ns well enough to know the genuine fury of the crowd.

Arizona and New Mexico have long been held up as states where violence
and lynch law prevail. The truth is that Arizona and New Mexico have no
more lynchings than do many of the older states. An Arizona lynching can
only follow an upheaval of public sentiment, when honest men are angered
at having their fair fame sullied by the acts of blackguards.

"Friends," Tom went on, as soon as he could secure silence, "I am a
newcomer among you. I have no right to tell you how to conduct your
affairs, and I am not going to make that mistake. What you may do with
Jim Duff, what you may do with others who damage the fair name of your
town, is none of my business. For myself I want no revenge on these
rascals. They have already been handled with much more roughness than
they had time to show to me. I am satisfied to call the matter even."

"But we're not!" shouted an Arizona voice from the crowd.

"That's your own affair, gentlemen," Reade went on. "I wish to
suggest--in fact, I beg of you--that you let these fellows go to-night.
In the morning, when the sun is up, and after you have thought over
the matter, you will be in a better position to give these fellows
fair-minded justice--if you then still feel that something must be done
to them. That is all I have to say, gentlemen. Now, Mr. Beasley, won't
you follow with further remarks in this same line?"

Mr. Beasley looked more or less reluctant, but he presently complied
with Reade's request. Then Tom called upon another prominent citizen of
Paloma in the crowd for a speech.

"Let the coyotes go--until daylight," was the final verdict of the
crowd, though there was an ominous note in the expressed decision.

In stony silence the crowd now parted to let Jim Duff and his fellows go
away.

Within sixty seconds the last of them had run the gauntlet of contempt
and vanished.

"Someone told me," scoffed Beasley, "that a gambler is a man of courage,
polish, brains and good manners. I reckon Jim Duff isn't a real gambler,
then."

"Yes, he is!" shouted another. "He's one of the real kind--sometimes
smooth, but always bound to fatten on the money that belongs to other
men."

"Jim can leave town, I reckon," grimly declared another old settler. "We
have savings banks these days, and we don't need gamblers to carry our
money for us."

"Speech, Reade! Speech!" insisted Mr. Beasley good-humoredly.

From some mysterious place a