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
b