"I was layin' for Craddock! If he'd 'a' come around that corner--but it was you!"--with a sigh of relief. "Have you got any shells, Dora?" "No, I didn't have time to grab anything but your gun--I run to your room when they set the hotel afire and drove us out." "You're the bravest man in town!" he praised her, patting her shoulder as if she were a very little girl, indeed. "Where are they all?" "They've locked Riley, and Judge Thayer, and all the men that's got a fight in 'em up in jail with the sheriff. Pa got away--he's over there where you hear that shootin'--but he can't hit nothin'!" Dora said, in hopeless disgust. Morgan saw with relief that the magazine of his rifle was full, and a shot in the barrel. He took Dora by the hand, turning away from his haste to mount as if it came to him as an after-thought to thank her for this great help. "There's going to be a fight, Dora," he said. "You'd better get behind the bank, and keep any of the women and children there that happen along. You're a brave, good little soul, I'll never forget you for what you've done for me today. Please take care of this gun--it belongs to Uncle John." He was up in the saddle with the last word, and gone, galloping into the pitchy black smoke that swirled like a turgid flood from burning Ascalon across the square. Morgan's thought was to locate the raiders' horses and cut them off, if it should be that some of the rascals were still on foot setting fires, as it seemed likely from the smell of kerosene, that they were. It would increase his doubtful chances to meet as many of them on foot as possible. This was his thought. He made out one mounted man dimly through the blowing smoke, watching in front of the Santa Fe cafe, but recently set on fire. This fellow doubtless was stationed there on the watch for him, Morgan believed, from the close attention he was giving the front door of the place, out of which a volume of grease-tainted smoke rolled. He wondered, with a little gleam of his saving humor, what there was in his record since coming to Ascalon that gave them ground for the belief that it was necessary to burn a house to bring him out of it to face a fight. Morgan rode on a little way across the square, not twenty yards behind this raider, the sound of his horse silenced in the roar of fire and growing wind. The heat of the place was terrific; burning shingles swirled on the wind, coals and burning brands fell in a rain all over the square. At the corner of the broad street that came into the square at Peden's hall, another raider was stationed. The citizens who were making a weak defense were being driven back, the sound of firing was behind the stores, and falling off as if the raiders pressed them hard. Morgan quickly concluded that Craddock and the rest of the outfit were over there silencing this resistance, probably in the belief that he was concerned in it.