Me and Cockeyed Egan was tourin' "God's Own Country" (Russian for the West), where the natives would rather be Harold Bell Wright than be president, each with a stable of battlers, pickin' up beaucoup sugar by havin' 'em fight each other over the short routes, when Kane Halliday skidded across my path. Besides Beansy Mullen and Bearcat Reed, a coupla heavies, I had a good welter in Battlin' Lewis, and Egan had K. O. Krouse, another tough boy, which made up a set. Them last two babies mixed with each other more times a month than a chorus girl uses a telephone, "without either gaining a decided advantage," as the newspapers innocently remarks. They was steppin' out with each other about four times a week, playin' a different burg each night, and everything was jake till K. O. Krouse shook a mean dice and win $28 from Battlin' Lewis on the ways to Toledo, where we had 'em scheduled to go twelve fast rounds to a draw. Lewis broods and mutters over that for the balance of the railroad ride and knocks
