There, in a cloud of obscuring dust from the trampled road, the horse holding the line taut, Morgan flung from the saddle in the nimble way of a range man, bent over the fallen slayer of men a little while. When the first of the crowd came breaking across the broad space intervening and drew up panting and breathless in admiration of the bold thing they had witnessed, Seth Craddock lay hog-tied and harmless on the ground, one pistol a few feet from where he struggled in his ropes, the other in the holster at his side.
And there came Judge Thayer, in his capacity as mayor, officious and radiant, proud and filled with a new feeling of safety and importance, and took the badge of office from Craddock's breast, in all haste, as if it were the most important act in this spectacular triumph, this bloodless victory over a bloody man.
CHAPTER XVII
WITH CLEAN HANDS
Seth Craddock was a defiant, although a fallen man. He refused to resign the office of marshal of the third-class city of Ascalon when Morgan released his feet at Judge Thayer's direction, allowing him to stand. Somebody brought his hat and put it down harshly on his small, turtle-like head, flaring out his big red ears. There he stood, glowering, dusty, blood on his face from an abrasion he had got in the rough handling at the end of Morgan's rope.
Judge Thayer said it made no difference whether he gave up the office willingly, he was without a voice in the matter, anyhow. He was fired, and that's all there was to it. But no, said Seth; not at all. The statutes upheld him, the constitution supported him, and hell and damnation and many other forces which he enumerated in his red-tongued defiance, could not move him out of that office. He demanded to be allowed to consult his lawyer, he glared around and cursed the curious and unawed public which laughed at his plight and the figure he cut, ordering somebody to go and fetch the county attorney, on pain of death when he should come again into the freedom of his hands.
But nobody moved, except to shift from one foot to the other and laugh. The terror seemed to have departed out of Seth Craddock's name and presence; a terrible man is no longer fearful when he has been dragged publicly at the end of a cow rope and tied up in the public place like a calf for the branding iron.
The county attorney was discreet enough to keep his distance. He did not come forward with advice on habeas corpus and constitutional rights. Only Earl Gray, the druggist, with seven kinds of perfumery on his hair, came out of the crowd with smirking face, ingratiating, servile, offering Morgan a cigar. The look that Morgan gave him would have wilted the tobacco in its green leaf. It wilted Druggist Gray. He turned back into the crowd and eliminated himself from the day's adventure like smoke on the evening wind.