'Twas a brave deed, too, to save that poor woman and her children." Frank Danes pressed through the crowd about the car, reaching out to seize Reade's hand.
Into Tom's face flashed a sudden look that few had ever seen there.
It was a look full of contempt that the young chief engineer bent on the man who had greeted him.
"Your hand!" cried Danes, in a voice ringing with admiration.
"Don't you touch me!" warned Reade, his voice vibrating with anger.
"Why--what--" began Danes, then reached his own right hand for Tom's.
"Make way for this 'gentleman' to fall!" roared Reade, then swung a crushing blow that landed squarely in Danes's face.
The latter went down in a heap.
There had been no explanation of the seemingly unprovoked blow, but the crowd surged forward, snatching Danes's body up as though he were something of which these men were anxious to be rid.
"Did he set the hotel afire ?" demanded one man in husky tones.
"Did he ?" chorused the crowd.
"Lemme through! Here's a rope!" Then followed wild sounds that could not be distinguished as words.
These men of Paloma seemed bent upon fighting for the possession of Frank Danes, who, having now recovered his senses, emitted shrill appeals for mercy.
"Here's the fire-bug! Here's the human match!" "To the nearest tree!" "I've got the rope ready!" In another thirty seconds Frank Danes would have been dangling from a limb of the nearest tree.

Again Reade and Hazelton sprang into action.
"Stand back, men--please do!" begged Tom, fighting his way through the thinnest side of the crowd.

"Don't kill any man without a trial." "You know that this tenderfoot fired the hotel, don't you ?" asked one man hoarsely.
"I've reason to suspect that he did--" "That's enough for us!" roared a hundred voices.
"But I've no positive proof of Danes' guilt," Tom insisted.
"To the tree with him!" "Not while I've breath left in my body!" Tom blazed forth desperately.
"Come, Harry!" Hazelton sprang to his chum's side, the two fighting desperately to drive away the men who held Frank Danes captive.
"Wait a few hours at least, men!" Tom appealed earnestly.

"Don't do anything now that you'll be sorry for to-morrow." Other men of calm judgment began to see the force of Reade's remarks.
Tom and Harry were swiftly backed by such reinforcements that the trembling wretch was torn from his would-be destroyers.
"Reade," sobbed Frank Danes, "as long as I live I'll never forget your splendid conduct." "Shut up!" retorted Tom roughly.

"I don't want to have to knock you down again.