two blocks on the most notorious street of the town,
frame shacks that are likely to be the start of a holocaust, any windy
night, which will sweep the entire down-town district. They should
have been condemned years ago."

"Nick," said Bobby, "I'll give you one month to dispose of that
property, because after that length of time I'm going after it."

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