“How soon are you going to carry out your plans?” Reade demanded.
“Then you won't leave Paloma?”
“I certainly won't--as far as my own decision goes,” Reade replied
firmly. “Furthermore, I should feel the utmost contempt for myself if I
allowed you to drive me away from here before my work is completed.”
“You're a fool!” hissed Duff.
“And you're a gambler,” Tom shot back. “If you won't change your trade,
why should you expect me to change mine?”
“I reckon, gentlemen,” said Duff, turning to the others present, “that
there's no use in wasting any more time with this fellow. He'd rather
be hanged to a tree than take good advice. If the rest of you agree with
me, I propose that we take the cub to his tree at once.”
Several spoke in favor of this plan. Tom, seeing this, felt his heart
sink somewhat within him, though he was no more inclined than before to
accede to the demands of the rascals.
“Grab him! Throw him down; tie and gag him,” were the gambler's orders.
Two men nearest the young engineer sprang at him.
“We'll play this game right through to the finish, then!” burst from
Tom's lips, and there was something like fury in his voice.
Biff! Thump!
Two of the townsmen of Paloma, wholly unprepared for resistance, went
down before the engineer's telling blows.
“Your turn, Duff!” rumbled Reade's voice, as he sprang forward and
launched a terrific blow at the gambler.
Duff went down, almost doubling up as he struck. He had been hit
squarely on the jaw with a force that made even Tom Reade's hardened
knuckles ache.
“Shoot him!” rose a snarl, as others moved toward the boy.
“All right!” assented Tom, his voice ringing cheerily despite his anger.
“Be cowards, as comes natural to you. Yet, if you have the courage of
real men I'll agree to fight my way out of this place, meeting you one
at a time.”
“What's that noise up in the street?” suddenly demanded Ashby, in a tone
of sudden fear.
“Run up and find out, if you want to know,” proposed Tom, who stood
poised, ready for another assailant to come within reach of his fists.
Stealthily, on tip-toe, the bully who had first engaged Reade in the
street fight, was now trying to get up behind the young engineer. The
bully held the shotgun ready to bring down on the lad's head.
“There's some row up there,” continued Ashby. “There, I heard shots!”
“Brave, aren't you?” jeered Tom.
Three or four of the masked cowards started for the steep stairway.
Even the bully with the clubbed shotgun must have been seized with fear;
for, though in position to strike, he quickly lowered the weapon and
listened.
Bump! smash! sounded, though not directly overhead.
Then from the hallway above came the noise of the treading of many feet,
while a voice roared hoarsely:
“Spread through the house, boys! If they've done anything to Mr. Reade,
then break the necks of every white-livered rascal you can find!”
“Fine!” chuckled Tom, while the masked faces in the cellar turned even
whiter than the cloths covering them. “That voice sounds familiar to me,
too.”
Over the hubbub of voices above sounded some remonstrating tones, as
though others were urging a less violent course.
“It's the workmen from the camp!” guessed Hotelman Ashby, in a voice
that shook as though from ague.
“Sounds like it,” chuckled Tom. “Cheer up, Ashby. If it's our railroad
crew I'll try to see to it that they don't do more than half kill you!”
Then, raising his voice, Tom called gleefully:
“Hello, there! You'll find us in the cellar.”
“Why don't you kill that fool!” muttered Jim Duff, who, still dazed,
struggled to sit up.
“Hush, man, for goodness sake!” implored the badly frightened Ashby.
Duff, with rapidly returning consciousness, now leaped to his feet,
drawing his pistol and springing at Reade.
“Hold on!” Tom proposed coolly. “You're too late!”
The sudden flooding of light into the place and the rush of hobnailed
shoes on the stairs recalled even the gambler's scattered senses.
“There they are!” yelled a voice. “Grab 'em! Be careful you don't hit
Mr. Reade.”
In another instant the cellar was the center of a wild scene. Railway
laborers flooded the little place. While some held dark lanterns that
threw a bright glow over the scene, others leaped upon the masked ones,
tearing the cloths from their faces.
“Serve 'em hot!” roared the same rough voice.
“Stop!” commanded Tom Reade, leaping forward where the light was
brightest and into the thick of the struggling mass of humanity.
“Stop, I tell you!”
His commands fell upon deaf ears. It was impossible to restrain these
men.
Here and there the lately masked men drew pistols, though not one of
them had a chance to use his weapon ere it was wrested from him.
Pound! slam! bang! A medley of falling blows filled the air, nor was it
many seconds later when cries of pain and fear, and appeals for mercy
were heard on all sides.
Tom had recognized his own railroad workers, and was throwing himself
among them, doing his utmost with hands and voice to stop the brief but
wild orgy of revenge on the part of the workmen who idolized him. In
their present rage, however, Tom could not at once restrain them. Time
and again he was swept back from reaching Tim Griggs, who was easily the
center of this volcanic outburst of human passion.
“Boys!” roared Tim. “We'll want to know these coyotes to-morrow. Black
the left eye of each rascal. I'll black both of Jim Duff's.”
Two heavy, sodden impacts sounded during a brief pause in the noise,
attesting to the fact that the gambler had been decorated.
“Stop all this! Stop!” roared Tom Reade. “Men, we're not savages, just
because these other fellows happen to be! Stop it, I tell you. Are there
no foremen here?”
“I'm trying to reach you, Mr. Reade,” called the voice of Superintendent
Hawkins. “But this is a heavy crush to get through.”
In truth it was. There were more than a hundred laborers in the cellar,
while the stairs were blocked by a mob of enraged workmen.
“Stop it all, men!” Tom again urged, and this time there was silence,
save for his own strong voice. “We don't want to prove ourselves to be
as despicable as the enemy are. Bring 'em up to the street, but don't be
brutal about it. We'll look the scoundrels over so that we'll know them
to-morrow. Come along. Clear the stairs, if you please, men!”
Tom was now once more in control, as fully as though he had his force of
toilers out on the desert at the Man-killer quicksand.
So, after a few minutes, all were in the street. Here fully two hundred
more of the railroad men, many of them armed with stakes and other crude
weapons, held back a crowd of Paloma residents who swarmed curiously
about.
“Let me through, men. Let me through, I tell you!” insisted the voice
of Harry Hazelton, as that young assistant engineer struggled with the
crowd.
Then, on being recognized, Harry was allowed to reach the side of his
chum.
“Mr. Reade!” called a husky-toned voice, “won't you order your men
to let me through to see you? I want to talk with you about tonight's
outrage.”
Tom recognized the speaker as a man named Beasley, one of Paloma's most
upright and courageous citizens.
“Let Mr. Beasley through,” Tom called. “Don't block the streets, men.
Remember, we've no right to do that.”
A resounding cheer ascended at the sound of Tom's voice. In the light of
the lanterns Tom was seen to be signaling with his hands for quiet, and
the din soon died down.
“Mr. Reade,” spoke Beasley, in a voice that shook with indignation, “the
real men of this town would like an account of what has been going on
here to-night. If Duff and his cronies have been up to anything that
hurts the good name of the town we'd like the full particulars. You men
there--don't let one of the rascals get away. Jim Duff and his gang will
have to answer to the town of Paloma.”
“Men,” ordered Reade, “bring along the crew you caught in the cellar.
Don't hurt them--remember how cowardly violence would be when we have
everything in our own hands.”
“The men of Paloma will do all the hurting,” Mr. Beasley announced
grimly.
Tom's own deliberate manner, and his manifest intention of not abusing
his advantage impressed itself upon the decent men of Paloma, who now
swarmed about the frightened captives from the cellar.
“I know 'em all,” muttered Beasley. “I'll know 'em in the morning, too.
So will you, friends!” he added, turning to the pressing crowds.
“Start Jim Duff on his travels now!” demanded one angry voice.
“By the Tree & Rope Short Line!” proposed another voice.
Jim was caught and held, despite his straggles. Active hands swarmed
over his clothing, seeking for weapons.
“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” appealed Tom sturdily, making his resonant voice
travel far over the heads of the throng. “Will you honor me with your
attention for three or four minutes?”
“Yep!” shouted back one voice.
“You bet!” came another voice.
“Go ahead and spout, Reade. We'll have the hanging, right after!”
There was nothing jovial in these responses. Tom Reade knew men
well enough to recognize this fact. Moreover, Tom knew the plain,
unvarnished, honest and deadly-in-earnest men of these south-western
plains well enough to know the genuine fury of the crowd.
Arizona and New Mexico have long been held up as states where violence
and lynch law prevail. The truth is that Arizona and New Mexico have no
more lynchings than do many of the older states. An Arizona lynching can
only follow an upheaval of public sentiment, when honest men are angered
at having their fair fame sullied by the acts of blackguards.
“Friends,” Tom went on, as soon as he could secure silence, “I am a
newcomer among you. I have no right to tell you how to conduct your
affairs, and I am not going to make that mistake. What you may do with
Jim Duff, what you may do with others who damage the fair name of your
town, is none of my business. For myself I want no revenge on these
rascals. They have already been handled with much more roughness than
they had time to show to me. I am satisfied to call the matter even.”
“But we're not!” shouted an Arizona voice from the crowd.
“That's your own affair, gentlemen,” Reade went on. “I wish to
suggest--in fact, I beg of you--that you let these fellows go to-night.
In the morning, when the sun is up, and after you have thought over
the matter, you will be in a better position to give these fellows
fair-minded justice--if you then still feel that something must be done
to them. That is all I have to say, gentlemen. Now, Mr. Beasley, won't
you follow with further remarks in this same line?”
Mr. Beasley looked more or less reluctant, but he presently complied
with Reade's request. Then Tom called upon another prominent citizen of
Paloma in the crowd for a speech.
“Let the coyotes go--until daylight,” was the final verdict of the
crowd, though there was an ominous note in the expressed decision.
In stony silence the crowd now parted to let Jim Duff and his fellows go
away.
Within sixty seconds the last of them had run the gauntlet of contempt
and vanished.
“Someone told me,” scoffed Beasley, “that a gambler is a man of courage,
polish, brains and good manners. I reckon Jim Duff isn't a real gambler,
then.”
“Yes, he is!” shouted another. “He's one of the real kind--sometimes
smooth, but always bound to fatten on the money that belongs to other
men.”
“Jim can leave town, I reckon,” grimly declared another old settler. “We
have savings banks these days, and we don't need gamblers to carry our
money for us.”
“Speech, Reade! Speech!” insisted Mr. Beasley good-humoredly.
From some mysterious place a barrel was passed along from hand to hand.
It was set down before the young chief engineer, and ready hands hoisted
him to the upturned end of the barrel.
“Speech!” roared a thousand voices.
Tom, grinning good-humoredly, then waved his arms as though to still the
tumult of voices. Gradually the cheering died down, then ceased.
Bang! sounded further down the Street, and the flash of a rifle was
seen.
Tom Reade, his speech unmade, fell from the barrel into the arms of
those crowded about him.