s he peered around
through the fast-thickening smoke.

"Let him come!" said Peden, watching the door with expectant, vindictive
eyes.

The news of Peden's defiance swept over the town like a taint on the
wind. Not only that Peden had opened his doors to the long-thirsting
crowd gathered by the advertised news of a big show for that night, but
that he had posted two imported gun-fighters inside his hall with
instructions to shoot the city marshal if he attempted to interfere.
With the spread of this news men began to gather in front of Peden's to
see what the city marshal was going to do, how he would accept this
defiance, if he meant to accept it, and what the result to him would be.

Judge Thayer came down to the square without his alpaca coat, his
perturbation was so great, looking for Morgan, talking of swearing in a
large number of deputies to uphold the law.

This was received coldly by the men of Ascalon. Upholding the law was
the city marshal's business, they said. If he couldn't do it alone, let
the law drag; let it fall underfoot, where it seemed the best place for
it in that town, anyhow. So Judge Thayer went on, looking around the
square for Morgan, not finding him, nor anybody who had seen him within
the last half hour.

Rhetta was working late in the _Headlight_ office, preparing for the
weekly issue of the paper. This disquieting news had come in at her door
like the wave of a flood. She had no thought of work from that moment,
only to stand at the door listening for the dreaded sound of shooting
from the direction of Peden's hall.

Judge Thayer found her standing in the door when he completed his search
around the square, his heart falling lower at every step.

"He's gone! Morgan's deserted us!" he said.

"Gone!" she repeated in high scorn. "He'll be the last to go."

"I can't find him anywhere--I've hunted all over town. Nobody has seen
him. I tell you, Rhetta, he's gone."

"I wish to heaven he would go! What right have we got to ask him to give
his life to stop the mean, miserable squabbles of this suburb of hell!"

"I think you'd better run along home now--Riley will go with you. Why,
child, you're cold!"

He drew her into the office, urging her to put on her bonnet and go.

"I'll stay here and see it out," she said. "Oh, if he would go, if he
would go! But he'll never go."

She threw herself into the chair beside her littered desk, hands
clenched, face white as if she bore a mortal pa