The rancher started at the word, exchanging a startled, meaning look with his son.
"That outfit that loaded over at Ascalon yesterday?" he inquired.
"Yes; seven or eight of them stayed behind to look after the horses—eight with the marshal, he's one of the outfit."
"Did them fellers rope you and drag you away out here?" Stilwell inquired, leaning over in the tensity of his feeling, his tanned face growing pale, as if the thought of such atrocity turned his blood cold.
"They hitched me to a freight train. The rope broke at the river."
The rancher turned to his son again, making a motion with open hand outflung as if displaying evidence in some controversy between them that clinched it on his side without another word. The younger man came a step nearer Morgan's couch, where he stood with grave face, hesitant, as if something came forward in his mind to speak. The elder strode to the door and looked out into the sun of early morning, and the cool shadows of the cottonwood trees at the riverside which reached almost to his walls.
"To a train! God A'mighty—to a train!" Morgan heard him say.
"How far is it from Ascalon to the river?" Morgan asked.
"Over two miles! And your hands tied—God A'mighty!"