he could succeed and prosper +in that land which had lured and beckoned, discouraged and broken and +driven forth again ten thousand men. Already there was somebody in it +who had looked for a moment into his soul and called it courageous, and +passed on her way again, he knew not whither. But if Ascalon was so +small that a man whom men sought could not hide in it, the country +around it was not vast enough to swallow one whom his heart desired to +find again. + +He would find her; that he had determined hours ago. That should be his +first and greatest purpose in this country now. No man, or band of men, +that ever rode the Chisholm Trail could set his face away from it. He +went on to meet them, his dream before him, the wild sound of Ascalon's +obscene revelry in his ears. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +RIDERS OF THE CHISHOLM TRAIL + + +Peden's emporium of viciousness was a notable establishment in its day. +By far the largest in Ascalon, it housed nearly every branch of +entertainment at which men hazard their fortunes and degrade their +morality. It was a vast shell of planks and shingles, with skeleton +joists and rafters bare overhead, built hastily and crudely to serve its +ephemeral day. + +In the farther end there was a stage, upon which mephitic females +displayed their physical lures, to come down and sell drinks at a +commission in the house, and dance with the patrons, at intervals. +Beyond the many small round tables which stood directly in front of the +stage was a clear space for dancing, and on the border of this festival +arena, in the front of the house, the gambling devices. A bar ran the +length of the building on one side from door to orchestra railing. It +was the pride of Ascalon that a hundred men could stand and regale +themselves before this counter at one time. + +Five bartenders stood behind this altar of alcohol when Morgan set foot +in the place intent on putting himself in the way of the riders of the +Chisholm Trail. These Texas cowboys were easily identified among the +early activities of the place by the unusual amount of Mexican silver +and leather ornamentation of their apparel. They were a road-worn and +dusty crew, growing noisy and hilarious in their celebration of one of +their number being elevated to the place of so conspicuous power as city +marshal of that famous town. It appeared to have its humorous side from +the loud laughter they were spending over it, and the caressing thumps +which they laid on Seth Craddock's bony back. + +They were lined up against the bar, Craddock in the midst of them, a +regiment of bottles before them. Morgan drew near, ordered a drink, +stood waiting the moment of his discovery and what might follow it. The +Texans were trying everything in the stock, from gin to champagne, gay +in the wide choice the marvelous influence of their comrade opened to +them without money or the hint of price. + +Morgan lounged at the bar, turning meditatively the little glass of +amber liquor that was the passport to the estate of a proper man in +Ascalon, as in many places neither so notorious nor perilous in those +times. Each of the big metal kerosene lamps swung high on the joists +threw a circular blotch of shadow on the floor, but the light from them +fell brightly on the bar, increased in brilliancy by reflection from the +long row of mirrors. + +In this sparkle of glass and bar furniture Morgan stood, conspicuous by +being apart, like a solitary who had ridden in for a jambouree of his +own without companion or friend. He wore his broad-brimmed black hat +with the high crown uncreased, and only for the lack of boots and pistol +he might have passed for a man of the range. The bartender who served +him looked at him with rather puzzled and frequent sidelong turning of +the eyes as he stood brooding over the untasted liquor, as if he sought +to place him in memory, or to classify him among the drift of men who +came in varying moods to his mahogany altar to pay their devotions to +its bottled gods. + +Morgan's hat cast a shadow over half his face, making it as stern as a +Covenanter's portrait. His eyes were on the bar, where his great hand +turned and turned the glass, as if his mind were withdrawn a thousand +leagues from the noisy scene about him. But for all that apparently +wrapt and self-centered contemplation, Morgan knew the moment when Seth +Craddock looked his direction and discovered him. At that moment he +lifted his glass and drank. + +Craddock turned to his companions, upon whom a quiet settled as they +drew together in brief conference. Presently the city marshal sauntered +out, leaving his comrades of the long trail to carry on their revelry +alone. A gangling young man, swart-faced, fired by the contending +crosses of alcoholic concoctions which he had swallowed, approached +Morgan where he leaned against the bar. This fellow straddled as if he +had a horse between his legs, and he was dusty and road-rough, but newly +shaved and clipped, and perfumed with all the strong scents of the +barber's stock. + +"Good evenin', bud. How does your copperosticies seems to segastuate +this evenin'?" he hailed, in a bantering, insolent, overriding way. + +"I'm able to be up and around and take a little grub," Morgan returned, +as good-humoredly as if there had been no insulting sneer in the +cowboy's words. + +"I hear you're leaving town this evenin'?" + +"I guess that's a mistake of the printer," Morgan said with casual ease. + +The other men in the party drew around Morgan, some of them challenging +him with insolent glances, all of them holding their peace but the one +who had spoken, who appeared to have been selected for that office. + +"A friend of mine told me you was hittin' the grit out of here tonight," +the young man insisted, putting that in his voice which seemed to admit +no controversy. "This country ain't no place for a granger, bud; +farmin's the unhealthiest business here a man ever took up, they tell +me, he don't live no time at it. Sure, you're hittin' the road out of +here tonight--my friend appointed us a committee to see you off." + +"I'm sorry to disappoint you, boys, but your friend's got the wrong +information on me and my movements, whoever he is. I'm goin' to hang +around this town some little time, till my farming tools come, anyhow. +Just pass that word along to your friend, will you, sport?" + +"You ain't got erry gun stuck around in your pants, have you, bud?" the +Texan inquired with persuasive gentleness. + +"Not the ghost of a gun." + +"Grangers burn their eyebrows off and shoot theirselves through the feet +when they go totin' guns around," the fellow said, speaking in the +wheedling, ingratiating way that one addresses an irresponsible child or +a man in alcoholic paresis. The others appeared to find a subtle humor +in their comrade's mode of handling a granger. Morgan grinned with them +as if he found it funny himself. + +One fellow stood a little apart from the rest of the band, studying +Morgan with an expression of insolence such as might well warrant the +belief that he held feud with all grangers and made their discomfiture, +dislodgment, and extermination the chief business of his life. This was +a man of unlikely proportions for a trade aback of a horse--short of +legs, heavy of body, long in the reach of his arms. His face was round +and full, fair for one who rode abroad in all seasons under sun and +storm, his teeth small and far apart. + +This man said nothing, took no part in the side comment that passed +among his comrades, only grinned occasionally, his eyes unwaveringly on +Morgan's face. Morgan was drawn to note him particularly among this +mainly trifling and innocuous bunch, uneasily impressed by the cold +curiosity of his round, tigerish eyes. He thought the fellow appeared to +be calculating on how much blood a granger of that bulk contained, and +how long it would take him to drink it. + +"You ain't got a twenty-two hid around in your pocket nowhere?" the +inquisitor pressed, with comically feigned surprise. Morgan denied the +ownership of even a twenty-two. "I'll have to feel over you and see--I +never saw a granger in my life that didn't tote a twenty-two," the Texan +declared, stepping up to Morgan to put his declaration into effect. + +Morgan had stood through this mocking inquisition in careless posture, +elbows on the bar at his back, with as much good humor as if he were a +member of the band taking his turn as the butt of the evening's +merrymaking. Now, as the young Texan approached with the evident +intention of searching him for a weapon, Morgan came suddenly out of his +lounging posture into one of watchfulness and defense. He put up his +hand in admonitory gesture to stay the impending degradation. + +"Hands off, pardner!" he warned. + +The cowboy stopped, turned to his comrades in simulated amazement. + +"Did you hear the pore feller make that noise?" he asked, turning his +head as if he listened, not quite convinced that his ears had not +deceived him. + +"He's sick, he orto have a dose of turkentime for the holler horn," said +one. + +"He's got the botts--drench him for the botts," another prescribed. + +That suggestion appealed to their humor. It was endorsed with laughter +as they pressed around Morgan to cut off his escape. + +"I was told you men were looking for me," Morgan said, estimating them +individually and collectively with calculative eyes, "so I stepped in +here where you could find me if you had anything worth a man's time to +say to me. I guess you've shot your wad, and you've got my answer. You +can tell your friend I'm stopping at the Elkhorn hotel, if he don't know +it already." + +Morgan moved away from the bar as if to leave the place. They bunched in +front of him to bar his passage, one laying hold of his arm. + +"We're fixin' up a little drink for you," this detainer said, indicating +the former spokesman, who was busy at the bar pouring something of the +contents of the various bottles into one that bore a champagne label. + +"I've had my drink, it isn't time for another," Morgan said, swinging +his arm, sending the fellow who clung to it headlong through the ranks +of his companions. + +At this show of resistance the mask of humor that had covered their +sinister intention was flung aside. The man with the wide-set teeth +stepped into action there, the others giving place to him as to a +recognized champion. He whirled into Morgan, planting a blow just above +the bridge of his nose that sent him back against the bar with a jolt +that made the bottles dance. + +It was such a sudden and mighty blow that Morgan was dazed for a moment, +almost blinded. He saw his assailant before him in wavering lines as he +guarded instinctively rather than scientifically against the fierce +follow-up by which the fellow seemed determined to make an inglorious +end of it for the despised granger. Morgan cleared out of the mists of +this sudden assault in a moment, for he was a man who had taken and +given hard blows in more than one knock-down and drag-out in his day. He +caught the swing that was meant for a knock-out on his left guard, and +drove his able right fist into the fellow's face. + +The pugilistic cowboy, rare fellow among his kind, went to the floor. +But there was good stuff in him, worthy the confidence his comrades +reposed. For a breath or two he lay on his back as he fell, twisted to +his side with a springy movement of incredible swiftness, and sprang to +his feet. Blood was running from his battered nose and already puffed +lips. The cheers of his comrades warmed him back to battle, and the +onlookers who came pressing from all quarters, drew aside to give them +room to fight. + +They began to mix it at a furious pace, both of them sledging heavily, +the advantage of reach and height sparing Morgan much of the heavy +punishment his opponent lacked the cleverness to avoid. While the fellow +doubtless was a champion among the men of his range, he had little +chance against Morgan, imperfect as he was at that game. In a few +minutes of incessant hammering, no breathing spell to break the fierce +encounter, Morgan had chopped the cowboy's face severely. Five times +Morgan knocked him down in less than half as many minutes, the elastic, +enduring fellow coming back each time with admirable courage and vigor. + +Morgan's hands were cut from this bare-knuckled mauling, but his +opponent had not landed a damaging blow on his face since the first +unexpected and unguarded one. He could see, from their crowding and +attempts to interfere, that the spirit of fairness had gone out of the +rest of the bunch. An end must be made speedily, or they would climb him +like a pack of wildcats and crush him like a rabbit in a fall. With this +menace plainly before him, Morgan put his best into the rush and wallop +that he meant to finish the fight. + +The cowboy's extraordinary resistance broke with the blow; he lay so +long like a dead man where he fell that his comrades brought whisky to +revive him. Presently he struggled to hands and knees, where he stood +coughing blood, Morgan waiting by to see what would follow. + +"Take them knucks away from him! he slugged me!" Morgan was amazed to +hear the fellow charge. + +"That's not so!" Morgan denied. "Here--search me," he offered, lifting +his arms. + +In the code governing personal encounter in those days of the frontier, +which was not so very long ago, just one tick in the great clock of +history, it was permissible to straddle one's enemy when one got him +down, and churn his head against the ground; to gouge out his eyes; to +bite off his ears; to kick him, carve him, mutilate him in various and +unsportsman-like and unspeakable ways. But it was the high crime of the +code to slug him with brass or steel knuckles, commonly called knucks. +The man who carried this reenforcement for the natural fist in his +pocket and used it in a fight was held the lowest of all contemptible +and namelessly vile things. So, these Texas cowboys turned on Morgan at +their comrade's accusation, deaf to any denial, flaming with vengeful +resentment. + +They probably would have made an end of Morgan then and there, but for +the interference of Peden, proprietor of the place, who appeared on the +scene of the turmoil at that moment, calm and unruffled, expensive white +sombrero on the back of his head, fresh cigar in his mouth, black frock +coat striking him almost to the knees. + +Peden pushed in among the cowboys as they made a rush for Morgan, who +stood his ground, back to the bar, regretting now the foolish impulse +that had led him into this pack of wolves. Peden stepped in front of +Morgan, authority in his very calmness, and restrained the inflamed +Texans. + +He asked them to consider the ladies. The ladies were in a terrible +panic, he said, sweeping his hand toward the farther end of the room +where a dozen or so of the creatures whom he dignified with the name +were huddled under the restraint of the chief fiddler, who stood before +them with fiddle in one hand, bow in the other, like sword and buckler. + +There was more curiosity than fright in the women, as the most +unsophisticated observer could have read in their kalsomined +countenances. Peden's only object in keeping them back from a closer +enjoyment of the battle was entirely commercial, humanity and delicacy +being no part of his business plan. A live lady was worth a great deal +more to his establishment than one with a stray bullet in her skin, +waiting burial at his expense in the busy undertaker's morgue. + +The cowboys yielded immediately to Peden's appeal in behalf of the +ladies, although they very likely would have resented a more obscure +citizen's interference with their plans. They fronted the bar again on +Peden's invitation to pour another drink. Two of them lifted from the +floor the man whom Morgan had fought, and supported him in a weak-kneed +advance upon the bar. They cheered him in his half-blind and bleeding +wretchedness with promise of what that marvelous elixir, whisky, would +do for him once he began to feel the quickening of its potent flame. + +Peden indicated by a lifting of the eyebrows, a slight movement of the +head toward the door, that Morgan was to improve this moment by making +a quiet and expeditious get-away. Morgan needed no urging, being quite +willing to allow matters to rest where they stood. He started for the +door, making a little detour to put a faro table, around which several +men were standing, between himself and the men to whom Seth Craddock had +delegated the business of his expulsion from the town. One of the men +supporting their defeated champion saw Morgan as he rounded the table, +and set up the alarm that the granger was breaking for the range. + +Even then Morgan could have escaped by a running dash, for those +high-heeled horseback men were not much on foot. But he could not pay +that much for safety before the public of Ascalon, despicable as those +of it gathered there might be. He made a pretense of watching the faro +game while the Texans put down their glasses to rush after him and make +him prisoner, threatening him with clubbed pistols above his head. + +The lookout at the faro game, whose patrons were annoyed by this renewal +of the brawl, jumped from his high seat and took a hand in the row. +Friends of the marshal or friends of the devil, he said, made no +difference to him. They'd have to go outside to finish their fuss. This +man, a notorious slayer of his kind, quicker of hand than any man in +Ascalon, it was said, urged them all toward the door. + +The cowboys protested against this breach of hospitality, but Peden +stood in his customary pose of calmness to enforce his bouncer's word, +hand pushing back his long black coat where it fell over the holster at +his belt. + +Morgan was in no mind to go with them, for he began to have a disturbing +alarm over what these men might do in their drunken vengeance, relieved +as they thought themselves to be of all responsibility to law by the +liberty their friend Craddock had given them. Without regard to the +bouncer's orders or Peden's threatening pose, he began to lay about him +with his fists, making a breach in the ranks of his captors that would +have opened the way to the door in a moment, the outbreak was so +unexpected and violent, if it had not been for a quieting tap the +bouncer gave him with one of the lethal instruments which he carried for +such exigencies. + +Morgan was conscious of a sensation of expulsion, which seemed swift, +soft, and soundless, with a dim sense of falling at the end. When his +dispersed senses returned to their seat again, he found himself in the +open night, stretched on the ground, hands bound behind his back. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A GENTLE COWBOY JOKE + + +As Morgan's faculties cleared out of their turgid whirl, and the stars +began to leave off their frivolous capers and stand still, he heard +voices about him in the dark, and they were discussing the very +interesting question of whether he should be hung like a horse thief or +loaded upon a train and shipped away like sheep. + +Morgan's bruised senses assembled and righted at the first conscious +grasp of this argument, as a laboring, buffeted ship rights when its +shifted cargo is flung back to place by the shock of a mighty surge. +Nature was on guard again in a moment, straining and tense in its sentry +over the habitation of a soul so nearly deserted but a minute before. +Morgan listened, sweating in the desperation of his plight. + +They had taken him away from the main part of town, as he was aware by +the sound of its revelry in the near distance. Close at hand a railroad +engine was frying and gasping; farther off another was snorting +impatiently as it jerked the iron vertebrae of a long freight train. And +these men whom he could not see around him in the darkness were +discussing the expediency of hanging him while unconscious, against the +morality of waiting for him to come to himself so he might have the +felon's last appeal of prayer. + +One maintained that it was against all precedent to hang an unconscious +man and send him off to perdition without a chance to enter a plea for +his soul, and he argued soberly, in the manner of a man who had a spirit +of fairness in him, and a little gleam of reason and morality left. To +Morgan's relief and hope this man went further as he put his view of the +case, even so far as to question their right to hang the granger at all. +They clamored against him and tried to scoff him down, moving with +drunken, scuffing feet near the spot where Morgan lay, as if to put the +sentence into immediate execution. + +"Wait a minute now, boys," this unknown, unseen champion pleaded, "let's +me and you talk this thing over some more. That kid put up a man's +fight, even if he is a granger--you'll have to give him credit for that. +I didn't find no knucks on him, and you didn't. He couldn't 'a' dropped +'em on the floor, and he couldn't 'a' swallered 'em. He didn't have no +knucks, boys--that hard-hoofed granger just naturally tore into the +Dutchman with his bare hands. I know he did, his hands is all cut and +swelled up--here, wait till I strike a match and show you." + +Morgan thought it wise to feign insensibility while this apparently +sober man among the crew struck a match and rolled his body over to show +the granger's battered hands. The others were not convinced by this +evidence, nor softened in the least. He was a granger, anyhow, a fencer +of the range, an interloper who had come into their ancient domain like +others of his grasshopper tribe to fence up the grazing lands and drive +them from the one calling that they knew. If for no other reason, he +deserved hanging for that. Ask anybody; they'd say the same. + +"That ain't no kind of talk," said the defender, reprovingly, "your +daddies and mine was grangers before us, and our kids'll have to be +grangers or nothin' after a while--if any of us ever has any. I was in +for havin' a little fun with this feller; I was in on it with the rest +of you to see the Dutchman hammer him flat, but the Dutchman wasn't a +big enough feller for the job. Where's he at?" + +"Layin' up there on the depot platform," somebody said. + +"This feller flattened _him_ out, done it like he had him on a anvil," +the granger's advocate chuckled. "That there freight's goin' to pull out +in a little while--let's look along till we find a empty car and chuck +him in it. By morning he'll be in La Junta. He's had his lesson out of +the cowman's book, he'll never come back to plow up this range." + +Morgan thought that, perhaps by adding his own argument to this unknown +friend's, he might move the rest of the bunch from their cruel +determination to have his life. He moved, making a breathing like a man +coming to his senses, and struggled to sit up. + +There were exclamations of satisfaction that he had revived in time to +relieve them of the responsibility of sending a man out of the world +without a chance to pray. The man who had championed Morgan's cause +helped him to sit up, asking him with a curious rough kindness if he +wanted a drink. Morgan replied that he did. A bottle was put to his +lips, bruised and swollen until they stood open by the rough usage his +captors had given him while unconscious. He took a swallow of the +whisky, shutting the rest out with tongue against teeth when the fellow +insisted that he take a man's dose. + +They drew close around Morgan where he sat, back against this kind +fellow's knee. Morgan could see them plainly now, although it was too +dark to trace their features. One of them dropped the noose of a rope +over his head as the one who stood behind him took the flask from his +lips. Morgan knew by the feel of it against his neck that it was a +platted rawhide, such as the Mexicans term _reata_. + +"Granger, if you got anything to say, say it," this one directed. Morgan +recognized him as the one who had opened the trouble in Peden's hall. + +Morgan had considerable to say, and he said it without whimper or +tremor, his only appeal being to their fairness and sense of justice +between man and man. He went back a little farther in his simple history +than he had gone with Judge Thayer that afternoon, telling them how he +once had been a cowboy like themselves on the Nebraska and Wyoming +range, leading up briefly, so they might feel they knew him, to his +arrival in Ascalon that day, and his manner of incurring Seth Craddock's +enmity, for which they were considering such an unreasonable punishment. + +Inflamed as they were by liquor, and all but insensible to reasonable +argument, this simple story, enforced by the renewed plea of the one who +befriended him, turned two or three others in Morgan's favor. They +probably would have set him free if it had not been for the Dutchman, +who joined them, apparently sober and bitterly vindictive, as they were +considering that step. + +The Dutchman was for vengeance on his own account, Seth Craddock out of +the consideration entirely. The granger had slugged him, he maintained; +no man that ever walked on the grass was able to lay him out with bare +hands. If they didn't hang the granger he'd shoot him, then and there, +even though he would have to throw ashes on his stinking blood to keep +it from driving everybody out of town. + +Wait a minute, the young man with the straddle suggested, speaking +eagerly, as if he had been struck by an inspiration. The freight train +was just pulling out; suppose they put the rope around the granger's +body instead of his neck, leave his hands tied as they were, and hitch +him to a car! In that way he'd hang himself. It would be plain suicide, +as anybody with eyes could see. + +The innocence and humor of this sportful proposal appealed to them at +once. It also satisfied the Dutchman, who seconded it loudly, with +excited enthusiasm. The protests of the granger's defender and friend +were unavailing. They pushed him back, even threatening him with their +guns when he would have interfered to stay the execution of this +inspired sentence. + +The train was getting under way; three of the gang laid hold of the +_reata_ and ran, dragging Morgan against his best efforts to brace his +feet and hold them, the others pushing him toward the moving train. The +long freight was bound westward. Morgan and his tormenters were beyond +the railroad station, not far from Judge Thayer's little white office +building, which Morgan could see through the gloom as he vainly turned +his eyes about in the hope of some passing stranger to whom he could +appeal. + +Luckily for Morgan, railroad trains did not get under way as quickly in +those days of hand brakes and small engines as now. Added to the weight +of the long string of empty cattle cars which the engine was laboring to +get going was a grade, with several short curves to make it harder where +the road wound in and out among small sand hills. By the time Morgan's +captors had attached the rope to the ladder of a car, the headway of the +train had increased until they were obliged to trot to keep up with it. +Not being fleet of foot in their hobbling footgear when sober, they were +at a double disadvantage when drunk and weaving on their legs. They made +no attempt to follow Morgan and revel in his sufferings and peril, but +fell back, content to enjoy their pleasantry at ease. + +Morgan lurched on over the uneven ground, still dizzy and weak from the +bludgeoning he had undergone, unable to help his precarious balance by +the use of his arms, doubly bound now by the rope about his middle which +the Texans had drawn in running noose. It was Morgan's hope in the first +few rods of this frightful journey that a brakeman might appear on top +of the train, whose attention he might attract before the speed became +so great he could no longer maintain it, or a lurch or a stumble in the +ditch at the trackside might throw him under the wheels. + +A quick glance forward and back dispelled this hope; there was not the +gleam of a lantern in sight. But somebody was running after him, almost +beside him, and there were yells and shots out of the dark behind. Now +the runner was beside Morgan, hand on his shoulder as if to steady +himself, and Morgan's heart swelled with thankful gratitude for the +unknown friend who had thus risked the displeasure of his comrades to +set him free. + +The train was picking up speed rapidly, taxing Morgan's strength to hold +pace with it trussed up as he was, the strain of the hauling rope +feeling as if it would cut his arms to the bone. The man who labored to +hold abreast of Morgan was slashing at the rope. Morgan felt the blade +strike it, the tension yield for a second as if several strands had been +cut. But not severed, not weakened enough to break it. It stiffened +again immediately and the man, clinging desperately to Morgan's shoulder +to hold his place in the quickening race, struck at it again and missed. + +There came more shots and shouts. Morgan's heroic friend stumbled, lost +his hold on the shoulder of the man he was trying to save, fell behind +out of sight. + +Morgan's poor hope for release from present torture and impending death +now rested in the breaking of the rawhide rope where it had been +weakened by that one desperate slash of the knife. He tried lunging back +against the rope, but the speed of the train was too great; he could not +brace a foot, he could not pause. There were gravel and small boulders +in the ditch here. Morgan feared he would lose his footing and be +dragged to his miserable end. + +But onward through the dark he struggled and stumbled, at a pace that +would have taxed an unhampered man to maintain, the strain of the +cutting rope about his body and arms like a band of hot iron. Should a +brakeman appear now on top of the car to which he was tied, Morgan knew +he had little chance of making himself heard through the noise of the +train, spent as he was already, gasping short breaths which he seemed +unable to drive into his burning lungs. + +How long could human strength and determination to cling to life endure +this punishment! how long until he must fall and drag, unable to regain +his feet, to be pounded at that cruel rope's end into a mangled, +abhorrent thing! + +On, the grind of wheels, the jolt of loose-jointed cars over the +clanking track drowning even the noise of the engine laboring up that +merciful grade; on, staggering and swaying, flung like a pebble on a +cord, shoulder now against the car, feet now flying, half lifted from +the ground, among the stones of the ditch, over the uneven earth, across +gullies, over crossings where there paused no traveler in the black +despair of that night to give him the help for which he perished. + +On, the breath that he drew in gasping stridulation like liquid fire in +his throat; on, the calm stars of the unemotional universe above his +head; on, the wind of the wide prairie lands striking his face with +their indefinable sweet scents which even clutching death did not deny +his turbulent senses; on, pain in every nerve; on, joints straining and +starting in their sockets; on, dragged, whipped, lashed from ditch to +ties' end, flung from rocking car to crumbling bank, where jagged rocks +cut his face and freed his blood to streak coldly upon his cheek. + +There was no likelihood that the train would stop in many miles--even +now it was gaining speed, the engine over the crest of the grade. Only +for a post that he might snub that stubborn strand of leather upon! only +for a bridge where his swinging weight might break it! + +Faster--the train was going faster! The pain of his torture dulling as +overcharged nerves refused to carry the growing load, Morgan still clung +to his feet, pounding along in the dark. He was growing numb in body and +mind, as one overwhelmed by a narcotic drug, yet he clung to the +desperate necessity of keeping on his feet. + +How far he had come, how long he might yet endure, he had no thought to +measure. He lived only for the insistent, tenacious purpose of keeping +on his feet, rather than of keeping on his feet to live. He must run and +pant, under the lash of nature that would not let him drop down and die, +as long as a spark of consciousness remained or flying limbs could equal +the speed of the train, helped on by the drag of that rawhide strand +that would not break. + +No thought of death appalled him now as at first; its revolting terror +at that rope's end had no place in his thought this crowded, surging +moment. Only to live, to fight and live, to run, unfeeling feet striking +like wood upon the wayside stones, and run, as a maimed, scorched +creature before a fire, to fall into some cool place and live. And live! +and live! In spite of all, to live! + +And presently the ground fell away beneath his feet, a swish of branches +was about him, the soft, cool touch of leaves against his face. A moment +he was flung and tangled among willows--it was a strange revelation +through a chink of consciousness in that turmoil of life and death that +swept the identifying scent of willows into his nostrils--and then he +dropped, striking softly where water ran, and closed his eyes, thinking +it must be the end. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE AVATISM OF A MAN + + +Morgan knew that the cogs of the slow machinery by which he had been +hoisted from the saddle to the professorial chair had slipped. As he lay +there on his back in the shallow ripple of the Arkansas River, the long +centipede railroad bridge dark-lined across the broad stream, he turned +it in his mind and knew that it was so. + +He had gone back in that brief time of terrific torture to the plane +from which he had risen by hard and determined effort to make of himself +a man in the world of consequence and achievement; back to the savagery +of the old days when he rode the range in summer glare and winter storm. +For it was his life's one aim and intention now to rise from that cool +bed in the river presently and go back to Ascalon, try by sound of voice +those who had subjected him to this torture, separating by that test his +heroic friend from the guilty. The others he intended to kill, man by +man, down to the last unfeeling brute. + +The water was not more than two or three inches deep where he lay, but a +little way beyond he could hear it passing with greater volume among the +spiles of the bridge. Fortune had spared him a fall into the deeper +channel, where even a foot of water might have drowned him, strengthless +and fettered as he was. Fate had reserved him for this hour of +vengeance. He turned, wallowing in the shallow water to soak the +rawhide rope, which was already growing soft, the pressure and pain of +it considerably eased on his arms. + +He drank, and buried his face in the tepid water, grateful for life, +exulting in the fierce fire that rose in him, triumphing already in the +swift atonement he would call on those wretches to make. Back again to +the ethical standard of those old, hard-riding, hard-drinking, +hard-swearing days on the range, the refinements of his education +submerged, and not one regret for the slip. + +Morgan did not realize in that moment of surrender to the primitive +desires which clamored within him how badly he was wrenched and mauled. +He tried the rawhide, swelling his bound arms in the hope that the +slipknot would give a little, but was unable to bring pressure enough on +the rope to ease it in the least. + +Eager to begin his harvest of revenge before the men from the Nueces +struck south again over the long trail, Morgan determined to start at +once in search of somebody to free him from his bonds. He could not +return to Ascalon in this shameful plight, his ignominy upon him, an +object of derision. There must be somebody living along the river close +at hand who would cut his bonds and give him a plaster to stick over the +wound he could feel drawing and gaping in his cheek. + +When it came to getting to his feet, Morgan learned that his desire had +outgrown his strength. A sickness swept him as he struggled to his +knees; blood burst from his nostrils, the taste of blood was on his +tongue. Dizzy, sick to the core of his heart, sore with a thousand +bruises, shot with a thousand pains which set up with every movement +like the clamor of harassing wolves, he dragged himself on his knees to +the edge of the water, where he lay on his face in the warm sand. + +He waited there a long time for the gathering of strength enough to +carry him on his quest of a friendly hand. Only the savage determination +to strike his enemies down, head by head, kept him from perishing as he +lay there sore and bruised, chilled to the marrow in his welling agony +even that hot summer night. + +Dawn was breaking when he at last found strength to mount the low bank +through the encumbering brush and vines. His arms were senseless below +the elbows, swollen almost to bursting of veins and skin by the gorged +blood. There was no choice in directions, only to avoid the town. He +faced up the river and trudged on, the cottonwood leaves beginning their +everlasting symphony, that is like the murmur of rain, as the wakening +wind moved them overhead. + +Morgan stumbled over tin cans at the edge of the tall grass when the +rising sun was shining across his unprotected eyes. He stood for a +little while, wondering at first sight if this were only another mirage +of the plagued imagination, such as had risen like ephemera while he lay +on the sand bar at the river's edge. He stood with weak legs braced wide +apart to fix his reeling senses on the sight--the amazing, comforting +sight, of a field of growing corn. Only a little field, more properly a +patch, but it was tall and green, in full tassel, the delicate sweet of +its blossoms strong on the dew-damp morning. + +Beyond the field he could see the roof of a sod house, and a little of +the brown wall that rose not much higher than the corn. Grass had grown +on the roof, for it was made of strips of sod, also, and turned sere and +brown in the sun. A wire fence stood a prickly barrier between roaming +cattle and this little field of succulent fodder. Morgan directed his +course to skirt the field, and came at last to the cabin door. + +In front of the house there was no fence, but a dooryard that seemed to +embrace the rest of the earth. Around the door the ground was trampled +and bare; in front of the house three horses stood, saddled and waiting, +bridle reins on the ground. It looked like a cow camp to Morgan; it +seemed as if he had come back home. A dog rose slowly from where it lay +across the door, bristles rising, foot lifted as if the creature paused +between flight and attack, setting up such an alarm that the horses +bolted a little way and stood wondering. + +A woman came to the door, lifted her hands in silent astonishment, +leaning a little to see. + +"Heavens above! look at that man!" she cried, her words sounding as from +a great distance in Morgan's dulling ears. + +Morgan saw her start toward him, running. He tried to step forward to +meet her, but only his body moved in accord with his will. The earth +seemed to rise and embrace him, letting him down softly, as the arms of +a friend. + +It was a new pain that brought Morgan to his senses, the pain of +returning life to his half-dead arms. Somebody was standing beside him +holding these members raised to let the blood drain out of them, chafing +them, and there was a smell of camphor and strong spirits in the place. + +"The rope wouldn't 'a' slipped _down_, if they was tryin' to hang him, +anyhow," somebody said with conclusive finality. + +"Looks like they lassoed him and drug him," another said, full of the +awe that hushes the human voice when one stands beside the dead. + +"Whoever done it ought to be skinned alive!" a woman declared, and +Morgan thanked her in his heart for her sympathy, although there was a +weight of such absolute weakness on his eyes that he could not open them +to see her face. + +There was a dim sound of something being stirred in a glass, and the +nerve-waking scent of more ardent spirits. + +"If this don't fetch him to," said the voice of the first speaker, the +deep pectoral tone of a seasoned man, "you jump your horse and go for +the doctor, Fred." + +Morgan shook his head to throw that obstinate weight from his eyes, or +thought he shook it, but it was only the shadow of a movement. Slight as +it was it brought an exclamation of relief in another voice, a woman's +voice, also, tuned in the music of youth. + +"Oh! he moved!" she said. And she was the one who stood beside him, +holding aloft and chafing his blood-gorged arm. + +"Blamed if he didn't! Here--try a little of this, son." + +Morgan was gathering headway out of the fog so rapidly now that he began +to feel ashamed of this helpless situation in which so many kind hands +were ministering to him as if he were a sick horse. He made a more +determined effort to open his eyes, succeeding this time, although it +seemed to call for as much strength to lift his lids as to shoulder a +sack of wheat. He saw a large hand holding a spoon hovering near his +mouth, and the outline of big shoulders in a red shirt. Morgan swallowed +what was offered him, to feel it go tingling through his nerves with +vivifying warmth, like a message of cheer over a telegraph wire. The +large man who administered the dose was delighted. He spoke +encouragingly, working the spoon faster, as a man blows eagerly when he +sees a flame start weakly in a doubtful fire. The woman with the voice +of youth, who stood on Morgan's left hand, gently put his arm down, as +if modesty would no longer countenance this office of tenderness to a +conscious man. + +"Any feelin' in your hands?" the man inquired, bending a whiskered face +down near Morgan's. + +"Plenty of it, thank you," Morgan replied, his voice stubborn as a rusty +hinge. + +"You'll be all right then, there's no bones broken as far as I can +locate 'em. You just stretch out and take it easy, you'll be all right." + +"I gave up--I gave up--too easy," Morgan said, slowly, like a very tired +man. + +"Lands alive! gave up!" said the matron of the household, who still held +Morgan's arm up to drain off the congested blood. "Look at your face, +look at your feet! Gave up--lands alive!" + +"You're busted up purty bad, old feller," said a young man who seemed to +appear suddenly at Morgan's feet, where he stood looking down with the +most friendly and feeling expression imaginable in his wholesome brown +face. + +"That cut on your face ain't deep, it could be closed up and stuck with +strips of plaster and only leave a shallow scar, but it ought to be done +while it's fresh," the boss of the ranch said. + +"I'd be greatly obliged to you," Morgan told him, by way of agreement to +the dressing of his wound. + +By the time the pioneer of the Arkansas had treated his mysteriously +injured patient's hurts, Morgan had come to himself completely. He was +relieved to know that his collapse at the threshold of that hospitable +home was due to the suffering of his bound arms, rather than any +internal rupture or concussion as he at first feared. + +Already his thoughts were running forward, his blood was pounding in his +arteries, in vengeful eagerness to take up the trail of the men who had +subjected him to this inhuman ordeal. He could not hope to repay them +cruelty for cruelty, for he was not a man who did much crippling when it +came to handling a gun, but if he had to follow them to the Nueces, even +to the Rio Grande, for his toll, then he would follow. + +The business that had brought him into the Kansas plains could wait; +there was but one big purpose in his life now. He was eager to be up, +with the weight of a certain dependable pistol in his holster, the feel +of a certain rifle in its scabbard on the saddle under his knee. + +Sore and bruised as he was, sorer that he would be tomorrow, Morgan +wanted to get up as soon as the long rough cut on his cheek had been +comfortably patched with adhesive tape. He asked the rancher if he would +oblige him with a horse to go to Ascalon, where his trunk containing his +much-needed wardrobe was still in the baggage-room at the depot. + +"You couldn't ride to Ascalon this morning, son," the rancher told him, +severely kind. + +"You'll do if you can make it in a week," the young man added his +opinion cheerfully. + +"Yes, and then some, the way it looks to me," the elder declared. + +Morgan started as if to spring from the low couch where they had laid +him when they carried him in, dusty and bloody, fearful and repulsive +sight of maimed flesh and torn clothing that he was. + +"I can't stay a week--I can't wait a day! They'll be gone, man!" he +said. + +"Maybe they will, son," the rancher agreed, gently pushing him back; +"maybe. But they'll leave tracks." + +"Yes, by God! they'll leave tracks!" Morgan muttered. + +"Don't you think I'd better send my boy over to town for the doctor?" +the rancher asked. + +"Not unless you're uneasy about me." + +"No, your head's all right and your bones are whole. You'll heal up, but +it'll take some time." + +Morgan said he felt that more had been done for him already than any +number of doctors could have accomplished, for the service had been one +of humanity, with no thought of reward. They would let the doctor stay +in Ascalon, and Morgan would go to him if he felt the need coming on. +The rancher disclaimed credit for a service such as one man owed another +the world over, he said. But it was plain that he was touched by the +outspoken gratitude of this wreckage of humanity that had come halting +in bonds to his door. + +"I'm a stranger to this country," Morgan explained, "I arrived in +Ascalon yesterday--" pausing to ponder it, thinking it must have been +longer than a day ago--"yesterday"--with conviction, "a little after +noon. Morgan is my name. I came here to settle on land." + +"You're the man that took the new marshal's gun away from him," the +rancher said, nodding slowly. "My daughter knew you the minute she saw +you--she was over there yesterday after the mail." + +Morgan's heart jumped. He looked about the room for her, but she and her +mother had withdrawn. + +"I guess I made a mistake when I mixed up with him," Morgan said, as if +he excused himself to the absent girl. + +"The only mistake you made was when you handed him back his gun. You +ought to 'a' handed it back to a corpse," the rancher said. + +"We knew that feller he killed," the younger man explained, with a world +of significance in his voice. + +"He used to live up here in this country before he went to Abilene; he'd +come back to blow his money in Ascalon, I guess," the rancher said. "He +was one of them harmless bluffin' boys you could take by the ear and +lead around like he had a ring in his nose." + +"That's what I told them," Morgan commented, in thoughtful, distracted +way. + +"You sized him up right. He wouldn't 'a' pulled his gun, quick as he was +to slap his hand on it and run a sandy. I guess it was just as well it +happened to him then as some other time. Somebody was bound to kill him +when he got away among strangers." + +The rancher, who introduced himself as Stilwell, asked for the details +of the killing, which Morgan gave, together with the trivial thing that +led up to it. The big rancher sighed, shaking his head sadly. + +"You ought to took his gun away from him and bent it around his fool +head," he said. + +"It would have been better for him, and for me, I guess," Morgan agreed. + +"Yes, that marshal was purty sore on you for takin' his gun away from +him right out in public, it looks like," the rancher suggested, a bid in +his manner for the details of his misfortune which Morgan felt were his +by right of hospitality. + +"I ran into some of his friends later on. He'd turned the town over to +them, a bunch of cowpunchers just up from the Nueces." + +The rancher started at the word, exchanging a startled, meaning look +with his son. + +"That outfit that loaded over at Ascalon yesterday?" he inquired. + +"Yes; seven or eight of them stayed behind to look after the +horses--eight with the marshal, he's one of the outfit." + +"Did them fellers rope you and drag you away out here?" Stilwell +inquired, leaning over in the tensity of his feeling, his tanned face +growing pale, as if the thought of such atrocity turned his blood cold. + +"They hitched me to a freight train. The rope broke at the river." + +The rancher turned to his son again, making a motion with open hand +outflung as if displaying evidence in some controversy between them that +clinched it on his side without another word. The younger man came a +step nearer Morgan's couch, where he stood with grave face, hesitant, as +if something came forward in his mind to speak. The elder strode to the +door and looked out into the sun of early morning, and the cool shadows +of the cottonwood trees at the riverside which reached almost to his +walls. + +"To a train! God A'mighty--to a train!" Morgan heard him say. + +"How far is it from Ascalon to the river?" Morgan asked. + +"Over two miles! And your hands tied--God A'mighty!" + +"You take it easy, they'll not leave Ascalon till Sol Drumm, their boss, +comes back from Kansas City," the young man said. "We're layin' for him +ourselves, we've got a bill against him." + +"And we've got about as much show to collect it as we have to dip a +hatful of stars out of the river," Stilwell said, turning gloomily from +the door. + +"We'll see about that!" the younger one returned, in high and defiant +stubbornness. + +"We've already lost upwards of five hundred head of stock from that +feller's trespass on our range," Stilwell explained. "That gang drove in +here three weeks ago to rest and feed up for market, payin' no attention +to anybody's range or anybody's warning to keep off. They had the men +with them to go where they pleased. Them Texas cattle come up here +loaded with fever ticks, and the bite of them little bugs means death to +a northern herd. They sowed ticks all over my range. I'm still a losin' +cattle, and Lord knows where it will stop." + +"You've been working to get a quarantine law passed, I remember," Morgan +said, feeling this outrage as if the cattle were his own. + +"Yes, but Congress is asleep, and them fellers down in Texas never shut +their eyes. I warned Drumm to keep off my range, asked him first like a +gentleman, but he drove in one night between my pickets and mixed his +poison cattle with mine out of pure cussidness. He claimed they got +away, and him with fifteen or twenty men to ride herd! It's cost me ten +thousand dollars, at the lowest figure, already, and more goin'. It +looks like it would clean me out." + +"You ought to have some recourse against him in law," Morgan said. + +"Yes, I thought so, too. I went to the county attorney and wanted to +bring an attachment on Drumm's herd, but he told me there wasn't any law +he could act under, it was anybody's range as much as mine, Texas fever +or no Texas fever. I could sue him, he said, but it was a slim chance. +Well, I'm goin' to see another lawyer--I'll take it up with Judge +Thayer, and see what he can do." + +"Drumm'll pay it, down to the last dime!" the young man declared. + +"We can't hold him up and take it away from him, Fred," the older man +reproved. "That would be as big a crime as his." + +"He'll pay it!" Fred repeated, with what Morgan thought to be admirable +tenacity, even though his means to the desired end might be hard to +justify. + +They helped Morgan to another room, where they outfitted him with +clothing to replace his own shredded garments. Stilwell insisted that he +remain as his guest until his hurts were mended, although, he explained, +he could not stay at home to keep him company. His wife and daughter +would talk his arm off without help from the rest of the family. He +would call them in and introduce them. + +"My girl's got a new piano--lucky I sent for it before that Texas outfit +struck this range--she can try it out on you," Stilwell said, a laugh +still left in him for an amusing situation in spite of the ruin he +faced. + +Morgan could hear the girl and her mother talking in the kitchen, their +voices quite distinct at times as they passed an open door that he could +not see. Lame and aching, hands swollen and purple, he sat in a +rocking-chair by the open window, not so broken by his experiences nor +so depressed by his pains but he yet had the pleasure of anticipation in +meeting this girl. He had determined only a few hours ago that the +country was not big enough to hide her from him. Now Fate had jerked +him with rough hand to the end of his quest before it was fairly begun. + +As he thought this, Stilwell came back, convoying his ample red-faced +wife, and almost as ample, and quite as red-faced, daughter. So, there +must have been more than one young lady after mail in Ascalon yesterday +afternoon, thought Morgan, as he got up ruefully, with much pain in his +feet and ankles, rather shamed and taken back, and bowed the best way he +could to this girl who was not _his_ girl, after all his eager +anticipation. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +NEWS FROM ASCALON + + +"Down here in the river bottom, where the water rises close to the top +of the ground, you can raise a little corn and stuff, but take it back +on the prairie a little way and you can't make your seed back, year in +and year out. Plenty of them have come here from the East and tried +it--I suppose you must 'a' seen the traces of them scattered around as +you come through the country east of Ascalon." + +Morgan admitted that he had seen such traces, melancholy records of +failure that they were. + +"It's all over this country the same way. It broke 'em as fast as they +came, starved 'em and took the heart out of 'em and drove 'em away. You +can't farm this country, Morgan; no man ever learnt anything out of +books that will make him master of these plains with a plow." + +So spoke Stilwell, the cattleman, sitting at night before his long, low, +L-shaped sod house with his guest who had been dragged into his +hospitality at the end of a rope. Eight days Morgan had been sequestered +in that primitive home, which had many comforts in spite of the crudity +of its exterior. His soreness had passed from the green and +superficially painful stage to the deeper ache of bruised bones. He +walked with a limp, stiff and stoved in his joints as a foundered horse. +But his hands and arms had recovered their suppleness, and, like an +overgrown fledgling at the edge of the nest, he was thinking of +projecting a flight. + +During the time Morgan had been in the Stilwell ranchhouse no news had +come to him from Ascalon. Close as they lived to the town, the Stilwells +had been too deeply taken up with their own problem of pending ruin due +to the loss of their herd from Texas fever infection, to make a trip +even to the post-office for their mail. Violet, the daughter, was on the +range more than half the time, doing what she could to drive the sick +cattle to the river where they might have a better chance to fight the +dread malady. + +Morgan's injuries had turned out to be deeper seated and more serious +than he had at first supposed. For several days he was racked with a +fever that threatened to floor him, due to the mental torture of that +terrible night. It had passed, and with it much of his pain, and he +would have gone to Ascalon for his reckoning with the men from the +Nueces two days ago if Stilwell had not argued the folly of attempting +an adjustment under the handicap of his injuries. + +Wait a few days longer, the rancher sagely advised, eat and rest, and +rub that good fiery horse liniment of his on the sore spots and swollen +joints. Even if they were gone, which Stilwell knew would not be the +case for Drumm would not have made it back from Kansas City yet, Morgan +could follow them. And to do that he must be sound and strong. + +Stilwell had put off even his own case against the Texas stockman, he +had been so urged for time in getting his sick cattle down to the shade +and water along the river. Now the job seemed over, for all he could +do, and was taking his ease at home this night, intending to go early in +the morning and put his case for damages against Drumm into Judge +Thayer's hands. + +Through Morgan's days of sickness and waiting for strength, he was +attended tenderly by Mrs. Stilwell, and sometimes of an afternoon, when +Violet came in from the hot, dry range, she would play for him on her +new piano. She played a great deal better than he had any reason to +expect of her, self-taught in her isolation on the banks of the shallow +Arkansas. + +Violet was a girl of large frame, large bones in her wrists, large +fingers to her useful, kindly ministering hands. Her face was somewhat +too long and thin to be called handsome, but it was refined by a +wistfulness that told of inner striving for something beyond the horizon +of her days there in her prairie-circled home. And now as the two men +talked outside the door, the new moonlight white on the dust of the +trampled yard, Violet was at her piano, playing a simple melody with a +soft, expressive tenderness as sweet to him as any music Morgan ever had +heard. For he understood that the instrument was the medium of +expression for this prairie girl's soul, reaching out from its shelter +of sod laid upon sod to what aspirations, following what longings, +mounting to what ambitions, none in her daily contact ever knew. + +Stilwell was downcast by the blow he had received in the loss of more +than half his herd through the Texas scourge. It had taken years of +hardship and striving, fighting drouth and winter storm, preying wolves +and preying men, to build the herd up to the point where profits were +about ready to be enjoyed. + +Nothing but a frost would put an end to the scourge of Texas fever; in +those days no other remedy had been discovered. Before nature could send +this relief Stilwell feared the rest of his cattle would die, although +he had driven them from the contaminated range. If that happened he +would be wiped out, for he was too old, he said, to start at the bottom +and build up another herd. + +It was at this point that Morgan suggested Stilwell turn to the soil +instead of range cattle as a future business, a thing that called down +the cattleman's scorn and derision, and citation of the wreckage that +country had made of men's hopes. He dismissed that subject very soon as +one unworthy of even acrimonious debate or further denunciation, to +dwell on his losses and the bleakness of the future as it presented +itself through the bones of his dead cattle. + +As they sat talking, the soft notes of Violet's melody soothing to the +ears as a distant song, the young man Fred came riding in from Ascalon, +the bearer of news. He began to talk before he struck the ground, +breathlessly, like a man who had beheld unbelievable things. + +"That gang from Texas has took the town--everybody's hidin' out," he +reported. + +"Took the town?" said Stilwell, incredulously. + +"Stores all shut up, post-office locked and old man Flower settin' in +the upstairs winder with his Winchester across his leg waitin' for them +to bust in the door and steal the gover'ment money!" + +"Listen to that!" said Stilwell, as the young man stood there hat off, +mopping the sweat of excitement from his forehead. "Where's that +man-eatin' marshal feller at?" + +"He's killin' off everybody in town but his friends--he's killed eight +men, a man a day, since he's been in office. He's got everybody lookin' +for a hole." + +"A man a day!" said Morgan, scarcely able to believe the news. + +"Who was they?" Stilwell inquired, bringing his chair down from its easy +slant against the sod wall, leaning forward to catch the particulars of +this unequaled record of slaughter. + +"I didn't hear," said Fred, panting faster than his hard-ridden horse. + +"I hope none of the boys off of this range around here got into it with +him," Stilwell said. + +"They say he's closed up all the gamblin' joints and saloons but +Peden's, and the bank's been shut four or five days, Judge Thayer and a +bunch of fellers inside of it with rifles. Tom Conboy told me the judge +had telegraphed to the governor asking him to send soldiers to restore +law and order in the town." + +"Law and order!" Stilwell scorned. "All the law and order they ever had +in that hell-hole a man'd never miss." + +"Where's the sheriff--what's he doing to restore order?" Morgan +inquired. + +"The sheriff ain't doin' nothing. I ain't been over there, but I know +that much," Stilwell said. + +"They say he's out after some rustlers," Fred replied. + +"Yes, and he'll stay out till the trouble's over and come back without a +hide or hair of a rustler. What else are they doin'?" + +"Rairin' and shootin'," said Fred, winded by the enormity of this +outlawry, even though bred in an atmosphere of violence. + +"Are they hittin' anybody, or just shootin' for noise?" Stilwell asked. + +"Well, I know they took a crack at me when I went out of Conboy's to git +my horse." + +Mrs. Stilwell and Violet, who had hastened out on Fred's excited +arrival, exclaimed in concern at this, the mother going to her boy to +feel him over as for wounds, standing by him a little while with arm +around him. + +"Did you shoot back?" Stilwell wanted to know. + +"I hope I did," Fred replied. + +Stilwell got up, and stood looking at the moon a little while as if +calculating the time of night. + +"They need a man or two over there to clean that gang up," he said. +"Well, it ain't my business to do it, as long as they didn't hit you." + +Mrs. Stilwell chided him sharply, perhaps having history behind her to +justify her alarm at these symptoms. + +"Let them fight it out among themselves, the wolves!" she said. + +Morgan had drawn a little apart from the family group, walking to the +corner of the house where he stood looking off toward Ascalon, still and +tense as if he listened for the sounds of conflict. He was dressed in +Stilwell's clothes, which were somewhat too roomy of body but nothing +too large otherwise, for both of them had the stature of proper men. +His feet were in slippers, his ankles bandaged and soaked with the +penetrating liniment designed alike for the ailments of man and beast. + +Violet studied him as he stood there between her and the moon, his face +sterner for the ordeal of suffering that had tried his manhood in that +two-mile run beside the train, where nothing but a sublime defiance of +death had held him to his feet. + +He had told her of his seven-years' struggle upward from the cowboy's +saddle to a place of honor in the faculty of the institution where he +had beaten out the hard, slow path to learning; she knew of his purpose +in coming to the western Kansas plains. Until this moment she had +believed it to be a misleading and destructive illusion that would break +his heart and rive his soul, as it had the hearts and souls of thousands +of brave men and women before him. + +Now she had a new revelation, the moonlight on his face, bright in his +fair hair, picturing him as rugged as a rock uplifted against the dim +sky. She knew him then for a man such as she never had met in the narrow +circle of her life before, a man strong to live in his purpose and +strong to die in it if the need might be. He would conquer where others +had failed; the strength of his soul was written in his earnest face. + +"I think I'll go over to Ascalon," Morgan said presently, turning to +them, speaking slowly. "Will you let me have a horse?" + +"Go to Ascalon! Lands save us!" Mrs. Stilwell exclaimed. + +"No, no--not tonight!" Violet protested, hurrying forward as if she +would stay him by force. + +"You wait till morning, son," Stilwell counseled calmly, so calmly, +indeed, that his wife turned to him sharply. "Maybe I'll go with you in +the morning." + +"You've got no business there--let them kill each other off if they want +to, but you keep out of it!" said his wife. + +"If you'll let me have a horse--" Morgan began again, with the +insistence of a man unmoved. + +"You forgot about our cattle, Mother," Stilwell chided, ignoring +Morgan's request. "I'm goin' to sue Sol Drumm, I'm goin' to have the +papers ready to serve on him the minute he steps off of the train. If +there's any way to make him pay for the damage he's done me I'm goin' to +do it." + +"There's more than one way," said Fred. "If the law can't----" + +"Then we lose," his father finished for him, in the calm resignation of +a just man. + +Morgan's intention of going to Ascalon to square accounts with his +persecutors as soon as he had the strength to warrant such a move was no +secret in the Stilwell family. Fred had offered his services at the +beginning, and the one cowboy now left out of the five but recently +employed by Stilwell had laid his pistol on the table and told Morgan +that he was the man who went with it, both of them at his service when +the hour of reckoning should arrive. Now Stilwell himself was beginning +to show the pistol itch in his palm. + +Morgan was grateful for all this uprising on the part of his new +friends in his behalf, to whom his suffering and the cruelty of his +ordeal appealed strongly for sympathy, but he could not accept any +assistance at their hands. There could be no satisfaction in justice +applied by any hand but his own. If otherwise, he might as well go to +the county attorney, lodge complaints, obtain warrants and send his +enemies to jail. + +No, it was a case for personal attention; it was a one-man job. What +they were to suffer for their great wrong against him, he must inflict +with his own weapon, like the savage Comanche whose camp fires were +scarcely cold in that place. + +So Morgan spoke again of going that night to Ascalon, only to be set +upon by all of them and argued into submission. Eager as Fred was to go +along and have a hand in the fray, he was against going that night. +Violet came and laid her good wholesome, sympathetic hand on Morgan's +arm and looked into his face with a plea in her eyes that was stronger +than words. He couldn't bear his feet in the stirrups with his ankles +all swollen and sore as they were, she said; wait a day or two--wait a +week. What did it matter if they should leave in the meantime, and go +back down the wild trail to Texas? So much the better; let them go. + +Morgan smiled to hear her say it would be better if they should get +away, for she was one of the forgiving of this world, in whose breast +the fire of vengeance would find no fuel to nurse its hot spark and +burst into raging flame. He yielded to their entreaties and reasoning, +agreeing to defer his expedition against his enemies until morning, but +not an hour longer. + +When the others had gone to bed, Morgan went down to the river through +the broad notch in the low bank where the Santa Fe Trail used to cross. +This old road was brush-grown now, with only a dusty path winding along +it where the cattle passed to drink. The hoof-cut soil was warm and soft +to his bruised feet; the bitter scent of the willows was strong on the +cooling night as he brushed among them. Out across the broad golden bars +he went, seeking the shallow ripple to which the stream shrunk in the +summer days between rains, sitting by it when he came to it at last, +bathing his feet in the tepid water. + +There he sat for the cure of the water on his bruised, fevered joints, +raking the fire of his hatred together until it grew and leaped within +him like a tempest. As the Indian warrior watches the night out with +song of defiance and dance of death to inflame him to his grim purpose +of the dawn, so this man fallen from the ways of gentleness into the +abyss of savagery spurred himself to a grim and terrible frenzy by +visiting his wrath in anticipation upon his enemies. + +Unworthy as they were, obscure and trivial; riotous, ignorant, bestial +in their lives, he would lower himself to their level for one blood-red +hour to carry to them a punishment more terrible than the noose. As from +the dead he would rise up to strike them with terror. In the morning, +when the sun was striking long shadows of shrub and bunched bluestem +over the prairie levels; in the morning, when the wind was as weak as a +young fawn. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE HOUR OF VENGEANCE + + +The proscribed of the earth were sleeping late in Ascalon that morning, +as they slept late every morning, bright or cloudy, head-heavy with the +late watch and debaucheries of the night. Few were on the street in +pursuit of the small amount of legitimate business the town transacted +during the burning hours when the moles of the night lay housed in +gloom, when Morgan walked from the baggage-room of the railroad depot. + +Few who saw Morgan on the day of his arrival in Ascalon would have +recognized him now. He had been obliged to go to the bottom of his trunk +for the outfit that he treasured out of sentiment for the old days +rather than in any expectation of needing it again--the rig he had worn +into the college town, a matter of six hundred miles from his range, to +begin a new life. Now he had fallen from the eminence. He was going back +to the old. + +The gray wool shirt was wrinkled and stained by weather and wear, the +roomy corduroy trousers were worn from saddle chafing, the big spurs +were rusted of rowel and shank. But the boots were new--he had bought +them before leaving the range, to wear in college, laying them aside +with regret when he found them not just the thing in vogue--and they +were still brave in glossy bronze of quilted tops, little marred by +that last long ride out of his far-away past. His cream-colored hat was +battered and old, for he had worn it five years in all weather, crushed +from the pressure of packing, but he pinched the tall crown to a point +as he used to wear it, and turned the broad brim back from his forehead +according to the habit of his former days. + +This had been his gala costume in other times, kept in the bunkhouse at +the ranch for days of fiesta, nights of dancing, and wild dissipation +when he rode with his fellows to the three-days' distant town. His old +pistol was in his holster, and his empty cartridge belt about his +middle, the rifle, in saddle holster, that he used to carry for wolves +and rustlers, in his hand. + +Morgan stood a moment, leaning the rifle against the depot end, to take +the bright silk handkerchief from about his neck, as if he considered it +as being too festive for the somber business before him. The station +agent stood at the corner of the building, watching him curiously. + +The horse that Morgan had borrowed from Stilwell lifted its head with a +start as he approached where it stood at the side of the station +platform, as if it questioned him on the reason for this transformation +and the honesty of his purpose. Morgan did not mount the horse, although +he walked with difficulty in the tight boots which had lain like the +shed habits of his past so many years unstretched by a foot. He went +leading the horse, rein over his arm, to the hitching rack in front of +the hotel, under the plank canopy of which Stilwell and his son waited +his coming. + +Stilwell had made it plain to Morgan at the beginning, to save his +feelings and his pride, that they were not attending him on the +expedition against his enemies with any intention of helping him. Just +to be there in case of outside interference, and to enjoy the spectacle +of justice being done by a strong hand. Stilwell's account, personally, +was not against these men, he said, although they had driven their herd +upon his range and spread infection among his cattle. That would be +taken up with Sol Drumm when he came back from Kansas City with the +money from his cattle sale. + +Morgan went to the hardware store, two doors from the hotel, from which +he presently emerged with a coil of new rope, a row of new cartridges in +his belt, and pockets heavy with a reserve supply. Tom Conboy was +standing in his door, looking up and down the street in the manner of a +man who felt his position insecure. Morgan saw that he was haggard and +worn as from long vigils and anxieties, although he had about him still +an air of assurance and self-sufficiency. Morgan passed him in the door +and entered the office unrecognized, although Conboy searched him with a +disfavoring and suspicious eye. + +In the office there was evidence of conflict and turmoil. The showcase +was broken, the large iron safe lay overturned on the floor. The blue +door leading into the dining-room had been burst from its hinges, its +panels cracked, and now stood in the office leaning against the +partition like a champion against the ropes. Conboy turned from his +watch at the street door with reluctance, to see what the visitor +desired, and at the same moment Dora appeared in the doorless frame +within. + +"Mr. Morgan!" she cried, incredulity, surprise, pleasure, mingled in her +voice. + +She paused a moment, eyes round, hands lifted, her pretty mouth agape, +but came on again almost at once, eagerness brushing all other emotions +out of her face. "Wherever in the world have you been? What in the name +of goodness is the matter with your face?" She turned Morgan a little to +let the light fall on his wound. + +Grim as Morgan's business was that morning, bitter as his savage heart, +he had a nook in his soul for sympathetic Dora, and a smile that came so +hard and vanished so quickly that it seemed it must have hurt him in the +giving more than the breaking of a bone. + +"_Mister_ Morgan!" said Dora, hardly a breath between her last word and +the next, "what_ever_ have you been doin' to your face?" + +"No niggers in Ireland, now--no-o-o niggers in Ireland!" Conboy warned +her, coming forward with no less interest than his daughter's to peer +into Morgan's bruised and marred face. "Well, well!"--with much surprise +altogether genuine, "you're back again, Mr. Morgan?" + +"Wherever _have_ you been?" Dora persisted, no more interested in +niggers in Ireland than elsewhere. + +"I fell among thieves," Morgan told her, gravely. Then to Conboy: "Is +that gang from Texas stopping here?" + +"No, they lay up at Peden's on the floor where they happen to fall," +Conboy replied. "If there ever was a curse turned loose on a town that +gang--look at that showcase, look at that door, look at that safe. They +took the town last night, a decent woman didn't dare to show her face +outside the door and wasn't safe in the house. They tried to blow that +safe with powder when I wouldn't open it and give them the money. But +they didn't even jar it--your money's in there, Mr. Morgan, safe." + +"Oh, it was awful!" said Dora. "Oh, you've got your gun! If some +man----" + +"Sh-h-h! No nig----" + +"Where's the marshal?" Morgan asked. + +"Took the train east last night. The operator told me he got a wire from +Sol Drumm, boss of the outfit, to meet him in Abilene today. He swore +them six ruffians in as deputies before he went and left them in charge +of the town." + +"Six? Where's the other one?" + +Conboy looked at him with quick flashing of his shifty eyes. "Don't you +know?" he asked, with significant shrewdness, smiling a little as if to +show his friendly appreciation of the joke. + +"What in the hell do you mean?" Morgan demanded. + +"No niggers in Ireland, now," Conboy said soothingly, his face growing +white. "One of them was killed down by the railroad track the night you +left. They said you shot him and hopped a freight." + +Morgan said no more, but turned toward the door to leave. + +"The inquest hasn't been held over him yet, we've been kept so busy with +the marshal's cases we didn't get around to him," Conboy explained. +"Maybe you can throw some light on that case?" + +"I can throw a lot of it," Morgan said, and walked out with that word to +where he had left his horse. + +There Morgan cut six lengths from his new rope, drawing the pieces +through his belt in the manner of a man carrying string for sewing grain +sacks. He took the rifle from the saddle, filled its magazine, and +started toward Peden's place, which was on the next corner beyond the +hotel, on the same side of the square. When he had gone a few rods, +halting on his lame feet, alert as a hunter who expects the game to +break from cover, Stilwell and Fred got up from their apparently +disinterested lounging in front of the hotel and followed leisurely +after him. + +Many of the little business houses around the square were closed. There +was a litter of glass on the plank sidewalk, where proprietors stood +gloomily looking at broken windows, or were setting about replacing them +with boards after the hurricane of deviltry that swept the town the +night past. Those who were abroad in the sunlight of early morning +making their purchases for the day, moved with trepidation, putting +their feet down quietly, hastening on their way. + +An old man who walked ahead of Morgan appeared to be the only unshaken +and unconcerned person in this place of sleeping passions. He carried a +thick hickory stick with immense crook, which he pegged down in time to +his short steps, relying on it for support not at all, his lean old jaw +chopping his cud as nimbly as a sheep's. But when Morgan's shadow, +stretching far ahead, fell beside him, he started like a dozing horse, +whirled about with stick upraised, and stood so in attitude of menace +and defense until the stranger had passed on. + +Conboy was alert in his door, watching to see what new nest of trouble +Morgan was about to stir with that threatening rifle. Others seemed to +feel the threat that stalked with this grim man. Life quickened in the +somnolent town as to the sound of a fire bell as he passed; people stood +watching after him; came to doors and windows to lean and look. A few +moments after his passing the street behind him became almost magically +alive, although it was a silent, expectant, fearful interest that +communicated itself in whispers and low breath. + +Who was this stranger with the mark of conflict on his face, this +unusual weapon in the brawls and tragedies of Ascalon held ready in his +hands? What grievance had he? what authority? Was he the bringer of +peace in the name of the law that had been so long degraded and defied, +or only another gambler in the lives of men? They waited, whispering, in +silence as of a deserted city, to see and hear. + +There was only one priest of alcohol attending the long altar where men +sacrificed their manhood in Peden's deserted hall that morning. He was +quite sufficient for all the demands of the hour, his only customers +being the unprofitable gang of cattle herders whom Morgan sought. True +to their training in early rising, no matter what the stress of the +night past, no matter how broken by alarm and storm, they were all +awake, like sailors called to their watch. They were improving while it +might last the delegated authority of Seth Craddock, which opened the +treasures of a thousand bottles at a word. + +The gambling tables in the front of the house were covered with black +cloths, which draped them almost to the floor, like palls of the dead. +Down at the farther end of the long hall a man was sweeping up the +debris of the night, his steps echoing in the silence of the place. For +there was no hilarity in the sodden crew lined up at the bar for the +first drink of the day. They were red-eyed, crumpled, dirty; frowsled of +hair as they had risen from the floor. + +Peden's hall was not designed for the traffic of daylight. There was +gloom among its bare girders, shadows lay along its walls. Only through +the open door came in a broad and healthy band of light, which spread as +it reached and faltered as it groped, spending itself a little way +beyond the place where the lone bartender served his profitless +customers. + +Morgan walked into the place down this path of light unnoticed by the +men at the bar or the one who served them, for they were wrangling with +him over some demand that he seemed reluctant to supply. At the end of +the bar, not a rod separating them, Morgan stopped like a casual +customer, waiting his moment. + +The question between bartender and the gang quartered upon the town was +one of champagne. It was no drink, said the bartender, to lay the +foundation of a day's business with the bottle upon. Whisky was the +article to put inside a man's skin at that hour of the morning, and then +in small shots, not too often. They deferred to his experience, +accepting whisky. As they lined up with breastbones against the bar to +pour down the charge, Morgan threw his rifle down on them. + +No chance to drop a hand to a gun standing shoulder to shoulder with +gizzards pressed against the bar; no chance to swerve or duck and make a +quick sling of it and a quicker shot, with the bore of that big rifle +ready to cough sixteen chunks of lead in half as many seconds, any one +of them hitting hard enough to drill through them, man by man, down to +the last head in the line. So their arms went up and strained high above +their heads, as if eager to show their desire to comply without +reservation to the unspoken command. Morgan had not said a word. + +The bartender, accepting the situation as generally inclusive, put his +hands up along with his deadbeat patrons. And there they stood one +straining moment, the man with the broom down in the gloom of the +farther end of the building, unconscious of what was going on, whistling +as he swept among the peanut hulls. + +Morgan signaled with his head for the bartender to come over the +barrier, which he did, with alacrity, and stood at the farther end of +the line, hands up, a raw-fisted, hollow-faced Irishman with bristling +short hair. Morgan jerked his head again, repeating the signal when the +bartender looked in puzzled fright into his face to read the meaning. +Then the fellow got it, and came forward, a vast relief spreading in his +combative features. + +Morgan indicated the rope ends dangling at his belt. Almost beaming, +quite triumphant in his eagerness, the bartender grasped his meaning at +a glance. He began tying the ruffians' hands behind their backs, and +tying them well, with a zest in his work that increased as he traveled +down the line. + +"Champagne, is it?" said he, mocking them, a big foot in the small of +the victim's back as he pulled so hard it made him squeal. "Nothing +short of champoggany wather will suit the taste av ye this fine marin', +and you with a thousand dollars' wort' of goods swilled into your +paunches the past week! I'll give you a dose of champoggany wather +you'll not soon forget, ye strivin' devils! This sheriff is the man +that'll hang ye for your murthers and crimes, ye bastes!" And with each +expletive a kick, but not administered in any case until he had turned +his head with sly caution to see whether it would be permitted by this +silent avenger who had come to Ascalon in the hour of its darkest need. + +While Morgan's captives cursed him, knowing now who he was, and cursed +the bartender whom they had overriden and mocked, insulted and abused in +the security of their collective strength and notorious deeds, the +shadow of two men fell across the threshold of Peden's door. There the +shadows lay through the brief moments of this little drama's enactment, +immovable, as though cast by men who watched. + +The porter came forward from his sweeping to look on this degradation of +the desperados, mocking them, returning them curse for curse, voluble in +picturesque combinations of damning sentences as if he had practiced +excommunication longer than the oldest pope who ever lived. In the +excess of his scorn for their fallen might he smeared his filthy broom +across their faces, paying back insult for insult, bold and secure under +the protection of this stern eagle of a man who had dropped on Ascalon +as from a cloud. + +When the last man was bound, the last kick applied by the bartender's +great, square-toed foot, Morgan motioned his sullen captives toward the +door. + +"Wait a minute--have something on the house," the bartender urged. + +Morgan lifted his hand in gesture at once silencing and denying, and +marched out after the heroes of the Chisholm Trail. Through it all he +had not spoken. + +They cursed Morgan as he drove them into the street, and surged against +their bonds, the only silent one among them the Dutchman, and the only +sober one. Now and then Morgan saw his face as the others bunched and +shifted in their struggles to break loose, his mocking, sneering, pasty +white face, his wide-set teeth small and white as a young pup's. His +eyes were hateful as a rattlesnake's; lecherous eyes, debased. + +Morgan herded them into the public square beyond the line of hitching +racks which stood like a skeleton fence between courthouse and business +buildings. People came pouring from every house to see, hurrying, +crowding, talking in hushed voices, wondering in a hundred conjectures +what this man was going to do. Gamblers and nighthawks, roused by the +very feeling of something unusual, hastened out half dressed, to stand +in slippers and collarless shirts, looking on in silent speculation. + +Citizens, respectable and otherwise, who had suffered loss and +humiliation, danger and terror at the hands of these men, exulted now in +their downfall. Some said this man was a sheriff from Texas, who had +tracked them to Ascalon and was now taking them to jail to await a +train; some said he was a special government officer, others that the +governor had sent him in place of troops, knowing him to be sufficient +in himself. Boys ran along in open-mouthed admiration, pattering their +bare feet in the thick dust, as Morgan drove his captives down the +inside of the hitching racks; the outpouring of citizens, parasites, +outcasts of the earth, swept after in a growing stream. + +From all sides they came to witness this great adventure, unusual for +Ascalon in that the guilty had been humbled and the arrogant brought +low. Across the square they came running, on the courthouse steps they +stood. In front of the hotel there was a crowd, which moved forward to +meet Morgan as he came marching like an avenger behind his captives, who +were now beginning to show alarm, sobered by their unexampled situation, +sweating in the agony of their quaking hearts. + +At the hitching rack where his horse stood, Morgan halted the six men. +He took the remainder of his new rope from the saddle, laced it through +the bonds on the Texans' wrists, backed them up to the horizontal pole +of the hitching rack, and tied them there in a line, facing inward upon +the square. As he moved about his business with deliberate, yet swift +and sure hand of vengeance well plotted in advance, Morgan kept his +rifle leaning near, watching the crowd for any outbreak of friends who +might rise in defense of these men, or any movement that might threaten +interference with his plans. + +When he had finished binding the six men, backs to the rack, Morgan +beckoned a group of boys to him, spoke to them in undertone that even +the nearest in the crowd did not hear. Off the youngsters ran, so full +of the importance of their part in that great event that they would not +stay to be questioned nor halt for the briefest word. + +In a little while the lads came hurrying back, with empty goods boxes +and barrels, fragments of packing cases, all sorts of dry wood to which +they could lay their eager hands. This they piled where Morgan +indicated, to stand by panting, eyes big in excitement and wondering +admiration for this mighty man. + +Mrs. Conboy, standing at the edge of the sidewalk before her door, not +more than ten yards from the spot where Morgan was making these +unaccountable preparations, leaned with a new horror in her fear-haunted +eyes to see. + +"My God! he's goin' to burn them!" she said. "Oh, my God!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE PENALTY + + +Whatever the stranger's intention toward the rough riders of the +Chisholm Trail who had terrorized good and bad alike in Ascalon for a +week, whether to roast them alive as they stood in a row with backs to +the hitching rack, or to inflict some other equally terrible punishment; +or whether he was simply staking them there while he cooked his +breakfast cowboy fashion, not willing to trust them out of sight while +he regaled himself in a restaurant, nobody quite understood. Mrs. +Conboy's exclamation appeared to voice the general belief of the crowd. +Murmurs of disapproval began to rise. + +One of the leading moralists of the town, proprietor of a +knock-down-and-drag-out, was loudest in his protestations that such a +happening in the public square of Ascalon, in the broad light of day, +the assembled inhabitants looking on, would give the place a name from +which it never would recover. This fellow, a gross man of swinging +paunch, a goitre enlarging and disfiguring his naturally thick, ugly +neck, had scrambled from his bed in haste at the thrilling of the +general alarm of something unusual in the daylight annals of the town. +His bare feet were thrust into slippers, his great white shirt was +collarless, dainty narrow blue silk suspenders held up his +hogshead-measure pantaloons. The redness of unfinished sleep was in his +eyes. + +"I tell you, men, this ain't a goin' to do--this ain't no town down +south where they take niggers out and burn 'em," he said. "I ain't got +no use for that gang, myself, but I've got the good of the town and my +business to consider, like all the rest of you have." + +There must have been in town that day forty or more cowboys from Texas +and the Nation, as the Cherokee country south was called. These for the +greater part were still sober, not having been paid off, still on duty +caring for the horses left behind them when the cattle were loaded and +shipped, or for the herds resting and grazing close by after the long +drive. They began to gather curiously around the fat man who had the +fair repute of Ascalon so close to his heart, listening to his efforts +to set a current of resentment against the stranger stirring in the awed +crowd. They began to turn toward Morgan now, with close talk among +themselves, regarding him yet as something more than a common man, not +keen to spring into somebody else's trouble and get their fingers +scorched. + +"What's he going to do with them?" one of these inquired. + +"Burn 'em," the fat man replied, as readily as if he had it from +Morgan's own mouth, and as strongly denunciatory as though the disgrace +of it reached to his fair fame and good business already. "You boys +ain't goin' to stand around here and see men from your own country burnt +like niggers, are you? Well, you don't look like a bunch that'd do +it--you don't look like it to me." + +"What did they do to him?" one of the cowboys asked, not greatly fired +by the fat man's sectional appeal. + +Stilwell came loitering among them at that point, a man of their own +calling, sympathies, and traditions, with the shoulder-lurching gait of +a man who had spent most of his years in the saddle. He told them in a +few feeling, picturesque words the extent of Morgan's grievance against +the six, and left it with them to say whether he was to be interfered +with in his exaction of a just and fitting payment. + +"I don't know what he's goin' to do," Stilwell said, "but if he wants to +roast 'em and eat 'em"--looking about him with stern eyes--"this is his +day." + +"If he needs any help there's plenty of it here," said a cowboy from the +Nation, hooking his thumb with lazy but expressive movement under the +cartridge belt around his slim waist. + +The fat publican subsided, seeing his little ripple of protest flattened +out by the spirit of fair play. He backed to the sidewalk, where he +stood in conference with Tom Conboy, and there was heard a reference to +niggers in Ireland, pronounced with wise twisting of the head. + +Morgan selected, in the face of this little flurry of opposition and +defense, a box from among the odds and ends brought him by the boys, sat +on it facing his prisoners and broke bits of wood for a fire. People +began pressing a little nearer to see what was to come, but when Morgan, +with eye watchful to see even the shifting of a foot in the crowd, +reached for his rifle and laid it across his lap, there was an immediate +scramble to the sidewalk. This left twenty feet of dusty white road +unoccupied, a margin on the page where this remarkable incident in +Ascalon's record of tragedies was being written. + +Midway of his line of captives, six feet in front of the nearest man, +Morgan kindled a fire, adding wood as the blaze grew, apparently as +oblivious of his surroundings as if in a camp a hundred miles from a +house. When he had the fire established to his liking, he took from his +saddle an iron implement, at the sight of which a murmur and a movement +of new interest stirred the crowd. + +This iron contrivance was a rod, little thicker than a man's finger, +which terminated in a flat plate wrought with some kind of open-work +device. This flat portion, which was about as broad as the span of a +man's two hands and perhaps six or eight inches long, appeared to be a +continuation of the handle, bent and hammered to form the crude pattern, +and the wonderment and speculation, contriving and guessing, all passed +out of the people when they beheld this thing. That was a cattle +country; they knew it for a branding iron. + +Morgan thrust the brand into the fire, piled wood around it, leaning +over it a little in watchful intent. This relic of his past he also had +retrieved from the bottom of his trunk along with boots and spurs, +corduroys and hat, and it had been a long time, indeed, since he heated +it to apply the Three Crow brand to the shoulder of a beast. That brand, +his father's brand in the early days in the Sioux country where he was +the pioneer cattleman, never had been heated to come in contact with +such base skins as these, Morgan reflected, and it would not be so +dishonored now if cattle were carrying it on any range. + +When the Indians killed his father and drove off the last of the herd, +the Three Crow became a discontinued brand in the Northwest. The son had +kept this iron which his father had carried at his saddle horn as a +souvenir of the times when life was not worth much between the Black +Hills and the Platte. The brand was not recorded anywhere today; the +brand books of the cattle-growers' associations did not contain it. But +it was his mark; he intended to set it on these cattle, disfiguration of +face for disfiguration, and turn them loose to return smelling of the +hot iron among their kind. + +Sodden with the dregs of last night's carousel, slow-headed, surly as +the Texans were when Morgan encountered them, they were all alert and +fully cognizant of their peril now. No rough jest passed from mouth to +mouth; there was no sneer, no laugh of bravado, no defiance. Some of +them had curses left in them as they sweated in the fear of Morgan's +silent preparations and lunged on their ropes in the hope of breaking +loose. All but the Dutchman appealed to the crowd to interfere, +promising rewards, making pledges in the name of their absent patron, +Seth Craddock, the dreaded slayer of men. + +Now and again one of them shouted a name, generally Peden's name, or the +name of some dealer or bouncer in his hall. Nobody answered, nobody +raised hand or voice to interfere or protest. During their short reign +of pillage and debauchery under the protection of the city marshal, the +members of the gang had not made a friend who cared to risk his skin to +save theirs. + +To add to their disgrace and humiliation, their big pistols hung in the +holsters on their thighs. People, especially the men of the range, +remarked this full armament, marveling how the stranger had taken six +men of such desperate notoriety all strapped with their guns, but they +understood at once his purpose in allowing the weapons to hang under +their impotent hands. It was a mockery of their bravado, a belittlement +of their bluff and swagger in the brief day of their oppression. + +Morgan withdrew the brand from the fire, knocking the clinging bits of +wood from it against the ground. + +The Dutchman was first in the line at Morgan's right hand as he turned +from the fire with the branding iron red-hot in his hand. Near the +Dutchman stood Morgan's borrowed horse, drowsing in the sun with head +down, its weight on three legs, one ear set in its inherited caution to +catch the least alarm. From the first moment of his encounter with these +scoundrels Morgan had not lowered himself to address them a single word. +Such commands as he had given them had been in dumb show, as to driven +creatures. This rule of silence he held still as he approached the first +object of his vengeance. + +The Dutchman started back from the iron in sudden rousing from his +brooding silence, fear and hate convulsing his snarling face, shrinking +back against the timber of the hitching rack as far as he could +withdraw, where he stood with shoulders hunched about his neck, savage +as a chained wolf. He began to writhe and kick as Morgan laid hold of +his neck to hold him steady for the cruel kiss of the iron. + +The fellow squirmed and lunged, with head lowered, trying to get on the +other side of the rack, his companions who were within reach joining in +kicking at Morgan, adding their curses and cries to the Dutchman's +silent fight to save his skin. They raised such a commotion of noise and +dust that it spread to the crowd, which pressed up with a great clamor +of derision, pity, laughter, and shrill cries. + +The cowboys, feeling themselves privileged spectators by reason of craft +affiliation, made a ring around the scene of punishment, shouting in +enjoyment of the spectacle, for it was quite in harmony with the cruel +jokes and wild pranks which made up the humorous diversions of their +lives. + +"You'll have to hog-tie that feller," said one, drawing nearer than the +rest in his interest. + +Morgan paused a moment, brand uplifted, as if he considered the friendly +suggestion. The Dutchman was cringing before him, head drawn between his +shoulders, face as near the ground as he could strain the ropes which +bound him. Morgan kicked the fellow's feet from under him, leaving him +hanging by his hands. + +The spectators cheered this adroit movement, laughing at the spectacle +of the Dutchman hanging face downward on his ropes, and Morgan, sweating +in the heat of the fire and sun, exertion and passion, careless of +everything, thoughtless of all but his unsatisfied vengeance, straddled +the Dutchman's neck as if he were a calf. He brought the iron down +within an inch or two of the Dutchman's face, calculating how much of +the crude device of three flying crows he could get between mouth and +ear, and as Morgan stood so with the hot iron poised, the Dutchman +choking between his clamping knees, a hand clutched his arm, jerking the +hovering brand away. + +Morgan had not heard a step near him through the turmoil of his hate, +nor seen any person approaching to interfere. Now he whirled, pistol +slung out, facing about to account with the one who dared break in to +stay his hand in the administration of a punishment that he considered +all too inadequate and humane. + +There was a girl standing by him, her restraining hand still on his arm, +the sun glinting in the gloss of her dark hair, her dark eyes fixed on +him in denial, in a softness of pity that Morgan knew was not for his +victims alone. And so in that revel of base surrender to his primal +passions she had come to him, she whom his heart sought among the faces +of women; in that manner she had found him, and found him, as Morgan +knew in his abased heart, at his worst. + +There was not a word, not the whisper of a word, in the crowd around +them. There was scarcely the moving of a breath. + +"Give me that iron, Mr. Morgan!" she demanded in voice that trembled +from the surge of her perturbed breast. + +Morgan stood confronting her in the fierce pose of a man prepared to +contend to the last extreme with any who had come to stay his hand in +his hour of requital. The glowing iron, from which little wavers of heat +rose in the sun, he grasped in one hand; in the other his pistol, elbow +close to his side, threatening the quarter from which interference had +come. Still he demurred at her demand, refusing the outstretched hand. + +"Give it to me!" she said again, drawing nearer, but a little space +between them now, so near he fancied her breath, panting from her open +lips, on his cheek. + +Silent, grim, still clouded by the vapors of his passion, Morgan stood +denying her, not able to adjust himself in wrench so sudden to the calm +plane of his normal life. + +"Not for their sake--for your own!" she pleaded, her hand gentle on his +arm. + +The set muscles of his pistol arm relaxed, the muzzle of the weapon +dropped slowly with the surge of dark passion in his breast. + +"They deserve it, and worse, but not from you, Mr. Morgan. Leave them to +the law--give me that iron." + +Morgan yielded it into her hand, slowly slipped his pistol back into the +holster, slowly raised his hand to his forehead, pushed back his hat, +swept his hand across his eyes like one waking from an oppressive dream. +He looked around at the silent people, hundreds of them, it seemed to +him, for the first time fully conscious of the spectacular drama he had +been playing before their astonished eyes. + +The Dutchman had struggled to his knees, where he leaned with neck +outstretched as if he waited the stroke of the headsman's sword, unable +to regain his feet. The girl looked with serious eyes into Morgan's +face, the hot branding iron in her hand. + +"I think you'd better lock them up in jail, Mr. Morgan," she said. + +Morgan did not reply. He stood with bent head, his emotions roiled like +a turgid brook, a feeling over him of awakening daze, such as one +experiences in a sweat of agony after dreaming of falling from some +terrifying height. Morgan had just struck the bottom of the precipice in +his wild, self-effacing dream. The shock of waking was numbing; there +was no room for anything in his righted consciousness but a vast, +down-bearing sense of shame. She had seen a side of his nature long +submerged, long fought, long ago conquered as he believed; the +vindictive, the savage part of him, the cruel and unforgiving. + +Public interest in the line of captives along the hitching rack was +waking in a new direction all around the sun-burned square. It was +beginning to come home to every staid and sober man in the assembly that +he had a close interest in the disposition of these men. + +"I don't know about that jail business and the law, Miss Retty," said a +severe dark man who pushed into the space where Morgan and the girl +stood. "We've been dressin' and feedin' and standin' the loss through +breakin' and stealin' these fellers have imposed on this town for a week +and more now, and I'm one that don't think much of lockin' them up in +jail to lay there and eat off of the county and maybe be turned loose +after a while. You'd just as well try to carry water up here from the +river in a gunny sack as convict a crook in this county any more." + +This man found supporters at once. They came pushing forward, the +resentment of insult and oppression darkening their faces, to shake +threatening fists in the faces of the Dutchman and his companions. + +"The best medicine for a gang like this is a cottonwood limb and a +rope," the man who had spoken declared. + +It began to look exceedingly dark for the unlucky desperadoes inside of +the next minute. The suggestion of hanging them immediately became an +avowed intention; preparations for carrying it into effect began on the +spot. While some ran to the hardware store for rope, others discussed +the means of employing it to carry out the public sentence. + +Hanging never had been popular in Ascalon, mainly because of the +barrenness of the country, which offered no convenient branches except +on the cottonwoods along the river. Wagon tongues upended and propped by +neckyokes had been known to serve in their time, and telegraph poles +when the railroad built through. But gibbets of this sort had their +shortcomings and vexations. There was nothing so comfortable for all +concerned as a tree, and trees did not grow by nature or by art in +Ascalon. So there was talk of an expedition to the river, where all the +six might be accommodated on one tree. + +The girl who had taken the branding iron from Morgan and cooled the heat +of his resentment and vengeance quicker than the iron had cooled, stood +looking about into the serious faces of the men who suddenly had +determined to finish for Morgan the business he had begun. Her face was +white, horror distended her eyes; she seemed to have no words for a plea +against this rapidly growing plan. + +One of the doomed men behind her began to whimper and beg, appealing to +her in his mother's name to save him. He was a young man, whose weak +face was lined by the excesses of his unrestrained days in Ascalon. His +hat had fallen off, his foretop of brown hair straggled over his wild +eyes. + +"Come away from here," said Morgan, turning to her now, his voice rough +and still shaken by his subsiding passion. He took the hot iron from +her, thinking of the trough at the public well where he might cool it. + +"Don't let them do it," she implored, putting out her hands to him in +appeal. + +"Now Miss Rhetta, you'd better run along," a man urged kindly. + +Morgan stood beside her in the narrowing circle about the six men who +had been condemned by public sentiment in less than sixty seconds and +scarcely more words, the hot end of the branding iron in the dust at his +feet. He was silent, yet apparently agitated by a strong emotion, as a +man might be who had leaped a crevasse in fleeing a pressing peril, upon +which he feared to look back. + +She whom the man had called Rhetta picked up the young cowboy's hat and +put it on his head. + +"Hush!" she charged, in reply to his whimpering intercession for mercy. +"Mr. Morgan isn't going to let them hang you." + +Morgan started out of his thoughtful glooming as if a reviving wind had +struck his face, all alert again in a moment, but silent and inscrutable +as before. He leaned his brand against the hitching post, recovered his +rifle where it lay in the dust beside the scattered sticks of his fire, +making himself a little room as he moved about. + +Those who had talked of hanging the six now suspended sentence while +waiting the outcome of this new activity on the part of the avenger. A +man who came from somewhere with a coil of rope on his arm stood at the +edge of the newly widened circle with fallen countenance, like one who +arrived too late at some great event in which he had expected to be the +leading actor. + +Morgan began stripping belts and pistols from his captives, throwing the +gear at the foot of the post where his branding iron stood. When he had +stripped the last one he paused a moment as if considering something, +the weapon in his hand. The girl Rhetta had not added a word to her +appeal in behalf of the unworthy rascals who stood sweating in terror +before the threatening crowd. But she looked now into Morgan's face with +hopeful understanding, the color coming back to her drained cheeks, a +light of admiration in her eyes. As for Morgan, his own face appeared to +have cleared of a cloud. There was a gleam of deep-kindling humor in his +eyes. + +"Gentlemen, there will not be any hanging in Ascalon this morning," he +announced. + +He threw the last pistol down with the others, nodded Stilwell to him, +whispered a word or two. Stilwell went shouldering off through the +crowd. Morgan sheathed his rifle in the battered scabbard that hung on +his saddle. In a little while Stilwell came back with a saw. + +Morgan took the tool and sawed through the pole to which his captives +were made fast. Stilwell held up the severed end while Morgan cut the +other, freeing from the bolted posts the four-inch section of pole to +which the cowboys were tied, leaving it hanging from the ropes at their +wrists, dangling a little below their hands. + +The late lords of the plains were such a dejected and altogether +sneaking looking crew, shorn of their power by the hands of one man, +stripped of their roaring weapons, tied like cattle to a hurdle, that +the vengeful spirit of Ascalon veered in a glance to humorous +appreciation of the comedy that was beginning before their eyes. + +The cowboys who had stood ready a few minutes past to help hang the +outfit, fairly rolled with laughter at the sight of this miserable +example of complete degradation, through which the meanness of their +kind was so ludicrously apparent. The citizenry and floating population +of the town joined in the merriment, and the lowering clouds of tragedy +were swept away on a gale of laughter that echoed along the jagged +business front. + +But the girl Rhetta was not laughing. Perplexed, troubled, she laid her +hand on Morgan's arm as he stood beside his horse about to mount. + +"What are you going to do with them now, Mr. Morgan?" she inquired. + +"They're going to start for Texas down the Chisholm Trail," he said, +smiling down at her from the saddle. + +And in that manner they set out from Ascalon, carrying the pole at their +backs, Morgan driving them ahead of him, starting them in a trot which +increased to a hobbling run as they bore away past the railroad station +and struck the broad trampled highway to the south. + +Afoot and horseback the town and the visitors in it came after them, +shooting and shouting, getting far more enjoyment out of it than they +would have got out of a hanging, as even the most contrary among them +admitted. For this was a drama in which the boys and girls took part, +and even the Baptist preacher, who had a church as big as a mouse trap, +stood grinning in appreciation as they passed, and said something about +it being a parallel of Samson, and the foxes with their tails tied +together being driven away into the Philistines' corn. + +The crowd followed to the rise half a mile south of town, where most of +it halted, only the cowboys and mounted men accompanying Morgan to the +river. There they turned back, also, leaving it to Morgan to carry out +the rest of his program alone, it being the general opinion that he +intended to herd the six beyond the cottonwoods on the farther shore and +despatch them clean-handed, according to what was owing to him on their +account. + +Morgan urged his captives on, still keeping them on the trot, although +it was becoming a staggering and wabbling progression, the weaker in +the line held up by the more enduring. They were experiencing in a small +and colorless measure, as faint by comparison, certainly, as the smell +of smoke to the feel of fire on the naked skin, what they had given +Morgan in the hour of their cruel mastery. + +At last one of them could stumble on no farther. He fell, dragging down +two others who were not able to sustain his weight. There Morgan left +them, a mile or more beyond the river, knowing they would not have far +to travel before they came across somebody who would set them free. + +The Dutchman, stronger and fresher than any of his companions, turned as +if he would speak when Morgan started to leave. Morgan checked his horse +to hear what the fellow might have to say, but nothing came out of the +ugly mouth but a grin of such derision, such mockery, such hate, that +Morgan felt as if the bright day contracted to shadows and a chill crept +into the pelting heat of the sun. He thought, gravely and soberly, that +he would be sparing the world at large, and himself specifically, future +pain and trouble by putting this scoundrel out of the way as a man would +remove a vicious beast. + +Whatever justification the past, the present, or the future might plead +for this course, Morgan was too much himself again to yield. He turned +from them, giving the Dutchman his life to make out of it what he might. + +From the top one of the ridges such as billowed like swells of the sea +that gray-green, treeless plain, Morgan looked back. All of them but +the Dutchman were either lying or sitting on the ground, beaten and +winded by the torture of their bonds and the hard drive of more than +three miles in the burning sun. The Dutchman still kept his feet, +although the drag of the pole upon him must have been sore and heavy, as +if he must stand to send his curse out after the man who had bent him to +his humiliation. + +And Morgan knew that the Dutchman was not a conquered man, nor bowed in +his spirit, nor turned one moment away from his thought of revenge. +Again the bright day seemed to contract and grow chill around him, like +the oncoming shadow and breath of storm. He felt that this man would +return in his day to trouble him, low-devising, dark and secret and +meanly covert as a wolf prowling in the night. + +The last look Morgan had of the Dutchman he was gazing that way still, +his face peculiarly white, the weight of the pole and his fallen +comrades dragging down on his bound arms. Morgan could fancy still, even +over the distance between them, the small teeth, wide set in the red +gums like a pup's, and the loathsome glitter of his sneering eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +IN PLACE OF A REGIMENT + + +Morgan rode back to town in thoughtful, serious mood after conducting +the six desperadoes across the small trickle of the Arkansas River. He +was not satisfied with the morning's adventure, no matter to what extent +it reflected credit on his manhood and competency in the public mind of +Ascalon. He would have been easier in all conscience and higher in his +own esteem if it had not happened at all. + +He thought soberly now of getting his trunk over to Conboy's from the +station and changing back into the garb of civilization before meeting +that girl again, that wonderful girl, that remarkable woman who could +play a tune on him to suit her caprice, he thought, as she would have +fingered a violin. + +Judge Thayer's little office, with the white stakes behind it marking +off the unsold lots like graves of a giant race, reminded Morgan of his +broken engagement to look at the farm. He hitched his horse at the rack +running out from one corner of the building, where other horses had +stood fighting flies until they had stamped a hollow like a buffalo +wallow in the dusty ground. + +Judge Thayer got up from the accumulated business on his desk at the +sound of Morgan's step in his door, and came forward with welcome in his +beaming face, warmth of friendliness and admiration in every hair of +his beard, where the gray twinkled like laughter among the black. + +"I asked the governor for a company of militia to put down the disorder +and outlawry in this town--I didn't think less than a company could do +it," said the judge. + +"Is he sending them?" Morgan inquired with polite interest. + +"No, I'm glad to say he refused. He referred me to the sheriff." + +"And the sheriff will act, I suppose?" + +"Act?" Judge Thayer repeated, turning the word curiously. "Act!"--with +all the contempt that could be centered in such a short +expression--"yes, he'll act like a forsworn and traitorous coward, the +friend to thieves that he's always been! We don't need him, we don't +need the governor's petted, stall-fed militia, when we've got one man +that's a regiment in himself!" + +The judge must shake hands with Morgan again, and clap him on the +shoulder to further express his admiration and the feeling of security +his single-handed exploit against the oppressors of Ascalon had brought +to the town. + +"I and the other officers and directors sat up in the bank four nights, +lights out and guns loaded, sweatin' blood, expecting a raid by that +gang. They had this town buffaloed, Morgan. I'm glad you came back here +today and showed us the pattern of a real, old-fashioned man." + +"I guess I was lucky," Morgan said, with modest depreciation of his +valor, exceedingly uncomfortable to stand there and hear this +loud-spoken praise of a deed he would rather have the public forget. + +"Maybe you call it luck where you came from, but we've got another name +for it here in Ascalon." + +"I'm sorry I couldn't keep my engagement to look at that farm, Judge +Thayer. You must have heard my reason for it." + +"Stilwell told me. It's a marvel you ever came back at all." + +"If the farm isn't sold----" + +"No," said the judge hastily, as if to turn him away from the subject. +"Come in and sit down--there's a bigger thing than farming on hand for +you if you can see your interests in it as I see them, Mr. Morgan. A +man's got to trample down the briars before he makes his bed sometimes, +you know--come on in out of this cussed sun. + +"Morgan, the situation in Ascalon is like this," Judge Thayer resumed, +seated at his desk, Morgan between him and the door in much the same +position that Seth Craddock had sat on the day of his arrival not long +before; "we've got a city marshal that's bigger than the authority that +created him, bigger than anything on earth that ever wore a star. Seth +Craddock's enlarged himself and his authority until he's become a curse +and a scourge to the citizens of this town." + +"I heard something of his doings from Fred Stilwell. Why don't you fire +him?" + +"Morgan, I approached him," said the judge, with an air of injury. "I +believe on my soul the old devil spared my life only because I had +befriended him in past days. There's a spark of gratitude in him that +the drenching of blood hasn't put out. If it had been anybody else he'd +have shot him dead." + +"Hm-m-m-m!" said Morgan, grunting his sympathy, eyes on the floor. + +"Morgan, that fellow's killed eight men in as many days! He's got a +regular program--a man a day." + +"It looks like something ought to be done to stop him." + +"The old devil's shrewd, he's had legal counsel from no less illustrious +source than the county attorney, who's so crooked he couldn't lie on the +side of a hill without rollin' down it like a hoop. Seth knows he fills +an elective office, he's beyond the power of mayor and council to +remove. The only way he can be ousted is by proceedings in court, which +he could wear along till his term expired. We can't fire him, Morgan. +He'll go on till he depopulates this town!" + +"It's a remarkable situation," Morgan said. + +"He's a jackal, which is neither wolf nor dog. He's never killed a man +here yet out of necessity--he just shoots them down to see them kick, or +to gratify some monstrous delight that has transformed him from the man +I used to know." + +"He may be insane," Morgan suggested. + +"I don't know, but I don't think so. I can't abase my mind low enough to +fathom that man." + +"It's a wonder somebody hasn't killed him," Morgan speculated. + +"He never arrests anybody, there hasn't been a prisoner in the +calaboose since he took charge of this town. Notoriety has turned his +head, notoriety seems to put a halo around him that makes a troop of +sycophants look up to him as a saint. Look here--look at this!" + +The judge held out a newspaper, shaking it viciously, his face clouded +with displeasure. + +"Here's a piece two columns long about that scoundrel in the _Kansas +City Times_--the notoriety of the town is obscured by the bloody +reputation of its marshal." + +"It must be gratifying to a man of his ambitions," Morgan commented, +glancing curiously over the story, his mind on the first victim of +Craddock's gun in that town. + +"It's a disgrace that some of us feel, whatever it may be to him. I +expected him to confine his gun to gamblers and crooks and these vermin +that hang around the women of the dance houses, but he's right-hand man +with them, they're all on his staff." + +Morgan looked up in amazement, hardly able to believe what he heard. + +"It's enough to wind any decent man," Judge Thayer nodded. "You remember +his first case--that fool cowboy he killed at the hotel?" + +"I was just thinking of him," Morgan said. + +"That's the kind he goes in for, cowboys from the range, green, innocent +boys, harmless if you take 'em right. Yesterday afternoon he killed a +young fellow from Glenmore. It's going to bring retaliation and reprisal +on us, it's going to hurt us in this contest over the county seat." + +"I shouldn't wonder," said Morgan, hoping the reprisal would be swift +and severe. + +"I think the man's blood mad," Judge Thayer speculated, in a hopeless +way. "It must be the outcome of all that slaughter among the buffalo. +He's not a brave man, he lacks the bearing and the full look of the eye +of a courageous man, but he carries two guns now, Morgan, and he can +sling out and shoot a man with incredible speed. And we've got him +quartered on us for nearly two years unless somebody from Glendora comes +over and nails him. We can't fire him, we don't dare to approach him to +suggest his abdication. Morgan, we're in a three-cornered hell of a +fix!" + +"Can't the fellow be prosecuted for some of these murders? Isn't there +some way the law can reach him?" + +"The coroner's jury absolves him regularly," the judge replied wearily. +"At first they did it because it was the routine, and now they do it to +save their hides. No, there's just one quick and sure way of heading +that devil off in his red trail that I can see, Morgan, and that's for +me to act while he's away. He's gone on some high-flyin' expedition to +Abilene, leaving the town without a peace officer at the mercy of +bandits and thieves. I have the authority to swear in a deputy marshal, +or a hundred of them." + +Morgan looked up again quickly from his speculative study of the boards +in Judge Thayer's floor, to meet the elder man's shrewd eyes with a look +of complete understanding. So they sat a moment, each reading the other +as easily as one counts pebbles at the bottom of a clear spring. + +"I don't believe I'm the man you're looking for," Morgan said. + +"You're the only man that can do it, Morgan. It looks to me like you're +appointed by Providence to step in here and save this town from this +reign of murder." + +"Oh!" said Morgan, impatiently, discounting the judge's fervid words. + +"You can supplant him, you can strip him of his badge of office when he +steps from the train, and you're the one man that _can_ do it!" + +Morgan shook his head, whether in denial of his attributed valor and +prowess, or in declination to assume the proffered honor, Judge Thayer +could not tell. + +"I believe you'd do it without ever throwing a gun down on him," Judge +Thayer declared. + +"I know he could!" said a clear, hearty, confident voice from the door. + +"Come in and help me convince him, Rhetta," Judge Thayer said, his +gray-flecked beard twinkling with the pleasure that beamed from his +eyes. "Mr. Morgan, my daughter. You have met before." + +Morgan rose in considerable confusion, feeling more like an abashed and +clumsy cowboy than he ever had felt before in his life. He stood with +his battered hat held flat against his body at his belt, turning the old +thing foolishly like a wheel, so unexpectedly confronted by this girl +again, before whom he desired to appear as a man, and the best that was +in the best man that he could ever be. And she stood smiling before him, +mischief and mastery in her laughing eyes, confident as one who had +subjugated him already, playing a tune on him, surely--a tune that came +like a little voice out of his heart. + +"I didn't know, I didn't suspect," he said. + +"Of course not. She isn't anything like me." Judge Thayer laughed over +it, mightily pleased by this evidence of confusion in a man who could +heat his branding iron to set his mark on half a dozen desperadoes, yet +turned to dough before the eyes of a simple maid. + +"No more than a bird is like a bear," said Morgan, thinking aloud, +racing mentally the next moment to snatch back his words and shape them +in more conventional phrase. But too late; their joint laughter drowned +his attempt to set it right, and the world lost a compliment that might +have graced a courtier's tongue, perhaps. But, not likely. + +Morgan proffered the chair he had occupied, but Rhetta knew of one in +reserve behind the display of wheat and oats in sheaf on the table. This +she brought, seating herself near the door, making a triangle from which +Morgan had no escape save through the roof. + +Judge Thayer resumed the discussion of the most vital matter in Ascalon +that hour, pressing Morgan to take the oath of office then and there. + +"I wouldn't ask Mr. Morgan to take the office," said Rhetta when Judge +Thayer paused, "if I felt safe to stay in Ascalon another day with +anybody else as marshal." + +"That's a compelling reason for a man to take a job," Morgan told her, +looking for a daring moment into the cool clarity of her honest brown +eyes. "But I might make it worse instead of better. Trouble came to +this town with me; it seems to stick to my heels like a dog." + +"You got rid of most of it this morning--_that_ gang will never come +back," she said. + +Morgan looked out of the open door, a thoughtfulness in his eyes that +the nearer attraction could not for the moment dispel. "One of them +will," he replied. + +"Oh, one!" said she, discounting that one to nothing at all. + +"The gamblers and saloon men are right about it," Morgan said, turning +to the judge; "this town will dry up and blow away as soon as it loses +its notorious name. If you want to kill Ascalon, enforce the law. The +question is, how many people here want it done?" + +"The respectable majority, I can assure you on that." + +"Nearly everybody you talk to say they'd rather have Ascalon a whistling +station on the railroad, where you could go to sleep in peace and get up +feeling safe, than the awful place it is now," Rhetta said. She removed +her sombrero as she spoke, and dropped it on the floor at her feet, as +though weary of the turmoil that vexed her days. + +Morgan noted for the first time that she was not dressed for the saddle +today as on the occasion of their first meeting, but garbed in becoming +simplicity in serge skirt and brown linen waist, a little golden bar +with garnets at her throat. Her redundant dark hair, soft in its dusky +shade as summer shadows in a deep wood, was coiled in a twisted heap to +fit the crown of her mannish sombrero. It came down lightly over the +tips of her ears in pretty disorder, due to the excitement of the +morning, and she was fair as a camelia blossom and fresh as an evening +primrose of her native prairie land. + +"I wouldn't like to be the man that killed Ascalon, after all its highly +painted past," Morgan said, trying to turn it off lightly. "It might be +better for all the respectable people to go away and leave it wholly +wicked, according to its fame." + +"That might work to the satisfaction of all concerned, Mr. Morgan, if we +had wagons and tents, and nothing more," said the judge. "We could very +well pick up and pull out in that case. But a lot of us have staked all +we own on the future of this town and the country around it. We were +here before Ascalon became a plague spot and a by-word in the mouths of +men; we started it right, but it went wrong as soon as it was able to +walk." + +"It seems to have wandered around quite a bit since then," Morgan said, +sparing them a grin. + +"It's been a wayward child," Rhetta sighed. "We're ashamed of our +responsibility for it now." + +"It would mean ruination to most of us to pull out and leave it to these +wolves," said the judge. "We couldn't think of that." + +"Of course not, I was only making a poor joke when I talked of a +retreat," Morgan said. "Things will begin to die down here in a year or +two--I've seen towns like this before, they always calm down and take up +business seriously in time, or blow away and vanish completely. That's +what happens to most of them if they're let go their course--change and +shift, range breaking up into farms, cowboys going on, take care of +that." + +"I don't think Ascalon will go out that way--not if we can keep the +county seat," Judge Thayer said. "If you were to step into the breach +while that killer's away and rub even one little white spot in the +town----" + +Morgan seemed to interpose in the manner of throwing out his hand, a +gesture speaking of the fatuity and his unwillingness to set himself to +the task. + +"Not just temporarily, we don't mean just temporarily, Mr. Morgan, but +for good," Rhetta urged. "I want to take over editing the paper and be +of some use in the world, but I couldn't think of doing it with all this +killing going on, and a lot of wild men shooting out windows and +everything that way." + +"No, of course you couldn't," Morgan agreed. + +"The railroad immigration agent has been trying to locate a colony of +Mennonites here," Judge Thayer said, "fifty families or more of them, +but the notoriety of the town made the elders skittish. They were out +here this spring, liked the country, saw its future with eyes that +revealed like telescopes, and would have bought ten sections of land to +begin with if it hadn't been for two or three killings while they were +here." + +"It was the same way with those people from Pennsylvania," said Rhetta. + +"We had a crowd of Pennsylvania Dutch out here a week or two after the +Mennonites," the judge enlarged, "smellin' around hot-foot on the trail +as hounds, but this atmosphere of Ascalon and its bad influence on the +country wouldn't be good for their young folks, they said. So _they_ +backed off. And that's the way it's gone, that's the way it will go. The +blight of Ascalon falls over this country for fifty miles around, the +finest country the Almighty ever scattered grass seed over. + +"You saw the possibilities of it from a distance, Mr. Morgan; others +have seen it. Wouldn't you be doing humanity a larger service, a more +immediate and applicable service, by clearing away the pest spot, curing +the repulsive infection that keeps them away from its benefits and +rewards, than by plowing up eighty acres and putting in a crop of wheat? +A man's got to trample down his bed-ground, as I've said already, +Morgan, before he can spread his blankets sometimes. This is one of the +places, this is one of the times." + +Morgan thought it over, hands on his thighs, head bent a little, eyes on +his boots, conscious that the girl was watching him anxiously, as one on +trial at the bar watches a doubtful jury when counsel makes the last +appeal. + +"There's a lot of logic in what you say," Morgan admitted; "it ought to +appeal to a man big enough, confident enough, to undertake and put the +job through." + +He looked up suddenly, answering directly Rhetta Thayer's anxious, +expectant, appealing brown eyes. "For if he should fail, bungle it, and +have to throw down his hand before he'd won the game, it would be +Katy-bar-the-door for that man. He'd have to know how far the people of +this town wanted him to go before starting, and there's only one +boundary--the limit of the law. If they want anything less than that a +man had better keep hands off, for anything like a compromise between +black and white would be a fizzle." + +Rhetta nodded, her bosom quivering with the pounding of her expectant +heart, her throat throbbing, her hands clenched as if she held on in +desperate hope of rescue. Judge Thayer said no more. He sat watching +Morgan's face, knowing well when a word too many might change the +verdict to his loss. + +"The question is, how far do they want a man to go in the regeneration +of Ascalon? How many are willing to put purity above profit for a while? +Business would suffer; it would be as dead here as a grasshopper after a +prairie fire while readjustment to new conditions shaped. It might be a +year or two before healthy legitimate trade could take the place of this +flashy life, and it might never rebound from the operation. A man would +want the people who are calling for law and order here to be satisfied +with the new conditions; he wouldn't want any whiners at the funeral." + +"New people would come, new business would grow, as soon as the news got +abroad that a different condition prevailed in this town," Judge Thayer +said. "I can satisfy you in an hour that the business men want what +they're demanding, and will be satisfied to take the risk of the +result." + +"I came out here to farm," Morgan said, unwilling to put down his plans +for a questionable and dangerous service to a doubtful community. + +"There'll not be much sod broken between now and late fall, from the +present look of things," the judge said. "We've had the longest dry +spell I've ever seen in this country--going on four weeks now without a +drop of rain. It comes that way once every five or seven years, but that +also happens back in Ohio and other places men consider especially +favored," he hastened to conclude. + +"I didn't intend to break sod," Morgan reflected, "a man couldn't sow +wheat in raw sod. That's why I wanted to look at that claim down by the +river." + +"It will keep. Or you could buy it, and hire your crop put in while +you're marshal here in town." + +"And I could edit the paper. Between us we could save the county seat." + +Rhetta spoke quite seriously, so seriously, indeed, that her father +laughed. + +"I had forgotten all about saving the county seat--I was considering +only the soul of Ascalon," he said. + +"If you refuse to let father swear you in, Mr. Morgan, Craddock will say +you were afraid. I'd hate to have him do that," said Rhetta. + +"He might," Morgan granted, and with subdued voice and thoughtful manner +that gave them a fresh rebound of hope. + +And at length they had their will, but not until Morgan had gone the +round of the business men on the public square, gathering the assurance +of great and small that they were weary of bloodshed and violence, +notoriety and unrest; that they would let the bars down to him if he +would undertake cleaning up the town, and abide by what might come of it +without a growl. + +When they returned to Judge Thayer's office Morgan took the oath to +enforce the statutes of the state of Kansas and the ordinances of the +city of Ascalon, Rhetta standing by with palpitating breast and glowing +eyes, hands behind her like a little girl waiting her turn in a spelling +class. When Morgan lowered his hand Rhetta started out of her expectant +pose, producing with a show of triumph a short piece of broad white +ribbon, with CITY MARSHAL stamped on it in tall black letters. + +Judge Thayer laughed as Morgan backed away from her when she advanced to +pin it on his breast. + +"I set up the type and printed it myself on the proof press," she said, +in pretty appeal to him to stand and be hitched to this sign of his new +office. + +"It's so--it's rather--prominent, isn't it?" he said, still edging away. + +"There isn't any regular shiny badge for you, the great, grisly Mr. +Craddock wore away the only one the town owns. Please, Mr. +Morgan--you'll have to wear _something_ to show your authority, won't +he, Pa?" + +"It would be wiser to wear it till I can send for another badge, Morgan, +or we can get the old one away from Seth. Your authority would be +questioned without a badge, they're strong for badges in this town." + +So Morgan stood like a family horse while Rhetta pinned the ribbon to +the pocket of his dingy gray woolen shirt, where it flaunted its +unmistakable proclamation in a manner much more effective than any +police shield or star ever devised. Rhetta pressed it down hard with the +palm of her hand to make the stiff ribbon assume a graceful hang, so +hard that she must have felt the kick of the new officer's heart just +under it. And she looked up into his eyes with a glad, confident smile. + +"I feel safe _now_," she said, sighing as one who puts down a wearing +burden at the end of a toilsome journey. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE HAND OF THE LAW + + +The stars came out over a strange, silent, astonished, confounded, +stupefied Ascalon that night. The wolf-howling of its revelry was +stilled, the clamor of its obscene diversions was hushed. It was as if +the sparkling tent of the heavens were a great bowl turned over the +place, hushing its stridulous merriment, stifling its wild laughter and +dry-throated feminine screams. + +The windows of Peden's hall were dark, the black covers were drawn over +the gambling tables, the great bar stood in the gloom without one priest +of alcohol to administer the hilarious rites across its glistening altar +boards. + +As usual, even more than usual, the streets around the public square +were lively with people, coming and passing through the beams of light +from windows, smoking and talking and idling in groups, but there was no +movement of festivity abroad in the night, no yelping of departing +rangers. It was as if the town had died suddenly, so suddenly that all +within it were struck dumb by the event. + +For the new city marshal, the interloper as many held him to be, the +tall, solemn, long-stepping stranger who carried a rifle always ready +like a man looking for a coyote, had put the lock of his prohibition on +everything within the town. Everything that counted, that is, in the +valuation of the proscribed, and the victims who came like ephemera on +the night wind to scorch and shrivel and be drained in their bright, +illusive fires. The law long flouted, made a joke of, despised, had come +to Ascalon and laid hold of its alluring institutions with stern and +paralyzing might. + +Early in the first hours of his authority the new city marshal, or +deputy marshal, to be exact, had received from unimpeachable source, no +less than a thick volume of the statutes, that the laws of the state of +Kansas, which he had sworn to enforce, prohibited the sale of +intoxicating liquors; prohibited gambling and games of chance; +interdicted the operation of immoral resorts--put a lock and key in his +hand, in short, that would shut up the ribald pleasures of Ascalon like +a tomb. As for the ordinances of the city, which he also had obligated +himself to apply, Morgan had not found time to work down to them. There +appeared to be authority in the thick volume Judge Thayer had lent him +to last Ascalon a long time. If he should find himself running short +from that source, then the city ordinances could be drawn upon in their +time and place. + +Exclusive of the mighty Peden, the other traffickers in vice were +inconsequential, mere retailers, hucksters, peddlers in their way. They +were as vicious as unquenchable fire, certainly, and numerous, but +small, and largely under the patronage of the king of the proscribed, +Peden of the hundred-foot bar. + +And this Peden was a big, broad-chested, muscular man, whose neck rose +like a mortised beam out of his shoulders, straight with the back of his +head. His face was handsome in a bold, shrewd mold, but dark as if his +blood carried the taint of a baser race. He went about always dressed in +a long frock coat, with no vest to obscure the spread of his white shirt +front; low collar, with narrow black tie done in exact bow; +broad-brimmed white sombrero tilted back from his forehead, a cigar that +always seemed fresh under his great mustache. + +This mustache, heavy, black, was the one sinister feature of the man's +otherwise rather open and confidence-winning face. It was a cloud that +more than half obscured the nature of the man, an ambush where his +passions and dark subterfuges lay concealed. + +Peden had met the order to close his doors with smiling loftiness, easy +understanding of what he read it to mean. Astonished to find his offer +of money silently and sternly ignored, Peden had grown contemptuously +defiant. If it was a bid for him to raise the ante, Morgan was starting +off on a lame leg, he said. Ten dollars a night was as much as the +friendship of any man that ever wore the collar of the law was worth to +him. Take it or leave it, and be cursed to him, with embellishments of +profanity and debasement of language which were new and astonishing even +to Morgan's sophisticated ears. Peden turned his back to the new officer +after drenching him down with this deluge of abuse, setting his face +about the business of the night. + +And there self-confident defiance, fattened a long time on the belief +that law was a thing to be sneered down, met inflexible resolution. The +substitute city marshal had a gift of making a few words go a long way; +Peden put out his lights and locked his doors. In the train of his +darkness others were swallowed. Within two hours after nightfall the +town was submerged in gloom. + +Threats, maledictions, followed Morgan as he walked the round of the +public square, rifle ready for instant use, pistol on his thigh. And the +blessing of many a mother whose sons and daughters stood at the perilous +crater of that infernal pit went out through the dark after him, also; +and the prayers of honest folk that no skulking coward might shoot him +down out of the shelter of the night. + +Even as they cursed him behind his back, the outlawed sneered at Morgan +and the new order that seemed to threaten the world-wide fame of +Ascalon. It was only the brief oppression of transient authority, they +said; wait till Seth Craddock came back and you would see this range +wolf throw dust for the timber. + +They spoke with great confidence and kindling pleasure of Seth's return, +and the amusing show that would attend his resumption of authority. For +it was understood that Seth would not come alone. Peden, it was said, +had attended to that already by telegraph. Certain handy gun-slingers +would come with him from Kansas City and Abilene, friends of Peden who +had made reputations and had no scruples about maintaining them. + +As the night lengthened this feeling of security, of pleasurable +anticipation, increased. This little break in its life would do the town +good; things would whirl away with recharged energy when the doors were +opened again. Money would simply accumulate in the period of stagnation +to be thrown into the mill with greater abandon than before by the +fools who stood around waiting for the show to resume. + +And the spectacle of seeing Seth Craddock drive this simpleton clear +over the edge of the earth would be a diversion that would compensate +for many empty days. That alone would be a thing worth waiting for, they +said. + +Time began to walk in slack traces, the heavy wain of night at its slow +heels, for the dealers and sharpers, mackerels and frail, spangled women +to whom the open air was as strange as sunlight to an earthworm. They +passed from malediction and muttered threat against the man who had +brought this sudden change in their accustomed lives, to a state of +indignant rebellion as they milled round the square and watched him +tramp his unending beat. + +A little way inside the line of hitching racks Morgan walked, away from +the thronged sidewalk, in the clear where all could see him and a shot +from some dark window would not imperil the life of another. Around and +around the square he tramped in the dusty, hoof-cut street, keeping his +own counsel, unspeaking and unspoken to, the living spirit of the mighty +law. + +It was a high-handed piece of business, the bleached men and kalsomined +women declared, as they passed from the humor of contemplating Seth +Craddock's return to fretful chafing against the restraint of the +present hour. How did it come that one man could lord it over a whole +town of free and independent Americans that way? Why didn't somebody +take a shot at him? Why didn't they defy him, go and open the doors and +let this thirsty, money-padded throng up to the gambling tables and +bars? + +They asked to be told what had become of the manhood of Ascalon, and +asked it with contempt. What was the fame of the town based upon but a +bluff when one man was able to shut it up as tight as a trunk, and strut +around that way adding the insult of his tyrannical presence to the act +of his oppressive hand. There were plenty of questions and suggestions, +but nobody went beyond them. + +The moon was in mid-heaven, untroubled by a veil of cloud; the day wind +was resting under the edge of the world, asleep. Around and around the +public square this sentinel of the new moral force that had laid its +hand over Ascalon tramped the white road. Rangers from far cow camps, +disappointed of their night's debauch, began to mount and ride away, +turning in their saddles as they went for one more look at the lone +sentry who was a regiment in himself, indeed. + +The bleached men began to yawn, the medicated women to slip away. Good +citizens who had watched in anxiety, fearful that this rash champion of +the new order would find a bullet between his shoulders before midnight, +began to breathe easier and seek their beds in a strange state of +security. Ascalon was shut up; the howling of its wastrels was stilled. +It was incredible, but true. + +By midnight the last cowboy had gone galloping on his long ride to carry +the news of Ascalon's eclipse over the desolate gray prairie; an hour +later the only sign of life in the town was the greasy light of the +Santa Fe cafe, where a few lingering nondescripts were supping on cove +oyster stew. These came out at last, to stand a little while like +stranded mariners on a lonesome beach watching for a rescuing sail, then +parted and went clumping their various ways over the rattling board +walks. + +Morgan stopped at the pump in the square to refresh himself with a +drink. A dog came and lapped out of the trough, stood a little while +when its thirst was satisfied, turning its head listening, as though it +missed something out of the night. It trotted off presently, in angling +gait like a ferry boat making a crossing against an outrunning tide. It +was the last living thing on the streets of the town but the weary city +marshal, who stood with hat off at the pump to feel the cool wind that +came across the sleeping prairie before the dawn. + +At that same hour another watcher turned from her open window, where she +had sat a long time straining into the silence that blessed the town. +She had been clutching her heart in the dread of hearing a shot, full of +upbraidings for the peril she had thrust upon this chivalrous man. For +he would not have assumed the office but for her solicitation, she knew +well. She stretched out her hand into the moonlight as if she wafted him +her benediction for the peace he had brought, a great, glad surge of +something more tender than gratitude in her warm young bosom. + +In a little while she came to the window again, when the moonlight was +slanting into it, and stood leaning her hands on the sill, her dark hair +coming down in a cloud over her white night dress. She strained again +into the quiet night, listening, and listening, smiled. Then she stood +straight, touched finger tips to her lips and waved away a kiss into the +moonlight and the little timid awakening wind that came out of the east +like a young hare before the dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SOME FOOL WITH A GUN + + +Morgan was roused out of his brief sleep at the Elkhorn hotel shortly +after sunrise by the night telegrapher at the railroad station, who came +with a telegram. + +"I thought you'd like to have it as soon as possible," the operator +said, in apology for his early intrusion, standing by Morgan's bed, Tom +Conboy attending just outside the door with ear primed to pick up the +smallest word. + +"Sure--much obliged," Morgan returned, his voice hoarse with broken +sleep, his head not instantly clear of its flying clouds. The operator +lingered while Morgan ran his eye over the few words. + +"Much obliged, old feller," Morgan said, warmly, giving the young man a +quick look of understanding that must serve in place of more words, +seeing that Conboy had his head within the door. + +Morgan heard the operator denying Conboy the secret of the message in +the hall outside his door. Conboy had lived long enough in Ascalon to +know when to curb his curiosity. He tiptoed away from Morgan's door, +repressing his desire behind his beard. + +Knowing that he could not sleep again after that abrupt break in his +rest, Morgan rose and dressed. Once or twice he referred again to the +message that lay spread on his pillow. + + Craddock wired Peden last night that he would arrive on number + seven at 1:20 this afternoon. + +That was the content of the message, not a telegram at all, but a +friendly note of warning from the night operator, who had come over to +the hotel to go to bed. The young man had shrewdly adopted this means to +cover his information, knowing that Peden's wrath was mighty and his +vengeance far-reaching. Nobody in town could question the delivery of a +telegram. + +Morgan had expected Craddock to hasten back and attempt to recover his +scepter and resume his sway over Ascalon, where the destructive sickle +of his passion for blood could be plied with safety under the shelter of +his prostituted office. But he did not expect him to return so soon. It +pleased him better that the issue was to be brought to a speedy trial +between them. While he had his feet wet, he reasoned, he would just as +well cross the stream. + +Conboy was sweeping the office, having laid the thick of the dust with a +sprinkling can. He paused in his work to give Morgan a shrewd, sharp +look. + +"Important news when it pulls a man out of bed this early," Conboy +ventured, "and him needin' sleep like you do." + +"Yes," said Morgan, going on to the door. + +Conboy came after him, voice lowered almost to a whisper as he spoke, +eyes turning about as if he expected a spy to bob up behind his +counter. + +"I heard it passed around late last night that Craddock was comin' +back." + +"Wasn't he expected to?" Morgan inquired, indifferently, wholly +undisturbed. + +Conboy watched him keenly, standing half behind him, to note any sign of +panic or uneasiness that would tell him which side he should support +with his valuable sympathy and profound philosophy. + +"From the way things point, I think they're lookin' for him back today," +he said. + +"The quicker the sooner," Morgan replied in offhand cowboy way. + +Conboy was left on middle ground, not certain whether Morgan would flee +before the arrival of the man whose powers he had usurped, or stand his +ground and shoot it out. It was an uncomfortable moment; a man must be +on one side or the other to be safe. In the history of Ascalon it was +the neutral who generally got knocked down and trampled, and lost his +pocketbook and watch, as happens to the gaping nonparticipants in the +squabbles of humanity everywhere. + +"From what I hear goin' around," Conboy continued, dropping his voice to +a cautious, confidential pitch, "there'll be a bunch of bad men along in +a day or two to help Craddock hold things down. It looks to me like it's +goin' to be more than any one man can handle." + +"It may be that way," Morgan said, lingering in the door, Conboy doing +his talking from the rear. Morgan was thinking the morning had a +freshness in it like a newly gathered flower. + +"It'll mean part closed and part open if that man takes hold of this +town again," Conboy said. "Him and Peden they're as thick as three in a +bed. Close all of 'em, like you did last night, or give everybody a fair +whack. That's what I say." + +"Yes," abstractedly from Morgan. + +"It was kind of quiet and slow in town last night, slowest night I've +ever had since I bought this dump. I guess I'd have to move away if +things run along that way, but I don't know. Maybe business would pick +up when people got used to the new deal. Goin' to let 'em open tonight?" + +"Night's a long way off," Morgan said, leaving the question open for +Conboy to make what he could out of it. + +Conboy was of the number who could see no existence for Ascalon but a +vicious one, yet he was no partisan of Seth Craddock, having a soreness +in his recollection of many indignities suffered at the hands of the +city marshal's Texas friends, even of Craddock's overriding and sardonic +disdain. Yet he would rather have Craddock, and the town open, than +Morgan and stagnation. He came to that conclusion with Morgan's evasion +of his direct question. The interests of Peden and his kind were +Conboy's interests. He stood like a housemaid with dustpan and broom to +gather up the wreckage of the night. + +"When can I get breakfast?" Morgan inquired, turning suddenly, catching +Conboy with his new resolution in his shifty, flickering eyes, reading +him to the marrow of his bones. + +"It's a little early--not half-past five," Conboy returned, covering his +confusion as well as he could by referring to his thick silver watch. +"We don't begin to serve till six, the earliest of 'em don't come in +before then. If you feel like turnin' in for a sleep, we'll take care of +you when you get up." + +Morgan said he had sleep enough to carry him over the day. Dora, +yawning, disheveled, appeared in the dining-room door at that moment, +tying her all-enveloping white apron around her like Poor Polly Bawn. +She blushed when she saw Morgan, and put up her hands to smooth her +hair. + +"I had the best sleep last night I can remember in a coon's age--I felt +so _safe_," she said. + +"You always was safe enough," Conboy told her, not in the best of humor. + +"Safe enough! I can show you five bullet holes in the walls of my room, +Mr. Morgan--one of 'em through the head of my bed!" + +"Pretty close," Morgan said, answering the animation of her rosy, +friendly face with a smile. + +"Never mind about bullet holes--you go and begin makin' holes in a piece +of biscuit dough," her father commanded. + +"When I get good and ready," said Dora, serenely. "You wouldn't care if +we got shot to pieces every night as long as we could get up in the +morning and make biscuits!" + +"Yes, and some of you'd be rootin' around somebody else's kitchen for +biscuits to fill your craws if this town laid dead a little while +longer," Conboy fired back, his true feeling in the matter revealed. + +"I can get a job of biscuit shooter any day," Dora told him, untroubled +by the outlook of disaster that attended upon peace and quiet. "I'd +rather not have no guests than drunks that come in stagger blind and +shoot the plaster off of the wall. It ain't so funny to wake up with +your ears full of lime! Ma's sick of it, and I'm sick of it, and it'd be +a blessin' if Mr. Morgan would keep the joints all shut till the drunks +in this town dried up like dead snakes!" + +"You, and your ma!" Conboy grumbled, bearing on an old grievance, an old +theme of servitude and discontent. + +Morgan recalled the gaunt anxiety of Mrs. Conboy's eyes, hollow of every +emotion, as they seemed, but unrest and straining fear. Dora had gone +unmarked yet by the cursed fires of Ascalon; only her tongue discovered +that the poison of their fumes had reached her heart. + +"I'd like to put strickenine in some of their biscuits!" Dora declared, +with passionate vehemence. + +"Tut-tut! no niggers----" + +"How's your face, Mr. Morgan?" Dora inquired, out of one mood into +another so quickly the transition was bewildering. + +"Face?" said Morgan, embarrassed for want of her meaning. "Oh," putting +his hand to the forgotten wound--"about well, thank you, Miss Dora. I +guess my good looks are ruined, though." + +Dora half closed her eyes in arch expression, pursing her lips as if she +meant to give him either a whistle or a kiss, laughed merrily, and ran +off to cut patterns in a sheet of biscuit dough. She left such a +clearness and good humor in the morning air that Morgan felt quite light +at heart as he started for a morning walk. + +Morgan was still wearing the cowboy garb that he had drawn from the +bottom of his trunk among the things which he believed belonged to a +past age and closed period of his life's story. He had deliberated the +question well the night before, reaching the conclusion that, as he had +stepped out of his proper character, lapsed back, in a word, to +raw-handed dealings with the rough edges of the world, he would better +dress the part. He would be less conspicuous in that dress, and it would +be his introduction and credentials to the men of the range. + +Last night's long vigil, tramping around the square in his high-heeled, +tight-fitting boots, had not hastened the cure of his bruised ankles and +sore feet. This morning he limped like a trapped wolf, as he said to +himself when he started to take a look around and see whether any of the +outlawed had made bold to open their doors. + +Few people were out of bed in Ascalon at that hour, although the sun was +almost an hour high. As Morgan passed along he heard the crackling of +kindling being broken in kitchens. Here and there the eager smoke of +fresh fires rose straight toward the blue. No stores were open yet; the +doors of the saloons remained closed as the night before. Morgan paused +at the bank corner after making the round of the square. + +Ahead of him the principal residence street of the town stretched, the +houses standing in exclusive withdrawal far apart on large plots of +ground, a treeless, dusty, unlovely lane. Here the summer sun raked roof +and window with its untempered fire; here the winds of winter bombarded +door and pane with shrapnel of sleet and charge of snow, whistling on +cornice and eaves, fluttering in chimney like the beat of exhausted +wings. + +Morgan knew well enough how the place would appear in that bitter +season; he had lived in the lonely desolation of a village on the bald, +unsheltered plain. How did Rhetta Thayer endure the winter, he wondered, +when she could not gallop away into the friendly solitude of the clean, +unpeopled prairie? Where did she live? Which house would be Judge +Thayer's among the bright-painted dwellings along that raw lane? He +favored one of the few white ones, a house with a wide porch screened by +morning-glory vines, a gallant row of hollyhocks in the distance. + +Lawn grass had been sown in many of the yards, where it had flourished +until the scorching summer drouth. Even now there were little rugs of +green against north walls where the noonday shadows fell, but the rest +of the lawns were withered and brown. Some hardy flowers, such as +zinnias and marigolds, stood clumped about dooryards; in the kitchen +gardens tasseled corn rose tall, dust thick on the guttered blades. + +Morgan turned from this scene in which Ascalon presented its better +side, to skirmish along the street running behind Peden's establishment. +It might be well, for future exigencies, to fix as much of the geography +of the place in his mind as possible. He wondered if there had been a +back-door traffic in any of the saloons last night as he passed long +strings of empty beer kegs, concluding that it was very likely something +had been done in that way. + +Across the street from Peden's back door was a large vacant piece of +ground, a wilderness of cans, bottles, packing boxes, broken barrels. On +one corner, diagonally across from where Morgan stood, facing on the +other street, a ragged, weathered tent was pitched. Out of this the +sound of contending children came, the strident, commanding voice of a +woman breaking sharply to still the commotion that shook her unstable +home. Morgan knew this must be the home of the cattle thief whose case +Judge Thayer had undertaken. He wondered why even a cattle thief would +choose that site at the back door of perdition to pitch his tent and +lodge his family. + +A bullet clipping close past his ear, the sharp sound of a pistol shot +behind him, startled him out of this speculation. + +Morgan did not believe at once, even as he wheeled gun in hand to +confront the careless gun-handler or the assassin, as the case might +prove, that the shot could have been intended for him, but out of +caution he darted as quick as an Indian behind a pyramid of beer kegs. +From that shelter he explored in the direction of the shot, but saw +nobody. + +There was ample barrier for a lurking man all along the street on +Peden's side. From behind beer cases and kegs, whisky barrels, wagons, +corners of small houses, one could have taken a shot at him; or from a +window or back door. There was no smoke hanging to mark the spot. + +Morgan slipped softly from his concealment, coming out at Peden's back +door. Bending low, he hurried back over the track he had come, keeping +the heaps of kegs, barrels, and boxes between him and the road. And +there, twenty yards or so distant, in a space between two wagons, he saw +a man standing, pistol in hand, all set and primed for another shot, but +looking rather puzzled and uncertain over the sudden disappearance of +his mark. + +Morgan was upon him in a few silent strides, unseen and unheard, his gun +raised to throw a quick shot if the situation called for it. The man was +Dell Hutton, the county treasurer. His face was white. There was the +look in his eyes of a man condemned when he turned and confronted +Morgan. + +"Who was it that shot at you, Morgan?" he inquired, his voice husky in +the fog of his fright. He was laboring hard to put a face on it that +would make him the champion of peace; he peered around with simulated +caution, as if he had rushed to the spot ready to uphold the law. + +Morgan let the pitiful effort pass for what it was worth, and that was +very little. + +"I don't know who it was, Hutton," he replied, with a careless laugh, +putting his pistol away. "If you see him, tell him I let a little thing +like that pass--once." + +Morgan did not linger for any further words. Several shock-haired +children had come bursting from the tent, their contention silenced. +They stood looking at Morgan as he came back into the road, wonder in +their muggy faces. Heads appeared at windows, back doors opened +cautiously, showing eyes at cracks. + +"Some fool shootin' off his gun," Morgan heard a man growl as he passed +under a window of a thin-sided house, from which the excited voices of +women came like the squeaks of unnested mice. + +"What was goin' on back there?" Conboy inquired as Morgan approached the +hotel. The proprietor was a little way out from his door, anxiety, +rather than interest, in his face. + +"Some fool shootin' off his gun, I guess," Morgan replied, feeling that +the answer fitted the case very well. + +He gave Dora the same explanation when she met him at the blue door of +the dining-room, trouble in her fair blue eyes. She looked at him with +keen questioning, not satisfied that she had heard it all. + +"I hope he burnt his fingers," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +WILL HIS LUCK HOLD? + + +Dora escorted Morgan to a table apart from the few heavy feeders who +were already engaged, indicating to the other two girls who served with +her in the dining-room that this was her special customer and guest of +honor. She whirled the merry-go-round caster to bring the salt and +pepper to his hand; just so she placed his knife and fork, and plate +overturned to keep the flies off the business side of it. Then she +hurried away for his breakfast, asking no questions bearing on his +preferences or desires. + +A plain breakfast in those vigorous times was unvarying--beefsteak, ham +or bacon to give it a savor, eggs, fried potatoes, hot biscuits, coffee. +It was the same as dinner, which came on the stroke of twelve, and none +of your six-o'clock pretenses about _that_ meal, except there was no +pie; identical with supper, save for the boiled potatoes and rice +pudding. A man of proper proportions never wanted any more; he could not +thrive on any less. And the only kind of a liver they ever worried about +in that time on the plains of Kansas was a white one. That was the only +disease of that organ known. + +Dora was troubled; her face reflected her unrest as glass reflects +firelight, her blue eyes were clouded by its gloom. She made a pretense +of brushing crumbs from the cloth where there were no crumbs, in order +to furnish an excuse to stoop and bring her lips nearer Morgan's ear. + +"He's comin' on the one-twenty this afternoon--I got it straight he's +comin'. I thought maybe you'd like to know," she said. + +Morgan lifted his eyes in feigned surprise at this news, not having it +in his heart to cloud her generous act by the revelation of a suspicion +that it was no news to him. + +"You mean----?" + +"I got it straight," Dora nodded. + +"Thank you, Miss Dora." + +"I hope to God," she said, for it was their manner to speak ardently in +Ascalon in those days, "you'll beat him to it when he gets off of the +train!" + +"A man can only do his best, Dora," he said gently, moved by her honest +friendship, simple wild thing though she was. + +"If I was a man I'd take my gun and go with you to meet him," she +declared. + +"I know you would. But maybe there'll not be any fuss at all." + +"There'll be fuss enough, all right!" Dora protested. "If he comes +alone--but maybe he'll not _come_ alone." + +A man who rose from a near-by table came over to shake hands with +Morgan, and express his appreciation for the good beginning he had made +as peace officer of the town. Dora snatched Morgan's cup and hastened +away for more coffee. When she returned the citizen was on his way to +the door. + +"Craddock used to come in here and wolf his meals down," she said, +picking up her theme in the same troubled key, "just like it didn't +amount to nothing to kill a man a day. I looked to see blood on the +tablecloth every time his hand touched it." + +"It's a shame you girls had to wait on the brute," Morgan said. + +"Girls! he wouldn't let anybody but me wait on him." Dora frowned, her +face coloring. She bent a little, lowering her voice. "Why, Mr. Morgan, +what do you suppose? He wanted me to _marry_ him!" + +"That old buffalo wrangler? Well, he _is_ kind of previous!" + +"He's too fresh to keep, I told him. Marry _him_! He used to come in +here, Mr. Morgan, and put his hat down by his foot so he could grab it +and run out and kill another man without losin' time. He never used to +take his guns off and hang 'em up like other gentlemen when they eat. He +just set there watchin' and turnin' his mean old eyes all the time. He's +afraid of them, I know by the way he always tried to look behind him +without turnin' his head, never sayin' a word to anybody, he's afraid." + +"Afraid of whom, Dora?" + +"The ghosts of them murdered men!" + +Morgan shook his head after seeming to think it over a little while. "I +don't believe they'd trouble him much, Dora." + +"I'd rather wait on a dog!" she said, scorn and rebellion in her pretty +eyes. + +"You can marry somebody else and beat him on that game, anyhow. I'll +bet there are plenty of them standing around waiting." + +"O Mr. Morgan!" Dora was drowned in blushes, greatly pleased. "Not so +many as you might think," turning her eyes upon him with coquettish +challenge, "only Mr. Gray and Riley Caldwell, the printer on the +_Headlight_." + +"Mr. Gray, the druggist?" + +"Yes, but he's too old for me!" Dora sighed, "forty if he's a day. He's +got money, though, and he's perfec'ly _grand_ on the pieanno. You ought +to hear him play _The Maiden's Prayer_!" + +"I'll listen out for him. I saw him washing his window a while ago--a +tall man with a big white shirt." + +"Yes," abstractedly, "that was him. He's an elegant fine man, but I +don't give a snap for none of 'em. I wish I could leave this town and +never come back. You'll be in for dinner, won't you?" as Morgan pushed +back from the repletion of that standard meal. + +"And for supper, too, I hope," he said, turning it off as a joke. + +"I hope to God!" said Dora fervently, seeing no joke in the uncertainty +at all. + +Excitement was laying hold of Ascalon even at that early hour. When +Morgan went on the street after breakfast he found many people going +about, gathering in groups along the shady fronts, or hastening singly +in the manner of men bound upon the confirmation of unusual news. The +pale fish of the night were out in considerable numbers, leaking +cigarette smoke through all the apertures of their faces as they +grouped according to their kind to discuss the probabilities of the +day. Seth Craddock was coming back with fire in his red eyes; their +deliverer was on his way. + +There was no secret of Seth's coming any longer. Even Peden leered in +triumph when he met Morgan as he sauntered outside his closed door in +the peculiar distinction of his black coat, which the strong sun of that +summer morning was not powerful enough to strip from his broad back. + +None of the saloons or resorts made an attempt to open their doors to +business. The proprietors appeared to have, on the other hand, a secret +pleasure in keeping them closed, perhaps counting on the gain that would +be theirs when this brief prohibition should come to its end. + +Opposed to this pleasurable expectancy of the proscribed was the +uneasiness and doubt of the respectable. True, this man Morgan had taken +Seth Craddock's gun away from him once, but luck must have had much to +do with his preservation in that perilous adventure. Morgan had rounded +up the Texas men quartered on the town under Craddock's patronage, also, +but they were sluggish from their debauch, and he had approached them +with the caution of a man coming up on the blind side of a horse. +Yesterday that had looked like a big, heroic thing for one man to +accomplish, but in the light of reflection today it must be admitted +that it was mainly luck. + +Yes, Morgan had closed up the town last night, defying even Peden in his +own hall, where defiance as a rule meant business for the undertaker. +But the glamour of his morning's success was still over him at that +time; Peden and his bouncers were a little cautious, a little cowed. He +could not close the town up another night; murmurs of defiance were +beginning to rise already. + +And so the people who had applauded his drastic enforcement of the law +last night, became of no more support to Morgan today than a furrow of +sand. Luck was a great thing if a man could play it forever, they said, +but it was too much to believe that luck would hold even twice with +Morgan when he confronted Seth Craddock that afternoon. + +Morgan walked about the square that morning like a stranger. Few spoke +to him, many turned inward from their doors when they saw him coming, +afraid that a little friendship publicly displayed might be laid up +against them for a terrible reckoning of interest by and by. Morgan was +neither offended nor downcast by this public coldness in the quarter +where he had a right to expect commendation and support. He understood +too well the lengths that animosities ran in such a town as Ascalon. A +living coward was more comfortable than a dead reformer, according to +their philosophy. + +It was when passing the post-office, about nine o'clock in the morning, +that Morgan met Rhetta Thayer. She saw him coming, and waited. Her face +was flushed; indignation disturbed the placidity of her eyes. + +"They don't deserve it, the cowards!" she burst out, after a greeting +too serious to admit a smile. + +"Deserve what?" he inquired, looking about in mystification, wondering +if something had happened in the post-office to fire this indignation. + +"The help and protection of a brave man!" she said. + +Morgan was so suddenly confused by this frank, impetuous appreciation of +his efforts, for there was no mistaking the application, that he could +not find a word. Rhetta did not give him much time, to be sure, but ran +on with her denunciation of the citizenry of the town. + +"I wouldn't turn a hand for them again, Mr. Morgan--I'd throw up the +whole thing and let them cringe like dogs before that murderer when he +comes back! It's good enough for them, it's all they deserve." + +"You can't expect them to be very warm toward a stranger," he said, +excusing them according to what he knew to be their due. + +"They're afraid you can't do it, they're telling one another your luck +will fail this time. Luck! that's all the sense there is in _that_ bunch +of cowards." + +"They may be right," he said, thoughtfully. + +"You know they're not right!" she flashed back, defending him against +himself as though he were another. + +"I don't expect any generosity from them," he said, gentle in his tone +and undisturbed. "They're afraid if my luck should happen to turn +against me they'd have to pay for any friendship shown me here this +morning. Business is business, even in Ascalon." + +"Luck!" she scoffed. "It's funny you're the only lucky man that's struck +this town in a long time, then. If it's all luck, why don't some of them +try their hands at rounding up the crooks and killers of this town and +showing them the road the way you did that gang yesterday? Yes, I know +all about that kind of luck." + +Morgan walked with her toward Judge Thayer's office, whither she was +bound with the mail. Behind them the loafers snickered and passed quips +of doubtful humor and undoubted obscenity, but careful to present the +face of decorum until Morgan was well beyond their voices. No matter +what doubt they had of his luck holding with Seth Craddock, they were +not of a mind to make a trial of it on themselves. + +"I think the best thing to do with this town is just let it go till it +dries up and blows away," she said, with the vindictive impatience of +youth. "What little good there is in it isn't worth the trouble of +cleaning up to save." + +"Your father's got everything centered here, he told me. There must be a +good many honest people in the same boat." + +"Maybe we could sell out for something, enough to take us away from +here. Of course we expected Ascalon to turn out a different town when we +came here, the railroad promised to do so much. But there's nothing to +make a town when the cattle are gone. We might as well let it begin to +die right now." + +"You're gloomy this morning, Miss Thayer. You remember the Mennonites +that wanted to settle here and were afraid?" + +"There's no use for you to throw your life away making the country safe +for them." + +"Of course not. I hadn't thought of them." + +"Nor any of these cold-nosed cowards that turn their backs on you for +fear your luck's going to change. Luck! the fools!" + +"They don't figure in the case at all, Miss Thayer." + +"If it's on account of your own future, if you're trampling down a place +in the briars to make your bed, as pa called it, then I think you can +find a nicer place to camp than Ascalon. It never will repay the peril +you'll run and the blood you'll lose--have lost already." + +"I'm further out of the calculation than anybody, Miss Thayer." + +"I don't see what other motive there can be, then," she reflected, eyes +bent to the ground as she walked slowly by his side. + +"A lady asked me to undertake it. I'm doing it for her," he replied. + +"She was a thoughtless, selfish person!" Rhetta said, her deep feeling +stressed in the flush of her face, her accusation as vehement as if she +laid charges against another. "Last night she thought it over; she had +time to realize the danger she'd asked a generous stranger to assume. +She wants to withdraw the request today--she asks you to give it up and +let Ascalon go on its wicked way." + +"Tell her," said he gently, holding her pleading, pained eyes a moment +with his assuring gaze, "that a man can't drop a piece of work like this +and turn his back on it and walk away. They'd say in Ascalon that he was +a coward, and they'd be telling the truth." + +"Oh! I oughtn't have argued you into it!" she regretted, bitter in her +self-blame. "But the thought of that terrible, cruel man, of all he's +killed, all he will kill if he comes back--made a selfish coward of me. +We had gone through a week of terror--you can't understand a woman's +terror of that kind of men, storming the streets at night uncurbed!" + +"A man can only guess." + +"I was so grateful to you for driving them away from here, for purifying +the air after them like a rain, that I urged you to go ahead and finish +the job, just as if we were conferring a great favor! I didn't think at +the time, but I've thought it all over since." + +"You mustn't worry about it any more. It is a great favor, a great +honor, to be asked to serve you at all." + +"You're too generous, Mr. Morgan. There are only a few of us here who +care about order and peace--you can see that for yourself this +morning--no matter what assurance they gave you yesterday. Let it go. If +you don't want to get your horse and ride away, you can at least resign. +You've got justification enough for that, you've seen the men that +promised to support you yesterday turn their backs on you when you came +up the street today. They don't want the town shut up, they don't want +it changed--not when it hits their pocketbooks. You can tell pa that, +and resign--or I'll tell him--it was my fault, I got you into it." + +"You couldn't expect me to do that--you don't expect it," he chided, his +voice grave and low. + +"I can want you to do it--I don't expect it." + +"Of course not. We'll not talk about it any more." + +They continued toward her father's office in silence, crossing the +stretch of barren in which the little catalpa tree stood. Rhetta looked +up into his face. + +"You've never killed a man, Mr. Morgan," she said, more as a positive +statement than as a question. + +"No, I never have, Miss Thayer," Morgan answered her, as ingenuously +sincere as she had asked it. + +"I think I know it by the touch of a man's hand," she said, her face +growing pale from her deep revulsion. "I shudder at the touch of blood. +If you could be spared that in the ordeal ahead of you!" + +"There's no backing out of it. The challenge has passed," he said. + +"No, there's no way. He's coming--he knows you're waiting for him. But I +hope you'll not have to--I hope you'll come out of it _clean_! A curse +of blood falls on every man that takes this office. I wish--I hope, you +can keep clear of that." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE MEAT HUNTER COMES + + +The few courageous and hopeful ones who remained loyal to Morgan were +somewhat assured, the doubtful ones agitated a bit more in their +indecision, when he appeared on horseback a little past the turn of day. +These latter people, whose courage had leaked out overnight, now began +to weigh again their business interests and personal safety in the +balance of their wavering judgment. + +Morgan, on horseback, looked like a lucky man; they admitted that. Much +more lucky, indeed, than he had appeared that morning when he went +limping around the square. It was a question whether to come over to his +side again, openly and warmly, or to hold back until he proved himself +to be as lucky as he looked. A man might as well nail up his door and +leave town as fall under the disfavor of Seth Craddock. So, while they +wavered, they were still not quite convinced. + +Prominent among the business men who had revised their attitude on +reform as the shadow of Seth Craddock approached Ascalon was Earl Gray, +the druggist, one of the notables on Dora Conboy's waiting list. +Druggist Gray was a man who wore bell-bottomed trousers and a moleskin +vest without a coat. His hair had a fetching crinkle to it, which he +prized above all things in bottles and out, and wore long, like the man +on the label. + +There was so much hair about Mr. Gray, counting mustache and all, that +his face and body seemed drained and attenuated by the contribution of +sustenance to keep the adornment flourishing in its brown abundance. For +Gray was a tall, thin, bony-kneed man, with long flat feet like wedges +of cheese. His eyes were hollow and melancholy, as if he bore a sorrow; +his nose was high and bony, and bleak in his sharp, thin-cheeked face. + +Gray expressed himself openly to the undertaker, in whom he found a +cautious, but warm supporter of his views. There would be fevers and +ills with Ascalon closed up, Gray said he knew very well, just as there +would be deaths and burials in the natural course of events under the +same conditions. But there would be neither patches for the broken, +stitches for the cut nor powders for the headaches of debauchery called +for then as now; and all the burying there would be an undertaker might +do under his thumb nail. + +They'd go to drugging themselves with boneset tea, and mullein tea, and +bitter-root powders and wahoo bark, said Gray. Likewise, they'd turn to +burying one another, after the ways of pioneers, who were as resourceful +in deaths and funerals as in drugs and fomentations. Pioneers, such as +would be left in that country after Morgan had shut Ascalon up and +driven away those who were dependent on one another for their skinning +and fleecing, filching and plundering, did not lean on any man. Such as +came there to plow up the prairies would be of the same stuff, +rough-barked men and women who called in neither doctor to be born nor +undertaker to be buried. + +It was a gloomy outlook, the town closed up and everybody gone, said +Gray. What would a man do with his building, what would a man do with +his stock? + +"Maybe Craddock ain't no saint and angel, but he makes business in this +town," said Gray. + +"Makes business!" the undertaker echoed, with abstraction and looking +far away as if he already saw the train of oncoming, independent, +self-burying pioneers over against the horizon. + +"If this feller's luck don't go ag'in' him, you might as well ship all +your coffins away but one--they'll need one to bury the town in. What do +you think of him ridin' around the depot down there, drawin' a deadline +that no man ain't goin' to be allowed to cross till the one-twenty pulls +out? Kind of high-handed deal, I call it!" + +"I've got a case of shrouds comin' in by express on that train, two +cases layin' in my place waitin' on 'em," the undertaker said, +resentfully, waking out of his abstraction and apparent apathy. + +"_You_ have!" said Gray, eying him suddenly. + +"He stopped me as I was goin' over to wait around till the train come +in, drove me back like I was a cow. He said it didn't make no difference +how much business I had at the depot, it would have to wait till the +train was gone. When a citizen and a taxpayer of this town can't even +cross the road like a shanghai rooster, things is comin' to a hell of a +pass!" + +"Well, I ain't got no business at the depot this afternoon, or I bet you +a cracker I'd be over there," Gray boasted. "I think I'll close up a +while and go down to the hotel where I can see better--it's only forty +minutes till she's due." + +"Might as well, everybody's down there. You won't sell as much as a pack +of gum till the train's gone and this thing's off of people's minds." + +Gray went in for his hat, to spend a good deal of time at the glass +behind his prescription case setting it at the most seductive slant upon +his luxuriant brown curls. This was an extremely enticing small hat, +just a shade lighter brown than the druggist's wavy hair. It looked like +a cork in a bottle placed by a tipsy hand as Druggist Gray passed down +the street toward the hotel, to post himself where he might see how well +Morgan's luck was going to hold in this encounter with the meat hunter +of the Cimarron. + +As the undertaker had said, nearly everybody in Ascalon was already +collected in front and in the near vicinity of the hotel, fringing the +square in gay-splotched crowds. Beneath the canopy of the Elkhorn hotel +many were assembled, as many indeed, as could conveniently stand, for +that bit of shade was a blessing on the sun-parched front of Ascalon's +bleak street. + +Business was generally suspended in this hour of uncertainty, public +feeling was drawn as tight as a banjo head in the sun. In the courthouse +the few officials and clerks necessary to the county's business were at +the windows looking upon the station, all expecting a tragedy of such +stirring dimensions as Ascalon never had witnessed. + +The stage was set, the audience was in waiting, one of the principal +actors stood visible in the wings. With the rush of the passenger train +from the east Seth Craddock would make his dramatic entry, in true color +with his violent notoriety and prominence in the cast. + +Unless friends came with Craddock, these two men would hold the stage +for the enactment of that swift drama alone. Morgan, silent, determined, +inflexible, had drawn his line around the depot, across which no man +dared to pass. No friend of Craddock should meet him for support of +warning word or armed hand; no innocent one should be jeopardized by a +curiosity that might lead to death. + +The moving question now was, had Peden's gun-notable friends joined +Craddock? If so, it would call for a vast amount of luck to overcome +their combined numbers and dexterity. + +Morgan was troubled by this same question as he waited in the saddle +where the sun bore hot upon him at the side of the station platform. +About there, at that point, the station agent had told him, the +smoking-car would stand when the train came to a stop, the engine at the +water tank. When Craddock came down out of the train, would he come +alone? + +Morgan was mounted on the horse borrowed from Stilwell, an agile young +animal, tractable and intelligent. A yellow slicker was rolled and tied +at the cantle of the saddle; at the horn a coil of brown rope hung, +pliant and smooth from much use upon the range among cattle. Morgan's +rifle was slung on the saddle in its worn scabbard, its battered stock, +from which the varnish had gone long ago in the hard usage of many +years, close to the rider's hand. + +It needed no announcement of wailing whistle or clanging bell to tell +Ascalon of the approach of a train from the east. In that direction the +fall of the land toward the Arkansas River began many miles distant from +the town, seeming to blend downward from a great height which dimmed out +in blue haze against the horizon. A little way along this high pitch of +land, before it turned down the grade that led into the river valley, +the railroad ran transversely. + +The moment a train mounted this land's edge and swept along the straight +transverse section of track, it was in full sight of Ascalon, day or +night, except in stormy weather, although many miles away. A man still +had ample time to shine his shoes, pack his valise, put on his collar +and coat--if he wore them--walk to the depot and buy his ticket, after +the train came in sight on top of this distant hill. + +Once the train headed straight for Ascalon it dropped out of sight, and +one unused to the trend of things might wonder if it had gone off on +another line. Presently it would appear again, laboring up out of a dip, +rise the intervening billow of land, small as a toy that one could hold +in the hand, and sink out of sight again. This way it approached +Ascalon, now promising, now denying, drawing into plainer sight with +every rise. + +On this particular afternoon when the sun-baked people of Ascalon stood +waiting in such tensity of expectation that their minds were ready to +crack like the dry, contracting earth beneath their feet, it seemed that +nature had laid off that land across which the railroad ran with the +sole view of adding to the dramatic value of Seth Craddock's entry in +this historic hour. Certainly art could not have devised a more +effective means of whetting the anxiety, straining the suspense, than +this. + +When the train first came in sight over the hill there was a murmur, a +movement of feet as people shifted to points believed to be more +advantageous for seeing the coming drama; watches clicked, comments +passed on the exactness to the schedule; breaths were drawn with fresh +tingling of hope, or falling of doubt and despair. + +Morgan was watching that far skyline for the first smoke, for the first +gleam of windows in the sun as the train swept round the curve heading +for a little while into the north. He noted the murmur and movement of +the watchers as it came in sight; wondered if any breast but one was +agitated by a pang of friendly concern, wondered if any hand loosed +weapon in its sheath to strike in his support if necessity should call +for such intervention. He knew that Rhetta Thayer stood in the shade of +the bank with her father and others; he was cheered by the support of +her presence to witness his triumph or fall. + +Now, as the train swept into the first obscuring swale, Morgan rode +around the depot again to see that none had slipped through either in +malice or curiosity. Only the station agent was in sight, pulling a +truck with three trunks on it to the spot where he estimated the +baggage-car would stop. Morgan rode back again to take his stand at the +point where arrivals by train crossed from depot into town. His left +hand was toward the waiting crowd, kept back by his injunction fifty +yards or more from the station; his right toward the track on which the +train would come. + +Conversation in the crowd fell away. Peden, garbed in his long coat, was +seen shouldering through in front of the hotel, the nearest point to the +set and waiting stage. As always, Peden wore a pistol strapped about him +on ornate belt, the holster carrying the weapon under the skirt of his +coat. His presence on the forward fringe of the crowd seemed to many as +an upraised hand to strike the waiting horseman in the back. + +Morgan saw Peden when he came and took his stand there, and saw others +in his employ stationed along the front of the line. He believed they +were there to throw their weight on Craddock's beam of the balance the +moment they should see him outmastered and outweighed. + +Because he mistrusted these men, because he did not know, indeed, +whether there was a man among all those who had pledged their moral +support who would lift a hand to aid him even if summoned to do so, +Morgan kept his attention divided, one eye on the signs and portents of +the crowd, one on keeping the depot platform clear. + +Morgan did not know whether even Judge Thayer and the men who had +guarded the bank with him would risk one shot in his defense if the +outlawed forces should sweep forward and overwhelm him. He doubted it +very much. It was well enough to delegate this business to a stranger, +one impartial between the lines, but they could not be expected to turn +their weapons on their fellow-townsmen and depositors in the bank, no +matter how their money came, no matter how much the law might lack an +upholding hand. + +The train came clattering over the switch, safety valve roaring, bell +ringing as gaily as if arriving in Ascalon were a joyous event in its +day. Conductor and brakeman stood on the steps ready to swing to the +platform; the express messenger lolled with bored weariness in the door +of his car, scorning the dangerous notoriety of the town by exposing to +the eye all the boxed treasure that it contained. Passengers crowded +platforms, leaning and looking, ready to alight for a minute, so they +might be able to relate the remainder of their lives how they braved the +perils of Ascalon one time and came out unsinged. + +A movement went over the watching people of the town, assembled along +its business front, as wind ripples suddenly a field of grain. Nobody +had breath for a word; dry lips were pressed tightly in the varying +emotions of hope, fear, expectancy, desire. Morgan was seen to be busy +for a moment with something about his saddle; it was thought he was +drawing his rifle out of its case. + +Nearly opposite where Morgan waited, the first coach of the train +stopped. Instantly, like children freed from school, the eager +passengers poured off for their adventurous breath of this most wicked +town's intoxicating air. Morgan's whole attention was now fixed on the +movement around the train. He shifted his horse to face that way, +risking what might develop behind him, one hand engaged with the bridle +rein, the other seemingly dropped carelessly on his thigh. + +And in that squaring of expectation, that pause of breathless waiting, +Seth Craddock descended from the smoking-car, his alpaca coat carried in +the crook of his left elbow, his right hand lingering a moment on the +guard of the car step. The hasty ones who had waited on the car platform +were down ahead of him, standing a little way from the steps; others who +wanted to get off came pressing behind him, in their ignorance that they +were handling a bit of Ascalon's most infernal furnishing, pushing him +out into the timid crowd of their fellows. + +A moment Craddock stood, taller than the tallest there, sweeping his +quick glance about for signs of the expected hostility, the trinkets of +silver on the band of his costly new sombrero shining in the sun. Then +he came striding among the gaping passengers, like a man stalking among +tall weeds, something unmistakably expressive of disdain in his +carriage. + +There he paused again, and put on his coat, plainly mystified and +troubled by the absence of townspeople from the depot, and the sight of +them lined up across the square as if they waited a circus parade. All +that he saw between himself and that fringe of puzzling, silent people +was a cowboy sitting astraddle of his bay horse at the end of the +station platform. + +And as Craddock started away from the crowd of curious passengers who +were whispering and speculating behind him, pointing him out to each +other, wondering what notable he might be; as Craddock started down the +platform away from there, the voice of the conductor warning all to +clamber aboard, the waiting cowboy tightened the reins a little, causing +his horse to prick up its ears and start with a thrill of expectancy +which the rider could feel ripple over its smooth hide under the +pressure of his knees. + +Craddock came on down the platform, turning his head on his long neck in +the way of a man entirely mystified and suspicious, alone, unsupported +by even as much as the shadow of a strange gun-slinger or local friend. + +What was passing through the fellow's head Morgan could pretty well +guess. There was a little break of humor in it, for all the tight-drawn +nerves, for all the chance, for all the desperation of the gathering +moment. The grim old killer couldn't make out whether it was through +admiration of him the people had gathered to welcome him home, or in +expectation of something connected with the arrival of the train. Two +rods or so from where Morgan waited him, Craddock stopped to look back +at the train, now gathering slow headway, and around the deserted +platform, down which the station agent came dragging a mail sack. + +It was when he turned again from this suspicious questioning into things +which gave him back no reply, that Craddock recognized the hitherto +unsuspected cowboy. In a start he stiffened to action, flinging hand to +his pistol. But a heartbeat quicker, like a flash of sunbeam from a +mirror, the coiled rope flew out from Morgan's high-flung arm. + +As the swift-running noose settled over Craddock's body, the horse +leaped at the pressure of its rider's knees. Craddock fired as the +flying rope snatched him from his feet, the noose binding his arms +impotently to his sides; in his rage he fired again and again as he +dragged in ludicrous tangle of long, thrashing legs from the platform +into the dust. + +There, in a cloud of obscuring dust from the trampled road, the horse +holding the line taut, Morgan flung from the saddle in the nimble way of +a range man, bent over the fallen slayer of men a little while. When the +first of the crowd came breaking across the broad space intervening and +drew up panting and breathless in admiration of the bold thing they had +witnessed, Seth Craddock lay hog-tied and harmless on the ground, one +pistol a few feet from where he struggled in his ropes, the other in the +holster at his side. + +And there came Judge Thayer, in his capacity as mayor, officious and +radiant, proud and filled with a new feeling of safety and importance, +and took the badge of office from Craddock's breast, in all haste, as if +it were the most important act in this spectacular triumph, this +bloodless victory over a bloody man. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +WITH CLEAN HANDS + + +Seth Craddock was a defiant, although a fallen man. He refused to resign +the office of marshal of the third-class city of Ascalon when Morgan +released his feet at Judge Thayer's direction, allowing him to stand. +Somebody brought his hat and put it down harshly on his small, +turtle-like head, flaring out his big red ears. There he stood, +glowering, dusty, blood on his face from an abrasion he had got in the +rough handling at the end of Morgan's rope. + +Judge Thayer said it made no difference whether he gave up the office +willingly, he was without a voice in the matter, anyhow. He was fired, +and that's all there was to it. But no, said Seth; not at all. The +statutes upheld him, the constitution supported him, and hell and +damnation and many other forces which he enumerated in his red-tongued +defiance, could not move him out of that office. He demanded to be +allowed to consult his lawyer, he glared around and cursed the curious +and unawed public which laughed at his plight and the figure he cut, +ordering somebody to go and fetch the county attorney, on pain of death +when he should come again into the freedom of his hands. + +But nobody moved, except to shift from one foot to the other and laugh. +The terror seemed to have departed out of Seth Craddock's name and +presence; a terrible man is no longer fearful when he has been dragged +publicly at the end of a cow rope and tied up in the public place like a +calf for the branding iron. + +The county attorney was discreet enough to keep his distance. He did not +come forward with advice on habeas corpus and constitutional rights. +Only Earl Gray, the druggist, with seven kinds of perfumery on his hair, +came out of the crowd with smirking face, ingratiating, servile, +offering Morgan a cigar. The look that Morgan gave him would have wilted +the tobacco in its green leaf. It wilted Druggist Gray. He turned back +into the crowd and eliminated himself from the day's adventure like +smoke on the evening wind. + +Peden was seen, soon after Craddock's dusty downfall, making his way +back to the shelter of his hall, a cloud on his dark face, a sneer of +contempt in his eyes. His bearing was proclamation that he had expected +a great deal more of Seth Craddock, and that the support of his +influence was from that moment withdrawn. But there was nothing in his +manner of a disturbed or defeated man. Those who knew him best, indeed, +felt that he had played only a preliminary hand and, finding it weak, +had taken up the deck for a stronger deal. + +Seth Craddock stood with his back to the station platform, hands bound +behind him, his authority gone. A little way to one side Morgan waited +beside his horse, his pistol under his hand, rifle on the saddle, not so +confident that all was won as to lay himself open to a surprise. Judge +Thayer was holding a session with Craddock, the town, good and bad, +looking on with varying emotions of mirth, disappointment, and disgust. + +Judge Thayer unbuckled Craddock's belt and remaining pistol, picked up +the empty weapon from the ground, sheathed it in the holster opposite +its once terrifying mate, and gave them to Morgan. Morgan hung them on +his saddle horn, and the wives and mothers of Ascalon who had trembled +for their husbands and sons when they heard the roar of those guns in +days past, drew great breaths of relief, and looked into each other's +faces and smiled. + +"We can't hold you for any of the killings you've done here, Seth, +though some of them were unjustified, we know," Judge Thayer said. +"You've been cleared by the coroner's jury in each case, there's no use +for us to open them again. But you'll have to leave this town. Your +friends went yesterday, escorted by Mr. Morgan across the Arkansas +River. You can follow them if you want to--you might overtake 'em +somewhere down in the Nation--you'll have to go in the same direction, +in peace if you will, otherwise if you won't." + +"I'm marshal of this town," Seth still persisted, in the belief that +forces were gathering to his rescue, one could see. "The only way I'll +ever leave till I'm ready to go'll be in a box!" + +Certainly, Seth did not end the defiance and the declaration that way, +nor issue it from his mouth in such pale and commonplace hues. Judge +Thayer argued with him, after his kindly disposition, perhaps not a +little sorry for the man who had outgrown his office and abused the +friend who had elevated him to it. + +Seth remained as obdurate as a trapped wolf. He roved his eyes around, +craned his long, wrinkled neck, looking for the succor that was so long +in coming. He repeated, with blasting enlargement, that the only way +they could send him out of Ascalon would be in a box. + +Judge Thayer drew apart to consult Morgan, in low tones. Morgan was +undisturbed by Craddock's unbending opinion that he had plenty of law +behind him to sustain his contention that he could not be removed from +office. It did not matter how much ammunition a man had if he couldn't +shoot it. It was Morgan's opinion, given with the light of humor +quickening in his eyes, that they ought to take Craddock at his word. + +"Ship him out?" said Judge Thayer. + +"In a box," Morgan nodded, face as sober as judgment, the humor growing +in his eyes. + +"But we can't butcher the fellow like a hog!" Judge Thayer protested. + +"Live hogs are shipped in boxes, right along," Morgan explained. + +Judge Thayer saw the light; his pepper-and-salt whiskers twinkled and +spread around his mouth, and rose so high in their bristling over his +silent laughter that they threatened his eyes. He turned to Craddock, +forcing a sober front. + +"All right, Seth, we'll take you up on it. You're going out of town in a +box," he said. + +Judge Thayer ordered the undertaker to bring over a coffin box, the +longest one he had. The word ran like a prairie fire from those who +heard the order given, that they were going to shoot Craddock for his +crimes and bury him on the spot. + +There was not a little disappointment, but more relief, in the public +mind when it became understood that Craddock was not to be shot. As a +mockery of his past oppression and terrible name, he was to be nailed up +in a box and shipped out like a snake. And so it turned out again in +Ascalon that comedy came in to end the play where tragedy had begun it. + +Morgan bore no part in this unexpected climax to his hard-straining and +doubt-clouded day. He stood by watchful and alert, a great peace in his +mind, a great lightness. He had come through it according to Rhetta +Thayer's wish, according to his own desire, with no man's blood upon his +hands. + +There were many willing ones who came forward to make light the labor of +Seth Craddock's packing. They unbound his hands with derision and +bundled him into the capacious long box against his strivings and curses +with scorn. Morgan suggested the enclosure of a jug of water. Let him +frizzle and fry, they said. They'd bore an auger hole or two in the box +to give him air, and that was greater humanity than he deserved. Morgan +insisted on at least a bottle of water, and had his way, against +grumbling. + +The undertaker officiated, as if it were a regular funeral, putting the +long screws in the stout lid while citizens sat on it to hold the +explosive old villain down. They fastened him in as securely as if he +were a dead man, in all sobriety, boxed up againt the worms of the +grave. + +Then the question rose of where to send him, and how. On the first part +of it the public was of undivided mind. No matter where he went, or in +what direction, let it be far. On the second division there was some +argument. Some held for shipping him by freight, as livestock, and some +were for express as the quickest way to the end of a long journey. For +the farther out of sight he could be carried in the shortest possible +time, they said, the better for all concerned. + +There the station agent was called in to lend the counsel of his +official position. A man could not be shipped by freight if alive, he +said. He could be sent as a corpse is sent, by paying the rate of a fare +and a half and stowing him in the baggage-car with trunks and dogs. The +undertaker was of the same opinion, which he expressed gravely, with +becoming sadness and gloom. + +Judge Thayer wrote the address on the shipping tag, the undertaker +tacked it on Seth Craddock's case, and then the amazed people of Ascalon +came forward surrounding the case, and read: + + Chief of Police, + Kansas City, Missouri. + +That was the consignee of the strangest shipment ever billed out of +Ascalon. People wondered what the chief of police would do with his +gift. They wished him well of it, with all their hearts. + +Meantime Seth Craddock, with the blood of eight men on his hands, was +making more noise in the coffin box than a sack of cats. It was a most +undignified way for a man of his sanguinary reputation to accept this +humiliation at the hands of a public that he had outraged. A mule in a +box stall could not have made a greater clatter with heels against +planks than the fallen city marshal of Ascalon drummed up with his on +the stout end of the coffin box. He cursed as he kicked, and called in +muffled voice on the friends of his brief day of power to come and set +him free. + +But the sycophants who had hung to his heels like hand-fed dogs when +power glorified him like a glistening garment and exalted him high above +other men, turned out as all time-servers and cowardly courtiers always +finish when the object of their transitory adulation falls with his +belly in the dust. They sneered, they jeered, they turned white-shirted +coatless backs upon his box with derisive, despising laughter on their +night-pale faces. Seth Craddock was a mighty man as long as he had a +license to walk about and slay, but fastened up in a box like a corpse +for shipment at the rate of the dead, he was only a hull and an empty +husk of a man. + +They said he was a coward; they had known it all along. It called for a +coward to shoot men down like rabbits. That was not the way of a brave +and worthy man. This great moral conclusion they reached readily enough, +Seth Craddock securely caged before them. If Morgan's rope had missed +its mark, if a snarl had shortened it a foot; if Craddock had been a +second sooner in starting to draw his gun, this wave of moral exaltation +would not have descended upon Ascalon that day. + +There was some concern over the holding quality of the box. People +feared Craddock might burst out of it before going far, and return +against them for the reckoning so volubly threatened. The undertaker +quieted these fears by tapping the box around with his hammer, pointing +out its reenforced strength with melancholy pride. A ghost might get out +of it if some other undertaker put the lid on, he said, but even that +thin and vaporous thing would have to call for help if _he_ screwed him +shut in that most competent container of the mortal remains of man. + +Thus assured, the citizens carried the box in festive spirit, with more +charity and kindness toward old Seth than he deserved, and stood it on +end in the shadow of the depot. There was an auger hole on a level with +Seth's eye, through which he could glower out for his last look on +Ascalon, and the people who gathered around to deride him and triumph in +his overthrow. + +Through this small opening Seth cursed them, checking such of them off +by name as he recognized, setting them down in his memory for the +vengeance he declared he would return speedily and exact. There he +stood, like Don Quixote in his cage, his red eye to the hole, swearing +as terribly as any man that marched in that hard-boiled army in Flanders +long ago. + +Those who had been awed by his grim silence in the days when he ruled +above all law in Ascalon, were surprised now by his volubility. Under +provocation Craddock could say as much as the next man, it appeared. +Unquestionably, he could express his limited thoughts in words luridly +strange. He wearied of this arraignment at last, and subsided. Long +before the train came he lapsed into his natural blue sulkiness, +remaining as quiet behind his auger hole as one ready for the grave. + +They loaded Craddock on a truck when the train from the west whistled, +trundled him down the platform and posted him ready to load in the +baggage-car, attended by a large, jubilant crowd. There was so much +hilarity in this gathering for a funeral, indeed, and so much profanity, +denunciation, and threat issuing out of the coffin box--for Seth broke +out again the minute they moved him--that the baggage-man aboard the +train demurred on receiving the shipment. He closed the door against the +eager citizens who mounted the truck to shove the box aboard, leaving +only opening enough for him to stand flatwise in and shout up the +platform to the conductor. + +This conductor was a notable man in his day on that pioneer railroad. He +was a bony, irascible man, fiery of face, with a high hook nose that had +been smashed to one side in some battle when he was construction foreman +in his days of lowly beginning. He wore a pistol strapped around his +long coat, which garment was braided and buttoned like an ambassador's, +and he was notable throughout the land of cattle and cards as a man who +could reach far and hit hard. If Seth Craddock had applied to him for +instruction in invective and profanity, veteran that he was he would +have been put at the very foot of the primer class. + +Now this mighty man came striding down the platform, thrusting his way +through the crowd with no gentle elbow, hand on his gun, displeasure +ready to explode from his mouth. The baggage-man asked advice on +accepting the proffered box, with fare and a half ticket attached as in +the case of a corpse. + +The conductor remarked, with terrible sarcasm, that the corpse was the +noisiest one he ever had encountered, even in that cursed and benighted +and seven times outcast hole. He knocked on the box and demanded of the +occupant an account of himself, and the part he was bearing in this +pleasant little episode, this beautiful little joke. + +Seth lifted up his muffled voice to say that it was no joke, at least to +him. He explained his identity and denounced his captors, swearing +vengeance to the last eyebrow. The conductor faced the crowd with +disdainful severity. + +What were they trying to play off on him, anyhow? Who did they suppose +he was? Maybe that was fun in Ascalon, but his company wasn't going to +carry no man from nowhere against his will and be sued for it. Burn him +and box up the ashes, boil him and bottle the soup; reduce him by any +comfortable means they saw fit, according to their humane way, fetch him +there in any guise but that of a living man, and the company would haul +him to Hades if they billed him to that destination. + +But not in his present shape and form; not as a living, swearing, +suit-threatening man. Take him to hell out of there, the conductor +ordered in rising temper. Don't insult him and his road by coming around +there to make them a part in their idle, life-wasting, time-gambling, +blasted to the seventh depth of Hades tricks. + +The baggage-man closed the door, the conductor gave the signal to pull +out, and the train departed, leaving Seth Craddock on the truck, the +rather shamed and dampened citizens standing around. They concluded they +would have to hang him, after all their trouble for a more romantic, +picturesque, and unusual exit. And hanging was such a common, ordinary +way of getting rid of a distasteful man that the pleasure was taken out +of their day. + +Judge Thayer was firmly against hanging. He ordered the undertaker to +open the box, which he did with fear and trembling, seeing in a future +hour the vengeance of Seth Craddock descending on his solemn head. +Craddock, sweat-drenched and weak from his rebellion and the heat of his +close quarters, sat up with scarcely a breath left in him for a curse. +Judge Thayer delivered him to Morgan, with instructions to lock him up. + +The city calaboose was an institution apart from the county jail. Due to +some past rivalry between the county and city officials, the palatial jail +was closed to offenders against the lowly and despised-by-the-sheriff +town ordinances. So, out of its need, the city had built this little +house with bars across the one small window, and a barred door formed of +wagon tires to close outside the one of wood. + +No great amount of business ever had been done in this calaboose, for +minor infractions of the law were not troubled with in that town. If +there ever was anybody left over from a shooting he usually went along +about his business or his pleasure until the coroner's jury assembled +and let him off. The last man confined in the calaboose had stolen a +bottle of whisky, a grave and reprehensible offense which set all the +town talking and speculating on the proper punishment. This poor bug had +made a fire of his hay bedding in the night, and perished as miserably +as everybody said he deserved. The charred boards in one corner still +attested to his well-merited end. + +Morgan was not at all confident of the retaining powers of the +calaboose, neither was he greatly concerned. He believed that if +Craddock could break out he would make a streak away from Ascalon, +hooked up at high speed, never to return. It was not in the nature of a +man humbled from a high place, mocked by the lowly, derided by those +whom he had oppressed, contemned by the false friends he had favored, to +come back on an errand of revenge. The job was too general in a case +like Craddock's. He would have to exterminate most of the town. + +They left him in the calaboose with whatever reflections were his. The +window was too high in the wall for anybody on the outside to see in, or +for Craddock, tall as he was, to see anything out of it but the sky. +Public interest had fallen away since he was neither to be shipped out +nor hanged, only locked up like a whisky thief. Only a few boys hung +around the calaboose, which stood apart in the center of at least half +an acre of ground, as if ashamed of its office in a community that used +it so seldom when it was needed so often. + +Morgan returned to the square for his horse, rather dissatisfied now +with the day's developments. It was going to be troublesome to have this +fellow on his hands. Judge Thayer should not have interfered with the +last decree of public justice. It would have been over with by now. + +Rhetta Thayer was in the door of the newspaper office. She came to the +edge of the sidewalk as Morgan approached, leading his horse. She did +not reflect the public satisfaction from her handsome face and troubled +eyes that Ascalon in general enjoyed over Craddock's humiliation. Morgan +wondered why. + +"I asked too much of you, Mr. Morgan," she said, coming at once to the +matter that clouded her honest eyes. + +"You couldn't ask too much of me," he returned, with no unction of +flattery, but the cheerfully frank expression of an ingenuous heart. + +"I didn't realize the disadvantage you would be under, I didn't know +what I expected of you when I urged you into this. Meeting that +desperate man with a rope instead of a gun!" + +"You didn't know I was going to meet him with a rope," he said. + +He stood before her, hat in hand, wholesomely honest in his homely +ruggedness, a flush of embarrassment tinging his face. The sun in his +short hair seemed laughing, picking out little flecks of gold as mica +flakes in the sea waves turn and flash. + +"You might have been killed! When I saw him throw his hand to his gun! +Oh! it was terrible!" + +"So you're the editor now?" he said, cheerfully, trying to turn her from +this disturbing subject. + +"My heart jumped clear out of my mouth when you threw your rope!" + +"It came over and helped me," he said, in manner sincere and grave. + +A little flame of color lifted in her pale cheek. She looked at the +dusty road, her hand pressed to her bosom as if to make certain that the +truant heart had come back to her like a dove to its cote out of the +storm. She looked up presently, and smiled a bit; looked down again, the +hot blood writing a confession in her face. + +"I hope it did," she said. + +Morgan felt himself in such a suffocation of strange delight he could +find no word that seemed the right word, and left it to silence, which, +perhaps was best. He looked at the road, also, as if he would search +with her there for grains of gold, or for lost hearts which leap out of +maidens' breasts, in the white dust marked by many feet. + +Together they looked up, faces white, breath faltering on dry lips. So +the fire leaps in a moment such as this and enwraps the soul. It is no +mystery, it is no process of long distillation. In a moment; so. + +"Here are his guns," said he, his voice trembling as if it strained in +leaping the subject that lay in its door to go back to the business of +the day. + +"His guns!" she repeated after him, shuddering at the thought. + +"Hang them over your desk--you might need them, now you're the editor." + +She accepted them from his hand, but dubiously, holding them far out +from contact with her dress as something unclean. Morgan reproached +himself for offering her these instruments which had sent so many men +to sudden, undefended death. He reached to relieve her hand. + +"Let me do it for you, Miss Thayer." + +"No," she denied him, putting down her qualm, clutching the heavy belt +firmly. "It is a notable trophy, a great distinction you're giving me, +Mr. Morgan. I'm afraid you'll think I'm a coward," smiling wanly as she +lifted her face. + +"You're not afraid to edit the paper. That seems to me the most +dangerous job in town." + +"Most dangerous job in town!" she reproved him, giving him to understand +very plainly that she could name one attended by greater perils. +"They've only killed _one_ editor, so far." + +"Can you shoot?" he asked, as seriously concerned as if the fate of +editors in Ascalon darkened over her already. + +"Everybody in this town can shoot," she sighed. "It's every boy's +ambition to own and carry a pistol, and most of them do." + +"I hope you'll never have to defend the independence of the press with +arms," he said, making a small pleasantry of it. "More than likely +they're gentlemen enough to let you say whatever you want to, and make +no kick." + +"The _Headlight_ is going to be an awful joke with Riley Caldwell and me +getting it out. But I'm not going to try to please anybody. That way I +may please them all." + +"It sounds like the sensible way. Have you edited before?" + +"I used to help Mr. Smith, the editor they killed. That was in the +summer vacation, just. I taught school the rest of the time." + +"You must have been the busiest person in town," he said, with pride in +her activities as if they had touched his own life long ago. + +"I'm a poor stick of an editor, I'm afraid, though--I seem to be all +mussed up with legal notices and this sudden flood of news. And I can't +set type worth a cent!" + +"Just let the news go," he suggested, not without concern for the part +he might bear in her chronicle of late events in Ascalon. + +"Let the news go!" She censured him with her softly chiding eyes. "I +wish I could write like Mr. Smith--I'd wake this town up! Poor man, his +coat is hanging in the office by the desk, so suggestive of him it makes +me cry. I haven't had the heart to take it away--it would seem like +expelling his spirit from the place. He was a slender, gentle little +man, more like a minister than an editor. It took an awful coward to +shoot him down that way." + +"You're right; I met him," Morgan said, remembering Dell Hutton among +the wagons, his smoking gun in his hand. + +"Sneaking little coward!" + +"Well, he'll hardly sling his gun down on you," Morgan reflected, as if +he communed with himself, yet thinking that Hutton scarcely would be +beyond even that. + +"Hardly," she replied, in abstraction. "What are you going to do with +that old brigand you've got locked in the calaboose?" + +"I expect we'll turn him loose in the morning. There doesn't seem to be +anything we can hold him for, guilty as he is." + +"If he'll leave, and never come back," doubtfully. "I'm glad now it +turned out the way it did, I'm so thankful you didn't have to--that you +came through _without blood on your hands_!" + +"It would have been a calamity the other way," he said. + +When Morgan went his way presently, leaving her in the door of the +little boxlike newspaper office, from where she gave him a parting +smile, it was with a revised opinion of the day's achievements. He felt +peculiarly exalted and satisfied. He had accomplished something, after +all. + +Whatever this was, he did not confess, but he smiled, and felt renewed +with a lifting gladness, as he went on to the livery barn, his horse at +his heels. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A BONDSMAN BREATHES EASIER + + +There was a little ripple, more of mirth than excitement or concern, in +Ascalon next morning when it became known that Seth Craddock had kicked +a hole in the burned corner of the calaboose and leaked out of it into +the night. + +Let him go; it was as well that way as any, they said, since it relieved +them at once of the charge of his keep and the trouble of disposing of +him in the end. He never would come back to that town, let him ravage in +other parts of the world as he might. What the town had lost in +notoriety by his going would be offset by the manner of his degradation, +already written at length by the local correspondent of the _Kansas City +Times_ and sent on to be printed with a display heading in a prominent +position in that paper and copied by other papers all over the land. + +Seth Craddock and his reign were behind the closed door of the past, +through which he was not likely to kick a hole and emerge again, after +his manner of going from the calaboose. That matter off the town's mind, +it ranged itself along the shady side of the street to watch the present +contest between the law and those who lived beyond it. + +Up to this point it appeared that the law was going to have it according +to its mandate. Peden made no attempt to open his place on the night +following Craddock's deposition, the lesser lights following his +virtuous example. + +But there was in this quiescent confidence, in this lull almost +threatening, something similar to the impertinent repression of an +incorrigible child who yields to authority immediately above him, +knowing that presently it will be overruled. Something was clouding up +to break over Ascalon; the sleepiest in the town was aware of that. + +How much more keenly, then, was this charged atmosphere sensed and +explored with the groping hand of trepidation by Rhetta Thayer, finely +tuned as a virtuoso's violin. She knew something was hatching in that +Satan's nest of iniquity that would result in an outbreak of defiance, +but what form it would take, and when, she could not determine, although +friends tried to sound for her the bottom of this pit. + +Morgan knew it; all the scheme was as plain to him as the line of +hitching racks around the square. They were waiting to gather force, +when they meant to rise up and crush him, fling wide their doors, invite +the outlawed of the world in, and proceed as in the past. All there was +to be done was wait the uncovering of their hands. + +Meantime, there was a breathing spell between, a spell of pleasant hours +in the little newspaper office, reading the exchanges, helping on the +arrangement of such news as the town and country about it yielded, and +having many a good laugh over their bungling of the job, himself and the +pretty, brown-eyed editor, that was better for their bodies and souls +than all the physic on Druggist Gray's shelves. And not one line +concerning Morgan's adventures appeared in the _Headlight_ during that +time. + +In this manner, Ascalon enjoyed as it might three days of peace out of +this summer solstice. The drouth was aggravating in its duration and +growing hardships. Many families in town were without water, and obliged +to carry it from the deep well in the public square. Numberless cattle +were being driven to the loading pens for shipment to market, weeks +ahead of their day of doom, unfattened, unfit. The range was becoming a +barren; disaster threatened over that land with a torch in its +blind-striking hand. + +On the evening of this third day, between sunset and twilight, Rhetta +Thayer stopped Morgan as he was passing the _Headlight_ office at the +beginning of his nightly patrol. She was disturbed by an agitation that +she could not conceal; her eyes stood wide as if some passing terror had +opened their windows. + +"He shot at you, and you didn't tell me!" she said, reproachfully, +facing him just inside the door. + +"Well, he isn't much of a shot," Morgan told her, cheerful assurance in +his words. "I can assure you I was at no time in any danger." + +"Oh! you didn't tell me!" she said, her voice little above a whisper on +her quick-coming breath. + +"It didn't amount to anything," Morgan discounted, wondering how she had +heard of it. "All that puzzled me was why the little rat did it--I never +stepped in front of him anywhere." + +"That woman in the tent--the rustler's wife--told me--she told me just +a little while ago. Oh! if he--if he'd have hit you!" + +"The kids all came running out of the tent--I thought he'd hit one of +them," Morgan said, humorously, thinking only to calm her great +agitation and quiet her friendly--if there could be no dearer +interest--concern. + +"It was Peden got him to do it," she declared. + +"Peden? Why should Hutton go out to do that fellow's gunning?" + +"Dell Hutton's gambling the county's money, he killed Mr. Smith because +he charged him with it! Pa knows it, pa's on his bond, and if he keeps +on losing the county funds there on Peden's game we'll have to make it +good. It will take everything we've got--if he keeps on." + +"That's bad, that's mighty bad," Morgan said, deeply concerned, +curiously awakened to the inner workings of things in Ascalon. "Still, I +don't see what connection I have in it, why he'd want to take a shot at +me on the quiet that way." + +"He shoots from behind, he shot Mr. Smith in the back, and it was at +night, besides. Don't you see how it was? Peden must have bribed him to +do it, promised to make good his losses, or something like that." + +"Plain as a wagon track," Morgan said. + +"I don't know why I ever got you into this tangle," she lamented, "I +don't know what made me so selfish and so blind." + +"It's just one more little complication in Ascalon's sickness," he +comforted her, "it doesn't amount to beans. The poor little fool was so +scared that morning he could hardly lift his gun. He'll never make +another break." + +"If I only thought he wouldn't! He's as treacherous as a snake, you +can't tell where he's sneaking to bite you. Give it up, Mr. Morgan, +won't you, please?" She turned to him suddenly, appealing with her eyes, +with her wistful lips, with every line of her sympathetic, anxious face. + +"Give it up?" he repeated, her meaning not quite clear. + +"The office, I mean. Surely, as I coaxed you into taking it, I've got a +right to ask you to give it up. You've done what you took the place to +do, you've got Craddock out of it and away from here. Your work's done, +you can quit now with a good conscience and no excuse to anybody." + +"Why," said Morgan, reflectively, "I don't believe I could quit right +now, Miss Rhetta. There's something more to come, it isn't quite +finished yet." + +"There's a great deal more to come, the end of all this fighting and +killing and grinning treachery never will come!" she said, in great +bitterness. "What's the use of one man putting his life against all this +viciousness? There's no cure for the curse of Ascalon but time. Let it +go, Mr. Morgan--I beg you to give it up." + +Morgan took the hand that she reached out to him in her appeal. The +great fervor of her earnest heart had drawn the blood away from it, +leaving it cold. He clasped it, tightly, to warm it in his big palm, and +spoke comfortingly, yet he would not, could not, tell her that he would +give over the office and leave the town to its devices. The work he had +begun on her account, at her appeal, was not finished. He wanted to give +her a peace that would make permanent the placidity of her eyes such as +had warmed his heart during those three days. But he could not tell her +that. + +"If it goes on," she said, sad that he would not yield to her appeal, +"you'll have to--you'll have to--do what the rest of them have done. And +I don't want you to do that, Mr. Morgan. I want you to keep clean." + +"As it must be, so it will be," he said. "But I don't see any reason why +I can't keep on the way I've started. There's nobody doing any shooting +here now." + +"They're only waiting," she said. + +"I'll have to watch them a little longer, then," he told her; "somebody +might shoot your windows out." + +He led her away from the subject of Ascalon's dangers and unrest, its +sinister ferment and silent threat, but she would come back to it in a +little while, and to Dell Hutton, who shot men in the back. + +"He's over there in the courthouse now--that's his office where you see +the light--trying to doctor up his books to hide his stealing, I know," +she declared. + +Morgan left her, his rifle in his hand, to go on his patrol of the town +according to his nightly program. As he tramped around the square, he +watched the light in the courthouse window, thinking of the account on +his own books against the old-faced young man who labored there alone to +hide his peculations for a little while longer. And so, watching and +considering, thinking and devising, the night came down over him, +guardian of the peace of Ascalon, where there was no peace. + +Rhetta Thayer, leaving the _Headlight_ office at nine o'clock, saw two +men come down the courthouse steps, shadowy and indistinct in the dusk +of starlight and early night. She paused on her way, wondering, and her +wonder and mystification grew when she saw them cut across the square in +the direction of Peden's dark and silent hall. One of them was Dell +Hutton. The other she had no need to name. + +When Dell Hutton, county treasurer, deposited three thousand dollars of +the county's funds in the bank next morning, a certain man who stood +surety on his bond wiped the sweat of vast relief from his forehead. And +when Rhetta heard of it, she smiled, and the incense of gratitude rose +out of her heart for the strong-handed man who had stopped this leak in +the slender finances of the county, a thing which he believed he was +holding secret in the simplicity of his honest soul. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE CURSE OF BLOOD + + +Sensitive as a barometer to every variation, every shading, in public +sentiment and sympathy, Morgan patroled the town nightly until the +streets were deserted. Night by night he felt, rather than saw, the +growing insolence of the pale feeders on the profits of vice, the +confidence in some approaching triumph gleaming in their furtive eyes. + +None of the principals, few of the attendant vultures, had left Ascalon. +The sheriff had returned from his excursion after cattle thieves, and, +contrary to the expectation of anybody, had brought one lean and hungry, +hound-faced man with him and locked him up in jail. + +But the sheriff was taking no part in the new city marshal's campaign in +the town, certainly not to help him. If he worked against him in the way +his fat, big-jowled face proclaimed that it was his habit to work, no +evidence of it was in his manner when he met Morgan. He was a friendly, +puffy-handed man, loud in his hail and farewell to the riders who came +in from the far-off cow camps to see for themselves this wide-heralded +reformation of the godless town of Ascalon. + +These visitors, lately food for the mills of the place, walked about as +curiously as fowls liberated in a strange yard after long confinement in +a coop. They looked with uncomprehending eyes on the closed doors of +Peden's famous temple of excesses; they turned respectful eyes on Morgan +as he passed them in his silent, determined rounds. And presently, after +meeting the white-shirted, coatless dealers, lookout men, _macquereaux_, +they began to have a knowing look, an air of expectant hilarity. After a +little they usually mounted and rode away, laughing among themselves +like men who carried cheerful tidings to sow upon the way. + +In that manner Ascalon remained closed five nights, nobody contesting +the authority of the new marshal, not a shot fired in the streets. On +the afternoon of the sixth day an unusual tide of visitors began to set +in to this railroad port of Ascalon. By sundown the hitching rack around +the square was packed with horses; Dora Conboy told Morgan she never had +waited on so many people before in her hotel experience. + +At dusk Morgan brought his horse from the livery stable, mounted with +his rifle under the crook of his knee. At nine o'clock Peden threw open +his doors, the small luminaries which led a dim existence in his +effulgence following suit, all according to their preconcerted plan. + +There was a shout and a break of wild laughter, a scramble for the long +bar with its five attendants working with both hands; a scrape of +fiddles and a squall of brass; a squeaking of painted and bedizened +drabs, who capered and frisked like mice after their long inactivity. +And on the inflow of custom and the uprising of jubilant mirth, Peden +turned his quick, crafty eyes as he stood at the head of the bar to +welcome back to his doors this golden stream. + +Close within Peden's wide door, one on either hand, two vigilant +strangers stood, each belted with two revolvers, each keeping a hand +near his weapons. One of these was a small, thin-faced white rat of a +man; the other tall, lean, leathery; burned by sun, roughened by +weather. A shoot from the tree that produced Seth Craddock he might have +been, solemn like him, and grim. + +Dell Hutton, county treasurer, cigar planted so far to one corner of his +wide thin mouth that wrinkles gathered about it like the leathery folds +of an old man's skin, came to Peden where he stood at the bar. + +"All's set for him," he said, drawing his eyes small as he peered around +through the fast-thickening smoke. + +"Let him come!" said Peden, watching the door with expectant, vindictive +eyes. + +The news of Peden's defiance swept over the town like a taint on the +wind. Not only that Peden had opened his doors to the long-thirsting +crowd gathered by the advertised news of a big show for that night, but +that he had posted two imported gun-fighters inside his hall with +instructions to shoot the city marshal if he attempted to interfere. +With the spread of this news men began to gather in front of Peden's to +see what the city marshal was going to do, how he would accept this +defiance, if he meant to accept it, and what the result to him would be. + +Judge Thayer came down to the square without his alpaca coat, his +perturbation was so great, looking for Morgan, talking of swearing in a +large number of deputies to uphold the law. + +This was received coldly by the men of Ascalon. Upholding the law was +the city marshal's business, they said. If he couldn't do it alone, let +the law drag; let it fall underfoot, where it seemed the best place for +it in that town, anyhow. So Judge Thayer went on, looking around the +square for Morgan, not finding him, nor anybody who had seen him within +the last half hour. + +Rhetta was working late in the _Headlight_ office, preparing for the +weekly issue of the paper. This disquieting news had come in at her door +like the wave of a flood. She had no thought of work from that moment, +only to stand at the door listening for the dreaded sound of shooting +from the direction of Peden's hall. + +Judge Thayer found her standing in the door when he completed his search +around the square, his heart falling lower at every step. + +"He's gone! Morgan's deserted us!" he said. + +"Gone!" she repeated in high scorn. "He'll be the last to go." + +"I can't find him anywhere--I've hunted all over town. Nobody has seen +him. I tell you, Rhetta, he's gone." + +"I wish to heaven he would go! What right have we got to ask him to give +his life to stop the mean, miserable squabbles of this suburb of hell!" + +"I think you'd better run along home now--Riley will go with you. Why, +child, you're cold!" + +He drew her into the office, urging her to put on her bonnet and go. + +"I'll stay here and see it out," she said. "Oh, if he would go, if he +would go! But he'll never go." + +She threw herself into the chair beside her littered desk, hands +clenched, face white as if she bore a mortal pain, only to leap up again +in a moment, run to the door, and listen as if she sought a voice out of +the riotous sound. + +Judge Thayer had none of this poignant concern for Morgan's welfare. He +was not a little nettled over his failure to find the marshal, and that +officer's apparent shunning of duty in face of this mocking challenge to +his authority. + +"Why, Rhetta, you wanted him to take the office, you urged him to," he +reminded her. "I don't understand this sudden concern for the man's +safety in disregard of his oath and duty, this--this--unaccountable----" + +"I didn't know him then--I didn't _know_ him!" she said, in piteous low +moan. + +Judge Thayer looked at her with a sudden sharp turning of the head, as +if her words had expressed something beyond their apparent meaning. He +came slowly to the door, where he stood beside her a little while in +silence, hand upon her shoulder tenderly. + +"I'll look around again," he said, "and come back in a little while." + +Meanwhile, in Peden's place the celebrants at the altar of alcohol were +rejoicing in this triumph of personal liberty. Where was this man-eating +city marshal? What had become of that knock-kneed horse wrangler from +Bitter Creek they had heard so much about? They drank fiery toasts to +his confusion, they challenged him in the profane emphasis of scorn. +Upon what was his fame based? they wanted to be told. The mere +corraling of certain stupid drunk men; the lucky throw of a rope. _He_ +never had killed a man! + +With the mounting of their hastily swilled liquor the hilarious patrons +of Peden's hall became more contemptuous of the city marshal. His +apparent avoidance of trouble, his unaccountable absence, his failure to +step up and meet this challenge from Peden, became a grievance against +him in their inflamed heads. + +They had counted on him to make some kind of a bluff, to add something +either of tragedy or comedy to this big show. Now he was hiding out, and +they resented it in the proper spirit of men deprived of their rights. +They began to talk of going out to find him, of dragging him from his +hole and starting a noise behind him that would scare him out of the +country. + +Peden encouraged this growing notion. If Morgan wouldn't bring his show +there, go after him and make him stand on his hind legs like a dog. +After a few more drinks, after a dance, after another stake on the +all-devouring tables of chance. They turned to these diversions in the +zest of long abstinence, in the redundant vitality of youth, mocking all +restraint, insolent of any reckoning of circumstance or time. + +Peden distended with satisfaction to see the free spending, the free +flinging of money into his games. A little virtuous recess seemed to be +profitable; it was like giving a horse a rest. His two guards waited at +the door, his lookout at the faro table swept the hall from his high +chair with eyes keen to mark any hostile invasion. Morgan never could +come six feet inside his door. + +Well satisfied with himself and the beginning of that night's business, +exceedingly comfortable in the thought that this defiance of the law +would bring a newer and wider notoriety to himself and the town of which +he was the spirit, Peden sauntered among the boisterous merrymakers on +his floor. + +Dancers were worming and shuffling in close embrace, couples breaking +out of the whirl now and then to rush to the bar; players stood deep +around the tables; men reached over each other's shoulders to take their +drinks from the bar. All was haste and hilarity, all a crowding of +pleasure with hard-pursuing feet, a snatching at the elusive thing with +rough boisterous hands, with loud laughter, with wild yells. + +Pleasure, indeed, seemed on the flight before these coarse revelers, who +pursued it blindfold down the steeps of destruction unaware. + +Peden shouldered his way through the throng toward the farther end of +the long bar, nodding here with a friendly smile, stopping now and then +to shake hands with some specially favored patron, throwing commands +among his female entertainers from his cold, hard, soulless eyes as he +passed along. + +And in that sociable progression down his thronging hall, ten feet from +the farther end of his famous bar, Peden came face to face with Morgan, +as grim as judgment among the crowd of wastrels and women of poisoned +lips, who fell back in breathless silence to let him pass. + +Morgan was carrying his rifle; his pistol hung at his side. The big +shield of office once worn by Seth Craddock was pinned on the pocket of +his shirt; his broad-brimmed hat threw a shadow over his stern face. + +Peden stopped with a little start of withdrawal at sight of Morgan, +surprised out of his poise, chilled, perhaps, at the thought of the long +pistol shot between this unexpected visitor and the hired killers at his +front door, the way between them blocked by a hundred revelers. + +So, this was the cunning of this range wolf, to come in at his back door +and fall upon him in surprise! Peden's resentment rose in that second of +reflection with the dull fire that spread in his dark face. He flung his +hand to his revolver, throwing aside the skirt of his long coat. + +"Let your gun stay where it is," Morgan quietly advised him. "Get these +people out of here, and close this place." + +"Show me your authority!" Peden demanded, scouting for a moment of +precious time. + +The musicians in the little orchestra pit behind Morgan ceased playing +on a broken note, the shuffle of dancing feet stopped short. Up the long +bar the loud hilarity quieted; across the hall the clash of pool balls +cut sharply into the sudden stillness. As quickly as wind makes a rift +in smoke the revelers fell away from Morgan and Peden, leaving a fairway +for the shooting they expected to begin at the door. Peden stood as he +had stopped, hand upon his gun. + +Morgan stepped up to him in one long, quick stride, rifle muzzle close +against Peden's broad white shirt front. In that second of hesitant +delay, that breath of portentous bluff, Morgan had read Peden to the +roots. A man who had it in him to shoot did not stop at anybody's word +when he was that far along the way. + +"Clear this place and lock it up!" Morgan repeated. + +The temperature of the crowded hall seemed to fall forty degrees in the +second or two Morgan stood pushing his rifle against Peden's breastbone. +Those who had talked with loud boasts, picturesque threats, high-pitched +laughter, of going out to find this man but a little while before, were +silent now and cold around the gills as fish. + +Morgan was watching the two men at the front door while he held Peden up +those few seconds. He knew there was no use in disarming Peden, to turn +him loose where he could get fifty guns in the next two seconds if he +wanted them. He believed, in truth, there was not much to fear from this +fellow, who depended on his hired retainers to do his killing for him. +So, when Peden, watching Morgan calculatively, shifted a little to get +himself out of line so he would not stand a barrier between his +gun-slingers and their target and longer block the opening of operations +to clear the hall of this upstart, Morgan let him go. Then, with a +sudden bound, Peden leaped across into the crowd. + +A moment of strained waiting, quiet as the empty night, Morgan standing +out a fair target for any man who had the nerve to pull a gun. Then a +stampede in more of sudden fear than caution by those lined up along +the bar, and the two hired killers at the front of the house began to +shoot. + +Morgan pitched back on his heels as if mortally hit, staggered, thrust +one foot out to stay his fall. He stood bracing himself in that manner +with out-thrust foot, shooting from the hip. + +Three shots he fired, the roar of his rifle loud above the lighter sound +of the revolvers. With the third shot Morgan raised his gun. In the +smoke that was settling to the floor the taller of the gunmen lay +stretched upon his face. The other, arms rigidly at his sides, held a +little way from his body, head drooping to his chest, turned dizzily two +or three times, spinning swiftly in his dance of death, gave at the +knees, settled down gently in a strange, huddled heap. + +Dead. Both of them dead. The work of one swift moment when the blood +curse fell on this new, quick-handed marshal of Ascalon. + +There was a choking scream, and a woman's cry. "Look out! look out!" + +Peden, on the fringe of a crowd of shrinking, great-eyed women, ghastly +in the painted mockery of their fear, fired as Morgan turned. Morgan +blessed the poor creature who was woman enough in her debauched heart to +cry out that warning, as the breath of Peden's bullet brushed his face. +Morgan could not defend himself against this assault, for the coward +stood with one shoulder still in the huddling knot of women, and fired +again. Morgan dropped to the floor, prone on his face as the dead man +behind him. + +Peden came one cautious step from his shelter, leaning far over to see, +a smile of triumph baring his gleaming teeth; another step, while the +crowd broke the stifling quiet with shifted feet. Morgan, quick as a +serpent strikes, raised to his elbow and fired. + +Morgan had one clear look at Peden's face as he threw his arms high and +fell. Surprise, which death, swift in its coming had not yet overtaken, +bulged out of his eyes. Surprise: no other emotion expressed in that +last look upon this life. And Peden lay dead upon his own floor, his hat +fallen aside, his arms stretched far beyond his head, his white cuffs +pulled out from his black coat sleeves, as if he appealed for the mercy +that was not ever for man or woman in his own cold heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +UNCLEAN + + +Earl Gray came down the street hatless, the big news on his tongue. +Rhetta Thayer, in the door of the _Headlight_ office, where she had +stood in the pain of one crucified while the shots sounded in Peden's +hall, stopped him with a gasped appeal. + +Dead. Peden and the gun-slingers he had brought there to kill Morgan; +any number of others who had mixed in the fight; Morgan himself--all +dead, the floor covered with the dead. That was the terrible word that +rolled from Gray's excited tongue. And when she heard it, Rhetta put out +her hands as one blind, held to the door frame a moment while the blood +seemed to drain out of her heart, staring with horrified eyes into the +face of the inconsequential man who had come in such avid eagerness to +tell this awful tale. + +People were hastening by in the direction of Peden's, scattered at +first, like the beginning of a retreat, coming then by twos and threes, +presently overflowing the sidewalk, running in the street. Rhetta stood +staring, half insensible, on this outpouring. Riley Caldwell, the young +printer, rushed past her out of the shop, his roached hair like an +Algonquin's standing high above his narrow forehead, his face white as +if washed by death. + +Impelled by a desire that was commanding as it was terrifying, moved by +a hope that was only a shred of a raveled dream, Rhetta joined the +moving tide that set toward Peden's door. Dead--Morgan was dead! Because +she had asked him, he had set his hand to this bloody task. She had sent +him to his death in her selfish desire for security, in her shrinking +cowardice, in her fear of riot and blood. And he was dead, the light was +gone out of his eyes, his youth and hope were sacrificed in a cause that +would bring neither glory nor gratitude to illuminate his memory. + +She began to run, out in the dusty street where he had marched his +patrol that first night of his bringing peace to Ascalon; to run, her +feet numb, her body numb, only her heart sentient, it seemed, and that +yearning out to him in a great pain of pity and stifling labor of +remorse. It was only a little way, but it seemed heavy and long, impeded +by feet that could not keep pace with her anguish, swift-running to +whisper a tender word. + +The lights were bright in Peden's hall, a great crowd leaned and +strained and pushed around its door. There were some who asked her +kindly to go away, others who appealed earnestly against her looking +into the place, as Rhetta pushed her way, panting like an exhausted +swimmer, through the crowd. + +Nothing would turn her; appeals were dim as cries in drowning ears. +Gaining the door, she paused a moment, hands pressed to her cheeks, hair +fallen in disorder. Her eyes were big with the horror of her thoughts; +she was breathless as one cast by breakers upon the sand. She looked in +through the open door. + +Morgan was standing like a soldier a little way inside the door, his +rifle carried at port arms, denying by the very sternness of his pose +the passage of any foot across that threshold of tragedy. There was +nothing in his bearing of a wounded man. Beyond him a few feet lay the +bodies of the two infamous guards who had been posted at the door to +take his life; along the glistening bar, near its farther end, Peden +stretched with face to the floor, his appealing hands outreaching. + +A gambling table had been upset, chairs strewn in disorder about the +floor, when the rabble was cleared out of the place. Only Morgan +remained there with the dead men, like a lone tragedian whose part was +not yet done. + +Rhetta looked for one terrifying moment on that scene, its tragic detail +impressed on her senses as a revelation of lightning leaps out of the +blackest night to be remembered for its surrounding terror. And in that +moment Morgan saw her face; the horror, the revulsion, the sickness of +her shocked soul. A moment, a glance, and she was gone. He was alone +amidst the blood that the curse of Ascalon had led his hand to pour out +in such prodigality in that profaned place. + +Long after the fearful waste of battle had been cleared from Peden's +floor, and the lights of that hall were put out; long after the most +wakeful householder of Ascalon had sought his bed, and the last horseman +had gone from its hushed streets, Morgan walked in the moonlight, +keeping vigil with his soul. The curse of blood had descended upon him, +and she whose name he could speak only in his heart, had come to look +upon his infamy and flee from before his face. + +Time had saved him for this excruciating hour; all his poor adventures, +slow striving, progression upward, had been designed to culminate in the +mockery of this night. Fate had shaped him to his bitter ending, drawing +him on with lure as bright as sunrise. And now, as he walked slowly in +the moonlight, feet encumbered by this tragedy, he felt that the essence +had been wrung out of life. His golden building was come to confusion, +his silver hope would ring its sweet chime in his heart no more. From +that hour she would abhor him, and shrink from his polluted hand. + +He resented the subtle indrawing of circumstance that had thrust him in +the way of this revolting thing, that had thrust upon him this infamous +office that carried with it the inexorable curse of blood. Softly, +against the counsel of his own reason, he had been drawn. She who had +stared in horror on the wreckage of that night had inveigled him with +gentle word, with appeal of pleading eye. + +This resentment was sharpened by the full understanding of his +justification, both in law and in morals, for the slaying of these +desperate men. Duty that none but a coward and traitor to his oath would +have shunned, had impelled him to that deed. Defense of his life was a +justification that none could deny him. But she had denied him that. She +had fled from the lifting of his face as from a thing unspeakably +unclean. + +He could not chide her for it, nor arraign her with one bitter thought. +She had hoped it would be otherwise; her last word had been on her best +hope for him in a place where such hope could have no fruition--that he +would pass untainted by the bloody curse that fell on men in this place. +It could not be. + +Because he had taken Seth Craddock's pistol away from him on that first +day, she had believed him capable of the superhuman task of enforcing +order in Ascalon without bloodshed. Sincere as she had been in her +desire to have him assume the duties of peace officer, she had acted +unconsciously as a lure to entangle him to his undoing. + +Very well; he would clean up the town for her as she had looked to him +to do, sweep it clear of the last iniquitous gun-slinger, the last +slinking gambler, the last drab. He would turn it over to her clean, +safe for her day or night, no element in it to disturb her repose. At +what further cost of life he must do this, he could not then foresee, +but he resolved that it should be done. Then he would go his way, +leaving his new hopes behind him with his old. + +Although it was a melancholy resolution, owing to its closing provision, +it brought him the quiet that a perturbed mind often enjoys after the +formation of a definite plan, no matter for its desperation. Morgan went +to the hotel, where Tom Conboy was still on duty smoking his cob pipe in +a chair tilted back against a post of his portico. + +"Well, the light's out up at Peden's," said Conboy, feeling a new and +vast respect for this man who had proved his luck to the satisfaction of +all beholders in Ascalon that night. + +"Yes," said Morgan, wearily, pausing at the door. + +"They'll never be lit again in this man's town," Conboy went on, "and +I'm one that's glad to see 'em go. Some of these fellers around town was +sayin' tonight that Ascalon will be dead in the shell inside of three +weeks, but I can't see it that way. Settlers'll begin to come now, that +hall of Peden's'll make a good implement store, plenty of room for +thrashin' machines and harvesters. I may have to put up my rates a +little to make up for loss in business till things brighten up, but I'd +have to do it in time, anyhow." + +"Yes," said Morgan, as listlessly as before. + +"They say you made a stand with that gun of yours tonight that beat +anything a man ever saw--three of 'em down quicker than you could strike +a match! I heard one feller say--man! look at that badge of yours!" + +Conboy got up, gaping in amazement. Morgan had stepped into the light +that fell through the open door, passing on his way to bed. The metal +shield that proclaimed his office was cupped as if it had been held +edgewise on an anvil and struck with a hammer. Morgan hastily detached +the badge and put it in his pocket, plainly displeased by the discovery +Conboy had made. + +"Bullet hit it, square in the center!" Conboy said. "It was square over +your heart!" + +"Keep it under your hat!" Morgan warned, speaking crossly, glowering +darkly on Conboy as he passed. + +"No niggers in Ireland," said Conboy, knowingly; "no-o-o niggers in +Ireland!" + +Morgan regretted his oversight in leaving the badge in place. He had +intended to remove it, long before. As he went up the complaining stairs +he pressed his hand to the sore spot over his heart where the bullet +almost had driven the badge into his flesh. Pretty sore, but not as sore +as it was deeper within his breast from another wound, not as sore as +that other hurt would be tomorrow, and the heavy years to come. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +AS ONE THAT IS DEAD + + +"I feel like I share his guilt," said Rhetta, voice sad as if she had +suffered an irreparable loss. + +"He's not guilty," said Violet, stoutly, standing in his defense. + +Rhetta had fled from Ascalon that morning, following the terrible night +of Morgan's sanguinary baptism. Racked by an agony of mingled remorse +for her part in this tragedy and the loss of some valued thing which she +would not bring her heart to acknowledge, only moan over and weep, and +bend her head to her pillow through that fevered night, she had taken +horse at sunrise and ridden to Stilwell's ranch, for the comfort of +Violet, whose sympathy was like balm to a bruise. Rhetta had come +through the night strained almost to breaking. All day she had hidden +like one crushed and shamed, in Stilwell's house, pouring out to Violet +the misery of her soul. + +Now, at night, she was calmer, the haunting terror of the scene which +rose up before her eyes was drawing off, like some frightful thing that +had stood a menace to her life. But she felt that it never would dim +entirely from her recollection, that it must endure, a hideous picture, +to sadden her days until the end. + +The two girls had gone to the river, where the moonlight softened the +desert-like scene of barren bars, and twinkled in the ripples of shallow +water which still ran over against the farther shore. They were sitting +near the spot where Morgan had laved his bruised feet in the river not +many nights past. A whippoorwill was calling in the tangle of +cottonwoods and grapevines that grew cool and dark on a little island +below them, its plaint as sad as the mourner's own stricken heart. + +"I begged him to give up the office and let things go," said Rhetta, +pleading to mitigate her own blame, against whom no blame was laid. + +"You'd have despised him for it if he had," said Violet. + +"But he wouldn't do it, and now this has happened, and he's a man-killer +like the rest of them. Oh it's terrible to think about!" + +"Not like the rest of them," Violet corrected, in her firm, gentle way. +"He had to stand up like a man for what he was sworn to do, or run like +a dog. Mr. Morgan wouldn't run. Right or wrong, he wouldn't run from any +man!" + +"No," said Rhetta, sadly, "he wouldn't run." + +"You talk like you wanted him to!" + +"I don't think I would," said Rhetta. + +"Then what _do_ you expect of a man?" impatiently. "If he stands up and +fights he's either got to kill or be killed." + +"Don't--don't, Violet! It seems like killing is all I hear--the sound of +those guns--I hear them all the time, I can't get them out of my ears!" + +"Suppose," said Violet, looking off across the runlet sparkling, +gurgling like an infant across the bar, "it was him you saw when you +looked in there, instead of the others. You'd have been satisfied then, +I suppose?" + +"Violet! how can you say such awful things!" + +"Well, somebody had to be killed. Do you suppose Mr. Morgan killed them +just for fun?" + +"They say, they were talking all over town that night--last night--and +saying the same thing this morning, that he didn't give them a show, +that he just turned his rifle on them and killed them before he knew +whether they were going to shoot or not!" + +"Well, they lie," said Violet, with the calmness of conviction. + +"I suppose he had a right to do what he did, but he doesn't seem like +the same man to me now. I feel like I'd lost something--some friendship +that I valued, I mean, Violet--you know what I mean." + +"I know as well as anything," said Violet, smiling to herself, head +turned away, the moonlight on her good, kind face. + +"I feel like somebody had died, and that he--they--that he----" + +"And you ought to be thankful it isn't so!" said Violet, sharply, "but I +don't believe you are." + +"I never want to see him again, I'll always think of him standing there +with that terrible gun in his hands, those dead men around him on the +floor!" + +"You may have to go to him on your knees yet, and I hope to God you will +Rhetta Thayer!" Violet said. + +"If you'd seen somebody--somebody that you--that was--if you'd seen him +like I saw him, you wouldn't blame me so," Rhetta defended, beginning +again to cry, and bend her head upon her hands and moan like a mother +who had lost a child. + +Violet was moved out of her harshness at once. She put her arm around +the weeping girl, whose sorrow was too genuine to admit a doubt of its +great depth, and consoled her with soft words. + +"And he looked so big to me, and he was so _clean_, before that," Rhetta +wailed. + +"He's bigger than ever, he's as blameless as a lamb," said Violet. +"After a little while you'll see it different, he'll be the same to +you." + +"I couldn't touch his hand!" said Rhetta, shuddering at the thought. + +"Never mind," said Violet, soothingly; "never mind." + +Violet said no more, but took Rhetta by the hand, and it was wet with +tears from her streaming cheeks. There was peace in the night around +them, for all the turmoil there might be in human hearts, for night had +eased the throbbing, drouth-cursed earth of its burning, and called the +trumpeters of the greenery out along the riverside. + +"I'm afraid he'll come," said Rhetta by and by. + +"Why should he come?" asked Violet, stroking back the other's hair. + +"He's got one of your horses--I'm afraid he'll come to bring it home." + +"You only hope he will," said Violet, in her assured, calm way. + +"Violet!" But there was not so much chiding in the word as a cry of +pain, a confession of despair. He would not come; and she knew he would +not come. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +WHINERS AT THE FUNERAL + + +Joe Lynch, the bone man, stopped at the well in the public square to +pour water on his wagon tires. A man was pestered clean out of his +senses by his tires coming off, his felloes shrinking up like a fried +bacon rind in that dry weather, Joe said. It beat his time, that drouth. +He had been through some hot and dry spells in the Arkansaw Valley, but +never one as dry and hot as this. + +He told Morgan this as he poured water slowly on his wheels to swell the +wood and tighten the tires, there at the town well in the mid-morning of +that summer day. It was so hot already, the ceaseless day wind blowing +as if it trailed across a fire, that one felt shivers of heat go over +the skin; so hot that the heat was bitter to the taste, and shade was +only an aggravation. + +This was almost a week after Morgan's forceful assertion of the law's +supremacy in Ascalon, when Peden and his assassins fell in their +insolence. It seemed that day as if Ascalon itself had fallen with +Peden, and the blood of life had drained out of its body. There was a +quietude over it that seemed the peace of death. + +"I never thought, the day I hauled you into this town," said Joe, his +high rasping voice harmonizing well with his surroundings, like a +katydid on a dead limb, "you'd be the man to put the kibosh on 'em and +close 'em up like you done. I never saw the bottom drop out of no place +as quick as it's fell out of this town, and I've saw a good many go up +in my day. The last of them gamblers pulled out a couple of days ago, I +hauled his trunk over to the depot. He went a cussin', and he pulled the +hole in after him, I guess, on all the high-kickin' this town'll ever +do. Well, I ain't a carin'; I've been waitin' my time." + +"You were wiser than some of them, you knew it would come," Morgan said, +glad to meet this bone-gathering philosopher in the desert he had made +of Ascalon, and stand talking with him, foot on his hub in friendly way. + +"Not so much bones," said Joe reflectively, as if he had weighed the +possibilities long ago and now found them coming out according to +calculation, "as bottles. Thousands of bottles, every boy in this town's +out a pickin' up bottles for me. I reckon I'll have a couple of carloads +of nothing but bottles. Oh-h-h, they'll be _some_ bones, but the +skeleton of this town is bottles. That's why I tell 'em it never will +pick up no more. You've got to build a town on something solider'n a +bottle if you want it to stand up." + +"I believe you," Morgan said. + +"You've worked yourself out of a job. They won't no more need a marshal +here'n they will a fish net." + +Morgan shook his head, got out his pipe, struck a match on the bleached +forehead of a buffalo skull in Joe's wagon. + +"No. I'm leaving town in a week or two--when I make sure it _is_ dead, +that they'll never come back and start the games again." + +"They never will," said Joe, shaking a positive head. "Peden was the +guts of this town; it can't never be what it was without him. So you're +goin' to leave the country, air you?" + +"Yes." + +"Give up that fool notion you had about raising wheat out here on this +pe-rairie, heh?" + +"Gave it up," Morgan replied, nodding in his solemn, expressive way. + +"Well, you got _some_ sense hammered into you, anyhow. I told you right +at the jump, any man that thought he could farm in this here country +should be bored for the simples. Look at that range, look at them cattle +that's droppin' dead of starvation and want of water all over it. Look +at them cattlemen shippin' out thousands of head that ain't ready for +market all along this railroad every day. This range'll be as bare of +stock by fall, I tell you, as the pa'm of my hand's bare of hairs. +Bones? I'll have more bones to pick up than ever was in this country +before. Ascalon ain't all that's dead--the whole range's gone up. +This'll clean 'em all out. It's the hottest summer and the longest dry +spell that ever was." + +"It couldn't be much worse." + +"Worse!" Joe looked up from his pouring in his reprovingly surprised +way, stopping his dribbling stream on the wagon wheel. "You hang around +here a month longer and see what worse is! I'm goin' to begin pickin' up +bones over on Stilwell's range in about a week; I'm givin' them wolves +and buzzards time to clean 'em up a little better. About then you'll see +the cattlemen begin to fight for range along the river where their +stock can eat the leaves off of the bushes and find a bunch of bluestem +once in a while that ain't frizzled and burnt up. You'll begin to see +the wolf side to some of these fellers in this country then." + +Joe rumbled on to the car that he was loading, his tires being tight +enough to hold him that far. Morgan sauntered down the shady side of the +street, meeting few, getting what ease he could out of life with his +pipe. He had put off his cowboy dress only that morning, feeling it out +of place in the uneventful quiet of the town. He had not carried his +rifle since the night of his battle in Peden's hall. Today he was +beginning to consider leaving off his revolver. A pocketknife for +whittling would be about all the armament a man would need in Ascalon +from that time forward. + +Earl Gray was leaning on one long leg in the door of his drug-store, oil +on his fluffy brown hair. He was melancholy and downcast, plainly +resentful in his bearing toward Morgan as the contriver of this business +stagnation. He swept his hand around the emptiness of the town as Morgan +drew near, giving voice to his contemplation. + +"Look at it--not a dime been spent around this square this morning! I +ain't sold but one box of pills in two days! If it wasn't for the little +trade in t'backer and cigars of a night when the cowboys come in, I'd +have to lock up and leave. I will anyhow--I can see it a-comin'." + +Morgan leaned against the building close by the door, the indolence of +the day over him. There was nothing to do but hear the dying town's +complaint. He was not a doctor; he had nothing to prescribe. He realized +that the merchants had been hit hard by this sudden paralysis. It would +not have been so much like disaster if the town had been left to die in +its own way, as time and change would have attended to more slowly. + +Morgan could not tell Druggist Gray, whose trade in pills had come to a +standstill; he could not tell the hardware merchant, whose traffic in +firearms and ammunition had fallen away; he could not explain to the +proprietor of the Santa Fe cafe, or any of the other merchants of the +town who had come to regret their one spasm of virtue, induced by fear, +that he had not considered either their prosperity or their loss when he +closed up the saloons and gambling-houses and drove the proscribed of +the law away. They were squealing now, exactly as he had known they +would squeal in spite of their assurance before the event. Let them +squeal, let them stagnate, let dust settle on their wares that no man +came to buy. + +For the security of somebody's sleep, for the tranquillity of somebody's +dreams; for the peace of two brown eyes, for the safety of a short +little white hand, strong and comforting just to see--for these, for +these alone, he had closed up the riotous places and swept away like a +purging fire the chaff and pestilence of Ascalon. He could not tell them +this. Even her he could not tell. + +Earl Gray, giving off perfume to the hot winds, was pursuing his +complaint. + +"The undertaker's packin' up to leave, goin' to ship his stock today. I +wish I could go with him, but a man's got to have a place to light +before he starts out with a drug stock." + +"I don't suppose anybody's sorry to see him go," Morgan said. "I think +it's a good sign." + +"They'll bury each other, as I told him, and they'll drug each other +with mullein tea, as I told him the other day," Gray said, +acrimoniously. "Yes, and they'll be eatin' each other before spring! I'd +like to know what they're goin' to live on, the few that's left in this +town--a little cow-punchin', a little clerkin' in the courthouse and +gittin' jury and witness fees. That won't keep no town alive." + +"Judge Thayer's got a big colonization project going that looks good, he +says. If he puts it through things will begin to pick up." + +"Them Mennonites, I guess. They ain't the kind of people a man wants to +see come in here--whiskers all over 'em, never sell 'em a cake of +shavin' soap or a razor from Christmas to doomsday. Them fellers don't +shave, they never shave; they grow up from the cradle with whiskers all +over 'em." + +"They'll need horse liniment, and stuff like that." + +"There might be a livin' here for a drug-store if settlers begun to come +in," Gray admitted, picking up a little hope. "They say this sod gives +off fevers and chills when it's broke up. Something poison in it." + +Tom Conboy was on the sidewalk before his door, casting his eyes up and +down the street as if on the lookout for somebody that owed him a bill. +He was in bed when Morgan left the hotel on his early round, and there +was a look about him still of fustiness and the cobwebs of sleep. + +"If a man was to take a sack of meal and empty it, and spread the sack +down flat, he'd have something like this man's town's got to be," Conboy +complained. "Dead, not a breath left in it. I saw a couple of buzzards +sailin' around over the square a while ago. I've been lookin' to see +them light on the courthouse tower." + +"It is a little quiet, but they all say it will begin to pick up in a +day or two," Morgan prevaricated, with a view to reeling him out, having +no other diversion. + +"I don't know what it's goin' to pick up on," Conboy sighed. "Two for +breakfast outside of the regulars. I used to have twenty to thirty-five +up to a week ago." + +"Court will convene next month," Morgan reminded him by way of cheer. + +"It'll bring a few," Conboy allowed, "not many, and all of them big +eaters. You don't make anything off of a man that rides thirty or forty +miles before breakfast when you sit him down to a twenty-five cent +meal." + +Morgan said he was not a hotel man, but it seemed pretty plain even to +him that there could be no wide border of profit in any such +transaction. + +"No, it was those night-working men, dealers, bartenders, and that +crowd, that were the light and profitable eaters. A man that drinks +heavy all night don't get up with a thirty-mile appetite in him next +day. Well, they're gone; they'll never come back to this man's town." + +"You were one of the men that wanted the town cleaned up." + +"No niggers in Ireland, now, Morgan--no-o-o niggers in Ireland!" + +Conboy made a warning of his peculiar expression, as if he halted Morgan +on ground that was dangerous to advance over as far as another word. It +was impressive, almost threatening, given in his deep voice, with grave +eye and face suddenly stern, but Morgan knew that it was all on the +outside. + +"Cowboys don't any more than hit the ground here till they hop on their +horses and leave," Conboy continued. "Nothing to entertain them, no +interest for a live man in a dead town, where the only drink he can get +is out of the well. There was just three horses tied along the square +last night, where there used to be fifty or a hundred. I'll have to +leave this man's town; I can't stand the pressure." + +"A man with a little nerve ought to swallow his present losses for his +future gains," Morgan said, beginning to grow tired of this whining. + +"If I could see any future gains comin' my way I'd gamble on them with +any man," Conboy returned with some spirit. "I'm goin' over to Glenmore +this afternoon and see what it looks like there. That's the comin' town, +it seems to me; good crops over there in the valley, no cattle starvin'. +They may bend the railroad around to touch that town, too--they're +talkin' of it. That's sure to happen if Glenmore wins the county seat +this fall. Then you'll see skids put under every house in this town and +moved over there. Ascalon will be a name some of us old-timers will +remember twenty years from now, and that's all." + +"If Judge Thayer and the railroad colonization agent put through a big +deal they've got going, I don't see why this town shouldn't pick up +again on a healthy business foundation," Morgan said. + +"Them Pennsylvania Dutch?" Conboy scoffed. "They're not the kind of +people that ever stay in a hotel, they carry their blankets with 'em and +flop down under their wagons like Indians. When they come to town they +bring a basket of grub along, they don't spend money for a meal in any +man's hotel. You put Pennsylvania Dutch into this country and there'll +never be another coroner's jury called!" + +Morgan knocked the ashes out of his short, clubby little pipe, put it in +his shirt pocket behind his badge, and went on. He paused at the door of +the _Headlight_ office to look within, hoping to see a face that had +been missing since the night of his great tragedy. Only Riley Caldwell, +the printer, was there, working furiously, as if fired by an ambition +that Ascalon, dead or alive, could not much longer contain. The +droop-shouldered alpaca coat once worn by the editor now dead, hung +beside the desk, like the hull he had cast when he took flight away from +the troubles of his much-harassed life. + +Only the day before Judge Thayer had told Morgan that Rhetta was still +at Stilwell's ranch, whither she had gone to compose herself after the +strain of so much turmoil. Morgan could only feel that she had gone +there to avoid him, shrinking from the sight of his face. + +There was not much warmth in Morgan's reception by the business men of +Ascalon around the square that morning, hot as the weather was. It +seemed as if some messenger had gone before him crying his coming, as a +jaybird goes setting up an alarm from tree to tree before the squirrel +hunter in the woods. + +Earnest as their solicitations had been for him to assume the office of +marshal, voluble as their protestations in the face of fear and +insecurity of life and property that they would accept the result +without a whimper, there were only a few who stood by their pledges like +men. These were the merchants of solider character, whose dealings were +with the cattlemen and homesteaders. The hope of these merchants was in +the coming of more homesteaders, according to Judge Thayer's dream. They +were the true patriots and pioneers. + +While these few commended Morgan's stringent application of the letter +and spirit of the state and town laws, their encouragement was only a +flickering candle in the general gloom of the place. Morgan knew the +grunters were saying behind his back that he had gone too far, farther +than their expectations or instructions. All they had expected of him +was that he knock off the raw edges, suppress the too evident, abate the +promiscuous banging around of guns by every bunch of cowboys that +arrived or left, and to cut down a little on the killing, at least +confine it to the unprofitable class. + +They admitted they didn't want the cowboys killed off the way Craddock +had been doing it, giving the town a bad name. But to shut the saloons +all up, to go and shoot Peden down that way and kill the town with him, +that was more than they had given him license for. So they growled +behind his back, afraid of him as they feared lightning, without any +ground for such fear in the world. + +Judge Thayer appeared to be the only man in town who was genuinely happy +over the result of Morgan's sweeping out the encumbering rubbish that +blocked the country's progress by its noisome notoriety. But through all +the judge's glow of gratitude for duty well done, Morgan was conscious +of a peculiar aloofness, not exactly fear such as was unmistakable in +many others, but a withdrawing, as if something had fallen between them +and changed their relations man to man. + +Morgan knew that it was the blood of slain men. He was to this man, and +to another of far greater consequence to Morgan's peace and happiness, +like a pitcher that had been defiled. + +Judge Thayer's friendliness was unabated, but it was the sort of +friendliness that did not offer the hand, or touch the arm when walking +by Morgan's side, as in the early hours of their acquaintance. Useful +this man, to the work that must be done in this place to make it fit, +and safe, and secure for property and life, but unclean. That was what +Judge Thayer's attitude proclaimed, as plainly as printed words. + +This morning when Judge Thayer encountered Morgan on the street, not far +from the little catalpa tree that was having a bitter struggle against +wind and drouth, he invited the city marshal to accompany him to his +office. News that would tickle his ears, he said; big news. + +The biggest of this big news was that the railroad company was going to +establish a division point there at once. The railroad officials had +given Judge Thayer to understand, directly, that this decision had come +as a result of the town waking up and shedding its leprous skin. They +felt that it would be a safe place for their employees to live now, with +the pitfalls closed, the temptations removed. And the credit, Judge +Thayer owned, was Morgan's alone. + +But there was more news. The eastern immigration agents of the railroad +were spreading the news of Ascalon's pacification with gratifying +result. Already parties of Illinois and Indiana farmers, who had been +looking to that country for a good while, were preparing to come out and +scout for locations. + +"They're getting tired of farming that high-priced land, Morgan. They're +wearing it out, it costs them more for fertilizers than they take off of +it. They're coming here, where a man can plow a furrow forty miles long, +we tell them--and it's the gospel truth, a hundred miles, or two hundred +if he wanted to--and never hit a stump." + +Judge Thayer got up at that point, and stood in his door looking at the +dull sky sullen with heat; looking at the glimmer that rose like +impalpable smoke from the hard surface of the cracked, baked earth. + +"But I wish we could get a good rain before they begin to come," he +sighed, "and I think--" cautiously, with a sly wink at Morgan--"we're +going to get it. I've got a man here right now working on it, along +scientific principles, Morgan--entirely scientific." + +"A rainmaker?" said Morgan, his incredulity plain in his tone. + +"He came to me highly recommended by bankers and others in Nebraska, +where he undoubtedly brought rain, and in Texas, where the proof is +indisputable. But I'm doing it solely on my own account," Judge Thayer +hastened to explain, "carrying the cost alone. He's under contract to +bring a copious rain not later than seven days from today." + +"What's the bill?" Morgan asked, amused by this man's eager credulity. + +"One hundred dollars on account, four hundred to be paid the day he +delivers the rain--provided that he delivers it within the specified +time. I've bound him up in a contract." + +"I think he'll win," said Morgan, drily, looking meaningly at the murky +sky. + +"It's founded on science, pure science, Morgan," Judge Thayer declared, +warmly. "I'm telling you this in confidence, not another soul in town +knows it outside of my own family. We'll keep it a pleasant secret--I +want to give the farmers and cattlemen of this valley the present of a +surprise. When the proper time comes I'll announce the responsible +agency, I'll show that crowd over at Glenmore where the progressive +people of this county live, I'll prove to the doubters and knockers +where the county seat belongs!" + +"It's a great scheme," Morgan admitted. "How does the weather doctor +work?" + +"Chemicals," Judge Thayer whispered, mysteriously; "sends up vapors day +and night, invisible, mainly, but potent, causing, as near as I can +come to it from his explanation--which is technical and thoroughly +scientific, Morgan--" this severely, as if to rebuke the grin that +dawned on Morgan's face. "Causing, as near as I can come to it, a +dispersion of the hot belt of atmosphere, this superheated belt that +encircles the globe in this spot like a flame of fire, causing a break +in this belt, so to speak, drilling a hole in it, bringing down the +upper frigid air." + +Judge Thayer looked with triumph at Morgan when he delivered this, +sweating a great deal, as if the effort to elucidate this scientific +man's methods of conspiring against nature to beat it out of a rain were +equal to a ten-mile walk in the summer sun. + +"Yes, sir," said Morgan, with more respect in his voice and manner than +he felt. "And then what happens?" + +"Why, when the cold and the hot currents meet, condensation is the +natural result," said the judge. "Plain, simple, scientific as a +fiddle." + +"Just about," said Morgan. + +Judge Thayer passed it, either ignoring it as a fling beneath the notice +of a scientific man, or not catching the note of ridicule. + +"He's at work in my garden now," he said, "sending up his invisible +vapors. I want to center the downpour from the heavens over this +God-favored spot, right over this God-favored spot of Ascalon." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +ASCALON CURLS ITS LIP + + +It was the marvel and regret of people who made their adventures +vicariously, and lived the thrill of them by reading the newspapers, +that Ascalon had come to a so sudden and unmistakable end of its +romance. For a little while there was hope that it might rise against +this Cromwell who had reached out a long arm and silenced it; for a few +days there was satisfaction in reading of this man's exploits in this +wickedest of all wicked towns, for newspapers sent men to study him, and +interview him, and write of his conquest of Ascalon on the very battle +ground. + +Little enough they got out of Morgan, who met them kindly and talked of +the agricultural future of the country lying almost unpeopled beyond the +notorious little city's door. Such as they learned of his methods of +taming a lawless community they got from looser tongues than the city +marshal's. + +Even from Chicago and St. Louis these explorers among the fallen temples +of adventure came, some of them veterans who had talked with Jesse James +in his day but recently come to a close. They waited around a few days +for the shot that would remove this picturesque crusader, not believing, +any more than the rest of the world, including Ascalon itself, believed +that this state of quiescence could prevail without end. + +While they waited, sending off long stories by telegraph to their +papers every night, they saw the exodus of the proscribed begin, +increase, and end. The night-flitting women went first, urged away by +the necessities of the flaccid fish which lived upon their shame. The +gamblers and gamekeepers followed close behind. + +A little while the small saloon-keepers who had nosed the floor and +licked up the crumbs which fell from Peden's bar hung around, hoping +that it was a flurry that would soon subside. They had big eyes for +future prosperity, the overlord being now out of the way, and talked +excitedly among themselves, even approached Morgan through an emissary +with proposals of a handsome subsidy. + +But when they saw a Kansas City gambler come and strip Peden's hall of +its long bar and furnishings, of its faro tables and doctored roulette +wheels, load them all on a car and ship them to his less notorious but +safer town, they knew it was the end. Ascalon had fallen with its most +notable man, never to rise up again. + +The last of the correspondents left on the evening of the day that Judge +Thayer set the rainmaker to work. He sent the obituary of Ascalon, as he +believed, ahead of him by wire. + +Not that Ascalon was as dead as it appeared on the surface, or the +gamblers would make it out to be. True, the undertaker's business had +gone, and he with it; Druggist Gray's trade in the bromides and +restoratives in demand after debauches, and repairs for bunged heads +after the nightly carousels, had fallen away to nothing; the Elkhorn +hotel and the Santa Fe cafe were feeding few, and the dealers in +vanities and fancies, punctured hosiery, lacy waists, must pack up and +follow those upon whom they had prospered. + +But there was as much business as before in lumber and hardware, +implements, groceries, and supplies for the cattle ranches and the many +settlers who were arriving without solicitation or proclamation and +establishing themselves to build success upon the ruins of failure left +by those who had gone before. + +It was only the absence of the wastrels and those who preyed upon them, +and the quiet of nights after raucous revelry, that made the place seem +dead. Ascalon was as much alive as any town of its kind that had no more +justification for being in the beginning. It had more houses than it +could use now, since so many of its population had gone; empty stores +were numerous around the square, and more would be seen very soon. The +fair was over, the holiday crowd was gone. That was all. + +Rhetta Thayer came back the same evening the last correspondent faced +away from Ascalon. Morgan saw her in the _Headlight_ office, where she +worked late that night to overtake her accumulated affairs, her pretty +head bent over a litter of proofs. Her door stood open as he passed, but +he hastened by softly, and did not return that way again. + +He felt that she had gone away from Ascalon on his account, fearful that +she would meet him with blood fresh upon his hands. The attitude of +Judge Thayer was but a faint reflection of her own, he was sure. It was +best that they should not meet again, for blood had blotted out what +had seemed the beginning of a tender regard between them. That was at an +end. + +During the next few days little was seen of Morgan in Ascalon. When he +was not riding on long excursions into the outlying country he could +have been found, if occasion had arisen demanding his presence on the +square, in the station agent's office at the depot. There he spent hours +hearing the little agent, whose head was as bald as a grasshopper's, +nothing but a pale fringe from ear to ear at the back of his neck, +recount the experiences that had fallen in his way during his +five-years' occupancy of that place. + +This period covered the most notorious history of the town. In that +time, according to the check the agent had kept on them, no fewer than +fifty-nine men had met violent death on the street and in the caves of +vice in Ascalon. This man also noted keenly every arrival in these slack +days, duly reporting them all to Morgan, for whom he had a genuine +friendship and respect. So there was little chance of anybody slipping +in to set a new brewing of trouble over the dying embers of that +stamped-out fire. + +Morgan avoided the _Headlight_ office, for there was a sensitive spot in +his heart that Rhetta's abhorrence of him hurt keenly. But more than +that he had the thought of sparing her the embarrassment of a meeting, +even of his shadow passing her door. + +Twice he saw her at a distance in the street, and once she stood waiting +as if to speak to him. But the memory of her face at Peden's door that +night was with him always; he could not believe she would seek a +meeting out of a spontaneous and honest desire to see him. Only because +their lives were thrown together for a little while in that dice-box of +fate, and avoidance seemed studied and a thing that might set foolish +tongues clapping, she paused and looked his way as if waiting for him to +approach. She was serving convention, not with a wish of her heart. So +he believed, and turned the other way. + +Cattlemen from the range at hand, and several from Texas who had driven +their herds to finish on the far-famed Kansas grass for the fall market, +were loading great numbers of cattle in Ascalon every day. The drouth +was driving them to this sacrifice. Lean as their cattle were, they +would be leaner in a short time. + +This activity brought scores of cowboys to town daily. Under the old +order business would have been lively at night, when most of the +herdsmen were at leisure. As it was, they trooped curiously around the +square, some of them who had looked forward on the long drive to a +hilarious blowout at the trail's end resentfully sarcastic, but the +greater number humorously disposed to make the most of it. + +Sober, these men of the range were very much like reservation Indians in +town on a holiday. They walked slowly around and around the square, +looking at everything closely, saying little, to dispose themselves +along the edge of the sidewalk after a while and smoke. There were no +fights, nobody let off a gun. When Morgan passed them on his quiet +rounds, they nudged each other, and looked after him with low comments, +for his fame had gone far in a little while. + +These men had no quarrel with Morgan, disappointed of their revelry, +thirsty after their long waiting, sour as some of them were over finding +this oasis of their desert dry. They only looked on him with silent +respect. Nobody cared to provoke him; it was wise to give the road when +a fellow met that man. So they talked among themselves, somewhat +disappointed to find that Morgan was not carrying his rifle about with +him these peaceful days, unusual weapon for a gun-fighting man in that +country. + +In this way, with considerable coming and going through its doors, yet +all in sobriety and peace, Ascalon passed the burning, rainless summer +days. But not without a little cheer in the hard glare of the parching +range, not without a laugh and a chuckle, and a grin behind the hand. +The town knew all about the rainmaker at work behind the shielding rows +of tall corn in Judge Thayer's garden. An undertaking of such scope was +too big to sequester in any man's back yard. + +Whether the rainmaker believed in his formula, or whether he was a plain +fraud who was a little sharper on weather conditions than most men, and +good on an estimate of a drouth's duration, he seemed to be doing +something to earn his money. Day and night he kept something burning in +a little tin stove with a length of pipe that came just above the corn, +sending up a smoke that went high toward the cloudless sky before the +wind began to blow in the early morning hours, and after it ceased at +evening, after its established plan. During the day this smoke dispersed +very generally over town, causing some coughing and sneezing, and not a +little swearing and scoffing. + +Sulphur, mainly, the doctor and Druggist Gray pronounced the chemical to +be. It was a sacrilege, the Baptist preacher declared, an offering to +Satan, from the smell of it, rather than a scientific assault upon the +locked heavens to burst open the windows and let out a dash of rain. If +the effort of the mysterious stranger brought anything at all, it would +bring disaster, the preacher declared. A cyclone, very likely, and +lightning, in expression of the Almighty's wrath. + +Those who did not accept it wrathfully, as the preacher, or resentfully, +as Druggist Gray, from whom the experimenter bought none of his +chemicals, or humorously, as the doctor and many of higher intelligence, +had a sort of sneaking hope that something might come of it. If the rain +man could stir up a commotion and fetch a soaker, it would be the +salvation of that country. The range would revive, streams would flow, +water would come again into dry wells, and the new farmers who had come +in would be given hope to hang on another year and by their trade keep +Ascalon from perishing utterly. + +But mainly the disposition was to laugh. Judge Thayer was a well-meaning +man, but easy. He believed he was bringing a doctor in to cure the +country's sickness, where all of his hopes were staked out in town lots, +when he had brought only a quack. A hundred dollars, even if the faker +made no more, was pretty good pay for seven days' work, they said. A +dollar's worth of sulphur would cover his expenses. And if it happened +to turn out a good guess, and a rain did blow up on time, Judge Thayer +was just fool enough to give the fellow a letter that would help him put +his fraud through in another place. + +It did not appear, as the days passed, that the rainmaker was driving +much of a hole in the hot air that pressed down upon that tortured land. +No commotion was apparent in the upper regions, no cloud lifted to cut +off for an hour the shafts of the fierce sun. Ascalon lay panting, +exhausted, dry as tow, the dust of driven herds blowing through its +bare, bleak streets. + +Gradually, as dry burning day succeeded the one in all particulars like +it that had gone before, what little hope the few had in Judge Thayer's +weather doctor evaporated and passed away. Those who had scoffed at the +beginning jeered louder now, making a triumph of it. The Baptist +preacher said the evil of meddling in the works of the Almighty was +becoming apparent in the increasing severity of the hot wind. Ascalon, +for its sins past and its sacrilege of the present, was to writhe and +scorch and wither from the face of the earth. + +For all this, interest in the rainmaker's efforts did not lax. People +sniffed his smoke, noting every change in its flavor, and pressed around +Judge Thayer's garden fence trying to get a look at the operations. +Judge Thayer was not a little indignant over the scoffings and +denunciations, and this impertinent curiosity to pry upon what he gave +them to understand was his own private venture. + +Keep off a safe distance from this iniquitous business, he warned with +sarcasm; don't lean on the fence and risk the wrath of the Almighty. +Let the correction of Providence fall on his own shoulders, which had +been carrying the sins of Ascalon a long time; don't get so close as to +endanger their wise heads under the blow. At the same time he gave them +to understand that if any rain came of the efforts of his weather doctor +it would be his, the judge's, own private and individual rain, wrung +from denying nature by science, and that science paid for by the judge's +own money. + +The scoffers laughed louder at this, the sniffers wrinkled their noses a +little more. But the Baptist preacher only shook his head, the hot wind +blowing his wide overalls against his thin legs. + +Morgan stood aloof from doubters, hopers, scoffers, and all, saying no +word for or against the rainmaker. Every morning now he took a ride into +the country, to the mystification of the town, coming back before the +heat mounted to its fiercest, always on hand at night to guard against +any outbreak of violence among the visitors. + +There were not a few in town who watched him away each morning in the +hope that something would overtake him and prevent his return; many more +who felt their hearts sink as he rode by their doors with the fear that +each ride would be his last. Out there in the open some enemy might be +lying behind a clump of tangled briars. These women's prayers went with +the city marshal as he rode. + +On a certain morning Morgan overtook Joe Lynch, driving toward town with +his customary load of bones. Morgan walked his horse beside Joe's wagon +to chat with him, finding always a charm of originality and rather more +than superficial thinking about the old fellow that was refreshing in +the intellectual stagnation of the town. + +"Is that rain-crow feller still workin' over in town?" Joe inquired as +soon as greetings had passed. + +"I suppose he is, I don't believe his seven days are up yet." + +"This is his sixth, I'm keepin' notches on him. I thought maybe he'd +skinned out. Do you think he'll be able to fetch it?" + +"I hope he can, but I've got my doubts, Joe." + +"Yes, and I've got more than doubts. Science is all right, I reckon, as +fur as I ever heard, but no science ain't able to rake up clouds in the +sky like you'd rake up hay in a field and fetch on a rain. Even if they +did git the clouds together, how're they goin' to split 'em open and let +the rain out?" + +"That would be something of a job," Morgan admitted. + +"You've got to have lightnin' to bust 'em, and no science that ever was +can't make lightnin', I'm here to tell you, son. If some feller _did_ +happen on how it was done, what do you reckon'd become of that man?" + +"Why, they do make it, Joe--they make it right over at Ascalon, keep it +in jars under that table at the depot. Didn't you ever see it?" + +"That ain't the same stuff," Joe said, with high disdain, almost +contempt. "Wire lightnin' and sky lightnin' ain't no more alike than +milk's like whisky. Well, say that science _did_ make up a batch of sky +lightnin'--but I ain't givin' in it can be done--how air they goin' to +git up to the clouds, how're they goin' to make it do the bustin' at the +right time?" + +"That's more than I can tell you, Joe. It's too deep for me." + +"Yes, or any other man. They'd let it go all at once and cause a +waterspout, that's about what they'd do, and between a waterspout and a +dry spell, give me the dry spell!" + +"I never was in one, but I've seen 'em tearin' up the hills." + +"Then you know what they air. It'd suit me right up to the han'le if +this feller could bring a rain, for I tell you I never saw so much +sufferin' and misery as these settlers are goin' through out here on +this cussid pe-rairie right now. Some of these folks is haulin' water +from the river as much as thirty mile!" + +"I notice all the creeks and branches are dry. But it's only a little +way to plenty of water all over this country if they'll dig. Some of +them have put down wells during this dry spell and hit all the water +they need. There's a sheet of water flowing under this country from the +mountains in Colorado." + +"Oh, you git out!" + +"Just the same as the Arkansas River, only spread out for miles," Morgan +insisted. "A drouth here doesn't mean anything to that water supply; +I've been riding around over this country trying to show people that. +Most of them think I'm crazy--till they dig." + +"I don't guess you're cracked yit," Joe allowed, "but you will be if you +stay in this country. If it wasn't for the bones you wouldn't find me +hangin' around here--I'd make for Wyoming. They tell me there's any +amount of bones that's never been touched up in that country." + +"I noticed several other wagons out gathering bones. They'll soon clean +them up here, Joe." + +"They're all takin' to it," Joe said, with the resentment of a man who +feels competition, "hornin' in on my business, what's mine by rights of +bein' the first man to go into it in this blame country. Let 'em--let +'em run their teams down scourin' around after bones--I'll be here to +pick up the remains of 'em all. I was here first, I've stuck through the +rushes of them fellers that's come into this country and dried up, and +I'll be here when this crowd of 'em dries up. Them fellers haul in bones +and trade 'em at the store for flour and meal, they don't git half out +of 'em what I do out of mine, and they're hurtin' the business, drivin' +it down to nothin'." + +"Hotter than usual this morning," Morgan remarked, not so much +interested in bones and the competition of bones. + +"Wind's dying down; I noticed that some time ago. Goin' to leave us to +sizzle without any fannin'. Ruther have it that way, myself. This +eternal wind dries a man's brains up after a while. I'd say, if I was +anywhere else, it was fixin' up to rain." + +"Or for a cyclone." + +"Too late in the season for 'em," Joe declared, not willing to grant +even that diversion to the drouth-plagued land of bones. + +Joe reverted to the bones; he could not keep away from bones. There was +not much philosophy in him today, not much of anything but a plaint and +a denunciation of competition in bones. Morgan thought the wind must be +having its effect on Joe's brains; they seemed to be so hydrated that +morning they would have rattled against his skull. Morgan considered +riding on and leaving him, at the risk of giving offense, dismissing the +notion when they rose a hill and looked down on Ascalon not more than a +mile away. + +"I believe there's a cloud coming up over there," said Morgan, pointing +to the southwest. + +"Which?" said Joe, rousing as briskly as if he had been doused with a +bucket of water. "Cloud? No, that ain't no cloud. That's dust. More wind +behind that, a regular sand storm. Ever been through one of 'em?" + +"In Nebraska," Morgan replied, with detached attention, watching what he +still believed to be a cloud lifting above the hazy horizon. + +"Nothin' like the sand storms in this country," Joe discounted, never +willing to yield one point in derogative comparison between that land +and any other. "Feller told me one time he saw it blow sand so hard here +it started in wearin' a knot hole in the side of his shanty in the +evenin', and by mornin' the whole blame shack was gone. Eat them boards +up clean, that feller said. Didn't leave nothin' but the nails. But I +always thought he was stretchin' it a little," Joe added, not a gleam of +humor to be seen anywhere in the whole surface of his wind-dried face. + +"That's a cloud, all right," Morgan insisted, passing the reduction by +attrition of the settler's shack. + +"Cloud?" said Joe, throwing up his head with renewed alertness. He +squinted a little while into the southwest. "Bust my hub if it _ain't_ a +cloud! Comin' up, too--comin' right along. Say, do you reckon that +rain-crow feller brought that cloud up from somewheres?" + +"He didn't have anything to do with it," Morgan assured him, grinning a +little over the quick shift in the old man's attitude, for there was awe +in his voice. + +"No, I don't reckon," said Joe thoughtfully, "but it looks kind of +suspicious." + +The cloud was lifting rapidly, as summer storms usually come upon that +unprotected land, sullen in its threat of destruction rather than +promise of relief. A great dark fleece rolled ahead of the green-hued +rain curtain, the sun bright upon it, the hush of its oncoming over the +waiting earth. No breath of wind stirred, no movement of nature +disturbed the silent waiting of the dusty land, save the lunging of +foolish grasshoppers among the drooping, withered sunflowers beside the +road as the travelers passed. + +"I'm goin' to see if I can make it to town before she hits," said Joe, +lashing out with his whip. "Lordy! ain't it a comin'!" + +"I think I'll ride on," said Morgan, feeling a natural desire for +shelter against that grim-faced storm. + +The oncoming cloud had swept its flank across the sun before Morgan rode +into town, and in the purple shadow of its threat people stood before +their houses, watching it unfold. In Judge Thayer's garden--it was the +house Morgan had fixed on that first morning of his exploration--the +rainmaker was firing up vigorously, sending up a smoke of such density +as he had not employed in his labors before. This black column rose but +a little way, where it flattened against the cool current that was +setting in ahead of the storm, and whirled off over the roofs of Ascalon +to mock the scoffers who had laughed in their day. + +Morgan stabled his horse and went to the square, where many of the +town's inhabitants were gathered, all faces tilted to watch the storm. +Judge Thayer was there, glorifying in the success of his undertaking, +sparing none of those who had mocked him for a sucker and a fool. A cool +breath of reviving wind was moving, fresh, sweet, rain-scented; as +hopeful, as life-giving, as a reprieve to one chained among faggots at +the stake of intolerance. + +"It looks like you're going to win, Judge," Morgan said. + +"Win? I've won! Look at it, pourin' rain over at Glenmore, the advance +of it not three miles from here! It'll be here inside of five minutes, +rainin' pitchforks." + +But it did not happen so. The rain appeared to have taken to dallying on +the way, in spite of the thickening of clouds over Ascalon. Straining +faces, green-tinted in the gloomy shadow of the overhanging cloud, +waited uplifted for the first drops of rain; the dark outriders of the +storm wheeled and mingled, turned and rolled, low over the dusty roofs; +lightning rived the rain curtain that swept the famished earth, so near +at hand that the sensitive could feel it in their hair; deep thunder +sent its tremor through the ground, jarring the windows of Ascalon that +had looked in their day upon storms of human passion which were but +insect strife to this. + +Yet not a drop of rain fell on roof, on trampled way, on waiting face, +on outstretched hand, in all of Ascalon. + +Judge Thayer was seen hurrying from the square, making for home and the +weather doctor, who was about to let the rain escape. + +"He's goin' to head it off," said one of the scoffers to Morgan, +beginning to feel a return of his exultation. + +"It's goin' to miss us," said Druggist Gray, his head thrown back, his +Adam's apple like an elbow of stovepipe in his thin neck. + +"We may get a good shower out of one end of it," Conboy still hoped, +pulling for the rain as he might have boosted for a losing horse. + +"Nothing more than a sprinkle, if that much," said the station agent, +shaking his head, which he had bared to the cool wind. + +"He's got him firin' up like he was tryin' to hive a swarm of bees," one +reported, coming from the seat of scientific labors. + +"It's breakin', it's passin' by us--we'll not get a drop of it!" + +So it appeared. Overhead the swirling clouds were passing on; in the +distance the thunder was fainter. The wind began to freshen from the +track of the rain, the pigeons came out of the courthouse tower for a +look around, light broke through the thinning clouds. + +Not more than a mile or two southward of Ascalon the rain was falling in +a torrent, the roar of it still quite plain in the ears of those whose +thirst for its cooling balm was to be denied. The rain was going on, +after soaking and reviving Glenmore, which place Judge Thayer would have +given a quarter of his possessions to have had it miss. + +A mockery, it seemed, a rebuke, a chastisement, the way nature conducted +that rain storm. Judge Thayer urged the rainmaker to his greatest +efforts to stop it, turn it, bring it back; smoke green and black went +up in volumes, to stream away on the cool, refreshing wind. Sulphur and +rosin and pitch were identified in that smoke as surely as the spectrum +reveals the composition of the sun. But the wind was against the +rainmaker; nature conspired to mock him before men as the quack that he +was. + +The gloom of storm cleared from the streets of Ascalon, the worn and +tired look came back into faces that had been illumined for a little +while with hope. Farther away, fainter, the thunder sounded, dimmer the +murmur of the withdrawing rain. + +The cool wind still blew like whispered consolation for a great, a +pangful loss, but it could not soften the hard hearts of those who had +stood with lips to the fountain of life and been denied. The people +turned again to their pursuits, their planning, their gathering of +courage to hold them up against the blaze of sun which soon must break +upon them for a parching season again. The dust lay deep under their +feet, gray on their roofs where shingles curled like autumn leaves in +the sun. The rainmaker sent up his vain, his fatuous, foolish, +infinitesimal breath of smoke. The rain went on its way. + +"Aw, hell!" said Ascalon, in its derisive, impious way; "Aw, hell!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +MADNESS OF THE WINDS + + +Ascalon's temper was not improved by the close passing of the rain, +which had refreshed but a small strip of that almost limitless land. The +sun came out as hot as before, the withering wind blew from the +southwest plaguing and distorting the fancy of men. Everybody in town +seemed sulky and surly, ready to snap at a word. The blight of +contention and strife seemed to be its heritage, the seed of violence +and destruction to be sown in the drouth-cursed soil. + +The judgment of men warped in that ceaseless wind, untempered by green +of bough overhead or refreshing turf under foot. There was no justice in +their hearts, and no mercy. Morgan himself did not escape this infection +of ill humor that rose out of the hard-burned earth, streamed on the hot +wind, struck into men's brains with the rays of the penetrating sun. Not +conscious of it, certainly, any more than the rest of them in Ascalon +were aware of their red-eyed resentment of every other man's foot upon +the earth. Yet Morgan was drilled by the boring sun until his view upon +life was aslant. Resentment, a stranger to him in his normal state, grew +in him, hard as a disintegrated stone; scorn for the ingratitude of +these people for whom he had imperiled his life rose in his eyes like a +flame. + +More than that, Morgan brooded a great deal on the defilement of blood +he had suffered there, and the alienation, real or fancied, that it had +brought of such friends as he valued in that town. By an avoidance now +unmistakably mutual, Morgan and Rhetta Thayer had not met since the +night of Peden's fall. + +One thing only kept Morgan there in the position that had become +thankless in the eyes of those who had urged it upon him in the +beginning. That was the threatened vengeance of Peden's friends. He was +giving them time to come for their settlement; he felt that he could not +afford to be placed in the light of one who had fled before a threat. +But it seemed to him, on the evening of the second day after the rain +storm's passing, that he had waited long enough. The time had come for +him to go. + +There were a few cowboys in town that evening, and these as quiet as +buzzards on a fence as they sat along the sidewalk near the hotel +smoking their cigarettes. The wind had fallen, leaving a peace in the +ears like the cessation of a hateful turmoil. There was the promise of a +cool night in the unusual clearness of the stars. Morgan rode away into +the moonless night, leaving the town to take care of its own dignity and +peace. + +Morgan's thought was, as he rode away into the early night, to return +Stilwell's horse, come back to Ascalon next day, resign his office and +leave the country. Not that his faith in its resources, its future +greatness and productivity when men should have learned how to subdue +it, was broken or changed. His mind was of the same bent, but +circumstances had revised his plans. There was with him always, even in +his dreams, a white, horror-stricken face looking at him in the pain of +accusation, repulsion, complete abhorrence, where he stood in that place +of blood. + +This was driving him away from the hopes he had warmed in his heart for +a day. Without the sweet flower he had hoped to fend and enjoy, that +land would be a waste to him. He could not forget in going away, but +distance and time might exorcise the spirit that attended him, and dim +away the accusing pain of that terrified face. + +Ascalon's curse of blood had descended to him; it was no mitigation in +her eyes that he had slain for her. But he had brought her security. +Although he had paid the tremendous price, he had given her nights of +peace. + +Even as this thought returned to him with its comfort, as it came always +like a cool breath to preserve his balance in the heat and turmoil of +his regret and pain, Rhetta Thayer came riding up the dim road. + +Her presence on that road at night was a greater testimonial to her +confidence in the security he had brought to Ascalon and its borders +than her tongue might have owned. She was riding unattended where, ten +days ago, she would not have ventured with a guard. It gave Morgan a +thrill of comfort to know how completely she trusted in the security he +had given her. + +"Mr. Morgan!" she said, recognizing him with evident relief. Then, +quickly, in lively concern. "Who's looking after things in town +tonight?" + +"I left things to run themselves," he told her quietly, but with +something in his voice that said things might go right or wrong for any +further concern he had of them. + +"Well," she said, after a little silence, "I don't suppose you're needed +very much." + +"That's what the business men are saying," he told her, sarcasm in his +dry tone. + +"I don't mean it that way," she hastened to amend. "You've done us a +great service--we'll never be able to pay you----" + +"There isn't any pay involved," he interposed, almost roughly. "That's +what's worrying those nits around the square, they say they can't carry +a marshal's pay with business going to the devil since the town's +closed. Somebody ought to tell them. There never will be any bill." + +"You're too generous," she said, a little spontaneous warmth in her +voice. + +"Maybe I can live it down," he returned. + +"It's such a lovely cool night I couldn't stay in," she chatted on, +still laboring to be natural and at ease, not deceiving him by her +constraint at all, "after such a hard day fussing with that old paper. +We missed an issue the week--last week--we're getting out two in one +this time. Why haven't you been in? you seem to be in such a hurry +always." + +"I wanted to spare you what you can't see in the dark," he said, the +vindictive spirit of Ascalon's insanity upon him. + +"What I can't see in the dark?" she repeated, as if perplexed. + +"My face." + +"You shouldn't say that," she chided, but not with the hearty sincerity +that a friend would like to hear. "Are you going back to town?" + +"I'll ride with you," he granted, feeling that for all her friendly +advances the shadow of his taint lay between them. + +They were three miles or more from town, the road running as straight as +a plumbline before them. A little way they jogged on slowly, nothing +said. Rhetta was the first to speak. + +"What made you run away from me that day I wanted to speak to you, Mr. +Morgan?" + +"Did you want to, or were you just--_did_ you want to speak to me that +day, Miss Thayer?" Morgan's heart began to labor, his forehead to sweat, +so hard was the rebirth of hope. + +"And you turned right around and walked off!" + +"You can tell me now," he suggested, half choking on the commonplace +words, the tremor of his springing hope was so great. + +"I don't remember--oh, nothing in particular. But it looks so strange +for us--for you--to be dodging me--each other--that way, after we'd +_started_ being friends before everybody." + +"Only for the sake of appearances," he said sadly. "I hoped--but you ran +away and hid for a week, you thought I was a monster." + +Foolish, perhaps, to cut down the little shoot of hope again, when a +gentle breath, a soft word, might have encouraged and supported it. But +it was out of his mouth, the fruit of his brooding days, in his +resentfulness of her injustice, her ingratitude for his sacrifice, as +he believed. He saw her turn from him, as if a revulsion of the old +feeling swept her. + +"Don't judge me too harshly, Mr. Morgan," she appealed, still looking +away. + +Morgan was melted by her gentle word; the severity of the moment was +dissolved in a breath. + +"If we could go on as we began," he suggested, almost pleading in his +great desire. + +"Why, aren't we?" she asked, succeeding well, as a woman always can in +such a situation, in giving it a discouraging artlessness. + +"You know how they're kicking and complaining all around the square +because I've shut up the town, ruined business, brought calamity to +their doors as they see it?" + +"Yes, I know." + +"They forget that they came to me with their hats in their hands and +asked me to do it. Joe Lynch says the hot wind has dried their reason up +like these prairie springs. I believe he's right. But I didn't shut the +town up for them, I didn't go out there with my gun like a savage and +shoot men down for them, Miss Thayer. If you knew how much you were----" + +"Don't--don't--Mr. Morgan, please!" + +"I think there's something in what Joe Lynch says about the wind," he +told her, leaning toward her, hand on the horn of her saddle. "It warps +men, it opens cracks in their minds like the shrunk lumber in the houses +of Ascalon. I think sometimes it's getting its work in on me, when I'm +lonesome and disappointed." + +"You ought to come in and talk with me and Riley sometimes." + +"I've often felt like going to them, whining around about the town being +killed," he went on, pursuing his theme as if she had not spoken, "and +telling them they didn't figure in my calculations at the beginning nor +come in for any of my consideration at the end--if this is the end. +There was only one person in my thoughts, that one person was Ascalon, +and all there was in it, and that was you. When I took the job that day, +I took it for you." + +"Not for me alone!" she hastened to disclaim, as one putting off an +unwelcome responsibility, unfriendly denial in her voice. + +"For you, and only you," he told her, earnestly. "If you knew how much +you were to me----" + +"Not for me alone--I was only one among all of them," she said, spurring +her horse in the vehemence of her disclaimer, causing it to start away +from Morgan with quick bound. She checked it, waiting for him to draw up +beside her again. "I'd hate to think, Mr. Morgan--oh, you can't want me +alone to take the responsibility for the killing of those men!" + +Morgan rode on in silence, head bent in humiliation, in the sad +disappointment that fell on him like a blow. + +"If it could have been done, if I could have brought peace and safety to +the women of Ascalon without bloodshed, I'd have done it. I wanted to +tell you, I tried to tell you----" + +"Don't--don't tell me any more, Mr. Morgan--please!" + +She drew across the road, widening the space between them as she spoke. +Perhaps this was due to the unconscious pressure on the rein following +her shrinking from his side, from the thought of his touch upon her +hand, but it wounded Morgan's humiliated soul deeper than a thousand +unkind words. + +"No, I'll never tell you," he said sadly, but with dignity that made the +renunciation noble. + +Rhetta seemed touched. She drew near him again, reaching out her hand as +if to ease his hurt. + +"It was different before--before _that night_! you were different, all +of us, everything. I can't help it, ungrateful as I seem. You'll forgive +me, you'll understand. But you were _different_ to me before then." + +"Yes, I was different," Morgan returned, not without bitterness in his +slow, deep, gentle voice. "I never killed a man for--I never had killed +a man; there was no curse of blood on my soul." + +"Why is it always necessary to kill in Ascalon?" she asked, wildly, +rebelliously. "Why can't anything be done without that horrible ending!" + +"If I knew; if I had known," he answered her, sadly. + +"Forgive me, Mr. Morgan. You know how I feel about it all." + +"I know how you feel," he said, offering no word of forgiveness, as he +had spoken no word of reminder where a less generous soul might have +spoken, nor raised a word of blame. If he had a thought that she must +have known when she urged him to the defense of the defenseless in +Ascalon, what the price of such guardianship must be, he kept it sealed +in his heart. + +They rode on. The lights of Ascalon came up out of the night to meet +their eyes as they raised the last ridge. There Morgan stopped, so +abruptly that she rode on a little way. When he came up to her where she +waited, he was holding out his hand. + +"Here is my badge--the city marshal's badge," he said. "If you can bear +the thought of touching it, or touch it without a thought, I wish you +would return it to Judge Thayer for me. I'm not needed in Ascalon any +longer, I'm quitting the job tonight. Good-bye." + +Morgan laid the badge in her hand as he spoke the last word, turned his +horse quickly, rode back upon their trail. Rhetta wheeled her horse +about, a protest on her lips, a sudden pang in her heart that clamored +to call him back. But no cry rose to summon him to her side, and Morgan, +gloomy as the night around him, went on his way. + +But the lights of Ascalon were blurred as if she looked on them through +a rain-drenched pane when Rhetta faced again to go her way alone, the +marshal's badge clutched in her hand. Remorse was roiling in her breast; +the corrosive poison of regret for too much said, depressed her generous +heart. + +If he had known how to accomplish what he had wrought without blood, he +had said; if he had known. Neither had she known, but she had expected +it of him, she had set him to the task with an unreasonable condition. +Blood was the price. Ascalon exacted blood, always blood. + +The curse of blood, he had said, was on his soul, his voice trembling +with the deep, sad vibration that might have risen from a broken heart. +Yes, there was madness in the wind, in the warping sun, in the hard +earth that denied and mocked the dearest desires of men. It had struck +her, this madness that hollowed out the heart of a man like a worm, +leaving it an unfeeling shell. + +Rhetta had time for reflection when she reached home, and deeper +reflection than had troubled the well of her remorse as she rode. For +there in the light of her room she saw the bullet-mark on the dented +badge, which never had come quite straight for all Morgan's pains to +hammer out its battle scars. A little lead from the bullet still clung +in the grooves of letters, unmistakable evidence of what had marred its +nickled front. + +Conboy had regarded Morgan's warning to keep that matter under his hat, +for he had learned the value of silence at the right time in his long +experience in that town. Nobody else knew of the city marshal's close +escape the night of his great fight. The discovery now came to Rhetta +Thayer with a cold shudder, a constriction of the heart. She stared with +newly awakened eyes at the badge where it lay in her palm, her pale +cheeks cold, her lips apart, shocked by the sudden realization of his +past peril as no word could have expressed. + +Hot thoughts ran in thronging turmoil through her brain, thoughts before +repressed and chilled in her abhorrence of that flood of blood. For her +he had gone into that lair of murderous, defiant men, for her he had +borne the crash of that ball just over his heart. For there he had worn +the badge--just over his honest heart. Perhaps because she had thought +his terrible work had been unjustified, as the spiteful and vicious +told, she had recoiled from him, and the recollection of him standing on +grim guard among the sanguinary wreckage of that awful place. If he had +known any other way, he had said; if he had known! + +Not for the mothers of Ascalon, of whom he had spoken tenderly; not for +the men who came cringing to beg their redemption from the terror and +oppression of the lawless at his hand. Not for them. But for her. So he +had said not half an hour past. + +But he had said no word to remind her where reminder was needed, not an +accusation had he uttered where accusation was so much deserved, that +would bring back to her the plain, hard fact that it was at her earnest +appeal he had undertaken the regeneration of that place. + +On the other hand, he had spoken as if he had assumed the task +voluntarily, to give her the security that she now enjoyed. She had sent +him to this work, expecting him to escape the curse of blood that had +fallen. But she had not shown him the means. And when it fell on him, +saddening his generous heart, she had fled like an ingrate from the +sight of his stern face. Now he was gone, leaving her to the +consideration of these truths, which came rushing in like false +reserves, too late. + +She put out the light and sat by the open window, the scarred badge +between her hands, warming it tenderly as if to console the hurt he had +suffered, wondering if this were indeed the end. This evidence in her +hand was like an absolution; it left him without a stain. The +justification was there presented that removed her deep-seated +abhorrence of his deed. In defense of his own life he had struck them +down. His life; most precious and most dear. And he was gone. + +Was this, indeed, the end? For her romance that had lifted like a bright +flower in an unexpected place for a little day, perhaps; for Ascalon, +not the end. Something of unrest, as an impending storm, something of +the night's insecurity, troubled her as she sat by the window and told +her this. The sense of peace that had made her nights sweet was gone; a +vague terror seemed growing in the silent dark. + +This feeling attended her when she went to bed, harassed her sleep like +a fever, woke her at early dawn and drew her to the window, where she +leaned and listened, straining to define in the stillness the thing that +seemed to whisper a warning to her heart. + +There was nothing in the face of nature to account for this; not a cloud +was on the sky. The town, too, lay still in the mists of breaking +morning, its houses dim, its ways deserted. Alarm seemed unreasonable, +but her heart quivered with it, and shrunk within her as from a chilling +wind. There was no warder at the gate of Ascalon; the sentry was gone. + +Rhetta turned back to her bed, neither quieted of her indefinable +uneasiness nor inclined to resume her troubled sleep. After a little +while she rose again, and dressed. Dread attended her, dread had brooded +on her bosom while she slept uneasily, like a cat breathing its poisoned +breath into her face. + +Dawn had widened when she went to the window again, the mist that clung +to the ground that morning in the unusual coolness was lifting. A +horseman rode past the corner at the bank, stopped his horse in the +middle of the street, turned in his saddle and looked around the quiet +square. + +Other riders followed, slipping in like wolves from the range, seven or +eight of them, their horses jaded as if they had been long upon the +road. Cowboys in with another herd to load, she thought. And with the +thought the first horseman, who had remained this little while in the +middle of the street gazing around the town, rode up to the hitching +rack beside the bank and dismounted. Rhetta gasped, drawing back from +the window, her heart jumping in sudden alarm. + +Seth Craddock! + +There could be no mistaking the man, slow-moving when he dismounted, +tall and sinewy, watchful as a battered old eagle upon its crag. With +these ruffians at his back, gathered from the sweepings of no knowing +how many outlawed camps, he had come in the vengeance that had gathered +like a storm in his evil heart, to punish Ascalon and its marshal for +his downfall and disgrace. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +A SUMMONS AT SUNRISE + + +Three horses were standing in Stilwell's yard, bridle reins on the +ground, as three horses had stood on the morning that Morgan first found +his tortured way to that hospitable door. In the house the Stilwell +family and Morgan were at breakfast, attended by Violet, who bore on +biscuits and ham to go with the coffee that sent its cheer out through +the open door as if to find a traveler and lead him to refreshment. +Behind the cottonwoods along the river, sunrise was about to break. + +"I'm gittin' so I can't wake up of a morning when I sleep in a house," +Stilwell complained, his broad face radiating humor. "I guess I'll have +to take the blankets ag'in, old lady." + +"I guess you can afford to sleep till half-past three in the morning +once in a while," Mrs. Stilwell said complacently. "Why, Mr. Morgan, +that man didn't sleep under a roof once a month the first five or six +years we were on this range! He just laid out like a coyote anywhere +night overtook him, watchin' them cattle like they were children. Now, +what's come of it!" + +This last bitter note, ranging back to their recent loss from Texas +fever, took the cheer out of Stilwell's face. A brooding cloud came over +it; his merry chaff was stilled. + +"Yes, and Drumm'll pay for them eight hundred head of stock he killed +for us, if I have to trail him to his hole in Texas!" Fred declared. +"Suit or no suit, that man's goin' to pay." + +"I don't like to hear you talk that way, honey," his mother chided. + +"Suit!" Fred scoffed; "what does that man care about a suit? He'll never +show his head in this country any more, the next drive he makes he'll +load west of here and we'll never know anything about it. There's just +one way to fix a man like him, and I know the receipt that'll cure _his_ +hide!" + +"If he ever drives another head of stock into this state I'll hear of +it, and I'll attach him. It'll be four or five years before the +railroad's built down into that country, he'll have to drive here or +nowheres. I'll set right here on this range till he comes." + +"Did the rain strike any of your range?" Morgan inquired, eager to turn +them away from this gloomy matter of loss and revenge. + +"Yes, we got a good soakin' over the biggest part of it. Plenty of water +now, grass jumpin' up like spring. It's the purtiest country, Cal, a man +ever set eyes on after a rain." + +"And in the spring," said Mrs. Stilwell, wistfully. + +"And when the wild roses bloom along in May," said Violet. "There's no +place in the world as pretty as this country then." + +"I believe you," Morgan told them, nodding his head in undivided assent. +"Even dry as it is around Ascalon and that country north, it gets hold +of a man." + +"You buy along on the river here somewhere, Cal, and put in a nice +little herd. It won't take you long to make a start, and a good start. +This country ain't begun to see the cattle it will----" + +"Somebody comin'," said Violet, running to the door to see, a plate of +hot biscuits in her hand. + +"Seems to be in a hurry for this early in the day," Stilwell commented, +listening to the approach of a galloping horse. He was not much +interested; horsemen came and went past that door at all hours of the +day and night, generally in a gallop. + +"It's Rhetta!" Violet announced from the door, turning hurriedly to put +the plate of biscuits on the table, where it stood before unheeding +eyes. + +"Rhetta?" Mrs. Stilwell repeated, getting up in excitement. "I wonder +what----" + +Rhetta was at the door, the dust of her arrival making her indistinct to +those who hurried from the unfinished breakfast to learn the cause of +this precipitous visit. Morgan saw her leaning from the saddle, her +loosely confined hair half falling down. + +"Is Mr. Morgan here?" she inquired. + +The girl's voice trembled, her breath came so hard Morgan could hear its +suspiration where he stood. It was evident that she labored under a +tremendous strain of anxiety, arising out of a trouble that Morgan was +at no loss to understand. Yet he remained in the background as Stilwell +and Fred crowded to the door. + +"Why, Rhetty! what's happened?" Stilwell inquired, hurrying out, +followed by his wife and son. Violet was already beside her perturbed +visitor, looking up into her terror-blanched face. + +"Oh, they've come, they've come!" Rhetta gasped. + +"Who?" Stilwell asked, mystified, laying hold of her bridle, shaking it +as if to set her senses right. "Who's come, Rhetty?" + +"I came for Mr. Morgan!" she panted, as weak, it seemed, as a wounded +bird. "I thought he came here--he had your horse." + +"He's here, honey," Mrs. Stilwell told her, consoling her like a hurt +child. + +Morgan did not come forward. He stood as he had risen from his chair at +the table, one hand on the cloth, his head bent as if in a travail of +deepest thought. The shaft of tender new sunlight reaching in through +the open door struck his shoulders and breast, leaving his face in the +shadow that well suited the mood darkening over his soul like a storm. A +thousand thoughts rose up and swirled within him, a thousand harsh +charges, a thousand seeds of bitterness. Rhetta, leaning to peer under +the lintel of the low door, could see him there, and she reached out her +hand, appealing without a word. + +"He is here, honey," Mrs. Stilwell repeated, assuringly, comfortingly. + +"Tell him--tell him--Craddock's come!" Rhetta said. + +"Craddock?" said Stilwell, pronouncing the name with inflection of +surprise. "Oh, I thought something awful had happened to somebody." He +turned with the ease of indifference in his manner, to go back and +finish his meal. "Well, didn't you look for him to come back? I knew all +the time he'd come." + +Morgan lifted his head. The sun, broken by Rhetta's shadow, brightened +on the floor at his feet, and spread its beam upon his breast like a +golden stole. The old wound on his check bone was a scar now, irregular, +broad from the crude surgery that had bound it but illy. Its dark +disfigurement increased the somber gravity of his face, sunburned and +wind-hardened as any ranger's who rode that prairie waste. From where he +stood Morgan could not see the girl's face, only her restless hand on +the bridle rein, the brown of her riding skirt, the beginning of white +at her waist. + +"There ought to be men enough in Ascalon to take care of Craddock," +Violet said. + +"He's not alone, some of those Texas cowboys are with him," Rhetta +explained, her voice firmer, her words quicker. "Mr. Morgan is still +marshal--he gave me his badge, but please tell him I didn't--I forgot to +turn it in with his resignation." + +"I don't see that it's Cal's fight this time, Rhetty," Stilwell said. +"He's done enough for them yellow pups over in Ascalon, to be yelped at +and cussed for savin' their dirty hides." + +"They're looking for him, they think he's hiding!" + +"Well, let 'em look. If they come over here they'll find him--Cal ain't +makin' no secret of where he's at. And they'll find somebody standin' +back to back with him, any time they want to come." Stilwell's +resentment of Ascalon's ingratitude toward his friend was plainer in his +mouth than print. + +"They're going to burn the town to drive him out!" Rhetta said, gasping +in the terror that shook her heart. + +"I guess it'll be big enough to hold all the people that's in it when +they're through," said Stilwell, unfeelingly. + +"Here's his badge," said Rhetta, offering it frantically. "Tell him he's +still marshal!" + +"Yes, you can come for him--now!" said Violet, accusingly. "I told +you--you remember now what I told you!" + +"O Violet, Violet! If you knew what I've paid for that--if you knew!" + +"Not as much as you owe him, if it was the last drop of blood in your +heart!" said Violet. And she turned away, and went and stood by the +door. + +"They'll burn the town!" Rhetta moaned. "Oh, isn't anybody going to help +me--won't you call him, Violet?" + +"No," said Violet. "He can hear you--he'll come if he wants to--if he's +fool enough to do it again!" + +"Violet!" her mother cautioned. + +"How many are with him?" Fred inquired. + +"Seven or eight--I didn't see them all. Pa's collecting a posse to guard +the bank--they're going to rob it!" + +"They're welcome to all I've got in it," Stilwell said. "You better come +in and have a cup of coffee, Rhetty, before----" + +"The one they call the Dutchman's there, and Drumm----" + +"Drumm?" Fred and his father spoke like a chorus, both of them jumping +to alertness. + +"And some others of that gang Mr. Morgan drove out of town. They were +setting the hotel afire when I left!" + +Stilwell did not wait for all of it. He was in the house at a jump, +reaching down his guns which hung beside the door. Close after him Fred +came rushing in, snatching his weapons from the buffalo horns on the +wall. + +"I'm goin' to git service on that man!" Stilwell said. "Are you goin' +with us, Cal?" + +But Cal Morgan did not reply. He went to the bedroom where he had slept, +took up his gun, stood looking at it a moment as if considering +something, snatched his hat from the bedpost and turned back, buckling +his belt. Mrs. Stilwell and Violet were struggling with husband and +brother to restrain them from rushing off to this battle, raising a +turmoil of pleading and protesting at the door. + +As Morgan passed Stilwell, who was greatly impeded in his efforts to +buckle on his guns by his wife's clinging arms and passionate pleadings +to remain at home, Fred broke away from his sister and ran for the +kitchen door. + +"Let Drumm go--let all of them go--let the cattle go, let everything go! +none of it's worth riskin' your life for!" Stilwell's affectionate good +wife pleaded with him. + +"Now, Mother, I'm not goin' to git killed," Morgan heard Stilwell say, +his very assurance calming. But the poor woman, who perhaps had +recollections of past battles and perils which he had gone through, +burst out again, weeping, and clung to him as if she could not let him +go. + +Morgan paused a moment at the threshold, as if reconsidering something. +Violet, who had stood leaning her head on her bent arm, weeping that +Fred was rushing to throw his life away, lifted her tearful face, +reached out and touched his arm. + +"Must you go?" she asked. + +For reply Morgan put out his hand as if to say farewell. She took it, +pressed it a moment to her breast, and ran away, choked on the grief she +could not utter. Morgan stepped out into the sun. + +Rhetta Thayer stood at the door, a little aside, as if waiting for him, +as if knowing he would come. She was agitated by the anxious hope that +spoke out of her white face, but restrained by a fear that could not +hide in her wide-straining eyes. She moved almost imperceptibly toward +him, her lips parted as if to speak, but said nothing. + +As Morgan lifted his hand to his hat in grave salute, passing on, she +offered him the badge of his office which she had held gripped in her +hand. He took it, inclining his head as in acknowledgment of its safe +keeping through the night, and hastened on to one of the horses that +stood dozing on three legs in the early sun. + +As he left her, Rhetta followed a few quick steps, a cry rising in her +heart for him to stay a moment, to spare her one word of forgiveness out +of his grim, sealed lips. But the cry faltered away to a great, stifling +sob, while tears rose hot in her eyes, making him dim in her sight as he +threw the rein over the horse's head, starting the animal out of its +sleep with a little squatting jump. She stood so, stretching out her +hands to him, while he, unbending in his stern answer to the challenge +of duty, unseeing in the hard bitterness of his heart, swung into the +saddle and rode away. + +Rhetta groped for her saddle, blind in her tears. Morgan was hidden by +the dust that hung in the quiet morning behind him as she mounted and +followed. + +Half a mile or so along the road, Fred passed her, bending low as he +rode, as if his desire left the saddle and carried him ahead of his +horse; a little while, and Stilwell thundered by, leaving her last and +alone on that road leading to what adventures her heart shrunk in her +bosom to contemplate. + +Ahead of her the smoke of Ascalon's destruction rose high. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +IN THE SQUARE AT ASCALON + +Morgan had time for a bitter train of reflection as he rode, never +looking behind him to see who came after. Whether Stilwell would yield +to his wife's appeal and remain at home, whether Fred could be bent from +his fiery desire to be avenged on the author of their calamity, he took +no trouble to surmise. He only knew that he, Calvin Morgan, was rushing +again to combat at the call of this girl whose only appeal was in the +face of dreadful peril, whose only service was that of blood. + +She had come again, this time like a messenger bearing a command, to +call him back to a duty which he believed he had relinquished and put +down forever. And solely because it would be treasonable to that duty +which still clung to him like a tenacious cobweb, he was riding into the +smoke of the burning town. + +So he told himself as he galloped on, but never believing for a moment +in the core of his heart that it was true. Deep within him there was a +response to a more tender call than the stern trumpeting of duty--the +answer to an appeal of remorseful eyes, of a pleading heart that could +not bear the shame of the charge that he was hiding and afraid. For her, +and his place of honor in her eyes, he was riding to Ascalon that hour. +Not for Ascalon, and those in it who had snarled at his heels. For her, +not the larger duty of a sworn officer of the law riding to defend and +protect the lives and property under his jurisdiction. + +Morgan pulled up his horse at the edge of town, to consider his +situation. He had left Stilwell's in such haste, and in the midst of +such domestic anguish, that he had neglected to bring one of the +rancher's rifles with him. His only weapon was his revolver, and the +ammunition at his belt was scant, due to the foolish security of the +days when he believed Seth Craddock never would return. He must pick up +a gun somewhere, and ammunition. + +There was some scattered shooting going on in the direction of the +square, but whether the citizens were gathering to the defense of the +town, or the raiders were firing admonitory shots to keep them indoors, +Morgan could not at that distance tell. He rode on, considering his most +urgent necessity of more arms, concluding to ride straight for Judge +Thayer's house and borrow his buffalo rifle. + +He swung into the road that led past Judge Thayer's house, which +thoroughfare entered the square at the bank corner, still about a +quarter of a mile away. As he came round the turn of the road he saw, a +few hundred yards ahead of him, a man hurrying toward the square with a +gun in his hand. A spurt of speed and Morgan was beside him, leaning +over, demanding the gun. + +It was the old man who had jumped out of his reverie on the morning of +Morgan's first return to Ascalon, and menaced him with the crook of his +hickory stick. The veteran was going now without the comfort of his +stick, making pretty good time, eager in the rousing of fires long +stilled in his cooling heart. He began trotting on when he recognized +Morgan, shouting for him to hurry. + +"Lend me your gun, Uncle John--I left mine in the hotel," Morgan said. + +"Hell, what'll I do then?" said Uncle John, unwilling to give it up. + +Morgan was insistent. He commandeered the weapon in the name of the law. +That being the case, Uncle John handed it up to him, with a word of +affection for it, and a little swearing over his bad luck. + +It was a double-barreled buffalo rifle, a cap-and-ball gun of very old +pattern, belonging back in the days of Parkman and the California Trail, +and the two charges which it bore were all that Morgan could hope to +expend, for Uncle John carried neither pouch nor horn. But Morgan was +thankful for even that much, and rode on. + +A little way ahead a man, hatless, wild-haired, came running out from +his dooryard, having witnessed Morgan's levying on Uncle John's gun and +read his reason for it. This citizen rushed into the road and offered a +large revolver, which Morgan leaned and snatched from his hand as he +galloped by. But it hadn't a cartridge in its chambers, and its caliber +was not of Morgan's ammunition. Still, he rode on with it in his hand, +hoping that it might serve its turn. + +Morgan galloped on toward the square, where a great volume of smoke hid +the courthouse and all of the town that lay before the wind. He hoped to +meet somebody there with a gun worth while, although he had no +immediate plan for pitching into the fight and using it. That must be +fixed for him by circumstances when he confronted them. + +Women and children stood in the dooryards watching the fire that was +cutting through the thin-walled buildings on that side of the +square--the hotel side--as if they were strawboard boxes. They were +silent in the great climax of fear; they stood as people stand, +straining and waiting, watching the approach of a tornado, no safety in +flight, no refuge at hand. There was but one man in sight, and he was +running like a jack rabbit across the staked ground behind Judge +Thayer's office, heading for the prairie. It was Earl Gray, the +druggist. He was covering sixteen feet at a jump. When he saw Morgan +galloping into the town, Gray stopped, darted off at an angle as if he +were going on some brave and legitimate excursion, and disappeared. + +The Elkhorn hotel was well under way of destruction, its roof already +fallen, its thin walls bending inward, perforated in a score of places +by flames. The head of the street was unguarded; Morgan rode on and +halted at the edge of the square. + +Smoke blotted out everything in the square, except for a little shifting +by the rising wind which revealed the courthouse, the pigeons in wild +flight around the tower. There was not a man in sight, neither raider +nor defender. Across on the other side of the square, as if they +defended that part from being set on fire, the citizens were doing some +shooting with rifles, even shotguns, as Morgan could define by the +sound. The raiders were there, for they were answering with shot and +yell. + +Morgan caught the flutter of a dress at the farther corner of the +bank--a little squat brick building this was--where some woman stood and +watched. He rode around, and at the sound of his approach a gun-barrel +was trained on him, and a familiar fair head appeared, cheek laid +against the rifle stock in a most determined and competent way. + +"Dora! don't shoot!" Morgan shouted. In a moment he was on the ground +beside her, and Dora Conboy was handing him his own rifle, pride and +relief in her blue eyes. + +"I knew you'd come, I told them you'd come!" she said. + +"How did you save it--what are you doing here, Dora?" he asked in +amazement. + +"I was layin' for Craddock! If he'd 'a' come around that corner--but it +was you!"--with a sigh of relief. + +"Have you got any shells, Dora?" + +"No, I didn't have time to grab anything but your gun--I run to your +room when they set the hotel afire and drove us out." + +"You're the bravest man in town!" he praised her, patting her shoulder +as if she were a very little girl, indeed. "Where are they all?" + +"They've locked Riley, and Judge Thayer, and all the men that's got a +fight in 'em up in jail with the sheriff. Pa got away--he's over there +where you hear that shootin'--but he can't hit nothin'!" Dora said, in +hopeless disgust. + +Morgan saw with relief that the magazine of his rifle was full, and a +shot in the barrel. He took Dora by the hand, turning away from his +haste to mount as if it came to him as an after-thought to thank her for +this great help. + +"There's going to be a fight, Dora," he said. "You'd better get behind +the bank, and keep any of the women and children there that happen +along. You're a brave, good little soul, I'll never forget you for what +you've done for me today. Please take care of this gun--it belongs to +Uncle John." + +He was up in the saddle with the last word, and gone, galloping into the +pitchy black smoke that swirled like a turgid flood from burning Ascalon +across the square. + +Morgan's thought was to locate the raiders' horses and cut them off, if +it should be that some of the rascals were still on foot setting fires, +as it seemed likely from the smell of kerosene, that they were. It would +increase his doubtful chances to meet as many of them on foot as +possible. This was his thought. + +He made out one mounted man dimly through the blowing smoke, watching in +front of the Santa Fe cafe, but recently set on fire. This fellow +doubtless was stationed there on the watch for him, Morgan believed, +from the close attention he was giving the front door of the place, out +of which a volume of grease-tainted smoke rolled. He wondered, with a +little gleam of his saving humor, what there was in his record since +coming to Ascalon that gave them ground for the belief that it was +necessary to burn a house to bring him out of it to face a fight. + +Morgan rode on a little way across the square, not twenty yards behind +this raider, the sound of his horse silenced in the roar of fire and +growing wind. The heat of the place was terrific; burning shingles +swirled on the wind, coals and burning brands fell in a rain all over +the square. At the corner of the broad street that came into the square +at Peden's hall, another raider was stationed. + +The citizens who were making a weak defense were being driven back, the +sound of firing was behind the stores, and falling off as if the raiders +pressed them hard. Morgan quickly concluded that Craddock and the rest +of the outfit were over there silencing this resistance, probably in the +belief that he was concerned in it. + +This seemed to be his moment for action, yet arresting any of them was +out of the question, and he did not want to be the aggressor in the +bloodshed that must finish this fiendish morning's work. Hopeless as his +situation appeared, justified as he would have been in law and reason +for opening fire without challenge, he waited the further justification +of his own conscience. They had come looking for him; let them find him +here in their midst. + +Fire was rising high among the stripped timbers of Peden's hall, purging +it of its debauchery and blood. On the rising wind the flames were +licking up Gray's drug-store, the barber shop beside it, the newspaper +office, the Santa Fe cafe and the incidental small shops between them +and Peden's like a windrow of burning straw. A little while would +suffice to see their obliteration, a little longer to witness the +destruction of the town if the wind should carry the coals and blazing +shingles to other roofs, dry as the sered grasses of the plain. + +The sound of this fire set by Seth Craddock in celebration of his return +to Ascalon was in Morgan's ears like the roar of the sea; the heat of it +drew the tough skin of his face as he rode fifty yards from it into the +center of the square. There he stopped, his rifle across his breast, +waiting for the discovery. + +The man in the street near Peden's was the first to see and recognize +him as he waited there on his horse in the pose of challenge, in the +expectant, determined attitude of defense. This fellow yelled the alarm +and charged, breakneck through the smoke, shooting as he came. + +Morgan fired one shot, offhand. The charging horse reared, stood so a +moment as rigidly as if fixed by bronze in that pose, its rider leaning +forward over its neck. Then, in whatever terrible pang that such sudden +stroke of death visits, it flung itself backward, the girths snapping +from its distended belly. The rider was flung aside, where Morgan saw +him lying, head on one extended arm, like a dog asleep in the sun. + +The others came whooping their triumphant challenge and closed in on +Morgan then, and the battle of his life began. + +How many were circling him as he stood in the center of the square, or +as close to the center as he could draw, near the courthouse steps, +Morgan did not know. Some had come from behind the courthouse, others +from the tame fight with the citizens back of the stores not yet on +fire. + +The dust that rose from their great tumult of charge and galloping +attack, mingling with the smoke that trailed the ground, was Morgan's +protection and salvation. Nothing else saved him from almost immediate +death in the fury of their assault. + +Morgan fired at the fleeting figures as they moved in obscurity through +this stifling cloud, circling him like Indians of the plains, shouting +to each other his location, drawing in upon him a little nearer as they +rode. He turned and shifted, yet he was a target all too plain for +anything he could do to lessen his peril. + +A horse came plunging toward him through the blinding swirl, plain for a +flash of wild-flying mane and tossing rein, its saddle empty, fleeing +from the scene of fire-swept conflict as if urged on by the ghost of the +rider it had lost. + +Bullets clipped Morgan's saddle as the raiders circled him in a wild +fete of shots and yells. One struck his rifle, running down the barrel +to the grip like a lightning bolt, spattering hot lead on his hand; +another clicked on the ornament of the Spanish bit, frightening his +horse, before that moment as steady as if at work on the range. The +shaken creature leaped, bunching its body in a shuddering knot. Blood +ran from its mouth in a stream. + +A shot ripped through the high cantle of the saddle; one seared Morgan's +back as it rent his shirt. The horse leaped, to come down stiff-legged +like an outlaw, bleeding head thrust forward, nose close to the ground. +Then it reared and plunged, striking wildly with fore feet upon the +death-laden air. + +In leaping to save himself from entanglement as the creature fell, +Morgan dropped his rifle. Before he could recover himself from the +spring out of the saddle, the horse, thrashing in the paroxysm of death, +struck the gun with its shod fore foot, snapping the stock from the +barrel. + +Dust was in Morgan's eyes and throat, smoke burned in his scorched +lungs. The smell of blood mingling with dust was in his nostrils. The +heat of the increasing fire was so great that Morgan flung himself to +the ground beside his horse, with more thought of shielding himself from +that torture than from the inpouring rain of lead. + +How many were down among the raiders he did not know; whether the people +had heard the noise of this fight and were coming to his assistance, he +could not tell. Dust and smoke flew so thick around him that the +courthouse not three rods away, was visible only by dim glimpses; the +houses around the square he could not see at all. + +The raiders flashed through the smoke and dust, here seen in a rift for +one brief glance, there lost in the swathing pall that swallowed all but +their high-pitched yells and shots. Morgan was certain of only one thing +in that hot, panting, brain-cracking moment--that he was still alive. + +Whether whole or hurt, he did not know, scarcely considered. The marvel +of it was that he still lived, like a wolf at the end of the chase +ringed round by hounds. Lived, lead hissing by his face, lead lifting +his hair, lead knocking dirt into his eyes as he lay along the carcass +of his horse, his body to the ground like a snake. + +Morgan felt that it would be his last fight. In the turmoil of smoke and +dust, his poor strivings, his upward gropings out of the dark; his glad +inspirations, his thrilling hopes, must come to an obscure end. It was a +miserable way to die, nothing to come out of it, no ennobling sacrifice +demanding it to lift a man's name beyond his day. In the history of this +violent place, this death-struggle against overwhelming numbers would be +only an incident. Men would say, in speaking of it, that his luck failed +him at last. + +Morgan discovered with great concern that he had no cartridges left but +those in the chambers of his revolver. He considered making a dash for +the side of the square not yet on fire, where he might find support, at +least make a further stand with the arms and ammunition every +storekeeper had at hand. + +As these thoughts swept him in the few seconds of their passing, Morgan +lay reserving his precious cartridges. The momentary suspension of his +defense, the silence of his rifle's defiant roar, which had held them +from closing in, perhaps led his assailants to believe him either dead +or disabled. They also stopped shooting, and the capricious wind, now +rising to a gale as it rushed into the fiery vacuum, bent down and +wheeled away the dust and smoke like a curtain suddenly drawn aside. + +Craddock and such of his men as were left out of that half-minute +battle were scattered about the square in a more or less definite circle +around the spot where Morgan lay behind his horse, the nearest to him +being perhaps thirty yards away. The citizens of the town who had been +resisting the raiders, had come rushing to the square at the diversion +of the fight to that center. These began firing now on the raiders from +windows and doors and the corners of buildings. Craddock sent three of +his men charging against this force, now become more courageous and +dangerous, and with two at his side, one of whom was the Dutchman, he +came riding over to investigate Morgan's situation. + +Morgan could see the Dutchman's face as he spurred on ahead of the +others. Pale, with a pallor inborn that sun and wind could not shade, a +wide grin splitting his face, the Dutchman came on eagerly, no doubt in +the hope that he would find a spark of conscious life in Morgan that he +could stamp out in some predesigned cruelty. + +The Dutchman was leaning forward as he rode, revolver lifted to throw +down for a quick shot. When he had approached within two lengths of his +horse, Morgan lifted himself from the ground and fired. The Dutchman +sagged over the horn of his saddle like a man asleep, his horse +galloping on in panic. As it passed Morgan the Dutchman pitched from the +saddle, drug a little way by one encumbered foot, the frantic horse +plunging on. Fred Stilwell, closely followed by his father, came riding +into the square. + +Morgan leaped to his feet, new hope in him at sight of this friendly +force. Craddock's companion turned to meet Fred with the fire of two +revolvers. One of the three sent a moment before to dislodge the +citizens, turned back to join this new battle. + +Morgan had marked this man as Drumm from the beginning. He was a florid, +heavy man, his long mustache strangely white against the inflamed +redness of his face. He carried a large roll covered with black oilcloth +behind his saddle. + +Morgan wasted one precious cartridge in a shot at this man as he passed. +The raider did not reply. He was riding straight to meet Stilwell and +Fred, to whom Craddock also turned his attention when he saw Morgan's +rifle broken on the ground. It was as if Craddock felt him out of the +fight, to be finished at leisure. + +Morgan left his dubious shelter of the fallen horse and ran to meet his +friends, hoping to reach one of them and replenish his ammunition. Fred +Stilwell was coming up with the wind, his dust blowing ahead of him on +the sweeping gale. At his first shot the man who had left Craddock's +side to attack him pitched from his saddle, hands thrown out before him +as if he dived into eternity. The next breath Fred reeled in his saddle +and fell. + +The man with the oilcloth roll at his saddle yelled in exultation, +lifting his gun high in challenge to Stilwell, who rode to meet him. A +moment Stilwell halted where Fred lay, as if to dismount, then galloped +furiously forward to avenge his fall. The two raiders who had gone +against the townsmen, evidently believing that the battle was going +against them, spurred for the open country. + +Craddock was bearing down on Morgan, the fight being apportioned now +man to man. Morgan heard Stilwell's big gun roaring when he turned to +face Craddock, vindictive, grim, who came riding upon him with no word +of challenge, no shout of triumph in what seemed his moment of victory. + +Morgan was steady and unmoved. The ground was under his feet, his arm +was not disturbed by the rock of a galloping horse. He lifted his weapon +and fired. Craddock's horse went down to its knees as if it had struck a +gopher hole, and Craddock, horseman that he was, pitched out of the +saddle and fell not two yards from Morgan's feet. + +In falling, Craddock dropped his gun. He was scrambling for it when +Morgan, no thought in him of mercy, threw his weapon down for the +finishing shot. The hammer clicked on an empty shell. And Craddock, on +hands and knees, agile as a bear, was reaching one long hairy arm to +clutch his lost gun. + +Morgan threw himself headlong upon the desperado, crushing him flat to +the ground. With a sprawling kick he sent Craddock's gun far out of +reach, and they closed, with the weapons nature had given them, for the +last struggle in the drama of their lives. + +The stage was empty for them of anything that moved, save only +Craddock's horse, which Morgan's last shot, confident as he was when he +aimed it, had no more than maimed with a broken leg. To the right of +them Fred Stilwell lay, his face in the dust, his arms outspread, his +hat close by; on the other hand the Dutchman's body sprawled, his legs, +flung out as if he had died running. And near this unsightly wreckage of +a worthless wretch Morgan's horse stretched, in the lazy posture of an +animal asleep in a sunny pasture. + +Behind them the fire that was eating one side of the square away rose +and bent, roared and crackled, sighed and hissed, flinging up long +flames which broke as they stabbed into the smoke. Morgan felt the fire +hot on his neck as he bent over Craddock, throwing the strain of every +tendon to hold the old villain to the ground. + +Craddock writhed, jointless as a snake, it seemed, under the grip of +Morgan's hand at his spiney throat, squirmed and turned and fought to +his knees. They struggled and battled breast to breast, until they stood +on their feet, locked in a clinch out of which but one of them, Morgan +was determined, should come a living man. + +Morgan had dropped his empty revolver when he flung himself on Craddock. +There was no inequality between them except such as nature had given in +the strength of arm and back. They swayed in silent, terrible +determination each to have the other's life, and Morgan had a glimpse, +as he turned, of women and children watching them from the corner near +the bank, huddled groups out of which he knew many a hope went out for +his victorious issue. + +Craddock was a man of sinews as hard as bow strings; his muscles were +like dried beef. Strong as Morgan was, he felt that he was losing +ground. Then, by some trick learned perhaps in savage camps, Craddock +lifted him, and flung him with stunning force against the hard ground. + +There they rolled, clawing, striking, grappling at each other's +throats. As if surf made sport of them on the shelving sands they +rolled, one upper-most now, the other then. And they fought and rolled +until Morgan felt something hard under his oppressed back, and groped +for it in the star-shot agony of sinewy fingers choking out his life. +His empty gun. It seemed that he grasped it in delirium, and struck with +it in the blindness of hovering death. + +When Morgan staggered to his feet there was blood in his mouth; the +sound of the fiery turmoil around him was hushed in the roar of blood in +his ears. He stood weakly a moment, looking at the pistol in his hand. +The blow he had laid along Craddock's head had broken the cylinder pin. +Meditatively Morgan looked at it again, then threw it down as an +abandoned and useless thing. It fell close by where Craddock lay, blood +running from a wound on his temple. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +ABSOLUTION + + +Morgan stood looking down on the man whom he had overcome in the climax +of that desperate hour, wondering if he were dead. He did not stoop to +investigate; from where he stood no sign of life disturbed Craddock's +limp body. Morgan was thinking now that they would say of him in Ascalon +that luck had been with him to the last. + +Not prowess, at any rate; he did not claim to that. Perhaps luck was as +good a name as any for it, but it was something that upheld his hand and +stimulated his wit in crises such as he had passed in Ascalon that +eventful fortnight. + +A band of men came around the corner past Peden's hall, now only a +vanishing skeleton of beams, bringing with them the two raiders who had +attempted to escape by that avenue to the open prairie. The two were +still mounted, the crowd that surrounded them was silent and ominous. +Morgan waited until they came up, when, with a sign toward Craddock, +which relinquished all interest in and responsibility for him to the +posse comitatus, he turned away to hasten to Fred Stilwell's side. + +Tom Conboy had reached the fallen youth--he was little more than a +boy--and was kneeling beside him, lifting his head. + +"God! they killed a woman over there--and a man!" Conboy said. + +"Is he dead?" Morgan inquired, his voice hoarse and strange. + +"He's shot through the lung, he's breathin' through his back," Conboy +replied, shaking his head sadly. "But I've seen men live shot up worse +than Fred is," he added. "It takes a big lot of lead to kill a man +sometimes." + +"We must carry him out of this heat," Morgan said. + +They carried him across the square to that part of the business front +the fire had not yet leaped over to and taken, and laid him in a little +strip of shade in front of the harness store. Conboy hurried off to see +if he could find the doctor. + +Morgan wadded a handkerchief against the wound in Fred's back, whence +the blood bubbled in frothy stream at every weak inspiration, and let +him down gently upon that insufficient pad to wait the doctor, not +having it in his power to do more. He believed the poor fellow would die +with the next breath, and looked about to see if Stilwell were in sight. +Stilwell was nowhere to be seen, his pursuit of Drumm having led him +far. But approaching Morgan were five or six men carrying guns, their +faces clouded with what seemed an unfriendly severity. + +"We want to have a word or two with you over in the square," one of them +said. + +Morgan recognized all of them as townsmen. He looked at them in +undisguised surprise, completely lost for the meaning of the blunt +request. + +"All right," he said. + +"The doctor will be here in a minute, he's gone for his case," one of +them volunteered. + +Relieved by the word, Morgan thanked him, and returned with them to the +place where a growing crowd of men stood about Seth Craddock and the two +prisoners who had been taken in their attempt to escape. Craddock was +sitting on the ground, head drooping forward, a man's knee at his back. +And Earl Gray, a revolver in his hand, no hat on, his hair flying forty +ways, was talking. + +"If he'd 'a' been here tendin' to duty under his oath, in place of +skulkin' out and leavin' the town wide open to anybody that wanted to +set a match to it, this thing wouldn't 'a' happened, I tell you, +gentlemen. Look at it! look at my store, look at the _ho_-tel, look at +everything on that side of the square! Gone to hell, every stick of it! +And that's the man to blame!" + +Gray indicated Morgan with a thrust of his gun, waving one hand +dramatically toward the ruin. A sound, more a growl than a groan, ran +through the crowd, which now numbered not fewer than thirty or forty +men. + +The sight of the destruction was enough, indeed, to make them growl, or +even groan. Everything on that side of the square was leveled but a few +upstanding beams, the fire was rioting among the fallen rafters, eating +up the floors that had borne the trod of so many adventurous feet. The +hotel was a ruin, Gray's store only a recollection, the little shops +between it and Peden's long, hollow skeleton of a barn already coals. + +Men, women, and children were on the roofs of buildings across the +street from Peden's, pouring precious water over the fires which sprang +from falling brands. It seemed that this shower of fire must overwhelm +them very soon, and engulf the rest of the business houses, making a +clean sweep of everything but the courthouse and the bank. The +calaboose, in its isolation, was still safe. + +"Where was you last night?" Gray demanded, insolence in his narrow face +as he turned again to Morgan, poking out with his gun as if to vex the +answer from him as one prods a growl from a dog. + +"None of your ---- business!" Morgan replied, rising into a rage as +sudden as it was unwise, the unworthiness of the object considered. He +made a quick movement toward Gray as he spoke, which brought upon him +the instant restraint of many hands. + +"You don't grab no gun from nobody here!" one said. + +"Why wasn't you here attendin' to business when that gang rode in this +morning?" one at Morgan's side demanded. It was the barber; his shop was +gone, his razors were fused among the ashes. + +Morgan ignored him, regretting at once the flash of passion that had +betrayed him into their hands. For they were madmen--mad with the +torture of hot winds and straining hopes that withered and fell; mad +with their losses of that day, mad with the glare of sun of many days, +and the stricken earth under their bound and sodden feet; mad with the +very bareness of their inconsequential lives. + +Seth Craddock heaved up to his knees, struggled to his feet with quick, +frantic lumbering, like a horse clambering out of the mire. He stood +weaving, his red eyes watching those around him, perhaps reading +something of the crowd's threat in the growl that ran through it, +beginning in the center as it died on the edge, quieting not at all. His +hat was off, dust was in his hair, a great welted wound was black on his +temple, the blood of it caked with dust on his face. + +The two prisoners on horseback, one of them wounded so badly his life +did not seem worth a minute's reprieve, were pulled down; all were +bunched with Morgan in the middle of the mob. Gray began again with his +denunciation, Morgan hearing him only as the wind, for his attention was +fixed on the activities of Dell Hutton, working with insidious swiftness +and apparent success among the mob. + +Hutton did not look at Morgan as he passed with low word from man to +man, sowing the poison of his vindictive hate against this man who had +compelled him to be honest once against his bent. A moment Hutton paused +in conference with the blacksmith, and that man came forward now, +silenced Gray with a word and pushed him aside. + +The blacksmith was a knotty short man of Slavic features, a cropped +mustache under his stubby nose. His shop was burning in the ruin of that +tragic morning; the blame of it was Morgan's. Others whose business +places had been erased in the fire were recognized by Morgan in the +crowd. The proprietor of the Santa Fe cafe, the cobbler, the Mexican who +sold tamales and chili--none of them of any consequence ordinarily, but +potent of the extreme of evil now, merged as they were into that +unreasoning thing, the mob. + +There were murmured suggestions, rejections; talk of the cross-arms on +the telegraph poles, which at once became determined, decisive. Men +pushed through the press with ropes. Seth Craddock looked across at +Morgan, and cursed him. One of the prisoners, the unwounded man, a youth +no older than Fred Stilwell, began to beg and cry. + +Morgan had not been alarmed up to the moment of his seeing Hutton +inflaming the crowd against him, for the mob was composed of men whose +faces were for the greater part familiar, mild men in their way, whom +the violence in which they had lived had passed and left untouched. But +they held him with strong hands; they were making ready a noose to throw +over his head and strangle his life out in the shame that belongs to +murderers and thieves. + +This had become a matter beyond his calculation; this should not be. +There were guns in men's hands all about him where guns did not belong. +Morgan threw his determination and strength into a fling that cleared +his right arm, and began a battle that marked for life some of them who +clung to him and tried to drag him down. + +They were crushing him, they were overwhelming him. Only a sudden jerk +of the head, a dozen determined, silent men hanging to him, saved +Morgan's neck from the flung rope. The man who cast it cursed; was +drawing it back with eager haste to throw again, when Rhetta Thayer +came. + +She came pushing through the mad throng about Morgan, he heard her +command to clear the way; she was beside him, the mystery of her swift +passage through the mob made plain. Seth Craddock's guns, given her as a +trophy of that day when Morgan lassoed the meat hunter, were in her +hands, and in her eyes there was a death warrant for any wretch that +stood in her way. She gave the weapons to Morgan, her breathing audible +over the hush that fell in the failing of their cowed hearts. + +"Drop your guns!" Morgan commanded. + +There was a panic to comply. Steel and nickel, ivory handle, old navy +and new Colt's, flashed in the sun as they were dropped in the little +open space at Morgan's feet. + +"Clear out of here!" + +Morgan's sharp order was almost unnecessary. Those on the edge of the +crowd were beginning already to sneak off; a little way, looking back +over shoulders, and they began to run. They dispersed like dust on the +wind, leaving behind them their weapons which would identify them for +the revenge this terrible, invincible, miraculously lucky man might come +to their doors and exact. + +The thought was terrifying. They did not stop at the margin of the +square to look back to see if he pressed his vengeance at their heels. +Only the shelter of cyclone cellar, sequestered patches of corn, the +willows along the distant river, would give them the respite from the +terror of this outreaching hand necessary to a full, free breath. + +The sheriff had released himself from jail, with Judge Thayer and the +valorous Riley Caldwell, and twenty or more others who had been locked +up with them. The sheriff, humiliated, resentful, red with the anger +that choked him--for it was safe now to be as angry as he could lash +himself--came stalking up to where Morgan held Craddock and the +unwounded raider off from the tempting heap of weapons thrown down by +the mob. The sheriff began to abuse Craddock, laying to him all the +villainy of ancestry and life that his well-schooled tongue could shape. +Morgan cut him off with a sharp word. + +"Take these men and lock them up!" + +"Yes, sir, Mr. Morgan, you bet your life I'll lock 'em up!" the sheriff +agreed. + +"Hold them for a charge of arson and murder," Judge Thayer commanded +sternly. "And see that you _do_ hold them!" + +Judge Thayer came on to where Morgan stood, the surrendered weapons at +his feet, Rhetta beside him, pride higher than the heavens in her eyes. + +"I can't apologize for them, I can't even try," said the judge, with a +humility in his word and manner quite new and strange, indicating the +members of the fast-scattering mob. He made himself as small as he felt +by his way of approaching this man who had pitched his life like a coin +of little value into the gamble of that tragic day. + +"Never mind trying--it's only an incident," Morgan told him, full of +another thought. + +"I'll see that he locks Craddock and the other two up safe, then I'll +have these guns picked up for evidence. I'm going to lay an information +against every man of them in that mob with the prosecuting attorney!" + +"Let them go, Judge Thayer--I'd never appear against them," Morgan said. + +Judge Thayer appeared to be dazed by the events of that day, crowded to +their fearful climax of destruction of property and life. He was lacking +in his ready words, older, it seemed, by many years, crushed under the +weight of this terrible calamity that had fallen on his town. He went +away after the sheriff, leaving Morgan and Rhetta, the last actors on +the stage in the drama of Ascalon's downfall, alone. + +Beyond them the fire raged in the completion of the havoc that was far +beyond any human labor to stay. The heat of it was scorching even where +they stood; coals, blazing fragments, were blown about their feet on the +turbulent wind. The black-green smoke still rose in great volume, +through which the sun was red. On the flank of the fire those who +labored to confine its spread shouted in the voice of dismay. It was an +hour of desolation; it was the day of doom. + +"Thank you for my life," said Morgan. "I've put a new valuation on it +since you've gone to so much trouble to save it." + +"Don't speak cynically about it, Mr. Morgan!" she said, hurt by his +tone. + +"I'm not cynical," he gravely assured her. "My life wasn't worth much to +me this morning when I left Stilwell's. It has acquired a new value +now." + +All this time Morgan had stood holding Seth Craddock's big revolvers in +his hands, as if he distrusted the desolation of the fire-sown square. +Now he sheathed one of them in his holster, and thrust the other under +his belt. His right hand was bleeding, from wounds of the bullet that +had struck his rifle-barrel and sprayed hot lead into his flesh, and +from the blows he had dealt in his fury amongst the mob. + +Rhetta put out her hand and took his, bleeding and torn and +battle-maimed as it was, and lifted it tenderly, and nestled it against +her cheek. + +"Dear, brave hand!" she said. + +"You're not afraid of it now!" he wondered, putting out his free hand as +if he offered it also for the absolution of her touch. + +"It was only the madness of the wind," she told him, the sorrow of her +penance in her simple words. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +SUNSET + + +Evening saw the fires of Ascalon subdued and confined. With the falling +of the wind the danger of the disaster spreading to embrace the entire +town decreased almost to safety, although the wary, scorched townsmen +stood watch over the smoldering coals which lay deep where the principal +part of Ascalon lately stood. + +Fred Stilwell had been taken to Judge Thayer's house, where his mother +and Violet attended him. The doctor said youth and a clean body would +carry him through. As for Drumm, whose bullet had brought the young man +down, his horse with the black saddle-roll had stood hitched to Judge +Thayer's fence until evening, when the sheriff came with a writ of +attachment in Stilwell's favor and took it away. Drumm's body was lying +on a board in the calaboose, diverted for that dark day in Ascalon's +history into a morgue. + +The sheriff reported that the Texas cattleman had carried more than +fifty thousand dollars in currency behind his saddle. That was according +to the custom of the times, and usage of the range, where many a man's +word was as good as his bond, but no man's check was as good as money. + +Tom Conboy was already hiring carpenters to rebuild the hotel, his eye +full of the business that would come to his doors when the railroad +shops were running, and the trainmen of the division point were there +to be housed and fed. Dora and Riley had been wandering around town all +afternoon, very much like two pigeons looking for a place to nest. + +And so evening found peace in Ascalon, after all its tragedy and pain. + +Calvin Morgan and Rhetta Thayer stood at the bank corner at sunset, +looking down the square where the great gap in its front made the scene +unfamiliar. Morgan's disabled hand was bandaged; there was a cross of +surgical tape on his chin, closing a deep cut where some citizen had +tapped him with a revolver in the last fight of that tumultuous day. + +Little groups of desolate, disheartened people stood along the line of +hitching racks; dead coals, which the wind had sown as living fire over +the square, littered the white dust. Morgan had taken off his badge of +office, having made a formal resignation to Judge Thayer, mayor of the +town. Nobody had been sworn in to take his place, for, as Judge Thayer +had said, it did not appear as if any further calamity could be left in +store among the misfortunes for that town, except it might be an +earthquake or a cyclone, and a city marshal, even Morgan, could not fend +against them if they were to come. + +"You have trampled your place among the thorns," said Rhetta. + +"It looks like I've pulled a good deal down with me," he returned, +viewing the seat of fire with a softening of pity in his grave face. + +"All that deserves to rise will rise again," she said in confidence. +"It's a good thing it burned--it's purged of its old shame and old +monuments of corruption. I'm glad it's gone." + +There was a quiet over the place, as if the heart of turbulence had been +broken and its spirit had taken flight. In the southwest, in the faces +of the two watchers at the margin of this ruin, a vast dark cloud stood +like a landfall rising in the mariner's eye out of the sea. It had been +visible since four o'clock, seeming to hesitate as if nature intended +again to deny this parched and suffering land the consolation of rain. +Now it was rising, already it had overspread the sunset glow, casting a +cool shadow full of promise over the thirsting prairie wastes. + +"It will rain this time," Rhetta prophesied. "It always comes up slowly +that way when it rains a long time." + +"A rain will work wonders in this country," he said, his face lifted to +the promise of the cloud. + +"And wisdom and faith will do more," she told him, her voice tender and +low. + +"And love," said he, voice solemn as a prophet's, yet gentle as a +dove's. + +"And love," she whispered, the wind, springing like an inspiration +before the rain, lifting her shadowy hair. + +Joe Lynch came driving into the stricken square down the road beside +them, bringing a load of bones. + +"Had to burn the town to fetch a rain, huh?" said Joe, his ghostly dry +old face tilted to catch the savor of the wind. So saying, he drove on, +and paused not in his labor of off-bearing the waste of failure that +must be cleared for the new labor of wisdom, faith, and love. + + * * * * * + +Thirty years will do for a cottonwood what two centuries will do for an +oak. Thirty years had built the cottonwoods of great girth, and lifted +them in dignity high above the roof of Calvin Morgan's white farmhouse, +his great barns and granaries. Elm trees, bringing their blessings of +wide-spreading branch more slowly, led down a broad avenue to the white +manse with its Ionian portico. Over the acres of smooth, luxuriant green +lawn, the long shadows of closing day reached like the yearning of men's +unfinished dreams. + +Before the house a broad roadway, smooth as a city boulevard, ran +straight to the bright, clean, populous city where Ascalon, with its +forgotten shame and tragedies, once stood. And far and away, over the +swell of gentle ridge, into the dip of gracious valley, spread the +benediction of growing wheat. Wisdom and faith and love had worked their +miracle. This land had become the nation's granary; it was a land +redeemed. + + * * * * * + +Under the giant cottonwoods, gray-green of leaf as the desert grasses +were gray-green in the old cattle days, the brown walls, the low roof, +of a sod house stood, the lawn clipped smooth around its humble door, +lilac clumps green beside its walls, sweet honeysuckle clambering over +its little porch. And there came, in the tender last beams of the +setting sun, a man and woman to its door. + +Not old, not bent, not gnarled by the rack of blind-groping, undirected +toil, for such of the chosen out of nature's nobility are never old. +Hair once dark as woodland shadows was shot with the sunlight of many +years; hair once bright as the mica tossed by joyous waves upon a sunny +beach was whitened now by the unmelting snows of winters numbered +swiftly in the brief calendar of man. But shoulders were unbent by the +burdens which they had borne joyously, and their feet went quickly as +lovers' to a tryst. + +This little sod house stood with all its old-time furnishings, like a +shrine, and on this day, which seemed to be an anniversary, it had been +brightened with vases of flowers. This man and this woman, not old, +indeed, entered and stood within its door, where the light was dimming +through the little window high in the thick wall. The man crossed the +room, and stood where a belt with holsters hung upon the wall. She drew +near him, and lifted his great hand, and nestled it against her cheek. + +"Old Seth Craddock's guns," he said, musing as on a recurring memory. + +"His guns!" she murmured, drawing closer into the shadow of his +strength. + + + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +1. The author's consistent use of a lower-case letter following an + exclamation point or a question mark inside quoted dialect has + been retained. + +2. Punctuation has been changed to contemporary standards. + +3. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAIL'S END*** + + +******* This file should be named 20712.txt or 20712.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/1/20712 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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