and took to the road with Flynn on horseback and either
O'Halloran or Sagorski afoot. When he came in he had his shower,
rubdown and then breakfast. After a rest, Flynn boxed four or five
rounds with him, after which came rope jumping, and exercises with the
machines to strengthen his arms and wrists. In this way the morning
passed and after the midday meal came the real work-out of the day
with his training-partners, where real blows were exchanged and blood
often flowed. Jerry had improved immeasurably. Even I, tyro as I was,
could see that his encounters with these professionals had rubbed off
all signs of the amateur. He had always been a good judge of distance,
Flynn had said, but he had been schooled recently to make every
movement count--to "waste nothing." In spite of myself, the excitement
of the game was getting into my blood. If for the while Jerry was to
be a beast, why should he not be the best beast of them all? Stories
came to us from the camp of the Terrible Sailor, who was training down
on the Jersey shore. He was "coming" fast, they said, and was strong
and confident. The newspapers followed him carefully and sent their
reporters to Horsham Manor, one of whom, denied entrance at the Lodge,
climbed over the wall and even reached the gymnasium where Jerry was
boxing with O'Halloran, to be put out at my orders (as Jeremiah
Benham) before he got a fact for his pains. The result of this of
course was an account full of misstatements about the millionaire
Jeremiah Benham and his protege which brought a protest in the mails
from Ballard the elder who, fortunately for Jerry, hadn't gotten at
the truth of the matter.

Once or twice I had been on the point of going to Ballard's office and
making a clean breast of Jerry's plans, hoping that Clancy might be
bought off and the match canceled. But I could not bring myself, even
now, to the point of betraying the boy. I am not a fatalist by
profession or philosophy, but Miss Gore had made me pause and I had
resolved to see the thing through, trying to believe as she believed
that Jerry could only be toughened to the usages of life by the rigor
of circumstance. And so I was silent.

On the morning of the great event I found myself, instead of properly
censorious, intensely eager for the night to come. Jerry had been
brought secretly to town the day before in a closed machine and was
resting under the care of Flynn at Jerry's own house uptown. It was at
Jerry's reque