Page:Fighting Back (1924).pdf/129

 laid on the bottom of it side by side on the ways in. Daniels opened his eyes and looked at the Kid, but not a word passed between 'em till we beached the boat and helped 'em out. One of Daniels's friends gives him a stiff drink of whiskey out of a silver flask, but Kid Roberts refuses the same, though I told him to go ahead and take it. We all gather 'round 'em, lookin' for handclasps, slaps on the shoulders, each tellin' the other what a great fighter he is. Nothin' of the kind! Daniels flexes his mighty arms and sneers at the fellow which has just rescued him from feedin' the fishes. Kid Roberts, the life saver, scowls back.

"A wave swept me off my feet—not you!" says Daniels. "Do you wish to continue?"

"With pleasure!" snarls the Kid.

Before any one half dreams they mean it, both land sizzlin' rights to the head and the amazed crowd scatters. Daniels put a left hook to the jaw and as he rushed to follow it up, the Kid shot a hard right to the heart and then brought the same glove up under the chin. Daniels fell to his knees, tried to get up, slipped back and lay flat on his stomach. Kid Roberts steps dizzily away.

"Ask him if he's had enough now!" he pants to Ptomaine.

Ptomaine kneels down and turns Daniels over like a sack of meal.

"He's stiff, Kid!" he says, "He"

But Kid Roberts has slumped down in the sand a yard from Daniels, dead to the world!