, called her by name, and, with a "Like to see you about a little
matter," beckoned her inside and shut the door upon them both.

A moment later she was out again, a blue envelope in her hand.

"He's got me discharged, Joe. Here's a note from the city editor," she
said. Her voice quivered and the tears stood in her eyes.

"Fired you!"

"Yes,--he says I'm too thin-skinned."

Joe stood for a moment with the front page of the paper still in his
hand. Something of Jonathan came into his face,--the same firm lines
about his mouth that his father had when he crawled under the floor
timbers of the mill to save Baker's girl, pinned down and drowning, the
night of the freshet.

Crushing the sheet in his hand Joe walked straight into the city
editor's office, a swing in his movement and a look in his eye that
roused everybody in the room.

"You've got Katie Murdock fired, she says," he hissed between his
teeth. "What fur?" He was standing over the night city editor now, his
eyes blazing, his fists tightly closed.

"What business have you to ask?" growled the editor.

"Every business!" There was something in the boy's face that made the
man move his hand toward a paper weight.

"She's fired because she wouldn't do your dirty work. Look at
this!"--he had straightened out the crumpled sheet now: "Look at it!
That's your work!--ain't a dog would a-done it, let alone a man. Do you
know what's happened? That girl's mother went crazy when she saw that
picture! You sent that catamount, Miss Parker, to do it, and she done
it fine, and filled it full o' lies and dirt! Ye didn't care who ye
hurt, you--"

The man sprang to his feet.

"Here!--put yourself outside that door! Get out or I'll--"

"Git out, will I!--ME!--I'll git out when you eat yer words,--and you
WILL eat 'em. Down they go--"

Joe had him by the throat now, his fingers tight under his chin, his
head flattened against the wooden partition. In his powerful grasp the
man was as helpless as a child.

"Eat it,--swallow it!--MORE--MORE--all of it! damn ye!"

He was cramming the wad between the editor's lips, one hand forcing
open his teeth, the other holding his head firm against the wall.

Then flinging the half strangled man from him he turned, and facing the
crowd of reporters and employes--Miss Parker among them,--shouted:--

"And ye're no better,--none o' ye. Ye all hunt dirt,--live on dirt and
eat dirt. Ye're like a lot o' buzzards stuck up on a fence rai