could entice him
to put on the gloves with Mop Cheatley. He could never look steadily at
Mop for any length of time without seeing again on his face the sneering
grin and hearing again the terrible words spoken two years ago in the
cedar woods behind the mill pond: "You're a coward and your mother's a
coward before you." He refused to spar with Mop for he knew that
once face to face with him he could not spar, he must fight. But
circumstances made the contest inevitable. In the working out of a
tournament, it chanced that Mop was drawn to face Larry, and although
the disparity both in age and weight seemed to handicap the smaller boy
to an excessive degree, Larry's friends who were arranging the schedule,
among them Mack Morrison with big Ben Hopper and Joe Gagneau as chorus,
and who knew something of Larry's skill with his hands and speed on his
feet, were not unwilling to allow the draw to stand.

The days preceding the tournament were days of misery for Larry. The
decision in the contest would of course be on points and he knew that he
could outpoint without much difficulty his antagonist who was clumsy and
slow. For the decision Larry cared nothing at all. At the most he had
little to lose for it would be but small disgrace to be beaten by a boy
so much bigger. The cause of his distress was something quite other
than this. He knew that from the first moment of the bout he would be
fighting. That this undoubtedly would make Mop fight back, and he was
haunted by the fear that in the stress of battle he might play the
coward. Would he be able to stand up to Mop when the fight began to
go against him? And suppose he should run away, should show himself a
coward? How could he ever live after that, how look any of the boys in
the face? Worst of all, how could he face his father, whose approval in
this boxing game since he had revealed himself as a "fighting man" the
boy coveted more than anything else. But his father was not present when
the boy stepped into the ring. Impelled by the dread of showing himself
a coward and running away, Larry flung to the winds his father's
favourite maxim, "Let your heels save your head," a maxim which ought
if ever to be observed in such a bout as this in which he was so
out-classed in weight.

At the word "Time" Larry leaped for his opponent and almost before Mop
was aware that the battle had begun he was being blinded, staggered and
beaten all around the ring, and only a lucky blow, fl