Page:Fighting Back (1924).pdf/25

 "But I can't afford to be idle long," says the Kid impatiently. "I must"

"And you can't afford to have some tenth-rate banana knock you kickin' in your first start either!" I shut him off.

"I guess you're right, Joe," says Kid Roberts after a minute.

The matter of a contract between me and the Kid don't use up five minutes. We make the same deal we did when Kid Roberts was boxin' before—65-35 on the loot and no papers to be signed—a "gentlemen's agreement."

The next important subject is the best place for the Kid's trainin' to begin. Well, I pick a lumber camp as fillin' the bill in every way. I figure the hard work in the open fresh air will be the quickest way to toughen up the Kid's frame and work him into fightin' trim—or else convince the both of us that he can't come back. We also make up our minds that what the sport writers don't know about us won't hurt 'em, that is, till we find out for ourselves whether or no Kid Roberts can make the grade. So we get all dressed up like a couple of tramps and begin to wander from one employment agency to another, pesterin' 'em for a pair of jobs as lumber jacks.

We fin'ly get hired and shipped with a mob of fearful-lookin' rough and readies to a loggin' camp in Canada. We ain't been in it a hour when we get in a jam and Kid Roberts is forced to do his stuff. It come about like this: Me and the Kid goes down to St. Thérèse, the little slab which is as far as the rail-