“Here’s Doctor Westmoreland!  And here comes the po-lice!” yelled a boy, joyous with excitement.

Westmoreland cast one by no means sympathetic glance at the wreck on the ground, and his big arms went about John Flint; his fingers flew over him like an apprehensive father’s.

“What’s all this?  Who’s been fighting here, you people?” demanded the town marshal’s brisk voice.  “Big Jan?  And—­good Lord! Mister Flint!” His eyes bulged.  He looked from Big Jan on the ground to the Butterfly Man under Westmoreland’s hands, with an almost ludicrous astonishment.

“I’m sure sorry, Mr. Flint, if I have to give you a little trouble for awhile, but—­”

“But you’ll be considerably sorrier if you do it,” said Dr. Walter Westmoreland savagely.  “You take that hulk over there to the jail, until I have time to see him.  I can’t have him sent home to his wife in that shape.  And look here, Marshal:  Jan got exactly what he deserved; it’s been coming to him this long time.  If Inglesby’s bunch tries to take a hand in this, I’ll try to make Appleboro too hot to hold somebody.  Understand?”

The marshal was a wise enough man, and he understood.  Inglesby’s pet foreman had been all but killed, and Inglesby would be furiously angry.  But—­Mr. Flint had done it, and behind Mr. Flint were powers perhaps as potent as Inglesby’s.  One thing more may have influenced the marshal:  The hitherto timid and apathetic people had merged into a compact and ominous ring around the Butterfly Man and the doctor.  A shrill murmur arose, like the wind in the trees presaging a storm.  There would be riot in staid Appleboro if one were so foolish as to lay a detaining hand upon John Flint this day.  More yet, the beloved Westmoreland himself would probably begin it.  Never had the marshal seen Westmoreland look so big and so raging.

“All right, Doctor,” said he, hastily backing off.  “I reckon you’re man enough to handle this.”

Some proud worshiper brought Mr. Flint his hat, knapsack, and net, and the mountainous Katya insisted upon tenderly placing his glasses upon his nose—­upside down.  Westmoreland used to say afterward that for a moment he feared Flint was going to bite her hand!  Then man and dog were placed in the doctor’s car and hurried home to my mother; who made no comment, but put both in the larger Guest Room, the whimpering dog on a comfort at the foot of his master’s bed.  Kerry had a broken rib, but outside of this he was not injured.  He would be out and all right again in a week, Westmoreland assured his anxious master.

“Oh, you man, you!” crowed Westmoreland.  “John, John, if anything were needed to make me love you, this would clinch it!  Prying open nature’s fist, John, having butterflies bear your name, working hand in glove with your government, boosting boys, writing books, are all of them fine big grand things.  But if along with them one’s man enough to stand up, John, with the odds against him, and punish a bully and a scoundrel, the only way a bully and a scoundrel can feel punishment, that’s a heart-stirring thing, John!  It gets to the core of my heart.  It isn’t so much the fight itself, it’s being able to take care of oneself and others when one has to.  Yes, yes, yes.  A fight like that is worth a million dollars to the man who wins it!”