hing solider'n a
bottle if you want it to stand up."

"I believe you," Morgan said.

"You've worked yourself out of a job. They won't no more need a marshal
here'n they will a fish net."

Morgan shook his head, got out his pipe, struck a match on the bleached
forehead of a buffalo skull in Joe's wagon.

"No. I'm leaving town in a week or two--when I make sure it _is_ dead,
that they'll never come back and start the games again."

"They never will," said Joe, shaking a positive head. "Peden was the
guts of this town; it can't never be what it was without him. So you're
goin' to leave the country, air you?"

"Yes."

"Give up that fool notion you had about raising wheat out here on this
pe-rairie, heh?"

"Gave it up," Morgan replied, nodding in his solemn, expressive way.

"Well, you got _some_ sense hammered into you, anyhow. I told you right
at the jump, any man that thought he could farm in this here country
should be bored for the simples. Look at that range, look at them cattle
that's droppin' dead of starvation and want of water all over it. Look
at them cattlemen shippin' out thousands of head that ain't ready for
market all along this railroad every day. This range'll be as bare of
stock by fall, I tell you, as the pa'm of my hand's bare of hairs.
Bones? I'll have more bones to pick up than ever was in this country
before. Ascalon ain't all that's dead--the whole range's gone up.
This'll clean 'em all out. It's the hottest summer and the longest dry
spell that ever was."

"It couldn't be much worse."

"Worse!" Joe looked up from his pouring in his reprovingly surprised
way, stopping his dribbling stream on the wagon wheel. "You hang around
here a month longer and see what worse is! I'm goin' to begin pickin' up
bones over on Stilwell's range in about a week; I'm givin' them wolves
and buzzards time to clean 'em up a little better. About then you'll see
the cattlemen begin to fight for range along the river where their
stock can eat the leaves off of the bushes and find a bunch of bluestem
once in a while that ain't frizzled and burnt up. You'll begin to see
the wolf side to some of these fellers in this country then."

Joe rumbled on to the car that he was loading, his tires being tight
enough to hold him that far. Morgan sauntered down the shady side of the
street, meeting few, getting what ease he could out of life with his
pipe. He had put off his cowboy dress only that morning, feeling it out
of