fore, older and heavier, but
the same. And there was no appeal in that face. It was scant of brow,
brutish, supercunning, and the swarthy body that rose above the black
hip-cloth matched the face. Old Jerry's eyes clung to the thick neck
that ran from his ears straight down into his shoulders until a
nameless dread took him by the throat and made him turn away.

Back in Denny's corner Hogarty was lacing on the gloves, talking
softly in the meantime to the big boy before him.

"From the tap of the gong," he was droning. "From the tap of the
gong--from the tap of the gong."

Young Denny nodded, smiled faintly as he rose to his feet to meet the
announcer, who crossed and placed one hand on his shoulder and
introduced him. Again the applause went throbbing to the roof; and
again the echo of it after Jed The Red had in turn stood up in his
corner.

The referee called them to the middle of the ring. It was quiet in an
instant--so quiet that Old Jerry's throat ached with it. The announcer
lifted his hand.

"Jed The Red fights at one hundred and ninety-six," he said, "'The
Pilgrim' at one hundred and seventy-two."

Immediately he turned and dropped through the ropes. His going was
accompanied by a flurry in each corner as the seconds scuttled after
him with stools and buckets.

They faced each other, alone in the ring save for the referee--The
Pilgrim and Jed The Red. Then a gong struck. They reached out and each
touched the glove of the other.

Old Jerry could not follow it--it came too terribly swift for
that--but he heard the thudding impact of gloves as Denny hurtled
forward in that first savage rush.

"From the gong," Hogarty had ordered, "from the gong!" The Red,
covering and ducking, blocking and swaying beneath the whirlwind of
that attack, broke and staggered and set himself, only to break again,
and retreat, foot by foot, around the ring. The whole house had come
to its feet with the first rush, screaming to a man. Old Jerry, too,
was standing up, giddy, dizzy, as he watched Conway weather that first
minute.

He had no chance to swing; with both hands covering he fought wildly
to stay on his feet; to live through it; to block that right hand that
lashed out again and again and found his face.

Each time that blow went across it shook him to the soles of his feet;
it lifted the cheering of the crowd to a higher, madder key; but even
Old Jerry, eyes a little quicker already, saw that none of those blows