ll."

"Nope," he agreed. "I'm only five feet eight an' three-quarters. I guess
it must be my weight."

"He fights at a hundred an' eighty," Bert interjected.

"Oh, out it," Billy said quickly, a cloud-rift of displeasure showing
in his eyes. "I ain't a fighter. I ain't fought in six months. I've quit
it. It don't pay."

"Yon got two hundred the night you put the Frisco Slasher to the bad,"
Bert urged proudly.

"Cut it. Cut it now.--Say, Saxon, you ain't so big yourself, are you?
But you're built just right if anybody should ask you. You're round an'
slender at the same time. I bet I can guess your weight."

"Everybody guesses over it," she warned, while inwardly she was puzzled
that she should at the same time be glad and regretful that he did not
fight any more.

"Not me," he was saying. "I'm a wooz at weight-guessin'. Just you watch
me." He regarded her critically, and it was patent that warm approval
played its little rivalry with the judgment of his gaze. "Wait a
minute."

He reached over to her and felt her arm at the biceps. The pressure of
the encircling fingers was firm and honest, and Saxon thrilled to it.
There was magic in this man-boy. She would have known only irritation
had Bert or any other man felt her arm. But this man! IS HE THE MAN? she
was questioning, when he voiced his conclusion.

"Your clothes don't weigh more'n seven pounds. And seven from--hum--say
one hundred an' twenty-three--one hundred an' sixteen is your stripped
weight."

But at the penultimate word, Mary cried out with sharp reproof:

"Why, Billy Roberts, people don't talk about such things."

He looked at her with slow-growing, uncomprehending surprise.

"What things?" he demanded finally.

"There you go again! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Look! You've
got Saxon blushing!"

"I am not," Saxon denied indignantly.

"An' if you keep on, Mary, you'll have me blushing," Billy growled. "I
guess I know what's right an' what ain't. It ain't what a guy says, but
what he thinks. An' I'm thinkin' right, an' Saxon knows it. An' she an'
I ain't thinkin' what you're thinkin' at all."

"Oh! Oh!" Mary cried. "You're gettin' worse an' worse. I never think
such things."

"Whoa, Mary! Backup!" Bert checked her peremptorily. "You're in the
wrong stall. Billy never makes mistakes like that."

"But he needn't be so raw," she persisted.

"Come on, Mary, an' be good, an' cut that stuff," was Billy's dismissal
of her, as he tur