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 and faced Dolores. There they stood lookin' at each other, like that crowded, buzzin' room was a deserted island and they had each discovered for the first time that they was somebody else on it. I noticed this Carrowsmith guy and his two pals pushin' through the outside fringe of the crowd, and the tough lookers which had been hangin' around the Kid's chair also seemed to be gettin' uncomfortably close. As I reached down to grab some of the Kid's winnin's, which he seemed to of lost all interest in, I remember feelin' a sudden chill.

Then comes the movie!

Dolores stepped back, motionin' for the Kid to follow, and in doin' so bumped squarely into Carrowsmith. This bimbo made no attempt to get out of her way, but stood there with one hand on her shoulder, grinnin' somethin' in her ear. At the same minute the Kid seen him for the first time, but the sneer of recognition was wiped off his features when Dolores drawed back, her skin flamin', and slapped Carrowsmith in the face. The two guys with him, grabbin' her arms, begin to laugh, and then, with a hoarse snarl, the Kid dove through the mob sendin' 'em scatterin' right and left. The roughnecks immediately closed in after him, and one of 'em stuck out his foot but missed trippin' the Kid, when a chair caught him square in the back of the neck and closed his interest in the further proceedin's. I swing a mean chair!

The Kid's first rush landed him in front of Carrowsmith and his two stewed allies, and they went down so hard they was all cold sober when they hit the floor. The Kid wheeled and swung Dolores up on the roulette table, and with his back to it, took the plunge

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 of the mob with his bare fists, pumpin' 'em back and forth as regular as a steam riveter and with about the same execution. Usin' what was left of a gilt chair as a persuader, I worked my way to him, layin' about me right merrily. I have been in some busy corners in my time, but for fifteen minutes of action and thrills the battle of Monte Carlo leads the league! It is safe to say that this gilded joint never staged nothin' like this before and never will no more—this here world's famous gamblin' palace, where when a guy ruins himself they give him a gat and ask him will he kindly step out in the garden before usin' it, so's not to muss up the place and disturb the other players. But, then, they never had no mob in there before like the Roberts-Gournet fight brung there either! Women begin to faint and scream respectively and perfect strangers fell to maulin' each other with a gusto. By the time the dinky little coppers with their trick swords was swarmin' into the place, the Kid and me, shieldin' Miss Dolores Brewster between us, walloped our way out a side door to the car I had brung her there in.

We dropped Miss Brewster a block from her hotel, so's that if the law was awaitin' us she wouldn't be mixed up in the thing. My idea, however, was that the gendarmes, havin' got to the Casino a trifle late for the big show, would have no idea who started the thing, and Gournet's merry men wouldn't tip 'em off because if we got pinched and couldn't fight they couldn't collect their bets. I had it about right.

We got up to our room without no trouble, except that we widened many a eye and caused a epidemic

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 of shoulder shruggin' among the inhabitants of the lobby as we crossed to the—eh—lift (foreign stuff). There is no question that we was a couple of tough-lookin' babies! Half of my suit was elsewhere. I didn't have no hat and I was featurin' a rapidly closin' left eye. The Kid looked like a new English copper after his first night patrollin' a beat in Cork. Both his hands was badly bruised and swollen, and in two or three hours he was goin' to climb into the ring against Monsieur Henri Gournet.

He never said a word from the time we left Miss Brewster till we got safely in our room. Then he walked up to the mirror and give himself a long onceover, lettin' forth a sigh that rattled the window shades.

"Cheer up, Kid," I says, slappin' him on a gory shoulder. "We have qualified as union movie heroes this afternoon! Look what we done—we bust up the gamblin' hell, rescued the fair damsel, knocked the villain for a row of ash cans, and to-night we—"

He throws off my arm and tears himself away from the glass.

"Let me alone. I feel like a beast!" he snarls, rippin' off what's left of his shirt and hurlin' it in a corner. "That hound Carrowsmith was right," he adds. "I have become degraded!" Whilst he's talkin' he jerks out the bottom drawer of the bureau and slams it on the floor. "Here," he growls, "have a porter come up and clean out this mess!" The next minute he's in the bathroom under the shower.

"This mess" was several bottles of hooch which had been the Kid's travelin' companions for his brief tour as Young King Cole. That was the first and last time

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 the Kid hit up the red-eye whilst I had him, and after all he'd done he was entitled to one joy ride—hey?

We got down to the arena where the slaughter was staged and into the ring about ten that night without no trouble from the police. The crowd was no bigger than the population of Nebraska, only more mixed, and when they seen the Kid's somewhat battered appearance as he climbed shakily through the ropes there was quite a shout went up. The French champ looked twenty pounds heavier than the clean-muscled Kid, and was covered with fur like a grizzly. I walked right over to him and shoved through his handlers.

"Lafayette, we are here!" I remarks. "Them gunmen of yours failed to cook us this afternoon, and we aim to square up with you in the next couple of rounds. Don't try no tricks to-night, Frog, or—"

"Je ne comprends pas, monsieur!" he butts in.

"Try it and I'll murder you!" I says, and turns my attention to the Kid.

He needed it. He was shaky and used up from the afternoon's mêlée, disgusted with himself for lettin' the beautiful Dolores see him in that rough and tumble, and the hostile, foreign crowd was shootin' his nerves to pieces. He wanted the thing over with, and he glared across the ring at Henri Gournet till friend Henri begin lickin' his lips and turnin' his face the other way.

The French referee was as excited as a bride lookin' up time-tables for her first honeymoon trip, and he must of learned the English language from a ouija board, because all he knowed was "Yes" and "No." I hadn't the faintest idea of what his intructions was, and the next minute the party is on.

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 It was easy to see before they had exchanged a half dozen blows that the Kid carried the heavier guns, but Gournet, like most of them foreign scrappers which gets anywheres, was a boxer rather than a slugger. He was satisfied to carry on the battle at long range and outpoint his man, whereas and to wit the Kid wanted to end it with a punch and took a dozen wallops without seemin'ly tryin' to duck 'em in order to land one crusher. He chased his man all over the ring, but the Frog was clever and kept slidin' along the ropes, keepin' the Kid off balance with a very sweet straight left that pecked at the edges of the Kid's unhealed wounds of the afternoon and opened 'em up. The mob was yellin' for the Frenchman to take a chance and stand up to the Kid, but Gournet turned a deaf ear to their entreaties and continued to back pedal, jab, and clinch whenever the Kid shook him up. Kid Roberts was as wild as a infuriated tiger and missed a dozen haymakers, each miss makin' him wilder and all of which tickled the mob silly. Toward the end of the round he fin'ly connected with a savage right to the body and Gournet's grunt could be distinctly heard in South Wales. His knees sagged and he dove wildly into a clinch, but the Kid shook him off with a grin and drove him against the ropes with a left to the jaw, one inch too high or that would of been the wind-up. Quick as a flash the Kid was on top of him, suddenly cool and unhurried as he measured him with a light left and prepared to smash over the sleep producer. Gournet suddenly stuck a feeble left in the Kid's face. They was no steam at all behind the punch, yet the Kid staggered back, shook his head from side to side, and then was short by a foot

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 with both hands right at the bell, which could hardly be heard over the uproar which greeted the Frenchman's narrow escape.

The mob gave the Frog a ovation as he stumbled to his corner, and his seconds jumped in to give him a kiss! The Kid slumped down heavily on his stool and dug at his eyes with his gloves.

"You must have let some of that alcohol you rubbed me with get into my eyes, you fool!" he growls at me. "I can hardly see this fellow and they're smarting terribly. Wash my eyes out, quick!"

I pushed back his head and examined the glims in question. No wonder the Kid's judgment of distance had been way off. They was red-rimmed and bloodshot, and I bet they was painful! I put handlers on 'em with sponges soaked in ice water, and then I looked Over to Gournet's corner—thinkin'. Bendin down fin'ly I sniffed at the Kid's eyes and in two jumps I was in the Frenchman's corner, divin' through his handlers and grabbin' up his gloves before them babies knowed what it was all about. One smell was ample.

That big stiff had soaked both his gloves in oil of mustard!

New? No! That one had whiskers on it when the one of puttin' lead in a glove was born. Can't be done! Why not? Who examines a fighter's gloves once the bout's under way? Any old-time scrapper or his pilot will grin with remembrance when he reads this. It's pulled quite frequently in the tall timbers to this day.

Well, the referee had rushed over after me to see what was the trouble and the coppers was havin' a merry time tryin' to keep the interested attendance out

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 of the ring. I immediately claimed the fight on a foul, and the English promoter, the referee, and Gournet's manager pulled clocks on me and gimme five seconds to get out of the ring. I danced around 'em, pointin' to the Frog's gloves and then to my handlers workin' over the Kid's eyes, but they was nothin' stirrin'. The promoter yells that we won't get a nickel if we don't fight, and he would also see that the authorities found out who started the fracas at the Casino.

At this point "Honest Joe" Hammond sticks his head under the ropes and begs me to go ahead and kill this Frenchman, otherwise him and his pals would be hit for more than seventy thousand bucks. In the midst of the argument the bell rung for the second round, and I hollered to the Kid to stay on his stool, at the same time wavin' my handlers down and steppin' outside the ropes myself so's this referee wouldn't disqualify us for me bein' in the ring. Gournet dances out to the center, smilin' at his friends, and the referee steps over to where Kid Roberts is still sittin' on his stool, half blinded and crazy with pain. He gives my boy one look and then, raisin' his arms, begins countin' him out as he stt there. I plowed my way around the mob to his corner, stood the perfectly legal count till the referee reached "nine," and then shoved the Kid flounderin' into the ring.

Instantly Gournet swung his right to the jaw, and the Kid crashed to the mat, rolled over on his stomach, and was up at eight, weavin' back and forth on his feet, one glove to his eye and gropin' for the Frenchman with the other like the blind man he was. The crowd had gone stark crazy, and I chewed my lips till the hot

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 blood run down my chin at the sight of this boy, which I'd brung within a foot of the world's championship, bein' slaughtered in cold blood by this third-rate, foulfightin' Frog tramp. Again the Kid hit the mat from a hurricane of lefts and rights to the head, and again was on his feet before the fatal "ten," grabbin' the Frenchman around the body and holdin' on for his life. Wow! You should of heard that crowd! Gournet had now gone cuckoo himself at the prospect of knockin' out the wonderful Kid Roberts—a thing which never entered his head when he entered the ring. He chopped himself free and twice more floored Roberts, and I goi a couple of towels ready to hurl in, with my heart busted into little pieces which seemed to clog up the blood in my veins! As I bunched up the towels, I stuck my head up under the lower rope where the Kid was on one knee at the count of "seven." His head come slowly around and he looked at me.

"Stay down, Kid—we're through here!" I bellers hoarsely, and raised my arm to throw in the rags and save the boy from what looked like downright murder.

He shakes his head, and with a last look at me deliberately winks!

He was raisin' himself to his other knee when "Honest Joe" tore the towels from my hand with what is known as a round oath. Kid Roberts got to hisfeet, stumbled around like a movie drunk, and started what looked like a last despairin' swing at Gournet's jaw. In his eagerness to get it over with, the Frenchman slipped to his knees rushin' in, and the blow just grazed his hair as he was goin' down. On the second the Kid reaches over and helps him to his feet, though he nearly

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 fell on him doin' it. "J'en suis très fâché, mon ami!" he pants with a crimson smile.

The Frenchman stops short with a look of absolute surprise on his face which would of been comical if the situation hadn't been what it was. The idea of this poor battered boob, which could scarcely see and which he had fouled from the go in, apologizin' for a plain accident seemed to paralyze him for a second. He faltered in his stride, unconsciously lowerin' his guard, and in that same second the Kid suddenly straightened up and crashed him face down on the gore-spattered canvas with a right hook to the button of the jaw. He never moved a muscle while the dazed referee counted him out—fifteen seconds, accordin' to "Honest Joe" Hammond's stop watch.

So that was that!

On the ways back to Paris I was busy balancin' our cash, and the Kid was talkin' to "Honest Joe," which seemed to have lost ten years of his age somewheres.

"—So when I found I couldn't see, with that oil of mustard biting at my eyes," the Kid was sayin', "I realized that I was in for a severe beating—that Gournet can hit!—unless I met that fellow at his own game, matched him trick for trick. Aside from the first knockdown in the second round, I wasn't floored! I took those falls deliberately to clear my head, to think, and incidentally to allow that stuff to evaporate from my eyes. I decided then to try a little—ah—psychology. I figured that a sudden, unexpected mental shock would momentarily halt the Frenchman's wild lunges—interrupt his thinking apparatus which was timing

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 his blows. So when he slipped I instantly seized that second to act. I helped him up, you remember, and apologized courteously and stood off, apparently waiting for him to recover his poise. That unexpected act had the desired effect. Astonished, he hung fire and—well, I knew if I ever landed a solid punch he was whipped!"

"Ehheh," says Joe. "Well, that's fine—fine business. But if I was you, boy, I wouldn't draw them finishes so close hereafter!" He mops his brow with a handkerchief. "Did you not get up from that stool, they would of took me down the line for about seventy thousand fish! As it lays, I win twenty-eight thousand on the fight. I took ten thousand even from one guy alone."

"Who was that hick?" I asks, from idle curiosity.

"It's a funny thing," says Joe. "This dumb-bell didn't even see the quarrel. He was the guy which tried to wreck the Casino to-day, y'know, and it seems he got pinched. He gimme his card—" Joe searches his vest and pulls out a paste-board. "Here it is," he says. "His name's Carrowsmith and—what are you guys laughin' at?"

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the various gents which baffles the almshouse by the via of boxin', there is one baby which is seldom the hero of any prize-ring movies, plays, or novels, yet this guy is as important to the box fighter as his arms. I refer to the coatless, shirtless, hoarse, and perspirin' custodian of the water bucket, sponge, and towels, the Gunga Din of fistiana, i. e., the second or "handler."

From the time the jovial David knocked the genial Goliath for a goal, pugilistic history is dotted with the names of famous seconds whose shrewdness, swift thinkin', imagination, and remarkable knowledge of ring craft has saved many's the totterin' champ from a violent and sudden partin' with his title. Again, poor advice at a critical minute from a excited handler has sent scores of inexperienced young scrappers rushin' off their stools into a knockout, when skillful instructions might of landed them home a sensational winner. The next time you go to a professional aggravated assault and battery séance and get sick of watchin' a couple of them tired business men cuffin' each other, shift a eye over to their corners and watch their handlers work. The ones which

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 jumps up and down beside the ropes, shuttin' off the view of guys which has sent in from five to twenty berries for a look, and keeps up a continued screechin' of: "Go on, kid, knock him kickin'!" "Bring up the left, you saphead! Bring it up!" "Kill the big tramp!" and the etc., is as big a handicap to their man as tonsillitis would be to Galli-Curci. When the fighter can hear their bellers at all over the roar of the gorehungry mob, it irritates and confuses him, especially when one of his seconds is yellin' for him to shoot his left and another is bawlin': "Send in 'at right!"

That type of second don't mean nothin' and is a heavy liability to a scrapper. But the other kind, these babies which has made the handlin' of fighters a science, is worth their weight in rubies, and if paid on the basis of their actual value durin' a tough battle, would get half their man's share of the purse at the least. You seldom see them birds hoppin' hithers and you and shriekin' their heads off whilst their man is in there tryin'. You'll notice they crouch as close to the ropes as the referee will let 'em and when their boy gets puzzled and flicks his head to 'em for advice, they got a intelligent answer to shout him, some crafty move to recommend which usually gets the dazed mauler out of a tough hole.

This gent earns his sugar in the rest between rounds, not whilst his boy is mixin' it up and compelled to give his charmin' opponent his undivided attention. All durin' the round the big-league handler glues his eyes on the fighters and his brain is workin' faster than the pumpin' arms of the pantin' bruisers. He picks out the most glarin' weaknesses of his boy

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 and also those of the other bozo; he gets angles and sees chances to cop quick that the battler can't see whilst he's desperately tryin' to land his haymaker or keep himself from kissin' the canvas. He dumps out his entire bag of tricks, collected in years of "bein' behind" scrappers—champs and tramps. He pulls stuff that just stops at bustin' what rules the game has and frequently even knocks over the traffic sign. For instance, a beller about the other cuckoo's gloves bein' too light and a demand that they be examined. He knows said gloves are O. K., but if he can get away with it, the ensuin' argument with the referee may hold up the fight for even three minutes, enough to give his battered scrapper a chance to recover. When his boy flops on the stool at the end of a hectic frame, watch him pour a continuous cool and unexcited stream of advice into the kid's crimson ear as he bends over him and kneads the quiverin' body muscles. Advice that's the result of expert sizin' up of what's happened in the round just fought: "Don't try to box with this guy, keep sloughin' him all the way. Pound his heart, he don't like 'em there!" or: "Keep this boob movin'; don't let him set—get me? Spar him off this frame. Make him miss and tire him out. We'll knock him dead a little while later. Don't slug with him till I tell you!" and so forth, till the bell sounds and the kid steps out again, freshened up, clear-headed and confident.

I said before that inexperienced seconds is a big handicap to a box fighter. Yet Kid Roberts, licked to a fare-thee-well, sprang from his stool and win a world's championship solely on the account of the two guys which was shakin' the towel in his corner

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 —two guys which had never before in their lives handled a fighter and never did again. Let's go!

After we have bounced the French title holder at Monte Carlo, all the other foreign leather pushers it would have been worth our while to mingle with claimed exemption. The Senator and his eye-soothin' daughter havin' concluded their business abroad, i. e., havin' a whale of a time, is ready to sail for America, and of course the Kid immediately develops a terrible yearnin' for his native heath. So the result was that we all sailed for the Gem of the Ocean together. The Kid and Dolores went into secret conferences on the novel subject of love's young dream, which lasted till we slid past Quarantine and me and the Senator become familiar figures in the smokin' room, talkin' each other silly on subjects from boxin' to bankin' and politics to parcheesi.

Just before we tied up at the dock we all separated so's to fool the ship-news reporters, which surrounded the Senator whilst the camera boys was shootin' the smilin' Dolores from all angles. Three feet away, with his broad back to 'em, stood the Kid, and I kept wonderin' how much the newspaper guys would give to know that the best story they'd fell across in many's the day was right under their noses. Dolores Brewster, society bud, only daughter of millionaire Senator Brewster of New York, engaged to Kid Roberts, heavyweight championship challenger. Woof—Sweet Mamma!

Then a reporter seen the Kid, and in a instant a United States Senator was left flat on his back right

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 in the middle of lettin' forth a opinion on Russia or somethin' equally as enthrallin', whilst the reporters and camera men swooped down on the grinnin' Kid and bombarded him with foolish questions. I stood by beamin' and smirkin' like a mother watchin' her boy wonder recitin' the twelve o'clock ride of Paul Revere to the school board. Then come the jolt!

"Well, Kid," says a sharp-eyed little runt from the "Evenin' Moan," "what are you gonna do about Dynamite Jackson?"

"Prob'ly play him philately," I says, before the Kid can answer. "Who the—eh—who's Dynamite Johnson?"

"Not Johnson," says the reporter. "Jackson—Dynamite Jackson. He's a gentleman of color, and the color ain't white! Whilst you and your man-eater has been frolickin' around Europe, this big dinge has come up from nowheres and made a name for himself around New York. He flattened Tiger Anderson, Bull Kelly, Jim Sewell, and Young Scavelli in one round the each, and he smacked Soldier Martin for a row of shanties last night in just six frames! Whitey Burns, which has the Arena Club in Newark now, stands ready to offer you $55,000 for your end, win, lose, or draw for eight rounds, no decision. Why, say, the mob which will turn out to see this—"

"That's all blah!" I cuts him off. "We never fought no dinge, and we never will!"

"Now look here, fellah!" he snarls, shovin' his sharp little face up to me "this nigger should have his chance. If you duck him, I will personally roast your man to a fare-thee-well, beginnin' with to-morrow's

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 paper. Every white man in this village and in hundreds of others which reads the papers, and has heard of both Kid Roberts and Dynamite Jackson, is hopin' you'll take this high-steppin' dinge and knock him dead. I hope you kill him! But if you don't take him on—"

"Just a moment!" butts in the Kid, which ain't batted a eye durin' all of this. "I'm afraid you're exciting yourself unduly, old man. When I first went into this game, I made up my mind that under no circumstances would I ever step into a ring with a colored man. Never mind my reasons—they're ethical and my own. But your contention is absolutely right. A real champion should bar no one, whether it be a contest of brains or brawn! It is my place as challenger to prove beyond a question of a doubt that I am of championship caliber. Very well, I will meet this negro, as far as I'm concerned—to-morrow night!"

Wam!

"Look here, you guys—" I hollers, whilst the reporters is tryin' to mob the Kid and a little bimbo as large as a chicken and with the same kind of a chest is struttin' around and bellerin' about the undaunted white race to a big fat grinnin' Senegambian porter, "I—"

"Shut up, Stupid!" grunts the reporter from the "Evenin' Moan," "or I'll start a conspiracy to keep your name out of the papers. The Kid's the guy I should of talked to in the first place. How a real fighter ever got tied up with a burglar like you is past me! This boy has got to where he is on sheer courage and his own nut. The first time he takes

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 one syllable of advice from you, he'll become a bum!"

Well, as the French says: "Kappa Delta Omega Tau!" hey?

The Kid didn't fight Dynamite Jackson the next night, but they did crawl through the ropes before either ten or thirty-six thousand maniacs about two weeks later. I'll say this Ethiopium was good! For three rounds he toyed with the cautious Roberts till none of the crowd could speak above a whisper and most of 'em wanted the Kid's life. In Round Four, under my orders, the Kid took off the wraps and murdered all the bugs with weak hearts by droppin' Jackson twice. In Round Five they stalled some more and drawed a hat and program shower from the cuckoos in the gallery. The sixth innin' was a wow! They both come out to end it with a punch, and, boy, it was pretty. Both could hit and both could take it, and that's what happened. This dinge fought like his life depended on every wallop, and right at the bell he connected with a terrific smash to the body that floored the Kid in his own corner. It took some scientific work to bring hin: around, and when he opened his eyes he pushed me away from the reddened side I was anxiously kneadin'. His face was a pasty gray.

"Don't rub that, you ass," he groans through set teeth. "He's broken one of my ribs!"

O sole mio!

I motioned for the referee.

"If you stop this, I'll kill you!" snarls Roberts,

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 and he looked it as he sneers out at the ravin' crowd. "Look at the damn beasts!" he grunts. "Listen to them. The blood lust! Look at that fellow's face." He pushes my head around to lamp a fat, putty-faced guy—collar gone, eyes poppin' from his head, and perspiration pourin' off him in streams, who's mouthin':

"The big bum's yellah; the nigger'll kill him!" over and over like a chant. "And I have to perform for that animal!" groans the Kid, writhin' in agony and talkin' half to himself now. "Damn that nigger—is this, then, the end after those two years of hell? Keep that fool away from my side with his oil, I—"

The bell rung.

Dynamite Jackson would of won then and there if he'd of known the damage he'd already done. But he didn't, for the Kid was grinnin' at him coldly and pokin' out his marvelous left. The dinge looked the picture of confidence and swung his head for a wise crack to his corner. I bet they've trained him out of doin' that again! As his bullet head flicked aside, Roberts whipped both arms over like twin snakes, and—woof—how it must of hurt him to straighten up! The left took Jackson on the chin, and as he sagged forward the right—oh, that sweet right!—thudded home over the heart and, brother, no man—not Jackson, not Samson—could of taken them two clean smashes and remained upright.

The Kid never looked back at him, but staggered over into my arms. Oh, sure, the rib was busted all right, and I'd paged a medico when he left his stool. We left Dynamite Jackson with the howlin' lunatics. He was out half a hour, and we nearly got pinched.

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 So that was that.

The Kid's sensational win over Dynamite removed the last barrier between us and the mill with the champ, but that clout in the ribs gummed up the works a bit. Some X-ray stills of the thing showed a nasty fracture, and the best bonesetter in New York claims it would be suicide for the boy to enter a ring inside of three months. However, I cheered up and made the best of it, figurin' that the long rest would do the Kid good, as I didn't want him drawn too fine from too much work. Three months' lay-up would also ease the strain on his nerves and give him a chance to put on weight—not fat—for the champ, which scaled around 215 ringside to the Kid's 195.

They was little hagglin' over signin' the articles, three weeks later. Twenty-five rounds to a decision was fin'ly agreed on as the distance, and I captured the champ's goat early by remarkin' that two rounds would be ample. The king of the heavyweights demanded $125,000, win, lose, draw, or earthquake, and Jimmy Brandt, the promoter, which had come prepared to give him twice that and throw in Grant's Tomb if necessary, kidded the big boob into fin'ly acceptin' $110,000. When it come to dealin' with us, they was even less bargainin'. Me and Brandt had got that all set a week before, viz., $30,000 guarantee, $10,000 trainin' expenses, and 33 1-3 of the movie rights. These last can be showed in Europe, South America, and the like, and if the massacre goes long enough is worth more than you think.

Well, after I have put up a ten-thousand-buck ap-

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 pearance forfeit, swore that Kid Roberts would box no more till he met the champ, and agreed to start trainin' on the scene of the battle a month before the clash, the champ poses for some newspaper stills with the Kid, and we're all set. Roberts dashed off to the fair Dolores, figurin' her half dead from lonesomeness, as he hadn't seen her for about a hour, whilst I spent a pleasant afternoon signin' movie and vaudeville contracts for the Kid, to go into effect immediately after the championship battle and to have a value of nothin' unless the Kid finished exactly first in that fracas. Then I grabbed a rattler for the wilds of Maine, where me and my athlete was goin' to hunt and fish and fish and hunt till a month before the big fight.

One of them Yale pals of the Kid's had nothin' less than a shootin' box up there, and he wouldn't have it no other way but that me and Roberts consider it our home till we got ready to go into heavy trainin'. So I went up ahead to get my hands on a couple of guides and the etc., with the Kid due to join me in a week.

Well, boys and girls, one fatal night I was sittin' in a easy-chair before a roarin' log fire, enjoyin' the art of smokin' and readin' "The Life of Napoleon," and thinkin' how many ways me and Napoleon was like each other—and there comes a knockin' on my chamber door, as Eddie Poe, the Raven, used to say.

The next minute I am enjoyin' all the delightful sensations of havin' stopped one of the Kid's hooks with my chin, as a result of havin' just read one of the world's greatest short stories, e., a telegram. Here it is:

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 Take next train New York Meet me Yale Club All plans upset.

Sweet Papa!

Well, I again had the sensations of feelin' like Napoleon, only this time I felt like the well-known army man must of felt durin' the last half of the ninth at Waterloo. . ..

When I fin'ly get past the doorkeeper at the Yale Ctub, the Kid is pacin' back and forth in the lobby and the minute he flashed me he dragged me into a little room at one side. His twitchin' lips showed me where his nerves was.

"Now what the Gehenna's the—" I begins.

"Everything's the matter," he butts in, finishin' for me. "Lower your voice, can't you? This is a gentlemen's club, not a gymnasium!" A yellow piece of paper is shoved under my eyes. "Read that and weep!" he says.

This one is a wireless, readin' thusly:

Arrive pier 49 North River Thursday noon Keep from newspapers Booked as R. H. Carson.. . J. A.

"Who's J. A?" I says, handin' it back.

The Kid bends over and hisses in my ear, like a villain in the old-time gun operas which the movies killed off: "J. A. is J. A. Halliday—my father!"

"Well, that's fine!" I remarks pleasantly. "I'll be glad to meet the old gent. But what's this jam you're in now?"

He swung around on me, and for a instant I thought he was goin' to forget we was in a gentlemen's club and not no gymnasium.

"You—you—you colossal ass!" he busts out fin'ly.

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 "And I thought you might help me. Gad, what a mess!" he adds, slappin' the arms of his chair.

"Mess of what?" I says, torn between innocence and stupidity.

"I am glad we're not alone," snarls the Kid, after a long, bloodthirsty look, "or I'm sure I would assassinate you in cold blood! It is more than two years since I said good-by to my father. He left here proud in the assurance that I would uphold the best traditions of our family and make my name in the profession I had chosen—engineering. In all our correspondence I have avoided any reference to the fact that I am a pugilist, and from the amount of money I've been sending him he obviously thinks I'm a success, perhaps a nationally known authority on—"

"But the newspapers will be printin'—" I begins.

"Bosh!" says the Kid impatiently, "Kid Roberts will mean nothing to him. Besides, I doubt if he ever more than glances at a sporting page. He had written me three letters to the effect that he was coming back and, lacking a forward address, they were all held at the club here while we were in Europe. I just got them when I dropped in yesterday. Why, in his last letter he says he's coming to realize the culmination of his greatest hope, or words to that effect. Can't you see what that means? He's ready for his comeback! And to think—oh, don't sit there looking at me like a fool. Can't you suggest something?"

"Why not come clean with the old man and be done with it, Kid?" I says, after a minute. "They's worse things than bein' a leather pusher. You made a name for yourself, you got a bank roll, and you're level.

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 Why, say, they's thousands of good citizens which can reel off your ring record and measurements and don't even know the plot of the Constitution!"

"You don't understand," says the Kid, patiently. "Perhaps your philosophy is right, but it would be useless to attempt to convert my father, and the caste he represents, to it. He would simply consider that I had dishonored the name of Halliday and that his own son had made a mock of him. When he went on the rocks through the perfidy of his most trusted friends it broke his heart, but not his spirit. He took his gruel like a gentleman and pinned his hopes in me. He is not a young man, and this second shock might kill him. Kane Halliday, prize fighter!" The Kid gives a shiver. "Gad. I can see his face now!" He gets up and takes a turn around the room.

"Look here," I says, gettin' up myself. "For two years you've allowed your old man to think you was a dude when it come to civilly engineerin'. Now, then, whether you're a fighter or a plumber, the fact that you ain't what you claimed to be is what's goin' to hit the old man, ain't it? Sure! Therefore the thing is to make it look like you was a beaucoup civil engineer till you win the title. Then you can come clean, all will be forgiven, and no harm done! Get me?"

"But if—" says the Kid wildly.

"Shut up," I says. "This joint's a gentlemen's club and not no gymnasium! Now what we'll do is to hire a office somewheres. I can fix that up with any one of the Jersey promoters and we'll paint your name on the door, plaster the place with maps and whatever a civil engineer works with. Fine! You show that to

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 father and we got that all jake. When the time comes to start trainin' for the big fight, you got a heavy job on out of town, get me? Away we go. You knock the champ for a row of milk cans, come back, show the old man your movie and vaudeville contracts which runs over $175,000 for next year; tell him why you didn't confess all before, that you never fought under your real name, anyways, so that part's all right, and if he don't kiss and make up—"

But the Kid is dancin' around and huggin' me till the bell hops is wonderin' which one of them cheated and sold him a pint.

"Enough, enough!" he cackles. "Good Lord, man, give me credit for some imagination. That's my one chance, an appeal to dad's sense of humor—and he has one. Besides, your stunt probably isn't half as despicable as it sounds. After all, it's for dad, even if we are deceivin' him, and in the end I'll tell him the whole business, of course."

"Say," I says, "I bet if your father ever seen you mixin' it up he'd be yellin' his head off and become a fight bug for life! Them dignified guys is all alike. I know a supreme court judge which got throwed out of a movie theatre for gettin' the hystericals over haplin. C'mon, we got to work fast. Call up Miss Brewster and the Senator and wise 'em up, so's they don't innocently tip off your father that we're a couple of first-class liars!"

Like wire walkin', this here proved easier said than done. At the first blush, the delicious Dolores says they is nothin' stirrin' on stallin' old man Halliday as far as she is concerned; what kind of a person would

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 he think she was, etc., etc., and etc. Well, I devoted my talents to the Senator which had once told me to look him up any time he could do anything for me. The proposition landed sock on his funny bone, and between us we fin'ly captured Dolores. Dave Martin, a Newark fight promoter, rents us his office for a spell on the promise that we Will box our first exhibition at his club if we trim the champ. We take all the stills of great and near great pugs off the walls and replace 'em with a entirely different kind of maps, blue prints, and stacks of novels on the gift of civil engineerin'. A gay young stenog is hired and put to work copyin' off the City Directory, after we have with some difficulty convinced her that we ain't crazy or that she ain't bein' led into a trap. Then we get "Kane Halliday, Civil Engineer," painted on the door, the Kid goes over to meet his dad, and I sit down in the office and wish us both luck.

After a while the Kid reaches me via phone and says father has arrove lookin' like two $500,000 bills, and he is goin' to take him to dinner at the Ritz. Dave Martin comes up later to get some papers from his safe and says they will be a openin' pretty soon down in his temporary office for a bright young stud-poker player, so I fled the joint myself. Before leavin' I told the dazed stenog to be sure and stay till 5 p. m., as I expected President Wilson, Caruso, Ty Cobb, Eva Tanguay, and the Prince of Wales for a conference.

The followin' day Kid Roberts brings his male parent over to Newark. The big, upstandin', dignified old boy was very sweet to me and I fell for him right away. A close-up of him and you could see where the

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 Kid got not only his heft but his class. He looks around the office approvin'ly, nods pleasantly to the charmin' stenog which is typin' seven letters I have dictated to myself, squats in a comfortable chair near a window and there he camps all through one of the most nerve-rackin' mornin's I have ever put in anywheres!

They was a million pugs and their managers which had to be shooed away and shut up without gettin' the old guy suspicious. Fin'ly at noon we had a excuse to go to lunch and the Kid seen that his dear old dad didn't come back afterward.

At last comes the time when we have to start West to begin trainin' for the big fight as per our contract. The Kid tells the old man at a dinner up at the Senator's palace one night that "business" will call him out of town for about a month. He says that this-job's the biggest one he's undertaken yet and that if he puts it through successfully he'll be fixed for life, all of which is true. Then, he adds with a happy smile, Dolores is goin' to be his sweet young bride.

"Provided," smiles Dolores, with a breath-takin' blush, whilst the Senator and the Kid's old man is slappin' each other on the back—"provided you give up your present—ah—profession, Kane!"

The Kid begins to choke over his oysters, and his old gent looks up kinda puzzled.

"And why, Miss Brewster?" he says. "Why should Kane give up the profession of engineering? Surely it is an honorable one and he's been tremendously successful at it, hasn't he?"

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 Wam! Dolores win the celluloid fireman's hat, hey?

She flames red to her shoulder blades, stalls for a minute by takin' a drink of water, and then gamely faces the Kid's father with a innocent smile. "Why—why, I suppose you'll think me foolish, Mister Halliday," she stammers, fakin' it wonderfully. "But—er—engineering will keep Kane away from home so much that—"

It was the Kid's dad himself which come to her rescue with a boomin' laugh and a wink to the Senator, and that baby grabbed the chance to switch the talk to the Japanese question. So that was all settled!

We caught a midnight rattler that night, leavin' the Kid's old man with the Senator and Dolores where he was to stay as their guest till we come back.

Late in the afternoon of the day Kid Roberts was to go to the post for the world's heavyweight championship, I was walkin' down the main street of the burg the battle was staged in on my ways to meet Jimmy Brandt, which promoted the battle, for a final conference. The town was loaded to the guards with fight fans from all over the Land of the Free, and every incomin' train was dumpin' off hundreds more, which battled with each other to give the speculators anywheres from a hundred berries up for seats within telephone distance of the ring. They was not as much profit for the speculators in this as you'd think, as the boys was all workin' for the promoter on a straight salary. The Kid was takin' a nap at our camp guarded by no less than Dynamite Jackson, which I'd brung on at beaucoup expense to work out with the Kid durin' the last two weeks before the mill. The boy had

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 used up all the cheaper help long before. Passin' the lobby of the hotel on my ways back, I'm edging through the jam when out of a taxi piles a couple of guys which has a familiar look. Their backs is to me, but yet they's somethin' about the way one of 'em carries himself that sets me thinkin': I know this guy, who is he? And then as the bell hops run out for their suit cases, this bird turns around and I catch a good square view of his face.

Sweet Mamma—it was Kid Roberts' old man!

At the risk of 'em seein' me, I stopped dead not three feet away and took a good long look. When the other guy started up the steps, the thing was cinched. He was Senator Brewster.

I staggered up against a convenient lamp post and I'd of been there yet, I guess, if a copper hadn't come along and nudged me with his stick. "Take 'at booze away from here," he says. "They're watchin' me pretty clost!"

Still in a trance, I sidled into a taxi and beat it for the camp. Of course, I took it for granted that the old boy had been out to see Kid Roberts and prob'ly made a scene and the like, and I could imagine what shape the Kid was in by now. Think of it, to have a thing like this happen on the very brinks of a championship battle!

Dynamite Jackson is on guard outside the room where the Kid's sleepin', just like I'd left him. He greets me with a dazzlin', gold-toothed grin. "Can 'at white boy fight like he kin sleep," remarks Dynamite, noddin' to the door, "us handles a champeen by to-night!"

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 "You big black tramp!" I snarls. "What d'ye mean by lettin' anybody in to see the Kid this afternoon? Didn't I tell you—"

"How come?" butts in Dynamite, losin' his grin. "Ain't nobody been botherin' around heah, 'ceptin' yo' ownseff. Like y'all demands, I been settin' heah doin' a piece of readin', and they ain't been as much as a strange breeze come through 'at doah!"

The "piece of readin Dynamite meant was a account of his seven-round battle with Kid Roberts, clipped from a New York paper. He'd haul that clippin' out and grin over it fifty times a day.

Well, Dynamite convinced me that the Kid's old man hadn't paid his party call yet and once again I was able to resume breathin'. I never let the Kid know they was a thing out of the way, though he laughed his head off when I posted a guard at every entrance to the camp and even barred the newspaper bunch till we entered the ring that night.

The ring was pitched in a ball park, but it was summer, and the air was just right. When we crawled through the ropes and looked out over that roarin' ocean of bobbin' faces, it seemed to me like everybody in the world had turned out to see this scrap. Given a guess, I'd of said they was twenty-eight million guys there, but the official attendance was a scant 45,000. The movie lights overhead made the ring stand out in the surroundin' gloom as bright as a sunny day and blinded us till we got used to it. The Kid was cool and unsmilin', showin' nerves only by the shufflin' back and forth of his feet as he sat on his stool after bowin' to a two-minute ovation from the mob. He sat with

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 his eyes fastened on a spot on the floor and looked neither to the right or left whilst Dynamite and Knockout Burns rinsed his mouth and massaged him, and I repeated my instructions. I told him to go after the champ from the bell, carryin' the battle to him and keepin' him movin' too fast to set. I don't know whether he heard me or not. He kept mutterin' thank God his father couldn't see the next five minutes. I turned away my head and says nothin'.

A sudden, deafenin' din from the crowd told us the champ was on his way down the aisle, and in a few minutes he stepped through on the other side, waved a bandaged paw at the frantic mob, and walked over to our corner. I felt the Kid's muscles tense under my hand, but he didn't move or look up. The champ reaches down and examines the Kid's bandages, carefully and deliberately, but failed to get a rise out of him. I got one out of the champ, though.

"You can shake hands now if you want to," I says to him. "It'll be the last chance! We want to come out fightin' with the bell, O. K.?"

He shrugged his shoulders, but he stopped grinnin' at his friends and walked over to his corner after that.

The introductions and posin' for the newspaper and movie stills was soon over, and then with a final roar the mob drawed its breath and settled back, the telegraph instruments beatin' a steady tattoo. I just got down under the ropes with the bell.

The Kid was across the ring like a panther and on top of his man before the champ was clear of his

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 corner. They sparred cautiously for half a second, and then the Kid was short with a right to the head, the champ counterin' swiftly with a right and left to the body that brought a yell from the mob and a nervous grin from the Kid. The champ then tried to end matters with a punch and swung a vicious right for the jaw, but Roberts was gettin' cooler now and easily blocked it, puttin' both hands to the face and dancin' lightly away before the champ could set for a return. The customers begin yellin' for action, and the Kid obliged by drivin' the champ to the ropes with a volley of lefts and rights to the head that made the title holder dive into a clinch, where he hung on till the crowd booed him and the referee must of broke his arms tearin' 'em apart.

When they broke, the champ was bleedin' freely from a cut over his right eye and the Kid immediately made that the target for a beautiful left jab. The champion was mad now and took all kinds of chances to land a haymaker, but the Kid kept him off with his left, occasionally rippin' in that terrible right to the heart.

A second before the bell, however, the champ uncorked a right swing that landed flush on the Kid's jaw. It drove Roberts hard against the ropes, and on the rebound he fell into a wicked left to the body that dropped him to his knees. The crowd stood up, yellin' wildly, thinkin' the thing was over, but the Kid was up at "five," bangin' away with both hands and drivin' the astonished champ across the ring. The bell found them clinched in a neutral corner and Roberts run to his stool grinnin' and unmarked outside of a slight

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 swellin' on his jaw. The champ looked very tired, and durin' the rest the odds switched from eight to five, with the champ favorite, to even money.

The champion come out for the second round to get it over with, and after pumpin' three stiff lefts to the face without a return, shifted his attack to the bedy, which begin to show big red blotches over the Kid's burn rib. Roberts fin'ly untracked himself and sent the champ staggerin' back with a wicked right uppercut, followin' that with a left to the mouth that showered the champ's neck and shoulders with gore. The mob kept up a continual din that must of been heard in Egypt. Crazy with rage, the champ pumped in two rights that looked pretty low, and the referee cautioned him, but the Kid waved the official away and drove a terrific right to the champ's ribs and nearly knocked him through the ropes. It looked like the end, and the Kid drove the mob into several higher degrees of insanity by crashin' the champ to the canvas with a perfectly timed right hook to the jaw. He took "nine" and was in a bad way when he floundered to his feet and managed to clinch right in our corner.

Then come the most sensational thing I ever seen at a prize fight—the thing the newspapers give more space to than they did the fight! The champ has his back to me and the Kid is lookin' out at the crowd over his shoulder, tryin' to work loose and finish his man. Suddenly his face goes a dull white, and his eyes takes on a wild stare. His arms slowly slides down the champ's quiverin' back and he shivers, like they was a sudden draft. I jumped on the stool and looked into the crowd, followin' his own startled gaze, and I seen

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 his father, Dolores, and Senator Brewster sittin' in a box!

Even the newspaper guys is excited now, and the mob is jumpin' up and down yellin' "Fake!" when the champ slides away, deliberately measures the hypnotized Kid, and floors him with a right swing. The round had fifteen seconds to go, and I could of cheerfully murdered the Kid's old man then and there and taken the "chair" with pleasure! Gypped out of a world's championship! Over the moanin' of Dynamite Jackson I hear "nine!" from the referee and see the Kid strugglin' to his feet, reelin' about like a guy full of hooch. The sneerin' champ straightens him up with a left jab and then drops him again with another crashin' right. In the middle of the count which would of surely been the wind-up, the blessed bell rung.

We had to half carry the Kid to his chair, where he slumped over in a heap, his head saggin' forward on his neck like the same was broke. The referee walks over, takes a look, and gazes at me inquirin'ly. Before I can say anything, somebody grabs me by the shoulders and shoves me to one side, I hear familiar voices and see Senator Brewster and the Kid's old man, their blazin' white shirt fronts spattered with blood and water from the sponge Dynamite is wavin' at 'em, climbin' through the ropes. Like a flash, I sees a chance in a million to cop, so I shoved the Kid's dumbfounded handlers out of the ring. The old man is slappin' the Kid's face to bring him to. The Senator has emptied the water bucket over him and is now shovin' the ammonia bottle under his nose.

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 "Come on, son!" the old man's half shoutin', half cryin'. "It was my fault, I should not have come here, I know. But, oh, my boy, I wanted to see you win. Come on, it's dad—can you hear me? It's dad, Kane boy—go on and kill that fellow! Son—son—wake up!"

The Kid's glazed eyes began to clear, and he sees his old man. Senator Brewster, a sight for the movies, is rubbin' him with alcohol, and tears, get that, tears, is streamin' down his face. The Kid shudders and begins straightenin' up. "Dad," he says, "I—"

"Don't talk!" pants the old man, rubbin' his wrists. "I'll explain everything later. I want to see you a champion! Come on, son—see, your color's coming back now. Go out and win! Remember in that Harvard game when you were knocked out in the first few minutes of play and insisted on staying and—oh, son, come on—"

"Why, of course!" smiles the Kid, dazedly. "I know this is all a nightmare, but even in a dream I can whip this fellow! I—"

"You got eight seconds to get your man off his stool!" grunts the referee. "Wanna throw it up?"

"Ring the chimes," barks the Kid, "I'll be there!" He turns to his old man: "Dad, I would never have lied to you, but—"

"Who's them old guys?" says a newspaper bird to another one which has left his telegraph operator and is in our corner, drinkin' in every word.

"Well," says the other guy, grinnin', "I'll be on the street with it first anyhow, so I don't mind tellin'

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 you. One of 'em's Senator Brewster of New York and the other's old J. A. Halliday—Kid Roberts' father—and they're handlin '  him, that's all!"

"Wow!" yells the first guy, "I don't give a damn who wins this scrap. Sweet Cookie—what a story!"

The bell clangs, and I shove the Senator and the Kid's old man out of the ring just in time. The champion's handlers is yellin' over the ropes to the referee and pointin' to our corner, but he don't pay no attention to 'em. The champ advanced smilin'ly, when a human cyclone struck him in mid ring. It was the first punch that he didn't expect that licked him, because the Kid put everything he had left in that—a right swing to the jaw that dumped the champ with a crash that sent up showers of dust from underneath the padded canvas. He pulled himself up by the ropes at "eight," shakin' his head to clear it and pawin' weakly at the dancin' Kid in front of him.

"Take your time, Kid!" I bellered, and the boy heard me over the roar of the crowd, for he nodded and coolly measured the totterin' champ with a light left before floorin' him again with a right to the button. Again the champ floundered to his feet—they called him yellah afterward, but I seen the fight!—and again the fast tirin' Kid dropped him, this time usin' both hands for the job.

The champ got to his knees, slid back, and fin'ly got up at "nine," and now the Kid stepped back and hollered to the beaten champ's seconds to throw in the sponge and save their man from further punishment. They hesitated and, with a dyin' effort, the champ

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 step she had taken in resolving never to meet Horatio again would no doubt expose her to his wrath, and probably cause her to be sold, yet her heart was too guileless for her to commit a crime, and therefore she had ten times rather have been sold as a slave than do wrong. Some months after the marriage of Horatio and Gertrude their barouche rolled along a winding road that skirted the forest near Clotel's cottage, when the attention of Gertrude was suddenly attracted by two figures among the trees by the wayside; and touching Horatio's arm, the exclaimed, "Do look at that beautiful child." He turned and saw Clotel and Mary. His lips quivered, and his face became deadly pale. His young wife looked at him intently, but said nothing. In returning home, he took another road; but his wife seeing this, expressed a wish to go back the way they had come. He objected, and suspicion was awakened in her heart, and she soon after learned that the mother of that lovely child bore the name of Clotel, a name which she had often heard Horatio murmur in uneasy slumbers. From gossiping tongues she soon learned more than she wished to know. She wept, but not as poor Clotel had done; for she never had loved, and been beloved like her, and her nature was more proud: henceforth a change came over her feelings and her manners, and Horatio had no further occasion to assume a tenderness in return for hers. Changed as he was by ambition, he felt the wintry chill of her polite propriety, and sometimes, in agony of heart, compared it with the gushing love of her who was indeed his wife. But these and all his emotions were a sealed hook to Clotel, of which she could only guess the contents. With remittances for her and her child's support, there sometimes came earnest pleadings that she would consent to see him again; but these she never answered, though her heart yearned to do so.

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 swung for the Kid's unprotected face, missed and sprawled full length on the mat, face down.

As he started to drag himself to his feet, a pitiful sight, the towel came hurtlin' into the ring from the other side, and Kid Roberts was heavyweight champion of the world!

The Kid's old man was talkin' behind the barred doors of the dressin' room, whilst the mob pounded outside.

"When I went to South America, son," he says, "I arranged with the Pinkerton agency to keep tabs on you. I knew the pitfalls and temptations that faced you when—when I went bankrupt and was forced to set you loose on your own. They've been sending me press clippings about you almost since I went away—why, Kane, the object of my trip here was to see you win the championship! When you did not immediately enlighten me, I decided to let you think I was fooled so that you could work out your problem in your own way. I—"

"Then," gasps the Kid, "I've been writing to you that—a—and you have known I was a prize fighter since—"

"Since your first professional fight, son, two years ago," smiles the old man, pattin' his shoulder. "Ahem!" he says, his eyes twinklin', "J. A. Halliday, father of the world's heavyweight champion—well that's something!"

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you'll find a lot of women at prize fights. Some of 'em covers their white faces with their hands and devotes themselves to wishin' it was over, and some of 'em stamps their feet on the floor as excited as the hoarsely bellerin' stevedore on one side of 'em and the wheezin' corporation lawyer on the other, and hollers shrilly: "Knock him out! Knock him out!"

I ain't got the slightest intention of gettin' mixed up in no argument as to whether it's proper or no for a member of the adjoinin' sex to be a part of the yowlin', cussin' mob which watches one guy endeavor to knock another one stiff for pennies. In the first place, anything any Jane does is O. K. with me. In the second place, I know nothin' what the so ever about the girls except I am practically certain that if it wasn't for them we'd all be throwin' coconuts at each other in the tops of the trees to-day. But to get back to the original subject, the bloodiest prize fight I ever seen since I been pilotin' leather pushers was deliberately staged by a woman, because she hated the game. Sounds odd, hey? Well, listen!

After Kid Roberts, with me at the wheel, had win the world's heavyweight title, we tell the ambitious

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 young men which is clamorin' for first punch at the new monarch of the maulers that we have declared a armistice for a year at the smallest as far as vulgar fistycuffs is concerned. We have a movie agreement which would make the charmin' Mrs. Fairbanks raise her equally charmin' eyebrows and a circus contract runnin' into as beautiful figures as Ziegfeld ever seen. The circus portfolio comes first and calls for the appearance of the Kid twice the day durin' a tour of the country. He's down on the menu to punch the bag, pull the weights, skip rope, shadow-box and step a couple of frames with his sparrin' partners. The big wow at the finish is a offer to take on any man, woman, or child in the audience for three rounds.

At the time this round opens, Dolores had gone to Washington with her father, which had been suddenly called there as the Senate had decided to begin playin' practical jokes on the President again. Me and Kid Roberts with our kingly retinue was flittin' through the train-stops-on-signal-only burgs, knockin' the natives cold with our forty-minute demonstration that self-defense is not only a plea, but a art.

It was at a one-night stand in Chickasha, Oklahoma, that one Joe Kenny—the hero or villain of this yarn, whichever you like—first took a runnin' jump and dove into the spotlight. Followin' the "amazin'ly agile acrobats" and the "extryordinarily educated elephants," the cheaper help was chased out of the arena, givin' Kid Roberts the place to himself. In the middle one of the three big circles a regulation ring was swiftly throwed together before the eager eyes of the awed customers, the tent lights was all dimmed, and a blindin'

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 calcium was throwed on said ring. Then a special announcer begin a long debate with himself which was mostly blah blah, and wound up with: ". . . and now, ladees and gent-tel-men, I have the great pleasure of intreeducin' to you one and all the most scientific, polished, gamest, and hardest hittin' exponent of the manly art of self-defense that the American prize ring has ever preeduced [the cheerin' usually begin about here]—the world's champeen heavyweight boxer, !"

Whilst the band played "Dixie" on account of the Kid bein' a born New Yorker, and the mob went hysterical by a large majority, Roberts, caparisoned in a dazzlin' dress suit, circled the arena twice standin' up in the back of a auto liftin' his hat and bowin' this way and that.

Followin' a exhibition of trainin' stunts which was eat up by the natives, the Kid went two snappy rounds apiece with his sparrin' partners, a good dinge heavy correctly called Dynamite Jackson and Knockout Burns, a tough old war horse. Then whilst the mob, which has just seen enough to set 'em deleerious, is howlin' their heads off, the announcer holds up both hands for silence, grabs up his megaphone, and tells the world that Kid Roberts will box three rounds with anybody in the tent outside of the elephants, usin' ten-ounce gloves, which is the same as pillows, to four-ounce mitts for his darin' opponent. In his hand the announcer waves a little pink slip of paper.

"Ladees and gent-tel-men!" he says. "It has been the custom in the past, when champeens towered the country takin' on all corners, to offer a reward of some

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 sum like a hundred dollars to any man which could stand before the title holder for three or four rounds. The results of this was that a lot of young and inexperienced boys got their heads beat off and took crool and unusual punishment tryin' to stay on their feet so's in the order to git that jack. I want to say to you, one and all, this evenin', folks, that Kid Roberts is not that kind of a champeen. He's beneath takin' the advantage of his soopeerior strennth and skill. But on the behalf of the management I hereby show you a certeyfied check for five thousand dollars, which will be presented to any man in this audience which can knock Kid Roberts off his feet inside of three rounds!"

This always goaled the mob.

Naturally we had a couple of huskies planted in the attendance which volunteered when the young men was coy about takin' a chance of stoppin' the Kid's right with their chin. But now and then that five-thousandbuck offer caused some rustic which would of dove off Washington's monument into a bucket of water for a five-dollar note to come to the fore.

Such, gentle readers, was the case that night in Chickasha.

The announcer had hardly finished when they is a slight commotion in one of the back rows and a growin' rumble of cheers from the crowd. Up the aisle comes a human mountain which could prob'ly of gazed over the top of Eiffel's Tower without standin' on his toes, and who was likewise as delicate and sickly lookin' as the Rock of Gibraltar. Under a mop of black hair, cut high and round in the rear, his weather-beaten, sharply

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 cut features wasn't bad looking in a hick way. I'd guess his age as thirty-five, too old by about fifteen years to take up box fightin' as a trade. Boxin', boys and girls, is strictly a young man's game.

"Woof!" grins Dynamite Jackson to the Kid. "Sure is a tough baby comin' to visit us, boss. Looks like to me you're gonna be compelled to smack 'at boy down!"

It looked like to me, too, when this guy puts one mighty paw on the top rope, vaults into the ring with a thump that sent up clouds of dust from the canvas and begins removin' his coat and collar. The mob is with him to a man, and he's blushin' furiously, but game, as he begins rollin' up his sleeves without givin' the smilin' Kid as much as a look. Fin'ly he bends down and ties up a loose shoe lace, takes a couple of reefs in his belt, and faces us.

"Le's go!" he snarls at the Kid, and puts up his hands.

Whilst the crowd is still shriekin' I grabbed this dumb-bell's arm with both hands and explaiped to him that whilst his spirit was O. K., his costume was a trifle out of order for a boxin' bout, and that if he'd step into the dressin' room with the handlers everything would be jake. At this the man mountain balks. He claims that nothin' in the wide, wide world will induce him to remove his citizen's clothes and reveal his manly form to the multitude in a brief pair of trunks, as he is on hand to fight—not to go swimmin'. He's also got a kick to register with the regard to wearin' gloves, on the grounds that nobody could hurt each other with their hands all cushioned up, and he sneerin'ly inquires

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 if the Kid is afraid of him. This cuckoo was a bit rough, hey?

Well, we fin'ly talked him into strippin' to ring togs after I have convinced him that Kid Roberts has showed no signs of tryin' to sneak out of town since lookin' him over, and that he'd be pleasantly surprised in a few minutes at the damage it was possible to do with a pair of boxin' gloves if they was properly applied.

The fifteen minutes or so which this bimbo devoted to changin' his costume was nerve-rackin' on the crowd, and by the time he stepped into the ring again they was all ready to bite nails. A cheer which swayed the tent poles greeted him when he throwed off the overcoat he had draped over his walkin' beam shoulders and walked over to the corner selected for him. He viewed the two circus attendants which was deputized to handle him with open suspicion, and absolutely refused to sit down on the stool whilst waitin' for the bell. Oh, this baby was rarin' to go!

"What's yer name, feller?" whispered the announcer hoarsely, standin' beside him. "And whereabouts are ya from?"

"Joe Kenney," says the hick in a voice as deep as the center of the Atlantic. "My place is near Chickasha, and—"

"That don't mean nothin'!" snorts the announcer, straightenin' up and facin' the crowd. "Ladees and gent-tel-men!" he roars, pointin' to the astonished Joseph. "We have with us to-night Oklahoma's favorite son and one of this fair State's leadin' exponents of the manly art, which has—ah—defeated some of the best men in his class. He will now box Kid Roberts

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 three rounds and attempt to win the five-thousanddollar prize by knockin' the world's heavyweight champeen off of his feet. Allow me to present to you, one and all, Hurricane Kenney, the Chickasha Bone Crusher!"

The mob howls with joy, and Joe Kenney's eyes stuck out of his head till you could of knock 'em off with a cane when he hears the title which the announcer had bestowed on him, the first time, as I found out later, he had ever stepped into a ring! Whilst our referee is tellin' the Chickasha Bone Crusher that kickin', bitin', jiu jitsu, or pullin' a knife will disqualify him, a scatterin' beller of "Weights! Weights!" comes up from the customers, and the announcer again whispers to Joseph, then leans over the ropes.

"The weights!" he hollers. "The weights is: Kid Roberts, one ninety-seven and a half; Hurricane Kenney, two hundred and twenty-six!"

"Wow!" shrieks the crowd. "Knock him out, Kenney, we're with ya!"

Then the bell rung. Kenney had evidently made up his mind that he would qualify immediately for the "Hurricane" label which had just been gave him, for he charged across the ring at the Kid with a snarl like a famished panther. For a man of his bulk he was really surprisin'ly light on his feet, but the first wild haymaker he let go was the tip off that Joe had never before pushed his knuckles through a boxin' glove. The Kid lazily blocked the punch and countered with a straight left to the mouth that made Kenney say how do you do and brung joyful yelps from the crowd.

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 The Chickasha Bone Crusher then uncorked a wicked right swing to the body, which, although the Kid took it on his elbow, drove him against the ropes and the crowd crazy.

Kenney followed the Kid up, pinnin' him against a ring post with his huge body, and suddenly slidin' one arm around the champ's neck, he begin whalin' away at the stomach with the other. The big tent fairly quivered with the uproar now, half the mob booin' Kenney and yellin' for the referee to break 'em, and the other half screamin' for the Bone Crusher to knock the Kid stiff. The pantin', excited, and red-faced referee, both hands grabbin' the wagon tongue that passed as Kenney's arm, was actually swingin' off the floor on it tryin' to unhook it from around the Kid's neck. He might as well of tried to push over the Rocky Mountain with one hand!

Roberts curled up and kept his head, makin' most of Kenney's rib crackers glance off his arms, but some of 'em was gettin' through, and when they did, havin' 226 pounds of bone and muscle behind 'em—well, they wasn't doin' the Kid any good. He kept choppin' at Kenney's head and face with his right, but this baby seemed to have a iron jaw, and, besides, they was too close together for the Kid to put any snap in his blows.

Roberts looked at me over the human bear's shoulder and shook his head, kinda puzzled.

"Down below, Kid!" I hollers. "Down below—work on his heart!"

Still cool, the champ drops his head till it rests on Kenney's heavin' chest. He sets himself for half a

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 second and then both arms begin pumpin' like pistons into the Hurricane's body, left—right, left—right, left—right, left—right! A minute of this and Kenney's grunts with each blow could be plainly heard by guys in the last row. The arm comes away from the Kid's neck, and I see the back muscles quiverin' under the rollin' skin.

Quick as startled lightnin' the Kid shifts his attack, and a vicious right uppercut sent the Bone Crusher back on his heels, pawin' at the breeze for support. Roberts, however, refused to follow up his advantage and put him away, but contented himself with lefthandin' his man all over the ring—never lettin' the bewildered Kenney set for a solid punch.

The bell only seemed to irritate the Hurricane further, and he took two free swings at the Kid after the latter dropped his hands and started for his corner, for which the mob gave him the razz.

When the indignant referee explained to him that the gong meant cease firin', Kenney grinned sheepishly, walked over to the Kid and shook his hand, mumblin' somethin' about not knowin' the rules.

The Kid presents him with a pleasant smile and a pat on the back, and as Joseph returns to his corner the crowd give him a hand which would of tickled Chaplin.

Durin' the rest I told the Kid that as this Kenney person was about the foulest fighter I ever seen work, he had better crack him and be done with it.

Roberts shakes his head and says he'll merely keep him off and let it go at that.

"This fellow isn't deliberately foul," says the Kid.

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 "He's simply ignorant of the rules—that's all. I don't believe he ever fought in a ring before in his life until this minute. Besides, he's too tough and too game to be stopped with a punch. I'd have to wear him down with punishment first, and I'm not going to cut him up. Let us alone, we're having a lot of fun!"

Kenney didn't land two solid wallops durin' the entire second round, though he must of throwed eight million gloves in the general direction of the Kid's jaw.

Long before the bell he was so blown and tired from his own exertions that he lumbered around after the dancin', smilin' Kid like a drunken elephant.

Roberts simply give the Hurricane and the crowd a boxin' lesson, avoidin' Kenney's terrific clouts by shiftin' his body aside a fraction of a inch or makin' the Bone Crusher's well-meant efforts slide harmlessly around his neck by rollin' his head this way and that, whilst the customers squealed with glee. The gong was a welcome sound to Monsieur Kenney, which flopped heavily on his stool, blowin' like a school of whales.

Round three was a duplicate of the other two, with the slight exception that it only went a minute and a half. Kenney was slow to leave his corner, and so tired from chasin' the elusive Kid about the ring that he could hardly raise his hairy arms. His stomach was pumpin' in and out like a bellows.

The mob, quick to sense his condition, implored the Kid to knock him for a goal, but Roberts had no such idea. He straightened the Hurricane up with a couple of stiff jabs to the face, and Kenney's knees sagged

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 as he fell over against the ropes, mouth open, gaspin', and primed to be bounced.

The Kid stepped away from him to make him lead, and as Kenney swung wildly with both hands to the head, the champ slid inside the blows and planted a short right hook to the jaw. I know Roberts pulled the punch. There was hardly enough kick in it to rock a man, and a few minutes earlier Kenney would of brushed it off like a fly. But now it was all different! Out of condition and exhausted by his own wild swingin', the Bone Crusher toppled to his knees with a crash that shook the ring.

He paid no attention to the referee's count—prob'ly didn't know what it was all about—but turnin' his head around he snarled somethin' at the cuckoo mob, which was on its feet screamin' at him. Slowly and painfully Kenney pulled himself upright at the count of "six," a thin, crimson stream tricklin' from one corner of his mouth, where the Kid had prob'ly loosened a tooth. He spread his tremblin' legs wide apart to brace himself upright, and faced the Kid with danglin', useless arms, his glarin' eyes the livest portion of his tired body. Settin' his jaw, Kenney stares grimly into the Kid's troubled features.

"Go ahead, old-timer," pants this twenty-nine carat gamester, "they ain't nothin' to hinder yuh now!"

With the deleerious mob bellerin' for murder, show me the champion or preliminary burn which wouldn't of measured this guy and knocked him stiff!

But Kid Roberts drew back and looked sharply at the beaten Hurricane for a instant, and then, as Kenney suddenly swayed on his feet, the Kid stepped for-

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 ward and caught him in his arms, easin' him gently to the floor.

"Next!" bawls the announcer.

The mob is already jostlin' out of the exits.

We had to lay over in this burg till two o'clock the next afternoon, and durin' breakfast in the Kid's private car we get to talkin' about Monsieur Hurricane Kenney, the Chickasha Bone Crusher. I had personally gave that baby a lot of thought, for at the time I was already keepin' a eye out for a possible successor to Roberts, which couldn't be moved a inch from his determination to quit the ring after a couple of fights as champion, win, lose, or draw. The fact that the Kid had disposed of Kenney with the greatest of ease the night before didn't bother me at all—Kid Roberts himself was a terrible bust in his first start.

Kenney had showed he possessed the first and most important requirement of a fighter, viz. and to wit, courage. Also, I had the Kid's word for it that he could hit. As he stood now he didn't know the difference between a left hook and the referee, but he could be taught that, and likewise to hit from his bulgin' shoulders instead of from his hips. Although he looked ten years older, he had give his age as twenty-four, another big help. Standin' a good three inches over six foot, he scaled 226, of which perhaps fifteen pounds was flabby and could be worked off, leavin' him a steelsinewed, giant fightin' machine with heart enough to make him a serious problem in a twenty-four foot ring for any man! As a matter of fact, I figured that about three months readyin' up and workin' out with my

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 champ would make Kenney ripe to wade through the third-rate heavies as sensationally as the Kid did.

I put it up to Roberts, and he was enthusiastic.

"Bring him along, by all means," he nods. "He's a good, game fellow and may develop into a first-class heavyweight. At all events, he'll make a splendid sparring partner, for, in spite of his greenness, he's tough and dangerous enough to keep me on my toes for a few minutes at least. I admire the way he stood up to me, and I'll take a great deal of interest in teaching him what I can."

He takes out his wallet and removes a hundred-case note. "Here," he adds, "that big fellow's poor showing against a smaller man last night must have been rather humiliating. I know how miserable I felt the first time! Give him this—it'll cheer him up a bit. From the desperate way he tried to put me out, the poor devil probably needs it, unless I'm very much mistaken."

He was very much mistaken! I ambled into a general store where they sold everything from potatoes to pianos, and learned that Joseph Kenney could be found on a cattle mine about two miles out of the metropolis. The merchant prince which owns the store heartily recommends his son as a scout, and a long, lean, lank dumb-bell garbed like Wm. S. Hart, minus the artillery, quits killin' flies with the lash of a quirt and nods for me to follow him out.

I was just goin' to inform him that ridin' horses was one of the two or three things I ain't fluent at, when he leads me over to a ancient, dilapidated flivver, and motions me to enter therein.

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 "Wait a minute!" I says. "How much is it goin' to set me back for this joy ride?"

"Twenty dollars!" answers my charmin' guide, automatically disqualifyin' himself as a movie cowboy by usin' two hands to roll a cigarette.

"I'll give you five," I says, pleasantly.

"Done," he says. "Git in and hol' fast!"

Joe Kenney, nee the Chickasha Bone Crusher, was discovered aboard a horse with some guys afoot which was mendin' rails in a fence. He returned my greetin' intact. A little mouse under his right eye and a slightly puffed lip was the only visible signs of strife on the man mountain's countenance. Realizin' how a hundred bucks must appeal to a forty-dollar-the-month cow-puncher, I drawed forth the bill and handed it to him.

"A little present from Kid Roberts," I explains with a bewitchin' smile. "Likewise, I have come to offer you a chance to make as much in a week punchin' ears as you'd make in a month punchin' steers! Boss here, is he?"

The world's largest cowboy looks the hundred-case note over carefully, folds it up, and slips it in his pocket.

"Much obliged!" he says. "This here's the Crawlin' S ranch. I own it, so I reckon I'm the boss!"

Anybody which has nothin' else to do can picture my astonishment.

"Aheh," I says, when I recovered. "Of course, bein' the wealthy owner of a steak farm instead of a lowly cowboy, them—ah—hundred smackers I just give you was unnecessary and—"

"That's all right," butts in the Bone Crusher.

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 "Every little bit helps! Come up to the house and I'll hear yore story."

"Eh—I hardly think it's worth while now," I says. "I'm afraid my stuff wouldn't hit you at all—you bein' a rich cattle king and the like. I come here with the idea of gettin' you interested in the box-fightin' industry, but"

"Well, pardner," interrupts Kenney, his eyes gleamin'. "Yuh couldn't have throwed in with a more interested man. As a matter of cold fact, yore talkin' to the comin' heavyweight champeen of the world!"

This was all different and I followed him up to the house without no more further ado.

A sweet-faced, brown-eyed, fairly good-lookin' young woman is sittin' on the pazzaza wieldin' a mean darnin' needle and exercisin' women's inalienable right to hum to themselves whilst workin'. At the foot of her rockin'-chair romped, as I rightly guessed, three little Chickasha Bone Crushers.

The girl's face lit up like a cathedral when she seen Kenney, and I discovered I had been mistaken when I thought her fairly good-lookin'. She was beautiful. This love thing is wonderful stuff, and I bet they'll be a crash heard round the world when I fall into it!

Mention of the fact that I was manager of a prize fighter killed off the welcomin' smile on the face of Kenney's wife, but the introductions was accomplished without violence and we went on inside the house. The Chickasha Bone Crusher dragged out a box of cigars, a wink, and a bottle of prohibition antidote in that order.

Then he sits down and stretches himself.

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 "Come a-shootin'!" he says.

I asked him if he was in the habit of drinkin' and smokin' as trainin' exercises, and, frownin', he says he was in the habit of doin' what he pleased, so I made the greatest haste to remark that whilst it was none of my business, he was ruinin' his wind with the smokes and his nerves with the hooch and that most successful scrappers laid off both.

With a grin, Kenney reaches lazily over and picks up a unusually thick poker from the fireplace. Placin' his hands about a foot apart on it, he bent it double like I'd fold a sheet of paper. Then he bent it back again and tossed it clatterin' on the floor.

I'd never seen the stunt done before with such little effort. They was no veins standin' out like whipcords, as the sayin' is, on Kenney's 20-inch neck, nor did beads of perspiration drop off his brow. He done the thing as carelessly as he'd break a matchstick. The Bone Crusher didn't have to do that to show me his muscle. A look at him and you'd believe he'd moved Grant's Tomb six inches with his shoulders! But strength alone, boys and girls, is not enough to become a title holder in fistiana.

For the example, every good wrestler has had ambitions to become a boxin' champ at one time or another in his career and a great many of 'em have laced on a pair of gloves and stepped into a ring only to be made look foolish by some third-rate pug. Even Frank Gotch, the daddy of 'em all, once had this experience. Professional strong men, weight lifters, and the like are flops as a rule when they turn to the ring. Their sinews havin' been developed for show or pushin' and

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 haulin' purposes, they're so slow and muscle-bound that the slighter boxer has no trouble at all steppin' around 'em and pastin' 'em pretty.

But to get back to the Bone Crusher. Inside of a half hour I have found out that readin' about what heavyweight champions got for a few minutes' work had murdered Joe Kenney's interest in the art of raisin' cows. Likewise, Joseph made no secret of the fact that he figured himself a topside slugger, able to hold his own with the best of 'em right now.

"Well, Joe," I says enthusiastically, when he got finished, "I'm for you and so's Kid Roberts. Get your hat on and we'll go down to a notary's public if they is one in this burg. I'll sign you up for three years and you can start workin' out with the Kid right away. With me as your manager and the champ as your teacher—why, say, inside of a year—"

"Draw in yore loop, old-timer!" butts in Joe, risin' and handin' me my hat. "I don't need no manager, and I ain't aimin' to take no job as a helper. I don't want to take advantage of yore champeen by joinin' up with his outfit, because I can lick the tar out of him right now! While yore here, I'm a-givin' yuh fair warnin'—the next time I run across yore man, I'm comin' asluggin' with both hands!"

A dumb-bell is a awful thing, hey?

The Kid and me split a laugh between us when I told him how the Chickasha Bone Crusher had received my generous offer. Then we forgot all about Monsieur Kenney.

The next stop was Tycopee, another duck-in and

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 duck-out hamlet, and when the Kid finishes his act and calls for volunteers, Battlin' Thomas, one of the plants we carried, starts up the aisle, as they is no response from the brave men and true in the audience.

to the ring the Battler is pushed to one side by a large, tall person wearin' a wide-brimmed black Stetson.

Layin' one hand on the top rope, the stranger leaps into the ring, waves his hand airily to the shoutin' crowd, and presents me and the Kid with a sneerin', full-toothed grin.

"Beats all how us boys do cross trails!" says Hurricane Kenney, the Chickasha Bone Crusher, throwin' his coat over one of the posts. "I'd admire to draw down them five thousand dollars. Whereabouts is them gauntlets?"

Twenty minutes later the Kid is shakin' hands with a somewhat battered and slightly bleedin' human shock absorber entitled Hurricane Kenney. One of Kenney's glims is a study in purple, and a cut on his left cheek bone shows the dashin' rancher to be possessed of red blood anyways. Kid Roberts is sportin' several crimson blotches on his gleamin' white body where some of the Hurricane's wild haymakers has landed, but outside of that is unharmed.

"Better luck next time, old man!" smiles the Kid as we're leaving the ring.

"I'll knock yuh out the next time!" growls the jovial Kenney.

We had a hundred-and-fifty-mile jump from this slab, and a wicked rainstorm when we got there kept most of the natives away. But it didn't keep Joe Ken-

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 ney away! Joseph ambled up the aisle and took a front seat whilst the Kid was givin' a exhibition of bag punchin'. Seein' him, the Kid laughed and then nodded pleasantly and Joe replied with a snarl that caused the hicks on both sides of him to edge from him nervously.

A short time afterward Joe give the customers a treat by crashin' through the ropes to the floor twice, in his desperate efforts to knock Kid Roberts for a row of ash cans. About the only time Kenney laid a glove on the Kid was when they shook hands at the end of the thing.

Well, for the next half dozen times the Chickasha Bone Crusher was a regular feature of the show, wherever they permitted boxin'. Kid Roberts, which seemed to be gettin' a lot of giggles out of Kenney, refused to knock him stiff and be done with it, although he always had to slow up this big ham early with a smash over the heart so's no accidents would happen. Fin'ly we get to New Orleans, where we're due to linger a week. Kenney fails to appear on the openin' night, and I lay the Kid eight to five that the Bone Crusher has decided to call it a day. He showed up on the last night and the big stiff thereby costs me eight hundred fish.

But before Kenney lumbered into the ring that eve me and the Kid has a visitor in the shape of no less than the Bone Crusher's charmin' young wife. She has came all the ways from dear old Chickasha unknown to her bitter half, and if it wasn't for the cute trick she had of scrunchin' up her little nose I doubt if I would of knew her.

They was half moons under the honest brown eyes

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 and she's a bit pale and drawn. Sniffin' scornfully at the bespangled, short-skirted ladies of the trapeze and the etc., she made her way over to where we was standin' on the lot. She'd seen me, of course, before, but not the Kid, and she's standin' right in front of him when she asks where she can find the champion.

Roberts has his hat off and is bowin' at her before I can stall her and Mrs. Hurricane Kenney's eyes registers surprise as they sweep the smilin' Kid from stem to stern. No doubt she expected to see some cauliflower-eared, red-faced, snaggled-toothed, hairy cave man instead of this handsome young blond which looked almost slight alongside of her gigantic helpmeet.

Although I kept both ears wide open and both eyes glued on hers whilst she talked, I could find nothin' suspicious about her story—told in a haltin', moist voice which had the sympathetic Kid for her, and me waverin' before she had said six words. It seemed that Joe Kenney had now gone cuckoo on the subject of box fightin', and his idea that he would be the next world's heavyweight champion had been greatly strengthened by the fact that the Kid hadn't flattened him to date. So he has turned his ranch over to a dumb-bell brother to run and, accordin' to Mrs. Kenney, said brother is runnin' it right into the ground.

At this point Mrs. Kenney resorts to the use of props. She extracts a gram of lace from her pocketbook and with a occasional touch of it to the eyes she says she and the Bone Crusher was happy and everything was jake till the circus and the Kid come to town. She don't accuse the Kid in words of havin' gummed things up, but she does it with her eyes, whilst she's half

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 sobbin' that she don't want her husband to be no pugeylist and that him chasin' all over the country after the circus is bustin' up her home. She claims if the Kid don't send the wanderin' Bone Crusher back to Chickasha, Kenney won't have no wife, ranch, or jack left.

"It might sound funny to you, Mister Kid," she winds up, with a quiverin' of lip that was sure fire on Roberts. "But it's a tragedy to me!"

Well, the Kid spent the best part of fifteen minutes tellin' her to go home and cheer up, leavin' everything else to us.

He says if Hurricane Kenney shows up in this burg he will have a long talk with him and do all he can to lay him off the art of box fightin'. He also adds that Kenney is the luckiest guy since Columbus to have discovered a wife like she, which brings a healthy blush and a pleasant smile to the rapidly brightenin' face of Mrs. K. Then I crammed into her hands a lot of balloons to be blowed up and other souvenirs of the circus for the kids, and we took her to the station in the Kid's bus, so's the Bone Crusher wouldn't run across her was he in our midst.

These frequent settos with the good-natured world's champion wasn't makin' Kenney no worse, and he has now advanced to the point where he's hittin' straight from the shoulder and the Kid is extended to keep him off without droppin' him this time. After the bout we go into the dressin' room off the ring to interview Kenney as advertised to his wife. As a success, the interview was a failure.

Kid Roberts, with a brotherly air advises the Chick-

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 asha Bone Crusher to quit followin' us hithers and you and go back to his charmin' consort. He tells Kenney what a tough game boxin' is, how he personally dislikes it himself and that he's goin' to leave the ring flat on its back in another year. Windin' up, the Kid pats the Bone Crusher on the back and remarks that with his wonderful family and prosperous ranch, Kenney's a sultan compared to the average prize fighter.

The Chickasha Bone Crusher, pullin' on his citizen's clothes, has heard Kid Roberts through without a word but with a sneer on his face which would of caused anybody else in the world outside of the Kid to knock him dead as he sat on the stool. Now, he looks up from tyin' his shoes and one swollen lip curls to the tip of his beak.

"Sho' is noble of yuh to look after me," he snarls, "but yuh can't buck jump me thataway. I aims to stay on yore back till I'm champeen, which same I'll be as sure as my name's Joe Kenney! Reckon I'm gettin' too rough for yuh, hey? Come mighty near ropin' yuh there for a minute to-night, didn't I? Yeh, and I would have, only they rung the bell when they seen yuh was hurt. Good thing I had them pillows on my hands or I'd have sure mussed up that baby face of yourn, pardner! I'd admire to take yuh on in a finish fight with bare knuckles—without no bells and without that cotton paddin' on my hands!" He give a nasty laugh. "But I don't reckon yuh hanker for no manhandlin'. Takes a fighter for that, not a boxer, hey?"

"You big—" I begins, but the hard glitter only stayed a second in the Kid's eyes. He pulled me to the door.

"Kenney," he laughs shortly, "you're an insulting and

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 aggravating fool! For your information, let me say that I could have knocked you out at any time you were in the ring with me. I don't want deliberately to hurt you, and evidently nothing but a thorough beating will reach your asinine egotism. Well, I'm human, Kenney—in the future, keep away from me!"

We didn't wait for the Bone Crusher's answer.

From New Orleans to Washington Kenney followed the circus, but he had no more bouts with the Kid. Instead in every town he publicly challenged my title holder to a finish fight for the world's championship, which got us beaucoup publicity gratis in the sticks. In most of the big burgs the wise-crackin' newspaper guys had the Bone Crusher pegged as a plant and wouldn't give him a tumble. In Washington, however, one of the sport writers fell for him and after a interview, printed under Kenney's photo a two-column blah of romantical hooch about him bein' a dashin' cowboy from the ferocious West and the etc., and demandin' that he be gave a crack at the title immediately.

Well, boys and girls, he got it!

The minute we blowed into the nation's capital, Kid Roberts fled out to Senator Brewster's palace to pass the time of day with his comin' bride, the delicious Dolores. He cut his act down to twenty minutes that night, leavin' the sparrin' out entirely, and I followed him into the dressin' room to find his Jap valet layin' out a dress suit and packin' a bathrobe, fightin' trunks, and bandages into a grip. He grins at the expression which must of been on my face.

"Just in time!" he says. "I was going to send Kogi after you. I've got to be downtown by ten-fifteen

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