Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/146

 little pals, the ironworkers, rushes the ring, howling murder! As they reach the ringside boxes, they see: who's who—their bosses—and the leaders faulter in their stride. One old guy gets up and begins bawling 'em out plenty. What he's saying I don't know, except some of it is that if they don't beat it they'll find their jobs at the locomotive factory is a thing of the past. The next clear memory I got of anything I'm on the train for Drew City.

About half ways back some men comes through our car and they seem a bit familiar. When they stop at the seat me and Nate's occupying, it dawns on me that these is the babies which was in the ringside boxes at the fight. One of 'em, a dignified, gray-haired gent, bends over and pats my shoulder, saying he's one of the big noises at the locomotive plant and he wants to apologize for the way his hired men acted. Then he shakes my hand and says I am a boy which will go a long ways, because I've got a fighting heart. The rest of the gents nods pleasantly to me and they all pass on.

Well, Spence is at the station when we get to Drew City and he's pumping my hand off when somebody calls his name.

"Hello—my father's here, Gale!" says Spence, kind of excited. "He wasn't due until to-morrow—say, you're going to meet dad right now!"

Meet dad with my face looking like a war map! I pulled away, but dad's in front of me.

"Dad," says Spence, "this is Gale Galen, who I told you about. He's just won a bout at"

"At Irontown!" butts in dad, laughing at the ex-