It seemed long before he got to the front window. Looking out through the snow-dim pane, he saw the street filled with gesticulating men. He saw some of the faces of the forty-four, but mingled with these were other faces--the faces of toughs and thugs, ominous, brutal, menacing. In a flash he realized that he had been making enemies in the district as well as friends, and it struck him that these were the criminal element in the political gang, hangers-on, floaters, the saloon contingent, who were maddened by his attempt to lead the people away from the rotten bosses. As if by magic they had emerged from the underworld, as they always do in times of trouble, and he knew that the excited East Side group was now flavored with mob-anarchy--that he had to deal, not with men whose worst weapon was words, but with brutes who lusted for broken heads. Some of the faces he knew--he had seen them hanging about saloons. And he saw, too, in that swift scrutiny, that many of the men had weapons; some had seized crowbars and sledges from a near-by street tool-chest which was being used by laborers; others had sticks; some had stones. An ominous sound came from the mob, something winged with doom and death, like the rattling of a venomous snake, with head raised to strike, ready fangs and glittering eyes. He could catch in that paralyzing hum words tossed here and there: "Smash his presses! Clean him out! Lynch him, lynch him! Kill--kill--kill!--" A human beast had coiled at his door, myriad-headed, insane, bloodthirsty, all-powerful--the mob, that terror of civilization, that sudden reversion in mass to a state of savagery. It boded ill for Joe Blaine. He had a bitter, cynical thought: "So this is what comes of spreading the truth--of really trying to help--of living out an ideal!" A snowball hit the window before him, a soft crash and spread of drip, and there rose from the mob a fiendish yell that seemed itself a power, making the heart pound, dizzying the brain. Joe turned. His mother was standing close to him, white as paper, but her eyes flashing. She had not dared speak to Joe, knowing that this fight was his and that he had passed out of her hands. He spoke in a low, pulsing voice. "Mother, I want you to stay in back!" She looked at him, as if drinking her fill of his face. "You're right, Joe," she whispered, and turned and went out. Billy was standing at the stove, a frightened boy, but he gripped the poker in his hand. "Billy," said Joe, quietly, "run down and tell Rann to keep 'em out of the press-room." Billy edged to the door, opened it, and fled. Joe was quite alone. He sat down at his desk and took up the telephone. "Hello, Central!" his voice was monotonous in its lowness and tenseness. "Hello!" "Give me police headquarters--_quick_!" Central seemed startled. "Police--? Yes, right away! Hold on!--Here they are!" "Hello! Police headquarters!" came a man's voice.