t one in town. You don't need
to tip it off that I said anything. No niggers in Ireland, you know."

"Not a nigger," said Morgan.

As he stepped into the street, Morgan had no thought of going in any
direction save that which would bring him in conjunction with the men
who sought him. If he began to run at that stage of his experiences, he
reasoned, he would better make a streak of it that would take him out of
the country as fast as his feet would carry him. If those riders of the
Chisholm Trail were going to be there a week or two, he could not dodge
them, and it might be that by facing them unexpectedly and talking it
over man to man before they got too far along in their spree, the
grievance they held against him on Seth Craddock's account could be
adjusted.

He had come to Ascalon in the belief that he could succeed and prosper
in that land which had lured and beckoned, discouraged and broken and
driven forth again ten thousand men. Already there was somebody in it
who had looked for a moment into his soul and called it courageous, and
passed on her way again, he knew not whither. But if Ascalon was so
small that a man whom men sought could not hide in it, the country
around it was not vast enough to swallow one whom his heart desired to
find again.

He would find her; that he had determined hours ago. That should be his
first and greatest purpose in this country now. No man, or band of men,
that ever rode the Chisholm Trail could set his face away from it. He
went on to meet them, his dream before him, the wild sound of Ascalon's
obscene revelry in his ears.

CHAPTER VI

RIDERS OF THE CHISHOLM TRAIL

Peden's emporium of viciousness was a notable establishment in its day.
By far the largest in Ascalon, it housed nearly every branch of
entertainment at which men hazard their fortunes and degrade their
morality. It was a vast shell of planks and shingles, with skeleton
joists and rafters bare overhead, built hastily and crudely to serve its
ephemeral day.

In the farther end there was a stage, upon which mephitic females
displayed their physical lures, to come down and sell drinks at a
commission in the house, and dance with the patrons, at intervals.
Beyond the many small round tables which stood directly in front of the
stage was a clear space for dancing, and on the border of this festival
arena, in the front of the house, the gambling devices. A bar ran the
length of the building on one side fr