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finally percolated to the mucker's numbed perceptive faculties. He was being

counted out! Nine! Like a flash he was on his feet. He had forgotten the crowd.

Rage--cool, calculating rage possessed him--not the feverish, hysterical variety

that takes its victim's brains away.

They had been counting out the man whom Barbara Harding had once loved!--

the man she had thought the bravest in the world!--they were making a monkey

and a coward of him! He'd show them!

The "white hope" was waiting for him. Billy was scarce off his knees before the

man rushed at him wickedly, a smile playing about his lips. It was to be the last

of that smile, however. Billy met the rush with his old familiar crouch, and

stopped his man with a straight to the body.

Cassidy saw it and almost smiled. He didn't think that Billy could come back--but

at least he was fighting for a minute in his old form.

The surprised "hope" rushed in to punish his presuming foe. The crowd was

silent. Billy ducked beneath a vicious left swing and put a right to the side of the

"hope's" head that sent the man to his knees. Then came the gong.

In the third round Billy fought carefully. He had made up his mind that he would

show this bunch of pikers that he knew how to box, so that none might say that

he had won with a lucky punch, for Billy intended to win.

The round was one which might fill with delight the soul of the fan who knows

the finer points of the game. And when it was over, while little damage had been

done on either side, it left no shadow of a doubt in the minds of those who knew

that the unknown fighter was the more skilful boxer.

Then came the fourth round. Of course there was no question in the minds of the

majority of the spectators as to who would win the fight. The stranger had merely

shown one of those sudden and ephemeral bursts of form that occasionally are

witnessed in every branch of sport; but he couldn't last against such a man as

the "white hope"!--they looked for a knock-out any minute now. Nor did they look

in vain.

Billy was quite satisfied with the work he had done in the preceding round. Now

he would show them another style of fighting! And he did. From the tap of the

gong he rushed his opponent about the ring at will. He hit him when and where

he pleased. The man was absolutely helpless before him. With left and right

hooks Billy rocked the "coming champion's" head from side to side. He landed

upon the swelling optics of his victim as he listed.

141

The Mucker