r."

The three friends walked leisurely up Main street, talking quietly
together, and apparently unconscious of any unusual disturbance.
Except that their eyes were restless and alert and that Mead's glowed
with the yellow light and the defiant look, they showed no sign of
the excitement they felt. They were all three of nearly the same age,
they were all Texan born and bred, and for many years had been the
closest of friends. Each one stood six feet and some inches in his
stockings, and their great stature, broad shoulders, deep chests and
sinewy figures marked them for notice, even in the southwest, the land
of tall, well-muscled men.

Thomson Tuttle was the tallest and by far the heaviest of the three--a
great, blond giant, with the round, frank, sincere face of an
overgrown school-boy, glowing with the red tan which fair skins take
on in the hot, dry air of the southwest. From this red expanse a pair
of serious blue eyes looked out, while a short, tawny mustache covered
his lip, and auburn hair curled in close rings over his head. It was
never necessary for Thomson Tuttle to do any swearing, for the colors
that dwelt in his face kept up a constant profanity. There was a
strain of German blood in him--his mother had come from Germany in her
childhood--which showed in his impassive countenance and in the open,
serious directness of his mental habit.

Ellhorn was the handsome one of the three friends. He was straight,
slender, long of limb, clean of muscle, and remarkably quick and
graceful in his movements. His regular features were clear-cut and his
dancing eyes were bright and black and keen. His sweeping black
mustache curled up at the ends in a wide curve that shaded a dimple
in each cheek. He was as proud of the fact that both of his maternal
grandparents had been born in Ireland as he was that he himself was a
native of Texas. The vigorous Celtic strain, that in the clash of
nationalities can always hold its own against any blood with which it
mingles, had dowered him well with Celtic characteristics. A trace of
the brogue still lingered in his speech, along with the slurred r's
and the soft drawl of his southern tongue, while his spontaneous
rebellion under restraint and his brilliant disregard of the
consequences of his behavior were as truly Celtic as was the
honey-sweet persuasiveness with which he could convince his friends
that whatever he had done had been exactly right and the only thing
possible. He