Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/235

 thrilling one indeed. I'm doing a piece of heavy thinking—thinking what I could do if she'd always be with me, when I hear her saying that I don't have to start penniless, I'll at least have the twelve thousand I'm going to get for my fight with Jimmy Hanley for the light heavyweight title.

Before I get a chance to stall on this subject, along comes Nate, still steamed up about Rags. His first remark, though, is that he win five thousand even on Cirrus, and that Kayo Kelly dropped one thousand on Mad Hatter and is fit to be tied. Then he turns to Judy.

"Did Gale tell you what that—what Rags Dempster done to him?" he demands.

Judy's eyes widens and she says no. I try to shut Nate up, but he tells Judy how Rags took me for that ten thousand bucks and made me like it. Well, she goes right up in flames and says she will go to Rags's father and tell him the whole business and make him pay me. Honest, I never see her so hopping mad before in all my life! But I make her promise to lay off. What good would it do to tell Rags's old man. I got no proof and who's word would his father take? To tell you the truth, I'm more interested in the fact that Judy thinks enough of me to want to go to the bat for me than I am in the ten thousand or ten million!

Well, three days later I fight Jimmy Hanley and you know what happened. I never went into a battle more determined to win and win quick! Before the bell rings for the first frame, I got everything to set in my mind. If I lose this scrap, I got to start at the