r even Judge Thayer and the men who had
guarded the bank with him would risk one shot in his defense if the
outlawed forces should sweep forward and overwhelm him. He doubted it
very much. It was well enough to delegate this business to a stranger,
one impartial between the lines, but they could not be expected to turn
their weapons on their fellow-townsmen and depositors in the bank, no
matter how their money came, no matter how much the law might lack an
upholding hand.

The train came clattering over the switch, safety valve roaring, bell
ringing as gaily as if arriving in Ascalon were a joyous event in its
day. Conductor and brakeman stood on the steps ready to swing to the
platform; the express messenger lolled with bored weariness in the door
of his car, scorning the dangerous notoriety of the town by exposing to
the eye all the boxed treasure that it contained. Passengers crowded
platforms, leaning and looking, ready to alight for a minute, so they
might be able to relate the remainder of their lives how they braved the
perils of Ascalon one time and came out unsinged.

A movement went over the watching people of the town, assembled along
its business front, as wind ripples suddenly a field of grain. Nobody
had breath for a word; dry lips were pressed tightly in the varying
emotions of hope, fear, expectancy, desire. Morgan was seen to be busy
for a moment with something about his saddle; it was thought he was
drawing his rifle out of its case.

Nearly opposite where Morgan waited, the first coach of the train
stopped. Instantly, like children freed from school, the eager
passengers poured off for their adventurous breath of this most wicked
town's intoxicating air. Morgan's whole attention was now fixed on the
movement around the train. He shifted his horse to face that way,
risking what might develop behind him, one hand engaged with the bridle
rein, the other seemingly dropped carelessly on his thigh.

And in that squaring of expectation, that pause of breathless waiting,
Seth Craddock descended from the smoking-car, his alpaca coat carried in
the crook of his left elbow, his right hand lingering a moment on the
guard of the car step. The hasty ones who had waited on the car platform
were down ahead of him, standing a little way from the steps; others who
wanted to get off came pressing behind him, in their ignorance that they
were handling a bit of Ascalon's most infernal furnishing, pushing him
out into