s still deeper into the blood of
innocent men. Your own lives may yet pay the penalty if you do not
stop his lawless career! Such a measure as he measures to others it is
right that you should measure to him!"

There was an instant of solemn, breathless hush as the speaker leaned
forward, shaking an uplifted finger at the audience. Then some one on
a front seat cried out, "Emerson Mead! He ought to be lynched!" The
cry was a firebrand thrown into a powder box. The whole mass of men
broke into a yell: "Emerson Mead! Lynch him! Lynch the murderer!" The
speaker stood with uplifted hands, demanding further attention, but
the crowd was beyond his control. Moved by one impulse, it had sprung
to its feet, clamoring and yelling, "A rope! A rope! for Emerson
Mead!"

Then, like men pierced through with sudden death, they halted in
mid-gesture, with shout half uttered, and stood staring, struck dumb
with amazement. For Emerson Mead, a half smile on his face, his hat
pushed back from his forehead, was walking quietly across the
platform. The speaker, turning to follow the staring eyes of his
audience, saw him just as he put out his hand and said, "How do you
do, Mr. Delarue!" The orator's jaw fell, his hands dropped nervelessly
beside him, and involuntarily he jumped backward, as if to shelter
himself behind the table. The interpreter leaped to the floor and
crouched against the platform. All over the hall hands went to
revolver butts in waistband, hip-pocket and holster. The dim light
shone back from the barrels of a score of weapons already drawn. Mead
faced the audience, the half smile still lingering about his mouth.

"I understand," he said quietly, "that you want to lynch me. Well, I'm
here!"

A sudden, bellowing voice roared through the room: "Stop in your
tracks, you cowards!"

Judge Harlin, having guessed where Mead had gone, had just plunged
through the door and was shouldering his way up the aisle, his robust,
broad-backed frame, big head and bull neck dominating the crowd.
Behind him came Tom Tuttle and Nick Ellhorn, their guns in their
hands. A young Mexican, who was with them, leaped to the back of a
seat, and on light toes raced by Harlin's side from seat to seat,
interpreting into Spanish as he ran.

"A nice lot you are!" shouted Judge Harlin. "A nice lot to prate about
law and order, and ready to do murder yourselves! That is what you are
preparing to do! Murder! As cold-blooded a murder as ever man did!"