the timid crowd of their fellows.

A moment Craddock stood, taller than the tallest there, sweeping his
quick glance about for signs of the expected hostility, the trinkets of
silver on the band of his costly new sombrero shining in the sun. Then
he came striding among the gaping passengers, like a man stalking among
tall weeds, something unmistakably expressive of disdain in his
carriage.

There he paused again, and put on his coat, plainly mystified and
troubled by the absence of townspeople from the depot, and the sight of
them lined up across the square as if they waited a circus parade. All
that he saw between himself and that fringe of puzzling, silent people
was a cowboy sitting astraddle of his bay horse at the end of the
station platform.

And as Craddock started away from the crowd of curious passengers who
were whispering and speculating behind him, pointing him out to each
other, wondering what notable he might be; as Craddock started down the
platform away from there, the voice of the conductor warning all to
clamber aboard, the waiting cowboy tightened the reins a little, causing
his horse to prick up its ears and start with a thrill of expectancy
which the rider could feel ripple over its smooth hide under the
pressure of his knees.

Craddock came on down the platform, turning his head on his long neck in
the way of a man entirely mystified and suspicious, alone, unsupported
by even as much as the shadow of a strange gun-slinger or local friend.

What was passing through the fellow's head Morgan could pretty well
guess. There was a little break of humor in it, for all the tight-drawn
nerves, for all the chance, for all the desperation of the gathering
moment. The grim old killer couldn't make out whether it was through
admiration of him the people had gathered to welcome him home, or in
expectation of something connected with the arrival of the train. Two
rods or so from where Morgan waited him, Craddock stopped to look back
at the train, now gathering slow headway, and around the deserted
platform, down which the station agent came dragging a mail sack.

It was when he turned again from this suspicious questioning into things
which gave him back no reply, that Craddock recognized the hitherto
unsuspected cowboy. In a start he stiffened to action, flinging hand to
his pistol. But a heartbeat quicker, like a flash of sunbeam from a
mirror, the coiled rope flew out from Morgan's high-flung arm.

As