im up and take it away from him, Fred," the older man
reproved. "That would be as big a crime as his."

"He'll pay it!" Fred repeated, with what Morgan thought to be admirable
tenacity, even though his means to the desired end might be hard to
justify.

They helped Morgan to another room, where they outfitted him with
clothing to replace his own shredded garments. Stilwell insisted that he
remain as his guest until his hurts were mended, although, he explained,
he could not stay at home to keep him company. His wife and daughter
would talk his arm off without help from the rest of the family. He
would call them in and introduce them.

"My girl's got a new piano--lucky I sent for it before that Texas outfit
struck this range--she can try it out on you," Stilwell said, a laugh
still left in him for an amusing situation in spite of the ruin he
faced.

Morgan could hear the girl and her mother talking in the kitchen, their
voices quite distinct at times as they passed an open door that he could
not see. Lame and aching, hands swollen and purple, he sat in a
rocking-chair by the open window, not so broken by his experiences nor
so depressed by his pains but he yet had the pleasure of anticipation in
meeting this girl. He had determined only a few hours ago that the
country was not big enough to hide her from him. Now Fate had jerked
him with rough hand to the end of his quest before it was fairly begun.

As he thought this, Stilwell came back, convoying his ample red-faced
wife, and almost as ample, and quite as red-faced, daughter. So, there
must have been more than one young lady after mail in Ascalon yesterday
afternoon, thought Morgan, as he got up ruefully, with much pain in his
feet and ankles, rather shamed and taken back, and bowed the best way he
could to this girl who was not _his_ girl, after all his eager
anticipation.

CHAPTER IX

NEWS FROM ASCALON

"Down here in the river bottom, where the water rises close to the top
of the ground, you can raise a little corn and stuff, but take it back
on the prairie a little way and you can't make your seed back, year in
and year out. Plenty of them have come here from the East and tried
it--I suppose you must 'a' seen the traces of them scattered around as
you come through the country east of Ascalon."

Morgan admitted that he had seen such traces, melancholy records of
failure that they were.

"It's all over this country the same way. It broke 'em as f