So Mr. Bat Brydges wrote forty lines of two paragraphs in which he warned the public that this sort of thing had to stop; the West would not stand for interference from outside cattlemen who were trying to wrest the range away from local grazers.  There followed the names of six men concerned in the Rim Rock fray.  Whose names they were, neither Bat nor anyone else knew.  Also Mr. Sheriff Flood was not described as “a guy” nor pictured as reposing under his bed.  He might have been a walking arsenal of defence for the Valley.  According to Mr. Bat Brydges, Sheriff Flood was busy on the case and had wired the authorities of the adjoining States to be on the look out for the guilty parties.  There followed a description of the guilty parties photographed accurately from Mr. Bat Brydges’s retina.

The third newspaper office was the least easy for the handy man’s tactics.  The editor was an independent of the fiery order.  Bat avoided the editor and tackled a young reporter at the noon hour.

“What do you say to a spin in the 40 h. p. to-night?” he asked.

“What’s on?”

The youth was reading an ink-smudged galley proof.

Bat sat down on the desk where he could read over the other’s shoulder.  The proof reeked of “gore” and “shambles” and “heavily armed masked men” and rifle shots thick as hail stones with a sheriff careening over the Mesas at break neck speed slathered with zeal for law.

“What reforms are you jollying along now?” asked Bat.

“We’ll jolly you fellows when this comes out.”

“I’ve always said if I were his Satanic Majesty and wished to defeat the goody-goodies, I wouldn’t bother fighting ’em!  I’d take an afternoon nap and let them buck themselves by their lies and bickerings.”

The youth ran his eye down the galley proof.

“Who filled you up with this dope?” Brydges lowered his voice to an altogether amused and very confidential key.

“What’s the matter with it?”

“Matter?  There’s nothing right about it.”

“Goes all the same.  Got snap!  It’s good stuff.”

“Stuffing, you mean,” corrected the handy man.  “Say, where ever did you get it?  Talk of stuff?  Somebody has mistaken you for a spring chicken.”

“Got it straight.  It’s all right!  Fellow from the English colony—­”

“English Colony?  Those Rookeries—­Mother Carey’s chickens.  Do you know what that Rookery gang is?  A lot of gambling toughs, remittance doughheads—­”

“That doesn’t spoil a ripping good story!  I’m going to wire a column to Chicago.”

“No, you’re not,” contradicted Brydges.  “That kind of thing hurts the State more than ten thousand dollars will advertise it.  You go over your advertising columns my boy—­”

“All right!  It’s up to you?”

Bat whistled and swung the galley proofs between his knees.