ed the
other's knotted bulk; he noted that, with arm outstretched, heel of
glove against Sutton's chin, Denny's reach was more than great enough
to hold the other away from him. Hard on the heels of that thought
came the realization that that was a fine point of the game utterly
outside of the boy's knowledge.

It was quiet--oddly, peacefully quiet for a second--in that long room.
Then in obedience to a nod from Hogarty the lanky boy called Legs
languidly touched a bell, and all that peaceful silence was shattered
to bits. Ogden shouted aloud, without knowing it, a shrill, dismayed
cry of warning, as Sutton catapulted from his corner; he shouted and
shut his eyes and winced as if that rushing attack had been launched
at himself. But he opened them again--opened them at the sound of a
sickening smash of glove against flesh--to see Denny blink both eyes
as his whole body rebounded from that blow.

Ogden waited, forgetting to breathe, for the boy to go down; he waited
to see his knees weaken and his shoulders slump forward. But instead
of shriveling before that pile-driver swing, he realized that Denny
somehow was weathering the storm of blows that followed it; that
somehow he had managed to keep his feet and was backing away, trying
to follow faithfully his instructions.

Just as Ogden had pictured it would be, it all happened. Foot by foot
Sutton drove him around the ring. There was no opening for Denny to
return a blow--nothing but a maze of battering fists to be blocked and
ducked and covered. Even the speed, the natural speed of lithe muscles
for which Bobby had hoped, and hopelessly expected, was entirely
lacking in every motion. Heavy-footed, ponderous, Young Denny gave way
before that attack. Sutton, always reputed slow, was terribly,
brutally swift of movement in comparison with the boy's faltering
uncertainty.

Twice and a third time in the first minute of fighting Boots feinted
aside his guard with what seemed childish ease and then drove his
glove against the other's unprotected face. Time after time he
repeated the blow, and at each sickening smack that answered the crash
of leather against flesh Bobby Ogden gasped aloud and marveled. For at
each jolt Denny merely blinked his eyes as he recoiled--blinked, and
retreated a little more slowly than before.

At the bell Ogden was through the ropes and dragging him to his
corner. A little trickle of blood was gathering on the point of
Denny's chin where the g