Of course the facts were revealed eventually--Rouletta had a way of winning confidences, a subtle, sweet persuasiveness--they had to do with the former Mrs. Linton, that shadowy female figure which had fallen athwart Tom's early life. It seemed that Jerry had referred to her as a "hellion." Now the injured husband himself had often applied even more disparaging terms to the lady in question, therefore the visitors were puzzled at his show of rabid resentment; the most they could make out of it was that he claimed the right of disparagement as a personal and exclusive privilege, and considered detraction out of the lips of another a trespass upon his intimate private affairs, an aspersion and an insult. The wife of a man's bosom, he averred, was sacred; any creature who breathed disrespect of her into the ears of her husband was lower than a hole in the ground and lacked the first qualifications of a friend, a gentleman, or a citizen. Jerry, on the other hand, would not look at the matter in this light. Tom had called the woman a "hellion," therefore he was privileged to do the same, and any denial of that privilege was an iniquitous encroachment upon HIS sacred rights. Those rights he proposed to safeguard, to fight for if necessary. He would shed his last drop of blood in their defense. No cantankerous old grouch could refuse him free speech and get away with it. "You're not really mad at each other," Rouletta told them. "AIN'T we?" they hoarsely chorused. She shook her head. "You need a change, that's all. As a matter of fact, your devotion to each other is about the most beautiful, the most touching, thing I know. You'd lay down your lives for each other; you're like man and wife, and well you know it." "Who? US?" Jerry was aghast. "Which one of us is the woman? I been insulted by experts, but none of 'em ever called me 'Mrs. Linton.' She was a tough customer, a regular hellion--" "He's off again!" Tom growled. "Me lay down MY life for a squawking parrot! He'll repeat that pet word for the rest of time if I don't wring his neck." "Mebbe so you lak hear 'bout some other feller's trouble," 'Poleon broke in, diplomatically. "Wal, ma soeur she's come to you for help, queeck." Both old men became instantly alert. "You in trouble?" Tom demanded of the girl. "Who's been hurting you, I'd like to know?" Jerry, too, leaned forward, and into his widening eyes came a stormy look. "Sure! Has one of them crawlin' worms got fresh with you, Letty? Say--!" He reached up and removed his six-shooter from its nail over his bed. Rouletta set them upon the right track. Swiftly but earnestly she recited the nature and the circumstances of the misfortune that had overtaken Pierce Phillips, and of the fruitless efforts his friends were making in his behalf. She concluded by asking her hearers to go his bail. "Why, sure!" Linton exclaimed, with manifest relief. "That's easy. I'll go it, if they'll take me."