ur prisoner in double-quick time past the rear of the stores
and saloons to the agreed rendezvous. There we found Danny Randall and
his committee with Morton. Within the next few moments, in rapid
succession, appeared the others with Scar-face Charley, Crawford, and
Jules.

The camp was already buzzing with excitement. Men poured out from the
buildings into the streets like disturbed ants. Danny thrust his
prisoners into the interior of the cabin, and drew us up in two lines
outside. He impressed on us that we must keep the military formation,
and that we were to allow no one to approach. Across the road about
twenty yards away he himself laid a rope.

"That's the dead-line," he announced. "Now you keep the other side!"

In no time a mob of five hundred men had gathered. They surged
restlessly to and fro. The flash of weapons was everywhere to be seen.
Cries rent the air--demands, threats, oaths, and insults so numerous and
so virulent that I must confess my heart failed me. At any instant I
expected the mob to open fire; they could have swept us away with a
single volley. To my excited imagination every man of that multitude
looked a ruffian. We seemed alone against the community. I could not
understand why they did not rush us and have it over with. Yet they
hesitated. The fact of the matter is that the desperadoes had no
cohesion, no leaders; and they knew what none of us knew--namely, that a
good many of that crowd must be on our side. The roar and turmoil and
heat of discussion, argument, and threat rose and fell. In one of the
lulls an Irish voice yelled:

"Hang them!"

The words were greeted by a sullen assenting roar. Five hundred hands,
each armed, were held aloft. This unanimity produced an instant silence.

"Hang who?" a truculent voice expressed the universal uncertainty.

"Hang the road agents!" yelled back the little Irishman defiantly.

"Bully for you, Irish; that took nerve!" muttered Johnny, at my elbow.

Fifty threats were hurled at the bold speaker, and the click of gunlocks
preceded a surge in his direction. Then from the mob went up a sullen,
formidable muttering of warning. No individual voice could be
distinguished; but the total effect of dead resistance and determination
could not be mistaken. Instantly, at the words so valiantly uttered, the
spirit of cohesion had been born. The desperadoes checked in surprise.
We had friends. How many or how strong no one could guess; but they were
t