w, 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: