"Going to beat him up?" he yelled. "Go to it, and I'm here, if you need help."
Jap took off his coat, deliberately. He unclasped his cuffs and was in the act of unbuttoning his collar, when the local freight whistled for the crossing below town. With a mighty leap the man from Barton cleared the space between his chair and the door. The strolling populace of Main street was scattered like leaves before a sudden gust of wind. There was an abortive cry of "Stop, thief!" and a bewildered pursuit by several tipsy bums who had been loafing in front of Bingham's saloon, but the appearance of the marshal, wearing a broad grin of satisfaction, dispelled apprehension.
"That was Jones, travelin' light," he explained.
The next issue of the Standard failed to mention the editorial visit to Bloomtown; but the scurrilous articles ceased and there was quiet again.
"Did Ellis ever have a fight—that kind of a fight—with anybody?" Jap asked Flossy, when Bill had finished his second-hand recital of the show that "he wouldn't have missed for his farm in Texas." In Bill's heart there arose a mighty resentment against Rosy Raymond, who had enticed him from the office just before Jones arrived.
"Ellis did a good deal of fighting before he got me to fight his battles for him," she said, a whimsical smile in her gentle eyes. "You ought to know, Jap. I never would have had Ellis if he hadn't whipped Brother William."
"But that wasn't a matter of personal grudge," Jap argued. It had seemed to him that somehow he had degraded himself when he went down to Jones's ethical level. "I wanted to use my fists because Jones ridiculed me. When Ellis licked the Judge, it wasn't a personal matter. He did it for me."
"And you did this for—for the honor of Bloomtown," cried Bill, with enthusiasm.