e 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 t