Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/35



was a line of hitching-racks around the dusty plot in which the court house stood, like a fence dividing that seat of dignity from the iniquitous and worldly institutions which hemmed it on every side. There were wide gaps in this line of racks, through which footfarers passed in and out of the court house doors, or on short cuts on other business through the square. Between hitching-racks and business houses a broad roadway stretched, dusty and muddy by turns, according to the caprice of nature.

At this hour of the April day when Andrew Hall went to the door of the West Plains hotel to see what the shooting and yelling was about, the roadway was gray with a thin coating of dust that had been mud but a little while before. It was a hard road, resounding almost like a pavement under the feet of the three horses which their riders were holding in what seemed to be a neck-and-neck race around the deserted square.

These riders were doing all the yelling and most of the shooting, as they appeared to have chosen a bad hour for putting on a demonstration in the square of Damascus. Whatever the cause of their animosity, Hall concluded it must lie against the town, and not individuals, as they were shooting impartially at everybody's business front as they passed. Some of their shots crashed windows, the