Morgan said he felt that more had been done for him already than any number of doctors could have accomplished, for the service had been one of humanity, with no thought of reward. They would let the doctor stay in Ascalon, and Morgan would go to him if he felt the need coming on. The rancher disclaimed credit for a service such as one man owed another the world over, he said. But it was plain that he was touched by the outspoken gratitude of this wreckage of humanity that had come halting in bonds to his door. "I'm a stranger to this country," Morgan explained, "I arrived in Ascalon yesterday--" pausing to ponder it, thinking it must have been longer than a day ago--"yesterday"--with conviction, "a little after noon. Morgan is my name. I came here to settle on land." "You're the man that took the new marshal's gun away from him," the rancher said, nodding slowly. "My daughter knew you the minute she saw you--she was over there yesterday after the mail." Morgan's heart jumped. He looked about the room for her, but she and her mother had withdrawn. "I guess I made a mistake when I mixed up with him," Morgan said, as if he excused himself to the absent girl. "The only mistake you made was when you handed him back his gun. You ought to 'a' handed it back to a corpse," the rancher said. "We knew that feller he killed," the younger man explained, with a world of significance in his voice. "He used to live up here in this country before he went to Abilene; he'd come back to blow his money in Ascalon, I guess," the rancher said. "He was one of them harmless bluffin' boys you could take by the ear and lead around like he had a ring in his nose." "That's what I told them," Morgan commented, in thoughtful, distracted way. "You sized him up right. He wouldn't 'a' pulled his gun, quick as he was to slap his hand on it and run a sandy. I guess it was just as well it happened to him then as some other time. Somebody was bound to kill him when he got away among strangers." The rancher, who introduced himself as Stilwell, asked for the details of the killing, which Morgan gave, together with the trivial thing that led up to it. The big rancher sighed, shaking his head sadly. "You ought to took his gun away from him and bent it around his fool head," he said. "It would have been better for him, and for me, I guess," Morgan agreed. "Yes, that marshal was purty sore on you for takin' his gun away from him right out in public, it looks like," the rancher suggested, a bid in his manner for the details of his misfortune which Morgan felt were his by right of hospitality. "I ran into some of his friends later on. He'd turned the town over to them, a bunch of cowpunchers just up from the Nueces." The rancher started at the word, exchanging a startled, meaning look with his son. "That outfit that loaded over at Ascalon yesterday?" he inquired.