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Still at a half crouch, Dancy’s right hand began to steal back under the skirt of his long black coat. At that the major flung up the muzzle of his weapon so that it pointed skyward, and he braced his left arm at his side in the attitude you have seen in the pictures of dueling scenes of olden times.

“I am waiting, sir, for you to draw,” said the major quite briskly. “I will shoot it out with you to see whether right or might shall control this convention.” And his heels clicked together like castanets.

Dancy’s right hand kept stealing farther and farther back. And then you could mark by the change of his skin and by the look out of his eyes how his courage was clabbering to whey inside him, making his face a milky, curdled white, the color of a poorly stirred emulsion, and then he quit–he quit cold–his hand came out again from under his coat tails and it was an empty hand and wide open. It was from that moment on that throughout our state Fighting Dave Dancy ceased to be Fighting Dave and became instead Yaller Dave.

“Then, sir,” said the major, “as you do not seem to care to shoot it out with me, man to man, you and your friends will kindly withdraw from this stage and allow the business of this convention to proceed in an orderly manner.”

And as Dave Dancy started to go somebody laughed. In another second we were all laughing and the danger was over. When an American crowd begins laughing the danger is always over.

* * * * *

Newspaper men down in that town still talk about the story that Ike Webb wrote for the last edition of the Evening Press that afternoon. It was a great story, as Ike Webb told it–how, still sitting on the floor, old Judge Barbee got his wits back and by word of mouth commissioned the major a special sergeant-at-arms; how the major privily sent men to close and lock and hold the doors so that the Stickney people couldn’t get out to bolt, even if they had now been of a mind to do so; how the convention, catching the spirit of the moment, elected the major its temporary chairman, and how even after that, for quite a spell, until some of his friends bethought to remove him, Mink Satterlee slept peacefully under our press table with his mismated legs bridged across the tin trough of the footlights.

* * * * *

In rapid succession a number of unusual events occurred in the Evening Press shop the next morning. To begin with, the chief came down early. He had a few words in private with Devore and went upstairs. When the major came at eight as usual, Devore was waiting for him at the door of the city room; and as they went upstairs together, side by side, I saw Devore’s arm steal timidly out and rest a moment on the major’s shoulder.

The major was the first to descend. Walking unusually erect, even for him, he bustled into the telephone booth. Jessie, our operator, told us afterward that he called up a haberdasher, and in a voice that boomed like a bell ordered fourteen of those plaited-bosom shirts of his, the same to be made up and delivered as soon as possible. Then he stalked out. And in a minute or two more Devore came down looking happy and unhappy and embarrassed and exalted, all of them at once. On his way to his desk he halted midway of the floor.

“Gentlemen,” he said huskily–“fellows, I mean–I’ve got an announcement to make, or rather two announcements. One is this: Right here before you fellows who heard most of them I want to take back all the mean things I ever said about him–about Major Stone–and I want to say I’m sorry for all the mean things I’ve done to him. I’ve tried to beg his pardon, but he wouldn’t listen–he wouldn’t let me beg his pardon–he–he said everything was all right. That’s one announcement. Here’s the other: The major is going to have a new job with this paper. He’s going to leave the city staff. Hereafter he’s going to be upstairs in the room next to the chief. He’s gone out now to pick out his own desk. He’s going to write specials for the Sunday–specials about the war. And he’s going to do it on a decent salary too.”

I judge by my own feelings that we all wanted to cheer, but didn’t because we thought it might sound theatrical and foolish. Anyhow, I know that was how I felt. So there was a little awkward pause.

“What’s his new title going to be?” asked somebody then.

“The title is appropriate–I suggested it myself,” said Devore. “Major Stone is going to be war editor.”