“Reade,” continued Jim Duff, “we all try to be decent men here, and the friends with me are a good and sensible lot of men. You have carried matters just a little too far. Think over what you've heard and noticed here, and then tell me again about your plans, for quitting Paloma.”
As he spoke Jim made a gesture that kept some of the men near him from rushing forward. Tom did not appear to notice the demonstration at all. Certainly he did not flinch.
“I haven't any such plans,” Tom laughed. “I'm hungry and I'm going inside to eat.”
With that, he turned his back on the crowd, with Harry behind him, both making for the steps of the hotel. Superintendent Hawkins stepped in after the boys.
“Gentlemen, I can't do anything more,” spoke up Jim Duff, with an air of resignation.
“But we can!” roared some of the roughs in the crowd. A dozen of them surged forward. The first of them swung a lariat to slip it over Tom Reade's neck.
Bump! Hawkins's sledge-hammer right hand shot out, landing on that fellow's face. With a moan the fellow collapsed on the sidewalk, his jaw broken.
Then Tom and Harry wheeled like a flash, eyeing the idlers and roughs sternly.
“Don't go any further,” proposed Tom, his eyes growing steely, “unless you mean it.”
Something in the attitude of the trio of athletic figures standing ready before them disquieted the crowd of roughs. There were armed men in that crowd, but all felt that they had been put in the wrong, so far, and none of them dared draw the first weapon or fire the first shot.