isorder on his high, sharp forehead,
sweated in little ropes, more than half concealing his immense ears. He
smoothed it back now with slow hand, holding a thoughtful silence;
shifted his feet, crossed his legs, looked out through the open door
into the dusty street.

"How does the land lay?" he asked at length.

"You know the name of the town, everybody knows the name of the town.
Well, Seth, it's worse than its name. It's a job; it's a double man's
job. If it was any less, I wouldn't lay it down before you."

"Crooks run things, heh?"

"I'm only a knot on a log. The marshal we had wasn't worth the powder
that killed him. Oh-h, he did kill off a few of 'em, but what we need
here is a man that can see both sides of the street and behind him at
the same time."

"How many folks have you got in this man's town by now, Judge?"

"Between six and seven hundred. And we could double it in three months
if we could clean things up and make it safe."

"How would you do it, Judge? marry everybody?"

"I mean we'd bring settlers in here and put 'em on the land. The
railroad company could shoot farmers in here by the hundreds every month
if it wasn't for the hard name this town's got all over the country. A
good many chance it and come as it is. We could make this town the
supply point for a big territory, we could build up a business that'd
make us as respectable as we're open and notorious now. For I tell you,
Seth, this country around here is God Almighty's granary--it's the wheat
belt of the world."

Seth made no reply. He slewed himself a little to sweep the country over
beyond the railroad station with his sullen red eyes. The heat was
wavering up from the treeless, shrubless expanse; the white sun was over
it as hot as a furnace blast. From the cattle pens the dusty, hoarse
cries of the cowboys sounded, "Ho, ho, ho!" in what seemed derision of
the judge's fervent claims.

"A lot of us have staked our all on the outcome here in Ascalon, we
fellows who were here before the town turned out to be the sink-hole of
perdition that it is today. We built our homes here, and brought our
families out, and we can't afford to abandon it to these crooks and
gamblers and gun-slingers from the four corners of the earth. I let them
put me in for mayor, but I haven't got any more power than a stray dog.
This chance to put in a marshal is the first one I've had to land them a
kick in the gizzards, and by Jeems River, Seth, I want to d