eemed to have departed out of Seth Craddock's name and
presence; a terrible man is no longer fearful when he has been dragged
publicly at the end of a cow rope and tied up in the public place like a
calf for the branding iron.

The county attorney was discreet enough to keep his distance. He did not
come forward with advice on habeas corpus and constitutional rights.
Only Earl Gray, the druggist, with seven kinds of perfumery on his hair,
came out of the crowd with smirking face, ingratiating, servile,
offering Morgan a cigar. The look that Morgan gave him would have wilted
the tobacco in its green leaf. It wilted Druggist Gray. He turned back
into the crowd and eliminated himself from the day's adventure like
smoke on the evening wind.

Peden was seen, soon after Craddock's dusty downfall, making his way
back to the shelter of his hall, a cloud on his dark face, a sneer of
contempt in his eyes. His bearing was proclamation that he had expected
a great deal more of Seth Craddock, and that the support of his
influence was from that moment withdrawn. But there was nothing in his
manner of a disturbed or defeated man. Those who knew him best, indeed,
felt that he had played only a preliminary hand and, finding it weak,
had taken up the deck for a stronger deal.

Seth Craddock stood with his back to the station platform, hands bound
behind him, his authority gone. A little way to one side Morgan waited
beside his horse, his pistol under his hand, rifle on the saddle, not so
confident that all was won as to lay himself open to a surprise. Judge
Thayer was holding a session with Craddock, the town, good and bad,
looking on with varying emotions of mirth, disappointment, and disgust.

Judge Thayer unbuckled Craddock's belt and remaining pistol, picked up
the empty weapon from the ground, sheathed it in the holster opposite
its once terrifying mate, and gave them to Morgan. Morgan hung them on
his saddle horn, and the wives and mothers of Ascalon who had trembled
for their husbands and sons when they heard the roar of those guns in
days past, drew great breaths of relief, and looked into each other's
faces and smiled.

"We can't hold you for any of the killings you've done here, Seth,
though some of them were unjustified, we know," Judge Thayer said.
"You've been cleared by the coroner's jury in each case, there's no use
for us to open them again. But you'll have to leave this town. Your
friends went yesterday, escorted by