eth knows he fills
an elective office, he's beyond the power of mayor and council to
remove. The only way he can be ousted is by proceedings in court, which
he could wear along till his term expired. We can't fire him, Morgan.
He'll go on till he depopulates this town!"

"It's a remarkable situation," Morgan said.

"He's a jackal, which is neither wolf nor dog. He's never killed a man
here yet out of necessity--he just shoots them down to see them kick, or
to gratify some monstrous delight that has transformed him from the man
I used to know."

"He may be insane," Morgan suggested.

"I don't know, but I don't think so. I can't abase my mind low enough to
fathom that man."

"It's a wonder somebody hasn't killed him," Morgan speculated.

"He never arrests anybody, there hasn't been a prisoner in the
calaboose since he took charge of this town. Notoriety has turned his
head, notoriety seems to put a halo around him that makes a troop of
sycophants look up to him as a saint. Look here--look at this!"

The judge held out a newspaper, shaking it viciously, his face clouded
with displeasure.

"Here's a piece two columns long about that scoundrel in the _Kansas
City Times_--the notoriety of the town is obscured by the bloody
reputation of its marshal."

"It must be gratifying to a man of his ambitions," Morgan commented,
glancing curiously over the story, his mind on the first victim of
Craddock's gun in that town.

"It's a disgrace that some of us feel, whatever it may be to him. I
expected him to confine his gun to gamblers and crooks and these vermin
that hang around the women of the dance houses, but he's right-hand man
with them, they're all on his staff."

Morgan looked up in amazement, hardly able to believe what he heard.

"It's enough to wind any decent man," Judge Thayer nodded. "You remember
his first case--that fool cowboy he killed at the hotel?"

"I was just thinking of him," Morgan said.

"That's the kind he goes in for, cowboys from the range, green, innocent
boys, harmless if you take 'em right. Yesterday afternoon he killed a
young fellow from Glenmore. It's going to bring retaliation and reprisal
on us, it's going to hurt us in this contest over the county seat."

"I shouldn't wonder," said Morgan, hoping the reprisal would be swift
and severe.

"I think the man's blood mad," Judge Thayer speculated, in a hopeless
way. "It must be the outcome of all that slaughter among the buffalo.
He's