"They do want you to leave town!" the gambler insisted.

"Or whether they want Jim Duff and some of his friends to leave town,"
Tom Reade continued good-humoredly.

Jim Duff turned, gazing back at the men with him. They represented the
roughest element in the town.

"No use arguing with a mule, Jim!" growled a red-faced man at the rear
of the crowd. "Get a rail, boys, and we'll start the procession right
now."

"Bring a rope along, too!" called another man hoarsely.

"Get two rails and one rope!" proposed a third bad character. "The other
kid doesn't seem to be sassy enough to need a rope."

"Gentlemen," broke in Harry Hazelton gravely, "if anyone of you imagines
that I'm holding my tongue because I disapprove of my partner's course,
let me assure you that I back every word he says."

"Make it two ropes, then!" jeered another voice.

"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.

"Take that injured man to a surgeon and have his jaw s