Which house would be Judge
Thayer's among the bright-painted dwellings along that raw lane? He
favored one of the few white ones, a house with a wide porch screened by
morning-glory vines, a gallant row of hollyhocks in the distance.

Lawn grass had been sown in many of the yards, where it had flourished
until the scorching summer drouth. Even now there were little rugs of
green against north walls where the noonday shadows fell, but the rest
of the lawns were withered and brown. Some hardy flowers, such as
zinnias and marigolds, stood clumped about dooryards; in the kitchen
gardens tasseled corn rose tall, dust thick on the guttered blades.

Morgan turned from this scene in which Ascalon presented its better
side, to skirmish along the street running behind Peden's establishment.
It might be well, for future exigencies, to fix as much of the geography
of the place in his mind as possible. He wondered if there had been a
back-door traffic in any of the saloons last night as he passed long
strings of empty beer kegs, concluding that it was very likely something
had been done in that way.

Across the street from Peden's back door was a large vacant piece of
ground, a wilderness of cans, bottles, packing boxes, broken barrels. On
one corner, diagonally across from where Morgan stood, facing on the
other street, a ragged, weathered tent was pitched. Out of this the
sound of contending children came, the strident, commanding voice of a
woman breaking sharply to still the commotion that shook her unstable
home. Morgan knew this must be the home of the cattle thief whose case
Judge Thayer had undertaken. He wondered why even a cattle thief would
choose that site at the back door of perdition to pitch his tent and
lodge his family.

A bullet clipping close past his ear, the sharp sound of a pistol shot
behind him, startled him out of this speculation.

Morgan did not believe at once, even as he wheeled gun in hand to
confront the careless gun-handler or the assassin, as the case might
prove, that the shot could have been intended for him, but out of
caution he darted as quick as an Indian behind a pyramid of beer kegs.
From that shelter he explored in the direction of the shot, but saw
nobody.

There was ample barrier for a lurking man all along the street on
Peden's side. From behind beer cases and kegs, whisky barrels, wagons,
corners of small houses, one could have taken a shot at him; or from a
window or back door.