Page:Fighting Back (1924).pdf/126

 four-ounce gloves laced on their hands, Kid Roberts and Richmond Daniels faced each other in the trainin' ring on the beach. There's no referee, no timekeeper, no handlers, no roarin', screamin' crowd of fight bugs to urge 'em on. There's nobody but me, a kind of scared Logan, a dazed and mutterin' Ptomaine Joe, a cold bright moon and a boomin' ocean. There was to be no rounds, both agreein' to go till one or the other went out stiff. Logan excitedly calls their attention to the fact that the tide is comin' in and that it rises with remarkable speed on this island. He says if they must fight, to wait till the ring can be moved up further on the beach. Neither of 'em paid him the slightest notice, though the waves was rollin' as far as their ankles when they stepped into the ring.

There was no bell—they just started to fight! Kid Roberts held out his glove to shake as they came to the center of the ring, but with a snarl like a animal, Daniels knocked it aside and shot a wicked straight left to the same eye he had cut in the trainin' bout. The stitches promptly opened and the blood came in a stream, puttin' the Kid at a serious disadvantage in the very beginnin', but he just grinned, rocked Daniels with two stiff rights to the head and the battle was on!

I have seen some spectacular box fights in my time—fights which drove hard-boiled fans crazy, that had the crowd as limp and wilted at the finish as the scrappers themselves, fights in which sensation was piled on sensation till the customers was positively hysterical, but I have yet to see one, which, takin' it from all angles, could match this one on that beach for pure