"I was just thinking of him," Morgan said.
"That's the kind he goes in for, cowboys from the range, green, innocent boys, harmless if you take 'em right. Yesterday afternoon he killed a young fellow from Glenmore. It's going to bring retaliation and reprisal on us, it's going to hurt us in this contest over the county seat."
"I shouldn't wonder," said Morgan, hoping the reprisal would be swift and severe.
"I think the man's blood mad," Judge Thayer speculated, in a hopeless way. "It must be the outcome of all that slaughter among the buffalo. He's not a brave man, he lacks the bearing and the full look of the eye of a courageous man, but he carries two guns now, Morgan, and he can sling out and shoot a man with incredible speed. And we've got him quartered on us for nearly two years unless somebody from Glendora comes over and nails him. We can't fire him, we don't dare to approach him to suggest his abdication. Morgan, we're in a three-cornered hell of a fix!"
"Can't the fellow be prosecuted for some of these murders? Isn't there some way the law can reach him?"
"The coroner's jury absolves him regularly," the judge replied wearily. "At first they did it because it was the routine, and now they do it to save their hides. No, there's just one quick and sure way of heading that devil off in his red trail that I can see, Morgan, and that's for me to act while he's away. He's gone on some high-flyin' expedition to Abilene, leaving the town without a peace officer at the mercy of bandits and thieves. I have the authority to swear in a deputy marshal, or a hundred of them."
Morgan looked up again quickly from his speculative study of the boards in Judge Thayer's floor, to meet the elder man's shrewd eyes with a look of complete understanding. So they sat a moment, each reading the other as easily as one counts pebbles at the bottom of a clear spring.
"I don't believe I'm the man you're looking for," Morgan said.
"You're the only man that can do it, Morgan. It looks to me like you're appointed by Providence to step in here and save this town from this reign of murder."
"Oh!" said Morgan, impatiently, discounting the judge's fervid words.