“I suppose so.”
“Very well; good morning.”
“Good morning, Mr. McNally.”
At noon Harvey went out to lunch. He met Jim at the hotel, and told him what had happened. Jim smiled at Harvey's seriousness.
“The fight hasn't begun yet,” he said. “When you've been through as many deals as I have”—he stopped and drew out his watch.
“It's one-thirty. You'd better get back. I'll go with you and look over the field.”
As they walked through the waiting room Harvey fancied that he heard a noise from above. However, the noon express, out in the train shed, was blowing off steam with a roar, and he could not be positive. But Jim quickened his pace, and ran up the steps with surprising agility.
As they neared the second floor the noise grew. There was scuffling and loud talking, culminating in an uproar of profanity and blows. The first man they saw was McNally. He stood near the stairway, hat on the back of his head, face red but composed. Before him was a strange scene. Mallory and the big deputy stood with their backs to the Treasurer's door, tussling with three burly ruffians. Beyond the deputy, one of the detectives was standing off two men with well-placed blows. The two other detectives were rolling about the floor, each with a man firmly in his grasp. There was a great noise of feet, as the different groups swayed and struggled. In the excitement none of them saw Jim and Harvey, who stood for a moment on the top step.
A stiff blow caught the deputy's chin, and he staggered. With a quick motion Mallory whipped out a pair of handcuffs. There was a flash of steel as he drew back his arm, then the maddened rough went down in a heap, a stream of blood flowing from his head. One of the others, a red-haired man, gripped the handcuffs and fought for them. It all happened in an instant, and as Harvey stood half-dazed, he heard a breathless exclamation, and Jim had sprung forward.
Some persons might have thought Jim Weeks fat. He weighed two hundred and forty pounds, but he was tall and wide in the shoulder. On ordinary occasions his face was so composed as to appear almost cold-blooded, but now it was fairly livid. Harvey drew in his breath with surprise; he had seen Jim angry, but never like this. In three strides Jim was behind the red-haired man. He threw an arm around the man's neck, jerking his chin up with such force that his body bent backward, and relinquishing his hold on the handcuffs he clutched, gasping, at Jim's arm. But the arm gripped like iron. While Mallory was pulling himself together and turning to aid the deputy, Jim walked backward, dragging the struggling man to the head of the stairs. On the top step he paused to grip the man's trousers with his other hand, then he literally threw the fellow downstairs. Bruised and battered, he lay for a moment on the landing, then he struggled to his feet and moved his arm toward his hip pocket, but Jim was ready. The breathless President started down the stairs with a rush. For an instant the man wavered, then he broke and fled into the train shed.