Part 25 (1/2)
The house began to applaud Danny was crossing the ring to hiht hand in both his own and shook it with impulsive heartiness Danny's smile-wreathed face was close to his The audience yelled its appreciation of Danny's display of sporting spirit
He was greeting his opponent with the fondness of a brother Danny's lipsthe unheard words to be those of a kindly-natured sport, yelled again Only Rivera heard the loords
”You little Mexican rat,” hissed fro lips, ”I'll fetch the yellow outa you”
Rivera made no move He did not rise He !” soh the ropes froan to hiss and boo him for his unsportsreat outburst of applause was Danny's as he walked back across the ring
When Danny stripped, there was ohs! and ahs! of delight His body was perfect, alive with easy suppleness and health and strength The skin hite as a worace, and resilience, and power resided therein He had proved it in scores of battles His photographs were in all the physical culture erty peeled Rivera's sweater over his head
His body seemed leaner, because of the swarthiness of the skin He had muscles, but they lected to see was the deep chest Nor could it guess the toughness of the fiber of the flesh, the instantaneousness of the cell explosions of the muscles, the fineness of the nerves that wired every part of hi hteen hat seemed the body of a boy With Danny it was different Danny was a man of twenty-four, and his body was aas they stood together in the center of the ring receiving the referee's last instructions
Rivera noticed Roberts sitting directly behind the newspaper men He was drunker than usual, and his speech was correspondingly slower
”Take it easy, Rivera,” Roberts drawled
”He can't kill you, reet rattled You just and stall, and clinch He can't hurt cover up, much Just make believe to yourself that he's choppin' out on you at the trainin' quarters”
Rivera n that he had heard
”Sullen little devil,” Roberts muttered to the man next to hiot to look his usual hatred A vision of countless rifles blinded his eyes Every face in the audience, far as he could see, to the high dollar-seats, was transfor Mexican border arid and sun-washed and aching, and along it he saw the ragged bands that delayed only for the guns
Back in his corner he waited, standing up His seconds had crawled out through the ropes, taking the canvas stool with theong struck, and the battle was on The audience howled its delight Never had it seen a battle open ht
Three-quarters of the distance Danny covered in the rush to get together, his intention to eat up the Mexican lad plainly advertised He assailed with not one blow, nor two, nor a dozen He was a gyroscope of blows, a ind of destruction Rivera was nowhere He was overwhelmed, buried beneath avalanches of punches delivered frole and position by a past ainst the ropes, separated by the referee, and swept back against the ropes again
It was not a fight It was a slaughter, aone, would have exhausted its e what he could do--a splendid exhibition Such was the certainty of the audience, as well as its excitement and favoritism, that it failed to take notice that the Mexican still stayed on his feet It forgot Rivera It rarely saw hi attack A minute of this went by, and two li As he turned and staggered into a clinch, the welts of oozing blood, from his contacts with the ropes, showed in red bars across his back But what the audience did not notice was that his chest was not heaving and that his eyes were coldly burning as ever Tooca attack on hih for a coo up to fifteen dollars a week--a hard school, and he was schooled hard
Then happened the a mix-up ceased suddenly Rivera stood alone Danny, the redoubtable Danny, lay on his back His body quivered as consciousness strove to return to it He had not staggered and sunk down, nor had he gone over in a long sluht hook of Rivera had dropped him in midair with the abruptness of death The referee shoved Rivera back with one hand, and stood over the fallen gladiator counting the seconds It is the custo audiences to cheer a clean knock-down blow But this audience did not cheer The thing had been too unexpected It watched the toll of the seconds in tense silence, and through this silence the voice of Roberts rose exultantly:
”I told you he was a two-handed fighter!”
By the fifth second, Danny was rolling over on his face, and when seven was counted, he rested on one knee, ready to rise after the count of nine and before the count of ten If his knee still touched the floor at ”ten,” he was considered ”down,” and also ”out” The instant his knee left the floor, he was considered ”up,” and in that instant it was Rivera's right to try and put hiain Rivera took no chances
The ain He circled around, but the referee circled in between, and Rivera knew that the seconds he counted were very slow All Gringos were against hiave Rivera a sharp thrust back It was unfair, but it enabled Danny to rise, the smile back on his lips Doubled partly over, with arms wrapped about face and abdomen, he cleverly stuame the referee should have broken it, but he did not, and Danny clung on like a surf-battered barnacle and mooing fast If he could live to the end, he would have a full minute in his corner to revive And live to the end he did, sh all desperateness and extremity
”The smile that won't cohed loudly in its relief
”The kick that Greaser's got is soasped in his corner to his adviser while his handlers worked frantically over him
The second and third rounds were taeneral, stalled and blocked and held on, devoting hi first-round blow In the fourth round he was hiood condition had enabled hi tactics
The Mexican had proved a tartar Instead, he brought to bear his best fighting powers In tricks and skill and experience he was thevital, he proceeded scientifically to chop and wear down his opponent He landed three blows to Rivera's one, but they were punishi+ng blows only, and not deadly It was the sum of many of them that constituted deadliness He was respectful of this two-handed dub with the a short-arm kicks in both his fists
In defense, Rivera developed a disconcerting straight-left Again and again, attack after attack he straight-lefted away froe to Danny's mouth and nose But Danny was protean
That hy he was the co at will He now devoted hi In this he was particularly wicked, and it enabled hiht-left Here he set the house wild repeatedly, capping it with a marvelous lockbreak and lift of an inside upper-cut that raised the Mexican in the air and dropped hi the most of the count, and in the soul of hi short seconds on hiain, in the seventh, Danny achieved the diabolical inside uppercut