This was but a sample. Bobby had at last become suspicious, and as old John Burnit had shrewdly observed in one of his letters: “It hurts to acquire suspiciousness, but it is quite necessary; only don’t overdo it.”
Bobby, however, was in a field where suspiciousness could scarcely be overdone. When any man came to protest or to use influence on Bobby in his fight, Bobby took the bull by the horns, called for Jolter, who was a mine of information upon local affairs, and promptly found out the reason for that man’s interest; whereupon he either warned him off or attacked him, and made an average of ten good, healthy enemies a day. He scared Adam Winthrop out of the political race entirely, he made the Allstynes tear down their fire-traps and erect better-paying and consequently more desirable tenements, and he had De Graff and the other involved bankers “staggering in circles and hoarsely barking,” as “Bugs” Roach put it.
So far, Bobby had been subjected to no personal annoyances, but on the day after his first attack on the chief of police he began to be arrested for breaking the speed laws, and fined the limit, even though he drove his car but eight miles an hour, while his news carriers and his employees were “pinched” upon the most trivial pretexts. Libel suits were brought wherever a merchant or an official had a record clear enough to risk such procedure, and three of these suits were decided against him; whereupon Bobby, finding the money chain which bound certain of the judges to Sam Stone, promptly attacked these members of the judiciary and appealed his cases.
His very name became a red rag to every member of Stone’s crowd; but up to this point no violence had been offered him. One night, however, as he was driving his own car homeward, men on the watch for him stepped out of an alley mouth two blocks above the Burnit residence and strewed the street thickly with sharp-pointed coil springs. One of these caught a tire, and Bobby, always on the alert for the first sign of such accidents, brought his car to a sudden stop, reached down for his tire-wrench and jumped out. Just as he stooped over to examine the tire, some instinct warned him, and he turned quickly to find three men coming upon him from the alley, the nearest one with an uplifted slung-shot. It was with just a glance from the corner of his eye as he turned that Bobby caught the import of the figure towering above him, and then his fine athletic training came in good stead. With a sidewise spring he was out of the sphere of that descending blow, and, swinging with his heavy wrench, caught the fellow a smash upon the temple which laid him unconscious. Before the two other men had time to think, he was upon them and gave one a broken shoulder-blade. The other escaped. There had been no word from any of the three men which might lead to an explanation of this attack, but Bobby needed no explanation; he divined at once the source from which it came, and in the morning he sent for Biff Bates.
“Biff,” said he, “I spoke once about securing some thugs to act as a counter-irritant against Stone, but I have neglected it. How long will it take to get hold of some?”
“Ten minutes, if I wait till dark,” replied Biff. “I can go down to the Blue Star, and for ten iron men apiece can get you as fine a bunch of yeggs as ever beat out a cripple’s brains with his own wooden leg.”
Bobby smiled.
“I don’t want them to go quite that far,” he objected. “Are they men you can depend upon not to sell out to Stone?”
“Just one way,” replied Biff. “The choice line of murderers that hang out down around the levee are half of them sore on Stone, anyhow; but they’re afraid of him, and the only way you can use them is to give ’em enough to get ’em out of town. For ten a throw you can buy them body and soul.”
“I’ll take about four, to start on duty to-night, and stay on duty till they accomplish what I want done,” and Bobby detailed his plan to Biff.