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 general railroad pattern of the town. Some whom he knew to be conductors and engineers, who never had tipped him as much as a nod when he served on the section under Orrin Smith, greeted him like a member of the brotherhood now. That they were sincere about it Tom did not doubt, and would have been wrong if he had admitted such a thought into his ingenuous head.

He was a man who had been in bad company through innocence, rather than depravity, their attitude seemed to say, when he had labored on the section. That was all past and forgiven. The taint of jerry was no longer on his hands.

They repeated, with great earnestness and the pulling out of wallets, the declaration of Windy Moore that all the funds he might need to appeal his case were ready to his hand. More than that; if he wanted to organize a crowd to raid Cal Withers and shoot him off the face of the earth, they were with him; or to ride out and take his cattle away from the sheriff, load them and ship them out of the state, they were ready to get their guns and go. That they meant it, was as plain as the buttons on their coats.

Louise came down while they stood around Tom, their wallets and their rolls in their hands. And that was the interesting juncture at which Banjo Gibson emerged from the dining-room, the shine of chicken gravy on his chin.

"Why, hel-l-l-o, Tom!" Banjo greeted him, nearly bursting the buttons off his stiff-bosomed shirt with