inst 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. S