Fighting Back/Round 1
"Fortune can take away riches, but not courage!"
This example of the use writin' implements can be put to was composed by Mr. Lucius A. Seneca, a Roman wisecracker which manipulated a terrific pen and ink in the year 0065. Eighteen hundred years after Seneca paid his respects to Lady Luck, as mentioned above, Kane Halliday made that his motto and proved it to be as true as it was when Luce first pulled it on his admirin' friends.
I guess Kane Halliday is better known to you as Kid Roberts, the name under which he win the world's heavyweight title, with me as his pilot. I got him from Dummy Carney for nothin'—won him on a bet, in fact—when the Kid was just a big, strong, willin' boy, a glutton for punishment and a spendthrift at handin' it out, but with no knowledge what the so ever about the fine points of the glove game. And boxin's got fine points, don't think it ain't! Well, I supplied that part of it and in somethin' like three years I made him a champion. Then Kid Roberts made the fatal mistake of tryin' to box two guys at once—Cupid and Knockout Pierce. The chubby little pinweight with the bow and arrow crashed him in love with Dolores Brewster, eye-soothin' daughter of Senator Brewster, a baby with a criminal bank roll, and a fifty-six degree fight fan. The Kid begin chasin' to dinners and dances, boundin' around nightly with the fair Dolores and doin' his trainin' by proxy. The result was that Knockout Pierce, a tomato the Kid would ordinarily of knocked for a loop in a round, smacked my boy friend from under his title. After that little incident Kid Roberts retired from the ring with plenty jack and wedded himself to Dolores Brewster.
Then the fun begin!
Instead of simply livin' happy ever after like they do in a novel, why, a series of experiences begin for the Kid which made his previous adventures look about as excitin' as the directions for making coffee!
To start with, I don't think we ever had a heavyweight champ which reached the ring by the via of the route Kid Roberts took, or that we've ever had a box fighter like him. He was the mock turtle's monocle and no mistake! He was one of the show spots at Yale when he stalled around the New Haven hideout —football star, trackteam mainstay, and this and that—till his father, J. A. Halliday, the big Wall Street speculator batted out of turn and got sent to the cleaners. The old man lost about everything but his initials, and when the smoke died away the Kid sent him to South America to think matters over, while he left Yale flat on its shoulder blades and set forth to put his male parent on the Big Time again.
Bein' built for the game, he turned to the ring, and if he missed goin' through college, why, that's about the only thing he didn't go through! We barred nobody, no weight, no distance, no color, no battle ground. Pretty soon we got nothin' but money and the Kid brings his old man back to the U. S. and sets him up in business again. A good son, what?
But the Wall Street bee was still buzzin' around old J. A. Halliday's bean and tryin' to get rid of it was like tryin' to get rid of diphtheria. Him and the Kid dives into the business end of the movie game for a while, but neither of them knew what it was all about, and they dropped plenty pennies in that. Then while the Kid and his fair young bride is takin' a breeze around the world to bust up a dull summer, old man Halliday breaks out with a ambition to corner the grain market. What they done to him was pitiful, no foolin'! This time they didn't even leave him his life, because the shock of this second failure broke him in half and he got a stroke and died. The heart-broken Kid, which had been nuts over his dad, scurries back from Europe to find his father had left him nothin' but debts, and the Kid spends his last solitary dime payin' off. Then he sends for me.
When I got his wire I come on the run, as I'd come from the grave if he wanted me. Me and Kid Roberts was never just manager and fighter, we was the greatest thing two men can be—pals! So when I trip up the marble steps of his Long Island palace, I'm runnin' over in my mind a dozen schemes to help him out of his jam. The funny thing is that the stunt the Kid actually did, and the one you'd imagine I'd think of first, didn't even enter my head. Kid Roberts had never liked fightin'—hated the game, in fact—and only laced on the gloves in the first place to put his old man on his feet, like I told you. When he lost his title to Knockout Pierce and married Dolores Brewster, he publicly announced that he was through with boxin' for all time, and I guess he meant it, but circumstances alter cases, as the Hindus says.
Anyways, this day the Kid took me into his beautiful library and we pulled up easy-chairs near the big French window overlookin' the lawn. I didn't start to tell him how sorry I was about his father which he had just buried. I just gripped his hand and held it—that told him all of it.
"Well, Joe," he says after a bit, with a kind of nervous grin, "I—I'm broke again!"
"That's where you're wrong," I remark pleasantly. "You got twenty-five grand!"
I had come prepared, and I flung a certified check on the table.
"Half my roll, Kid," I says. "I got fifty-odd grand; there'll be more when you need it!"
Kid Roberts sits forward in his chair and looks at me for a minute with a extremely odd expression on his face. Then he picks up my check and gazes at it kind of wonderin'ly, gulpin' a couple of times and fin'ly blowin' his nose with much violence. I busied myself watchin' the autos shootin' past the house on the Merrick Road till the Kid gets up and slaps me on the shoulder. He pushes my check back in my hand.
"I might have known you would do something just like that," he says. "Old fellow, you put new life in me! But that isn't why I sent for you, Joe. I'm not going to borrow any money, I'm going to earn it!"
"You got to have a stake to go in business, Kid," I come back at him. "I'm ready to tackle anything with you, but we'll need jack to play any game, won't we?"
"Not the one I'm going to play, Joe," says the Kid. "I'm going back to the ring!"
Wam! For a second I think my comely ears is lyin' to me. I'm dumfounded and tickled silly at one and the same time. Before I can make any remarks, the Kid goes on.
"Joe, I have given my rather desperate situation a great deal of serious consideration—lost a good many nights' sleep over it. I've taken stock of myself and my worldly possessions, and I've nothing I can realize a dollar on—except my fists!"
"How 'bout this trap here?" I ask, lookin' around a room which must of cost ten thousand bucks to furnish if it cost a dime.
"Mortgaged to the hilt!" answers the Kid briefly, and goes on: "I've had practically no business experience nor training in any of the arts or sciences, and my forced departure from Yale terminated my studies in engineering. On the other hand, I'm still under thirty and in splendid physical condition as a result of clean living and daily exercise. Also, Joe, the present contenders in the heavyweight division, apart from the champion, do not appear to me to be any more formidable than the ones I defeated when I held the title myself. What do you think?"
"Kid," I says, throwin' my arms around his shoulders, "you been out of the game and you ain't gettin' no younger, but I think you can do anything—that's somethin', you know!"
"Well, then, will you take charge of my affairs again?" asks the Kid.
"Absolutely!" I says, slappin' him on the back. "We'll start over the long roads to fame and fortune together, Kid, and I don't know no trip I'd rather take!"
"But it isn't at all necessary!" remarks a soft voice behind us, and we both swing around to face the Kid's wife, Dolores.
She sure was somethin' to think about as she stood there framed in the doorway. I must of saw Dolores Halliday several million times in the past five years, but I never yet been able to gaze at her without gettin' a thrill! The Kid looks at her, frownin', and I reach for my cap, preparin' to take the air. But Dolores stops me.
"Don't go, Joe," she says, smilin' pleasantly at me. "I may need your moral support." Then she turns to the Kid: "I wasn't eavesdropping, Kane," she says. "I just happened to be passing the room, and I couldn't help overhearing part of your conversation. Surely you are not seriously proposing to become a pugilist again?"
Her voice sounds horrified, and the Kid looks a bit uneasy. However, he pulls over a chair for her, and the three of us sits down by the window. It's bright and sunny outside, but I can feel there's a heavy storm brewin' right in that room!
"Dolores," says the Kid quietly, "boxing is the one thing at which I am proficient, and it offers the quickest route to financial independence for me. I can earn more with a few bouts than I could in a few years at anything else I might undertake. I'm not going back to the ring because I like it, but because it is the only alternative for me in this crisis!"
"I do not agree that the situation is as desperate as all that," says Dolores. "And I most certainly object to your becoming a prize fighter again under any circumstances whatever! You know that I have an income from father that—"
"That has nothing to do with me!" the Kid finishes for her, jumpin' up suddenly and beginnin' a nervous pacin' of the room.
Dolores reads the signs and tries another lead.
"Well, you might at least consider me, Kane," she says. "You might think of my—of our—social position and what will happen to it if you become a professional boxer again. Then there are my political aspirations—what of those? I threw myself into politics to please you, Kane—you needn't smile, I did! I didn't want to just live on your money. I wanted a career of my own, knowing how you detest parasites of either sex. Now, when it is almost certain that I will be nominated for State senator from our district, you are contemplating a step that will ruin everything!"
Kid Roberts stops his patrol of the room and looks down at her.
"It will ruin your career if the fact becomes known that your husband is proceeding about the business of earning his living?" he asks her, with a grim smile.
Dolores grabs him, layin' her pretty head against his arm. "Oh, Kane, do give up this absurd idea!" she coaxes, and, believe me, she'd give a stone statue a kick! "Things are not nearly as bad as they seem to you. Why can't we—why can't we live on my money until something better presents itself!"
"A moment ago you expressed your contempt of parasites; now you would have me be one, eh?" says the Kid, pattin' her head. "No, Dolores, as Joe would say: 'That's out!' I have seen too many good men—that is originally they had character and ambition—ruined by that same arrangement; living on their wife's money. Surely it is more honorable for me to earn my living boxing than to exist on your bounty, isn't it?"
"There is nothing honorable about prize fighting!" snaps Dolores, lettin' go his arm. "I despise the whole low, sordid atmosphere that surrounds it. How can you even think of entering that beastly profession again?"
Kid Roberts looks like he had a hot comeback on the tip of his tongue, but at that critical minute Dolores's father, Senator Brewster, enters the room, and she greets him with a sigh of relief. Re-enforcements is comin' up, so to speak.
"Father!" says Dolores excitedly, "Kane wants to become a prize fighter again: what do you think of that?"
"I think it's splendid!" booms the scrap-lovin' senator, shakin' the Kid's hand heartily, while Dolores Jets forth a gasp.
"And I thought you would help me dissuade him!" she moans, and begins to weep.
Well, both the Kid and the senator rushes to soothe her, and I felt as out of place as a pair of white duck pants in a coal mine. While Dolores is enjoyin' a good, comfortin' cry, Kid Roberts explains to her father just why he has to say it with wallops again. The senator looks thoughtful, hems and haws a few, and then volunteers to place any sum, in or out of reason, to the Kid's credit at the bank. That made the third offer of important dough Kid Roberts had that day, and it was like offerin' a dress suit to a guy in prison for a minute later the Kid files his third refusal.
The senator acts somewhat put out, but I thought I seen a glint of admiration in the old boy's eyes as he shakes the Kid's hand again and turns his back to Dolores.
There is no admiration in her eyes, though, and that's certain! The more Kid Roberts talks about his plans to become a leather pusher again the more his charmin' spouse burns up, and pretty soon a red-hot argument is under way. It winds up by Dolores declarin' that if the Kid as much as laces on a pair of boxin gloves, she will go abroad till he "comes to his senses," as she puts it. Kid Roberts pleads with her to see America first, but he gets no further with Dolores than she gets with him in her attempt to keep him out of the ring.
Both stubborn and high-spirited, there's no give to either of 'em, and the results is that a couple of weeks after this stormy session Dolores shove off for Europe with some of her playmates. So's that their friends and the newspapers won't get hep to the split, Kid Roberts goes to the dock with her, and they put on what has all the earmarks of a lovin' farewell. It might of fooled the innocent bystanders, but it didn't fool the Kid or Dolores. It's a cinch that both of 'em knew that this partin', their first, was what is known in Idaho as a crisis!
So Kid Roberts has not only to grab himself a bank roll, but he also faces the man's-size job of winnin' back his own wife.
I guess the beauteous Dolores was just about passin' Sandy Hook when Kid Roberts tells me to get him a scuffle at once.
"With who?" I ask amiably.
"Why, with the heavyweight champion, of course!" he answers promptly. "As an ex-champion, I should be given preference over any other challenger for the title, according to all traditions of the ring. A few weeks' training will have me in shape to put up the battle of my life."
I grinned at him.
"Listen, Kid," I says. "Not so fast. If we're goin' to start at all, we might as well start accordin' to Hoyle. In spite of the fact that you're built like a watch and are in wonderful condition, you'd prob'ly be a pushover right now for the worst boloney I could excavate for you, let alone the champ!"
"But I can't afford to be idle long," says the Kid impatiently. "I must"
"And you can't afford to have some tenth-rate banana knock you kickin' in your first start either!" I shut him off.
"I guess you're right, Joe," says Kid Roberts after a minute.
The matter of a contract between me and the Kid don't use up five minutes. We make the same deal we did when Kid Roberts was boxin' before—65-35 on the loot and no papers to be signed—a "gentlemen's agreement."
The next important subject is the best place for the Kid's trainin' to begin. Well, I pick a lumber camp as fillin' the bill in every way. I figure the hard work in the open fresh air will be the quickest way to toughen up the Kid's frame and work him into fightin' trim—or else convince the both of us that he can't come back. We also make up our minds that what the sport writers don't know about us won't hurt 'em, that is, till we find out for ourselves whether or no Kid Roberts can make the grade. So we get all dressed up like a couple of tramps and begin to wander from one employment agency to another, pesterin' 'em for a pair of jobs as lumber jacks.
We fin'ly get hired and shipped with a mob of fearful-lookin' rough and readies to a loggin' camp in Canada. We ain't been in it a hour when we get in a jam and Kid Roberts is forced to do his stuff. It come about like this: Me and the Kid goes down to St. Thérèse, the little slab which is as far as the railroad brings you to the camp, to lay in a stock of clothes which our foreman says we'l! need in order to hold our jobs.
Cravin' to shop, we go in the general store run by a French Canuck entitled Honoré Collet. As there has just been a pay day on the river, the joint is packed to the doors with lumberjacks wantin' to buy everything in sight.
There's only two people to wait on 'em, Mons. Honoré Collet and his daughter, Désirée, and believe me, Désirée was considerable female! I'd guess her age as seventeen, and as she packed a face and form which would create a disturbance on Broadway, why, you can imagine what a panic she must of been up in that little timber town, where a good-lookin' woman is about as common a sight as a six-headed cat.
Anyways, she's wrappin' up this and wrappin' up that, the while laughin' and kiddin' with the red-blooded and slightly stewed he-men from God's Country, as the authors calls it. The second she pegs Kid Roberts she immediately shows him all her pretty white teeth and starts right over to wait on us. I have yet to see the lady which didn't get pleasant the minute she seen Kid Roberts. However, I know that he's overboard over Dolores, so I don't get frightened, as even if Désirée Collet has fell for my boy friend, it takes two to make a romance the same as it does to make a quarrel.
Well, Désirée had been in the midst of waitin' on somebody else when she drops everything for the Kid. The deserted customer, a six-foot husky as drunk as a monkey, gets red-headed. He grabs the girl roughly by the arm and tries to pull her back. This don't fall in with her plans, and she lets forth a little scream, gettin' instant action!
Kid Roberts had started plowin' his way through the crowd when the souse started for Désirée, and he reaches her just as the anti-prohibitionist is puttin' a arm around her shapely waist. There was no time wasted on introductions. The Kid grabs the lumberjack by the back of the neck with one hand and by the bottom of his corduroy jacket with the other and shakes him till the buttons flew off. Then he arches his powerful back and throws Mr. Drunk through the door.
"Merci, monsieur," says Désirée to the Kid with a smile that amply repaid him for his trouble, or should of.
"Don't mention it—glad to be of service," says the Kid, grinnin' back and presentin' her with a bow which has goaled many's the drawin' room. "I would like to see a mackinaw, not too vivid in color and about forty-two chest, I believe."
Before Désirée can answer, somebody shoves in between us and snarls at the Kid: "Where d'ye get that stuff—tossin' people out of here, you big stiff?"
One glance and I see the panic is on!
The stranger looks to me like he just stepped out of some circus where he was makin' his livin' bitin' sledge hammers in half and havin' automobile races run off on his chest. Kid Roberts views him with interest, but Désirée is plainly scared stiff. She seems to know who this mug is, as does the rest of the gang which gathers round us with pleased grins on their pans.
Beyond that first curious glance, Kid Roberts pays no further attention to this baby, and, tryin' to smooth things over, Désirée nervously asks can she wait on him.
"No!" grunts the cave man. "I want this fellow here to wait on me!" With that he grabs hold of the Kid's shoulder and swings him around. "What's the matter—lose your tongue?" he sneers. "Or are you just plain yellow? You was brave enough when you throwed 'at poor helpless drunk out of here to show off before the girl, wasn't you? Well, I ain't drunk; le'ss see you throw me out!"
"Be yourself, you big scissor-billed dumbell!" I sneer, edgin' between 'em. "The first thing you know you'll get a proper smackin'. You get rosy with us and we'll lay you like linoleum!"
"Easy there, Joe!" warns the Kid, steppin' in front of me. "Don't get excited over nothing, old man," he tells this big hick, "and don't take my hot-headed friend seriously. I didn't intend to create any disturbance by ejecting that drunkard. He was annoying the young lady, and I only did what any other man would have done under the circumstances. There's nobody hurt, so let's forget about it."
"Forget nothin'!" growls the other guy, rollin' up his sleeves. "I'm goin' to give the both of you the lickin' of your lives, you dirty"
Never mind what he called us—that was his hard luck! Désirée gets fiery red and backs away. The crowd laughs and moves closer. I snatched a very comfortin'-lookin' ax off the counter and was heftin' it, when the Kid come through. His face has went as red as Désirée's did, and then it gets fightin' white. He measures the big guy with his blazin' eye, then checks up that measurement with a straight left. The big fellow's lowered head come up with a jerk in time to keep a date with the right hook which had once made Kid Roberts a world's champion. Plock! Down goes Mister Big Boy with a crash which shook the store, and I guess if they hadn't swept him up he'd be lyin' there yet. When me and Kid Roberts walked out through a lane of dazed-lookin' lumberjacks five minutes later, the Kid's prey was still gettin' first aid from disgusted friends.
Well the next day we get routed out of the bunk house at the horrible hour of five in the mornin', and the camp boss sends us out in the woods with a crew. It was colder than Zero's home town, so it's a case of work snappy or turn into a icicle. Kid Roberts throws himself into the job of toughenin' up his long idle muscles with a gusto, but it was different here! After three or four hours of choppin' and sawin' I was satisfied that lumber-jackin' was all wrong.
When I moan to Kid Roberts he laughs at me, sayin' that he's takin' as much punishment as I am and likewise it was me which choosed the lumber camp in the first place. His advice to me is to take it and shut up. This fails to comfort me to any great extent and many's the time I wished we had picked a cream-puff factory or the like as trainin' quarters. Believe me, I got all the lumber campin' I could tolerate, and every time I see a toothpick any more I get a pain in my back from thinkin' of that wood factory in dear old St. Thérèse!
When we come in for chow that night we got quite a shock. The hard work in the clear frosty air of the north woods has made our appetites like a boa constrictor's, and me and the Kid give the meal such a beatin' that the cook, known as Ptomaine Joe around the camp, comes into the mess hall to look us over. That's where we got the shock. The cook is no less than the big guy which Kid Roberts slapped for a turnip the day before in Honoré Collet's store!
Both me and Kid Roberts figure we're in for a brawl, and we jump from our stools, ready for action. But, after a puzzled look, Ptomaine Joe comes over to us with a broad smile on his homely pan and a hand like a ham outstretched to the Kid.
"Howdy!" he says. "Boy, you sure can sock, I'll tell the cross-eyed world! What did you have in your hand when you cuffed me?"
"I believe it was a right hook," smiles the Kid, shakin' his hand. "I'm sorry I—"
"Never be sorry for no clout like 'at," interrupts Ptomaine Joe. "'At was a peach! Say—is they any chance of you teachin' me 'at punch?"
"Why, I'd be glad to," says Kid Roberts. "You like to box, eh?"
"Like it?" snorts the fightin' cook. "Why, I'm a boxin' fool! I have made everybody on this man's river like it, and they won't be nobody in this outfit push you around whilst you're here, because when you took me you took the champeen of the camp. I don't mind tellin' you 'at I'm goin' to check out of this trap pretty soon and become a perfessional pug!"
Well, he was big enough, there's no question about that, but that glass jaw of his which the Kid had connected with killed off my interest. Still, I figure he might be developed into a good sparrin' partner or handler, so I egged him on.
"Gettin' tired of boxin' the old pots and pans, eh?" Kid Roberts asks him.
"You said it!" says Ptomaine Joe. "I'm goin' to step into the ring as soon as I finish my contract at this dump here. And if you don't take a flyer at the fight game with 'at right hook you got, you're a chump! Of course, you're kind of awkward and clumsy on your feet and you ain't got no class, but you could easy pick 'at up with experience. In fact, I got a couple of punches I'll teach you myself, 'at's if I find out you're game and willin' to take a little punishment so's to learn how to handle yourself."
Ptomaine Joe tells this to a guy which was once heavyweight champion of the world!
Well, friend cook has been devotin' so much of his valuable time to me and Kid Roberts that the other parsnips sittin' around the chow table begins to bang their knives and forks together and howl for their food. Ptomaine Joe swings around on 'em swiftly and angrily.
"Stop that squawkin', you goofy-lookin' yokels!" he bellers. "I'll throw you your meat in good time. If I hear another peep out of any of you sapolios, I'll knock the lot of you for a trip!"
Them lumberjacks certainly must of thought Ptomaine Joe was good, because the results of that blast was instant silence!
After that things went along smoothly enough, though as a full-blooded New Yorker I never could get infatuated with attackin' them trees with a ax at six o'clock of a foggy, frosty mornin'. Me and manual labor has never been what you could call buddies. Who ever heard of a box fighter's manager workin'? On the other hand, Kid Roberts took to lumberin' like puss takes to cream. He actually seemed to like it, but then the Kid always was a pig for punishment. However, he was most positively doin' himself a world of good. His skin was commencin' to take on a healthy tan, his wind was improvin', his eyes was bright and clear and the soft fat around his belt was bein' replaced by muscles ridged like a washboard. So far I hadn't let him do no boxin' what the so ever; I wanted his body right first.
For a while I thought Désirée Collet was goin' to be quite a problem. Me and the Kid stopped in the store from time to time, buyin' gents' furnishin's and what not, and you didn't have to be no mind reader to see she was rapidly gettin' cuckoo over Kid Roberts. But in spite of their temporary bust-up, the Kid was more than in rove with his wife, and even though she had went to Europe he played the game. He'd learned a lot about the interestin' adjoinin' sex before he got wed, and he knew how to keep from gettin' dizzy when a beautiful girl deliberately set out to make him.
Kid Roberts played around with more than a few, but he only fell in love once, and that was with Dolores. Ladies, that kind of boys seldom cheat, once you land 'em! So the Kid was pleasant with Désirée, but he never accepted the invitation constantly in her shinin' eyes. He treated her like a little sister—which, naturally enough, only made her more keen to make him fall. That's always the way, now ain't it?
Well, as pay day approaches we begin to notice a air of excitement about the camp which wasn't there before. Little groups of lumberjacks gets off in corners together and there is much argument and wavin' of arms about somethin'. Ptomaine Joe, all swelled up like a mump, is treated like he's Henry Ford or Dempsey and one mornin' I catch him punchin' a bag in back of the cook house, with a bunch of guys standin' around and watchin' him admirin'ly.
So we investigate the commotion, and we find there's a feelin' between our camp and another one farther down the river like the feelin' between Germany and France. On pay day Ptomaine Joe is to meet the best man in the other camp for the championship of the river. No wonder the lumber jacks is all excited, when you figure they rarely have any fun, buried up there for months in the cold, lonely north woods, and they have bet every dime they got in the world on the result of the comin' fight.
Ptomaine Joe gets the idea about then that this would be a good time for Kid Roberts to teach him that right to the button, so he asks the Kid to work out with him for a few days. You'd think he was doin' Kid Roberts a great favor by the way he puts his request, but the Kid is itchin' for the feel of padded leather on his hands again and he jumps at the chance before I can butt in and stop him. Ptomaine Joe had a kind of synthetic gym fixed up in the back of the cook house, his only trainin' apparatus bein' a well-worn punchin' bag and two sets of be-draggled and tore eight-ounce gloves.
The first time Kid Roberts and Ptomaine Joe put on the gloves I told the Kid to be mighty careful and not take no unnecessary chances with this big kitchen mechanic, which outweighed him a good fifty pounds and stood four inches taller. Kid Roberts is so crazy to get steppin' that I don't know whether he even heard me or not. But I'm a mighty anxious young man till Ptomaine Joe starts to perform and I see just what he's got. I loathe accidents!
Well, all Ptomaine Joe had was his trunks. He didn't know a straight left from a fryin' pan, and, big as he was, Kid Roberts could of assassinated him had he a mind to. But he didn't—the Kid never beat up no sparrin' partners and was always gentle with these hams which don't know what it's all about, rely'n on his dazzlin' footwork to keep him away from their clumsy but dangerous returns.
They boxed three two-minute rounds by my watch and in all that time I doubt if Ptomaine Joe laid a glove on Kid Roberts, whose speed and science bewildered him. After Josephus has fell sprawlin' on the floor three or four times earnestly tryin' to knock the Kid for a row of washtubs, the pugeylistic cook staggers over and pants for me to unlace his gloves.
"I got all the sparrin' I can take," he gasps. "Boxin' this baby is like boxin' a buzz saw and I don't wish no more of him. 'At ain't all—I ain't goin' to fight this guy from the other camp neither!"
"You mean they have barred you?" asks the Kid, with interest. "Who is going to box him?"
"You are!" grins Ptomaine Joe. "I have just got a rush of brains to the head and barred myself. The pay-day fracas is supposed to be between the two best men on the river, and if you ain't the best man in this outfit, then I'm old Mother Hubbard!"
"But—" begins both me and the Kid.
"You can but if you want to, because you're the goat!" goes on the cook. "Either you fight this mackerel from Beaver Camp or you'll have to take on every guy in this one—all at once! If I was you, I'd fight him. You got more percentage with only one man to stop."
With that Ptomaine Joe goes out to spread the news, leavin' me and Kid Roberts starin' at each other thoughtfully.
Well, of course Ptomaine Joe had no idea that the Kid was a ex-heavyweight champion of the world, as he's down on the books merely as Kane Halliday, his civilian name. So, dumfounded at the Kid's surprisin' ability to hit and get away, the cook advertises him around the camp till we're practically forced into agreein' to box the bozo from the rival outfit for the championship of the river.
Feelin' that he's to meet a man of no ring experience, Kid Roberts refuses to take what he calls a unsportsmanlike advantage, so he tells Ptomaine Joe he'll accept the bout on one condition. The man he's goin' to meet must be told just who he's goin' to fight.
"I don't make you," says Ptomaine Joe, kind of puzzled. "What difference does it make who you are?"
"This difference," says the Kid, payin' no attention to my frantic nudges: "I happen to be a former world's heavyweight champion. My ring name was Kid Roberts—ever hear of me?"
Ptomaine Joe stares at the Kid like a man in a trance. His lower jaw drops till it nearly hits the floor, and his eyes pops out till you could of hung your hat on either of 'em. Then he rushes over and wrings the Kid's hand.
"Ever hear of you!" he hollers. "I'll say I heard of you! Well, well, well, Kid Roberts, hey? I thought your pan had a familiar look, but all I ever seen was your pictures and—say, no wonder you slapped me dead with a punch! No wonder I couldn't knock you off when we was sparrin' together! Imagine me tryin' to take a ex-champ, 'at's the mule's wings, ain't it? Well, I thought I was through when you made a monkey out of me, but I ain't so bad as I figured. Just because a ex-champ's got too much stuff for me is no sign 'at these jobbies around here can step with me. I think I'll go out now and deliberately knock a few of 'em cold, just to keep my respect for myself!"
But I'm disgusted with the Kid for tellin' this egg who he was, because now I know the cook will broadcast the news all over camp. Ptomaine Joe keeps eagerly chatterin' away to the smilin' Kid and winds up by swearin' he's goin' to quit his job and join us when we leave St. Thérèse as a combination sparrin' partner and chef. He knows just what a fighter should eat, bein' one himself, he says modestly, and all he wants in return for his valuable services is boxin' lessons from Kid Roberts. He wouldn't let go till I promised him we'd file his application, and I was more than half in earnest when I done it. We could do lots crazier things than take this guy with us, at that, I figure.
The minute I can make Ptomaine Joe quit admirin' Kid Roberts out loud, I take the enthusiastic cook outside all by himself and talk turkey to him. I make him swear on his cook book he won't tell nobody that the big, good-lookin' lumberjack known as Kane Halliday is really Kid Roberts, ex-world's heavyweight champ. The reason I done that was as simple as Ptomaine Joe himself. For all I know, the champ of the rival outfit may be a scrapper of no little ability. If by some terrible luck Kid Roberts should be flattened himself, why advertise that fact to fistiana when the Kid's tryin' to make a comeback? Ptomaine Joe gets a miraculous flash of intelligence and agrees with me, so the information about who the Kid really is fails to get out.
Kid Roberts knows nothin' about what I've done and he starts down to the battle ground at St. Thérèse on pay day, thinkin' his comin' adversus knows who he is and admirin' the other guy for his gameness and confidence in goin' ahead with the bout against a ex-champ. He tells me he'll be as merciful as possible with the inexperienced logger he expects to face and will try hard for a swift, painless knockout. The ring is pitched in the open a short distance from the town, a twenty-four-foot square bein' roped off on a high, grassy hillock, so that standin' some dozen feet below there's a good chance for everybody to see the mill.
I examined this homemade ring with the greatest of care, and I found nothin' about it to comfort me. The slippery grass made a treacherous footin' at best and a knockdown on that hard turf, instead of a padded mat, was certainly not goin' to do the baby which hit it a bit of good. It sure was a reminder of the old bareknuckle days, when the only rules was to keep on fightin'! Still, we was in there now and claimin' exemptions would of prob'ly cost us both our lives. I don't mind tellin' you I was good and nervous, but Kid Roberts was as cool as a winter wind, though his eyebrows did go up when he first flashed that ring.
"Snap into it, Joe!" he grins to me, when we get to our corner. "You look like a pall bearer, Don't worry, I'll win this bout in short order. If I can't get past this green lumberjack, I may as well give up all hope of returning to the ring. This afternoon my fate is on the knees of the gods!"
"Let's hope the gods don't stretch their legs, then!" I says, gloomily, and stared out over the ropes.
There was prob'ly only a thousand witnesses on hand, just the men from both camps and some sports from the little timber town, but what they lacked in numbers they made up in noise. Believe me, they was one tough-lookin' mob too, with their faded mackinaws and corduroy jackets buttoned around their necks, pants tucked into boots or leggins and so much matted hair on their faces they all looked like fur-bearin' animals to me. Plenty of vicious-lookin' long-bladed knives was stuck in belts, lots of 'em leaned on them murderous woodmen's axes, and here and there the butt of a gat showed in a hip pocket bulge. A ugly bunch, primed for anything and worked to fever heat by smuggled bootleg and the excitement of the comin' battle.
Kid Roberts gets up and smilin'ly bows, wavin' his gloved hands over his head in response to the roar of greetin' from our outfit, and another roar goes up from the other camp when their man is boosted into the ring on the far side. Then things move fast. The referee, who's telegraph operator and railroad agent at St. Thérèse, steps to the center of the ring and holds up his hands for silence. He got immediate service.
"Kane Halliday, champeen of St. Thérèse, weight one hundred and ninety-one and a half pounds," he bawls, very importantly, pointin' to the Kid. "On the other side, Steve Greenly, champeen of Beaver Camp, weight two hundred pounds, even. Three-minute rounds with one-minute rest between, the fight to go to a finish for the champeenship of the river. If there is any attempt to rush the ring by friends of either man, I'll stop the fight and call it no contest. Likewise, before any of you lads out there gets too abusive, don't forget I got a gun in each hip pocket and sixteen medals for knowin' how to use 'em. I thank you!"
While the mob's still howlin', he calls us to the middle of the ring for his instructions and for the first time me and Kid Roberts gets a good look at the guy we are goin' to fight. The Kid's face suddenly paled and I see his mouth twitch, but I let forth a beller of rage. Mister "Steve Greenly," the alleged lumberjack, is no less than Tiger Enright, a terrific puncher which the Kid once stopped when he was heavyweight champ!
Well, I'm fit to be tied, and tryin' to say too many things at once my tongue gets all twisted and I can't say nothin'. But my brain is simply reelin' around as I realize how them burglars from the other camp has framed us! Kid Roberts had insisted on fair play, wanted to tell the other outfit who he was, and they have went to work and imported a first-class boxer to meet what they figured would be Ptomaine Joe or some tramp like that. What a surprise them yeggs was due for!
But if me and the Kid is amazed and enraged, Tiger Enright is twelve feet past that state. He sees how the attempted double-cross has went blooey and instead of a set-up he's got a two-handed battle starin' him in his queerly workin' face. The referee, after a astonished glance from us to Enright, goes on with his instructions. They wasn't hard to remember, but I don't think Tiger Enright listened!
"Protect yourself at all times, hit on the breakaways or any time you want as long as you keep 'em up above the belt. No wrestlin' or trippin' allowed. Both you men understand all that?" finishes the referee.
"Sure—let's go!" I answers for the Kid, who's busy lookin' at Enright with everything but mercy in his cold gray eyes.
"Holy mackerel—Kid Roberts!" gasps Tiger Enright—his first remark—and the next thing is the bell.
Drove wild by the unexpected appearance of the Kid and the fear of what he will do to him, Tiger Enright dashed off his stool with a desperate rush, hopin' to beat the Kid down by the fury of his attack. He missed a straight left, connected with a torrid right to the heart and then immediately clinched, bangin' away with his free right hand at the Kid's mid-section. Enright was always a terrific body punisher which liked to bore in close and hammer away, and I yelled to Kid Roberts to keep him at long range.
The referee was slow in breakin' 'em, evidently lendin' a kind ear to the shrieks of Enright's friends to "let 'em alone!" On the break, Enright deliberately heeled Kid Roberts with the wrist of his glove, scrapin' some skin off his nose. At a fight club they'd of booed that big stiff for that dirty trick till they was hoarse, but here they cheered him!
Good and sore, Kid Roberts rocked Enright with a right and left to the head, easily duckin' his wild return. Enright then bulled his way in close again and took up his batterin' of the Kid's ribs where he left off before. Kid Roberts was takin' plenty punishment and couldn't seem to get away from it. Fin'ly the referee pushed in between 'em and they danced around, sizin' each other up for a openin'. Kid Roberts saw one first, but was short with a right chop to the jaw. He got a hard left and right hook to the body in return and was gaspin' against the ropes in Enright's corner when the bell rung. Enright's round.
Durin' the rest the bettin' odds around the ring shifted from eight to five to two to one on Enright. At that price Ptomaine Joe got down eight hundred bucks—the savin's of a lifetime—on Kid Roberts, and I grabbed two thousand of that Enright money myself.
Tiger Enright tore out of his corner once more in the second and swept Kid Roberts to the ropes with a volley of rights and lefts to the body. Fin'ly the Kid steadied himself, drove a wicked right to the jaw, and then sunk his left to the trade-mark on the glove in Enright's ribs. Enright's knees sagged and the mob went wild, surgin' around the ring and howlin' like wolves, only louder!
A bit tamed, the Tiger managed to dive into a clinch and again pound the Kid's rapidly reddenin' body. Warned by previous experiences, Kid Roberts tore himself loose and they both landed stiff rights on the break. Enright then shot a straight left to the mouth, bringin' first blood, and followed this with a sizzlin' uppercut to the jaw, but Kid Roberts only shook his head and tore in for more.
The Kid was now well warmed up and hittin' on all cylinders—but, then, so was Enright! Kid Roberts swung hard for head and body and Enright covered up, back-pedalin' around the ring till he felt the ropes against him. Right then and there Tiger Enright come fearfully close to winnin' by a knockout. He suddenly straightened up and shot a terrible left hook to the heart. The Kid's gasp could be heard in Tasmania, and, as he staggered back, Enright plunged after him, held the Kid's head with his left glove, and shot three barbarous rights to the jaw. Kid Roberts sagged on his feet and another right, catchin' him fair under the chin on the Adam's apple—a horrible place to get hit!—dropped him to his knees.
Chokin' for breath, he looked around to me for advice while the referee's countin' arm is risin' and fallin' and the crowd is goin' crazy. I signaled the Kid to take "nine," which he done, and as he rose unsteadily to his feet the bell rung. Another round for Enright, and the odds jump to three to one on him. The mob from our camp is sullen and quiet, whilst the other guys is ravin' maniacs with joy.
Kid Roberts quickly responded to some scientific treatment in his corner and went out for the third round determined to flatten Enright in that frame or get flattened himself. There was a deep gash under his right eye and the left was beginnin' to close. Beyond a set of badly puffed lips, Enright was unmarked.
The first punch in this round was a left to the head landed by Enright, and after that he must of thought he had walked into a cloudburst of boxin' gloves! Startin' his usual rush, he tore in with both hands swingin', to be met by a murderous right to the body that slowed him to a walk. Feintin' for Enright's quiverin' mid-section again, Kid Roberts hooked his right to the point of the jaw and Tiger Enright went down like he'd been hit over the head with a hammer!
Instantly there's a wild uproar around the ring, and the mob mills toward it. This was about the first time the guys from our camp had a chance to cheer and they put a dent in the sky! Enright stumbled to his feet between "nine" and "ten," but all the fight had been punched out of him. He was what you call wilted, what I mean.
I guess maybe that right hook brung back memories of a few years before when Kid Roberts was champion and had knocked him dead with the same clout. At any rate, the Tiger covered up as best he could and tried to work in close, but Kid Roberts had other plans for him. The Kid merely waited coolly till Enright quit swayin' and was a better target, before floorin' him again with a left to the wind and a right to the chin.
When Tiger Enright dizzily got up this time it was plain to the world that he'd shot his bolt and would never hear the bell ring for another round. The din around the ring was enough to bust your eardrums! Seein' their pay bein' swept to our camp by the terrible punches of our man which was beatin' their high-priced ringer, the boys from the other outfit commenced a free-for-all, and in a minute axes and knives was flashin' in the rapidly settin' sun.
Well, the riot stopped quicker than it started. It seemed to me that every guy in our camp had come to the fight with at least one gun, and the referee had two. In spite of the situation bein' exceedin'ly serious, I had to grin at the referee walkin' around inside the ring with a gun in each hand aimed at the crowd and tryin' to watch what Kid Roberts and Tiger Enright was doin' to each other at the same time. He was a hot sketch, no foolin'! The sudden display of artillery and a few wild shots calmed down the other side and the round was finished without no further rude interruptions from the audience. The gong found the battlers in a neutral corner with Tiger Enright hangin' on for his life. This was the Kid's round from here to Japan.
The clang of the bell for round four was still in the air when Kid Roberts jumped in with a left hook to the head that sent the weary Enright crashin' against the ropes. The Kid then turned to the referee and asked him to stop it, but whatever that baby said was drowned by the yellsof "Finish him. Knock him out! You got to stop him to win, you big stiff; let it go!"
Kid Roberts shakes his head sorrowfully, looks at me, and, as he turned, Tiger Enright's knee come up swiftly, but missed the foul he intended. That trick made up the Kid's mind for him! I could see it in the sudden set of his chin, so I got his bathrobe ready. I knew what was comin'. The Kid jabbed Enright lightly with his left, ducked a wild right cross and then socked his own right flush on the jaw, sendin' the Tiger down and out!
They carried Kid Roberts back to the camp on their shoulders, and why wouldn't they? Everybody in our outfit had cashed in on him and some of them lumberjacks had win plenty. Ptomaine Joe, for instance, copped sixteen hundred bucks, and he's maniacally happy. You couldn't get him a inch away from the Kid with a crowbar!
There was some mail for us at the camp, among others things a New York newspaper. On the society page is a picture of Dolores, taken on the beach at a joint in France called Deauville. It says this underneath:
Mrs. Kane Halliday, who is summering abroad. Mr. Halliday is reported hunting big game in Africa.
"Hunting big game!" smiles the Kid.
"Absolutely!" I says, matchin' his grin. "Huntin' big game is right! We just killed a Tiger to-day, didn't we?"