tween sunset and twilight, Rhetta
Thayer stopped Morgan as he was passing the _Headlight_ office at the
beginning of his nightly patrol. She was disturbed by an agitation that
she could not conceal; her eyes stood wide as if some passing terror had
opened their windows.

"He shot at you, and you didn't tell me!" she said, reproachfully,
facing him just inside the door.

"Well, he isn't much of a shot," Morgan told her, cheerful assurance in
his words. "I can assure you I was at no time in any danger."

"Oh! you didn't tell me!" she said, her voice little above a whisper on
her quick-coming breath.

"It didn't amount to anything," Morgan discounted, wondering how she had
heard of it. "All that puzzled me was why the little rat did it--I never
stepped in front of him anywhere."

"That woman in the tent--the rustler's wife--told me--she told me just
a little while ago. Oh! if he--if he'd have hit you!"

"The kids all came running out of the tent--I thought he'd hit one of
them," Morgan said, humorously, thinking only to calm her great
agitation and quiet her friendly--if there could be no dearer
interest--concern.

"It was Peden got him to do it," she declared.

"Peden? Why should Hutton go out to do that fellow's gunning?"

"Dell Hutton's gambling the county's money, he killed Mr. Smith because
he charged him with it! Pa knows it, pa's on his bond, and if he keeps
on losing the county funds there on Peden's game we'll have to make it
good. It will take everything we've got--if he keeps on."

"That's bad, that's mighty bad," Morgan said, deeply concerned,
curiously awakened to the inner workings of things in Ascalon. "Still, I
don't see what connection I have in it, why he'd want to take a shot at
me on the quiet that way."

"He shoots from behind, he shot Mr. Smith in the back, and it was at
night, besides. Don't you see how it was? Peden must have bribed him to
do it, promised to make good his losses, or something like that."

"Plain as a wagon track," Morgan said.

"I don't know why I ever got you into this tangle," she lamented, "I
don't know what made me so selfish and so blind."

"It's just one more little complication in Ascalon's sickness," he
comforted her, "it doesn't amount to beans. The poor little fool was so
scared that morning he could hardly lift his gun. He'll never make
another break."

"If I only thought he wouldn't! He's as treacherous as a snake, you
can't tell where he's sneaking to