d reverse public opinion and draw friends to our
side. Without some such support, I view the future with gloom and
misgiving. Glenmore is bound to displace us as the capital of this
county; Ascalon will decline to a whistling station by the side of the
track."

"I'm afraid I wouldn't care to hitch up with Mr. Craddock in the
regeneration of Ascalon," Morgan said. "We'd pull so hard in opposite
directions we'd break the harness."

Judge Thayer expressed his regret while he slipped on his black alpaca
coat, asking Morgan to wait until he locked his door, when he would walk
with him as far as the hotel corner. On the way they met a young man who
came bowling along with a great air of importance and self-assurance, a
fresh cigar tilted up in his mouth to such an angle that it threatened
the brim of his large white hat.

Judge Thayer introduced this man as Dell Hutton, county treasurer.
Hutton wrung Morgan's hand with ardent grip, as if he welcomed him into
the brotherhood of the elect in Ascalon, speaking out of the corner of
his mouth around his cigar. He was a thin-mouthed man of twenty-five, or
perhaps a year or two older, with a shrunken weazenness about his face
that made him look like a very old man done over, and but poorly
renovated. His eyes were pale, with shadows in them as of inquiry and
distrust; his stature was short, his frame slight.

Hutton seemed to be deeply, even passionately, interested in the venture
Morgan had come to make in that country. He offered his services in any
exigency where they might be applied, shaking hands again with hard
grip, accompanied by a wrinkling of his thin mouth about his cigar as he
clamped his jaws in the fervor of his earnestness. But he appeared to be
under a great pressure to go his way, his eyes controverting the
sincerity of his words the while.

"He's rather a young man to be filling such a responsible position,"
Morgan ventured as they resumed their way.

"Dell wasn't elected to the office," Judge Thayer explained. "He's
filling out his father's term."

"Did he--die?" Morgan inquired, marveling over the mortality among the
notables of the town.

"He was a victim of this feud in the rivalry for the county seat," Judge
Thayer explained, with sadness. "It was due to Hutton, more than any
other force, that we didn't lose the county seat at the last
election--he kept the cattlemen lined up, was a power among them,
followed that business a long time himself. Yes.