When the _Herald_ appeared the following Thursday afternoon, the town quit business to read the war cry of Ellis's boy. It was a flaming sword, hurled at the Board of Aldermen. Bowers, foaming with wrath, stormed into the office.
"You take all that back," he yelled, "or I'll put you out of this here building. I've told you times enough this office belongs to me. I never turned it over to Ellis."
Jap stuck type, deadly calm on the surface of his being. Bill shifted uneasily, his hands clinched, his ruddy face glowing.
Jap turned to consult his copy. Before the act could be imagined Bowers had struck him over the head with the revolver he dragged from his pocket. Jap fell, crumpling to the floor, the blood spurting across the type. For an instant there was horrified silence. Then, with a howl like that of a wild beast, Bill threw himself upon his father. But for the intervention of Tom Granger, who had followed the Mayor because he scented trouble, there would have been a quick finish to the pompous career of Bill Bowers's progenitor, for Bill had wrested the pistol from his father's hand and was pressing it against the temple of the worst scared coward Bloomtown had ever seen. There was a sharp tussle between the broad-shouldered banker and the frenzied youth. Several men rushed in from the street.
"Let me go!" shouted Bill, "for if he's killed Jap he's got to die."
They were carrying Jap out of the composing room, limp and bleeding.
"Let him alone, Bill," Tom counselled wisely. "Let your father alone, for if Jap is dead, we'll lynch him."
Jap was pretty weak when they brought the Mayor's resignation up from the calaboose for him to read. A representative delegation stood around his bed.
"Let the Judge out, for Bill's sake," Jap said.
"We'd better keep him locked up for his own sake," declared Tom Granger. "For in Bill's present frame of mind he's likely to make an orphan of himself."
Flossy came in from the little sitting-room and leaned over the bed.
"I am going to see Brother William," she said quietly. "I am going to take Brent Roberts with me. William will give you boys a quitclaim bill to this property, for this dastardly deed."
She was an impersonation of righteous wrath as she swept into the jail, followed by Bloomtown's leading attorney. Judge Bowers had said more than once that Flossy had a willing tongue, but its full willingness was never conceived until she descended upon him that eventful day.