Mead caught the angry eye of a brutal-faced man directly in front of him, and saw that the man’s revolver was at full cock and his hand on the trigger. In the flash that went from eye to eye he saw with surety what would happen in another moment. And he knew what the sequence of one shot would be.
“Neighbors!” he shouted. “Jim Halliday has a warrant for my arrest. I protest that it has been illegally issued, because there is no evidence upon 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 silent a moment, while he wiped his eyes and blew his nose, and his sobs gradually ceased. “No, Emerson couldn’t have been afraid. Though I sure thought for a minute I’d have to quit him. But you’re right, Nick. Emerson ain’t afraid of anything, livin’ or dead. It was just his judgment. And Emerson’s got powerful good judgment, too. I ought to have known better than to think anything else. But, Lord! I did hate to see that measly crowd sneakin’ out of here alive!”