Page:Fighting Back (1924).pdf/147

 "Well, what do you think of all this, Joe?" he asks.

"The whole business sounds crazy!" I says, findin' my voice at last, "Why, if—"

"I will pay Señor Roberts fifty thousand dollars!" Pancho cuts me off. "There is nothing crazy about fifty thousand dollars. To Señor Young, the champion, I give one hundred thousand dollars!"

"Yes, and you'll give us a hundred grand too, Pancho, or we won't turn a wheel!" I says, hopin' that would wind matters up.

"It shall be as you wish, señor," returned Pancho smoothly, with a low bow, "You shall have one hundred thousand dollars, and I shall have revenge. You will be ready, then, to-night?"

"You're dizzy!" I almost shouted, before Kid Roberts could answer. "I should say we won't be ready to-night! I don't even know if we'll do it at all. Anyways, we got to have time to think this cuckoo idea of yours over. There's a whole lot of things to be taken up and—"

"Then let us take up those things now!' Pancho butts in." Further delay would be fatal to my plans—already those six fiends grow impatient, perhaps suspicious. Both Señor Roberts and Señor Young are trained to the minute and expected to fight at Tia Juana within a few days. Señor Young brings definite word that the bout has now been positively forbidden by the authorities. Then what is the objection to holding the contest here? As you say in your country: 'Eventually, why not now?' If not, you will go back to the United States empty-handed and out of pocket