ing bodies, and no sooner had he split them than Joe fell
unharmed into another embrace and the work had to be done all over again.
In vain, when freed, did Ponta try to avoid the clutching arms and
twining body. He could not keep away. He had to come close in order to
strike, and each time Joe baffled him and caught him in his arms.

And Genevieve, crouched in the little dressing-room and peering through
the peep-hole, was baffled, too. She was an interested party in what
seemed a death-struggle--was not one of the fighters her Joe?--but the
audience understood and she did not. The Game had not unveiled to her.
The lure of it was beyond her. It was greater mystery than ever. She
could not comprehend its power. What delight could there be for Joe in
that brutal surging and straining of bodies, those fierce clutches,
fiercer blows, and terrible hurts? Surely, she, Genevieve, offered more
than that--rest, and content, and sweet, calm joy. Her bid for the heart
of him and the soul of him was finer and more generous than the bid of
the Game; yet he dallied with both--held her in his arms, but turned his
head to listen to that other and siren call she could not understand.

The gong struck. The round ended with a break in Ponta's corner. The
white-faced young second was through the ropes with the first clash of
sound. He seized Joe in his arms, lifted him clear of the floor, and ran
with him across the ring to his own corner. His seconds worked over him
furiously, chafing his legs, slapping his abdomen, stretching the hip-
cloth out with their fingers so that he might breathe more easily. For
the first time Genevieve saw the stomach-breathing of a man, an abdomen
that rose and fell far more with every breath than her breast rose and
fell after she had run for a car. The pungency of ammonia bit her
nostrils, wafted to her from the soaked sponge wherefrom he breathed the
fiery fumes that cleared his brain. He gargled his mouth and throat,
took a suck at a divided lemon, and all the while the towels worked like
mad, driving oxygen into his lungs to purge the pounding blood and send
it back revivified for the struggle yet to come. His heated body was
sponged with water, doused with it, and bottles were turned
mouth-downward on his head.

CHAPTER VI

The gong for the sixth round struck, and both men advanced to meet each
other, their bodies glistening with water. Ponta rushed two-thirds of
the way acr