urers of all kinds, pushed and
struggled for a place. A great joy surged through them at the thought
of the approaching combat. Keen-eyed, hard-breathing, a-thrill with
expectation, the crowd packed closer and closer. Outside, people were
clamouring for admission. They climbed on the stage, and into the boxes.
They hung over the galleries. All told, there must have been a thousand
of them.

As the two men stood up it was like the lithe Greek athlete compared
with the brawny Roman gladiator. "Three to one on Locasto," some one
shouted. Then a great hush came over the house, so that it might have
been empty and deserted. Time was called. The fight began.

CHAPTER V

With one tiger-rush Locasto threw himself on his man. There was no
preliminary fiddling here; they were out for blood, and the sooner they
wallowed in it the better. Right and left he struck with mighty swings
that would have felled an ox, but the Jam-wagon was too quick for him.
Twice he ducked in time to avoid a furious blow, and, before Locasto
could recover, he had hopped out of reach. The big man's fist swished
through the empty air. He almost overbalanced with the force of his
effort, but he swung round quickly, and there was the Jam-wagon, cool
and watchful, awaiting his next attack.

Locasto's face grew fiendish in its sinister wrath; he shot forth a foul
imprecation, and once more he hurled himself resistlessly on his foe.
This time I thought my champion must go down, but no! With a dexterity
that seemed marvellous, he dodged, ducked and side-stepped; and once
more Locasto's blows went wide and short. Jeers began to go up from the
throng. "Even money on the little fellow," sang out a voice with the
flat twang of a banjo.

Locasto glared round on the crowd. He was accustomed to lord it over
these men, and the jeers goaded him like banderilleros goad a bull.
Again and again he repeated his tremendous rushes, only to find his
powerful arms winnowing the empty air, only to see his agile antagonist
smiling at him in mockery from the centre of the ring. Not one of his
sledgehammer smashes reached their mark, and the round closed without a
blow having landed.

From the mob of onlookers a chorus of derisive cheers went up. The
little man with the banjo voice was holding up a poke of dust. "Even
money on the little one." A hum of eager conversation broke forth.

I was at the ring-side. At the beginning I had been in an agony of fear
for the Ja