last head in the line. So their arms went up and strained high above
their heads, as if eager to show their desire to comply without
reservation to the unspoken command. Morgan had not said a word.

The bartender, accepting the situation as generally inclusive, put his
hands up along with his deadbeat patrons. And there they stood one
straining moment, the man with the broom down in the gloom of the
farther end of the building, unconscious of what was going on, whistling
as he swept among the peanut hulls.

Morgan signaled with his head for the bartender to come over the
barrier, which he did, with alacrity, and stood at the farther end of
the line, hands up, a raw-fisted, hollow-faced Irishman with bristling
short hair. Morgan jerked his head again, repeating the signal when the
bartender looked in puzzled fright into his face to read the meaning.
Then the fellow got it, and came forward, a vast relief spreading in his
combative features.

Morgan indicated the rope ends dangling at his belt. Almost beaming,
quite triumphant in his eagerness, the bartender grasped his meaning at
a glance. He began tying the ruffians' hands behind their backs, and
tying them well, with a zest in his work that increased as he traveled
down the line.

"Champagne, is it?" said he, mocking them, a big foot in the small of
the victim's back as he pulled so hard it made him squeal. "Nothing
short of champoggany wather will suit the taste av ye this fine marin',
and you with a thousand dollars' wort' of goods swilled into your
paunches the past week! I'll give you a dose of champoggany wather
you'll not soon forget, ye strivin' devils! This sheriff is the man
that'll hang ye for your murthers and crimes, ye bastes!" And with each
expletive a kick, but not administered in any case until he had turned
his head with sly caution to see whether it would be permitted by this
silent avenger who had come to Ascalon in the hour of its darkest need.

While Morgan's captives cursed him, knowing now who he was, and cursed
the bartender whom they had overriden and mocked, insulted and abused in
the security of their collective strength and notorious deeds, the
shadow of two men fell across the threshold of Peden's door. There the
shadows lay through the brief moments of this little drama's enactment,
immovable, as though cast by men who watched.

The porter came forward from his sweeping to look on this degradation of
the desperados, mocking them, ret