t of a spontaneous and honest desire to see him. Only because
their lives were thrown together for a little while in that dice-box of
fate, and avoidance seemed studied and a thing that might set foolish
tongues clapping, she paused and looked his way as if waiting for him to
approach. She was serving convention, not with a wish of her heart. So
he believed, and turned the other way.

Cattlemen from the range at hand, and several from Texas who had driven
their herds to finish on the far-famed Kansas grass for the fall market,
were loading great numbers of cattle in Ascalon every day. The drouth
was driving them to this sacrifice. Lean as their cattle were, they
would be leaner in a short time.

This activity brought scores of cowboys to town daily. Under the old
order business would have been lively at night, when most of the
herdsmen were at leisure. As it was, they trooped curiously around the
square, some of them who had looked forward on the long drive to a
hilarious blowout at the trail's end resentfully sarcastic, but the
greater number humorously disposed to make the most of it.

Sober, these men of the range were very much like reservation Indians in
town on a holiday. They walked slowly around and around the square,
looking at everything closely, saying little, to dispose themselves
along the edge of the sidewalk after a while and smoke. There were no
fights, nobody let off a gun. When Morgan passed them on his quiet
rounds, they nudged each other, and looked after him with low comments,
for his fame had gone far in a little while.

These men had no quarrel with Morgan, disappointed of their revelry,
thirsty after their long waiting, sour as some of them were over finding
this oasis of their desert dry. They only looked on him with silent
respect. Nobody cared to provoke him; it was wise to give the road when
a fellow met that man. So they talked among themselves, somewhat
disappointed to find that Morgan was not carrying his rifle about with
him these peaceful days, unusual weapon for a gun-fighting man in that
country.

In this way, with considerable coming and going through its doors, yet
all in sobriety and peace, Ascalon passed the burning, rainless summer
days. But not without a little cheer in the hard glare of the parching
range, not without a laugh and a chuckle, and a grin behind the hand.
The town knew all about the rainmaker at work behind the shielding rows
of tall corn in Judge Thayer's gard