Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/352

 the history of a game where courage is the first requirement. From that heartbreakin' first round on, the Kid was on Queer Street, battlin' without a chance and battlin' on the pure fightin' instinct which must of been bred into him by centuries of thoroughbred stock.

In the fourth round Knockout Pierce devoted all his attention to the Kid's reddened body, and one of the champion's ribs, busted a year before by Dynamite Jackson, cracked again under the bombardment, changin' the Kid's complexion to a sickly gray with pain from then on. In Round Seven, Pierce closed the Kid's right eye tight, and in the ninth shut the other. Blinded, unable even to see where his punches was goin', the Kid wouldn't let me throw in the sponge, but stood up to his beatin' like somethin' even higher than a champion—if there es any such thing! Even the guys which had bet on Pierce was tearin' the air now with their cheers for Kid Roberts—or maybe their cheers was not so much for the battered, grimly pawin' Kid as they was for the fightin' heart which kept his tremblin' body erect. Man, pan the fight game all you want—call it brutal, disgustin', crooked, sordid, anything you please, but don't say you can't get a kick out of it!

In the tenth round Kid Roberts made a dyin' rally that panicked the already hysterical mob. Findin' Pierce, by instinct alone it must of been, he split his nose with a straight left and drove him to cover against the ropes with a desperate flurry of hooks and swings. But that was the last. Nature was beginnin' to reach for the sponge now! Yet this big stiff Pierce, his