In the course of John's efforts, he rejuvenates the paper, upsets the plans of local political tricksters and helps bring to justice the White Caps, a gang from a neighboring community. But his efforts have gained him enemies who will use injury or death to stop him and he despairs of the woman he loves returning his affections. Will justice prevail and love triumph?Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist from Indiana best known for his Pulitzer Prize winning novels Alice Adams and The Magnificent Ambersons, which also became a film by Orson Welles. Tarkington chronicled Midwestern American life, and the changes wrought by the economic boom times following the Civil War and up to World War I.