Ora Simrall came riding into Damascus at the head of his forces, pretty well filling the seat of his buckboard, bending the slatted platform of it under his weight. From a big man in the beginning, he had grown through inactivity and indulgence into a very tun of a man, his chin lying in rings against his collar-bone. He had a little streak of black mustache, thin as a mandarin's, which ran out to almost a single hair at the points, ridiculous adornment in his vast red countenance.
Dr. Hall, watching the invaders from the window of Major Cottrell's office, saw the suspicion with which they marked the quietude and passivity of Damascus. Merchants had removed the hurried barriers out of their windows and opened their doors; people were passing about their business, or pretense of business, with no more apparent concern than if the visitors had come to do peaceful trading, with money in their hands instead of guns. It was the biggest surprise for Simrall that could have been devised.
All this indifference, this outward show of innocence, was only a blind covering a trap of some kind, the leader of the raiders believed, as shown by his cautious movements, his hurried posting of mounted men around the square, his conference with lieutenants before the court house steps. A wagon was drawn up before the main
