"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.