shal 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 hitchin