Trail's End. George W. Ogden

take a walk out to Judge Thayer's and stay all night with him, but them fellers will be around here a couple of weeks, I expect—till the rest of the outfit comes back for their horses. Just one night away wouldn't do you any good."

      "I couldn't think of it," said Morgan, coldly.

      "You know your business, I guess," Conboy yielded, doubtfully, "but don't play your luck too far. You made a good grab when you took that feller's gun away from him, but you can't grab eight guns."

      "You're right," Morgan agreed.

      "If you're a reasonable man, you'll hit the grit out of this burg," Conboy urged.

      "You said they were at Peden's?"

      "First dance house you come to, the biggest one in town. You don't need to tip it off that I said anything. No niggers in Ireland, you know."

      "Not a nigger," said Morgan.

      As he stepped into the street, Morgan had no thought of going in any direction save that which would bring him in conjunction with the men who sought him. If he began to run at that stage of his experiences, he reasoned, he would better make a streak of it that would take him out of the country as fast as his feet would carry him. If those riders of the Chisholm Trail were going to be there a week or two, he could not dodge them, and it might be that by facing them unexpectedly and talking it over man to man before they got too far along in their spree, the grievance they held against him on Seth Craddock's account could be adjusted.

      He had come to Ascalon in the belief that he could succeed and prosper in that land which had lured and beckoned, discouraged and broken and driven forth again ten thousand men. Already there was somebody in it who had looked for a moment into his soul and called it courageous, and passed on her way again, he knew not whither. But if Ascalon was so small that a man whom men sought could not hide in it, the country around it was not vast enough to swallow one whom his heart desired to find again.

      He would find her; that he had determined hours ago. That should be his first and greatest purpose in this country now. No man, or band of men, that ever rode the Chisholm Trail could set his face away from it. He went on to meet them, his dream before him, the wild sound of Ascalon's obscene revelry in his ears.