n which it can be based. But to avoid any further trouble,
here and now, I will submit to having it served. I will not be
disarmed, and I warn you that any attempt of that sort will make
trouble. But I give you my word, for both myself and my friends,
that otherwise there shall be no disturbance."

Judge Harlin shot at Mead a surprised look, hesitated an instant,
and then nodded approval. Tuttle and Ellhorn looked at him in
open-mouthed, open-eyed amazement for a moment, then dropped their
pistols to their holsters and stepped back. A sudden hush fell over
the crowd, which waited expectantly, no one moving.

"I think Jim Halliday is here," Mead said quietly. "He has my word. He
can come and take me and there shall be no trouble, if he don't try to
take my gun."

A stout, red-haired young man worked his way forward through the
crowded aisle to the platform and took a paper from his pocket. Mead
glanced at it, said "All right," and the two walked away together. The
crowd in the hall quickly poured out after them. Tuttle, his lips
white and trembling, looked after Mead's retreating figure and his
huge chest began to heave and his big blue eyes to fill with tears. He
turned to Ellhorn, his voice choking with sobs:

"Emerson Mead goin' off to jail with Jim Halliday! Nick, why didn't he
let us shoot? He needn't have been arrested! Here was a good chance to
clean up more'n half his enemies, and he wouldn't let us do it!" He
looked at Ellhorn in angry, regretful grief, and the tears dropped
over his tanned cheeks. "Say, Nick," he went on, lowering his voice to
a hoarse whisper, "you-all don't think he was afraid, do you?"

"Sure, and I don't," Ellhorn replied promptly. "I reckon Emerson Mead
never was afraid of anybody or anything."

"Well, I'm glad you don't," Tom replied, his voice still shaking with
sobs. "I couldn't help thinkin' when he kept tellin' us not to shoot,
that maybe he was afraid, with all those guns in front and only us
four against 'em, and I said to myself, 'Good Lord, have I been
runnin' alongside a coward all these years!' And I was sure sick for a
minute. But I guess it was just his judgment that there'd better not
be any shootin' just now."

Ellhorn looked over the empty hall with one eye shut. "Well, I reckon
there would have been a heap o' dead folks in this room by now if
we-all had turned loose."

"About as many as we-all had cartridges," and Tuttle glanced at their
well-filled belts. He was