"Well, Tom, this is your shindy, and whatever you say goes. But I sure
think that if you really want to get this Dysert gang, the thing to do
is to trot in and get 'em, right now. You know yourself that Black
ain't any too warm about it, and Williamson is so under Dell Baxter's
thumb that he 's more likely to trip you up, if he can, than he is to
help. You-all won't get another chance as good as this!"

Ellhorn's martial ardor, and his buoyant belief that Mead's marriage
had in no wise lessened his immunity from bullets, obscured for the
moment his anxiety about Mrs. Mead. He slapped his thigh, exclaiming,
"Them's my sentiments, boys! Come on! Let's pull our freight!"

Tuttle's manner still showed some reluctance, but he said no more, and
the three Texans, each of them six feet three or more in his stockings,
broad-shouldered, and straight as an arrow, swung into the street.

They took with them Willoughby Simmons, the deputy sheriff for whose
judgment Tom had so little esteem. Tuttle sent him to guard the rear
of the house, a small, detached adobe, in which Dysert and an unknown
number of his followers had fortified themselves. Some twenty feet in
front and toward one corner of the house grew a large old apple tree,
its leaves and pink-nosed buds just beginning to make themselves
manifest, and underneath it were some piles of wood. It was the only
position that offered cover. Tuttle asked Mead to station himself
there, where he could command one end of the house, a view toward the
rear, and the whole front. Ellhorn he placed similarly at the other
front corner. His own position he took midway between the two, facing
the door and two small windows that blinked beneath the narrow _portal_.