Mern was a big man; he had been invincible as a police officer. But when he leaped and struck at Latisan, the latter countered with his toil-hardened fist and knocked Mern down. Crowley had also served with the police. But he was no match for the berserker rage which had transformed the man from the woods. Latisan whirled again to Crowley, beat him to his knees, set his foot against the antagonist's breast and drove him violently backward, and he fell across Mern.
But Latisan was not through. Men who had viewed John Latisan in the old days when he came roaring down to town, had they been present in the Vose-Mern offices that day, would have recognized in the grandson the Latisan temperament operating in its old form and would not have been surprised. The avenger picked up Mern's desk chair. He swung it about him, smashing everything in the room which could be smashed. He flung away the fragments of the chair and rushed into the outer office.
The fat girl was calling for central, for police.
"Hand it over!" he commanded. "And you'd all better step outside," he suggested, after he had torn loose the wires. "I'm using the office right now."
He picked up the chair from which she fled. It was heavy and he used it to smash other furniture. Then he began to beat out the glass which shut off the other private rooms which adjoined the main office. In that process he brought the terrified Craig into view. He dropped the chair, reached in, and dragged Craig over the sill of the compartment. "This has been coming to you on the Noda waters! I'm glad you're here now to get it!" He held the Three C's director helpless in utter dismay, at the full length of a left arm, and pummeled him senseless with a right fist. Then he dragged him to the door of the chief's office and flung him across the two men who were stirring.
"It's a fifty-fifty wreck--this office and me--pretty nigh total!"
He walked out. Youth, strength, and an incentive which did not animate the others, had enabled him to prevail.
Mern and Crowley struggled weakly from under the man who was pinning them down.
"I'll get word to the cops," stuttered Crowley, holding his hand to his battered and bleeding lips.
"Wait till Craig comes to!" protested Mern. "He may want us to hush the thing. He has been hollering for soft pedal all the time. He seems bad! Get a doctor!"