voice travel far over the heads of the throng. "Will you honor me with
your attention for three or four minutes?"

"Yep!" shouted back one voice.

"You bet!" came another voice.

"Go ahead and spout, Reade. We'll have the hanging, right after!"

There was nothing jovial in these responses. Tom Reade knew men well
enough to recognize this fact. Moreover, Tom knew the plain,
unvarnished, honest and deadly-in-earnest men of these south-western
plains 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.