tepped
back out of the ring and his frown deepened a little after that brief
scrutiny. For the boy's body, squatting there, crouched waiting for
the bell, was taut in every sinew, quivering with eagerness.

"You just failed to place 'em right, I guess," he reassured Boots.
"Take a little more time, and get him flush on the bone. You can slow
up a little. He isn't even fast enough to run away from you."

Again Hogarty nodded to the boy called Legs, and again the gong rang.
Five minutes earlier it would have been hard for Bobby Ogden to have
explained just what it was which he had half dreamed might lurk in
those rippling muscles that bunched and ran beneath Denny's white
skin. For want of a better name he had named it speed. And now, at the
tap of the bell, he watched and recognized.

Swift as was Sutton's savage rush across the canvas, he had hardly
left his corner in the ropes before Young Denny was upon him. The boy
lifted and sprang and dropped cat-footed in the middle of the ring,
hunched of shoulder and bent of knee to meet the shocking impact. It
was bewilderingly rapid--terrifyingly effortless--this explosive,
spontaneous answer of every muscle to the call of the brain. Just as
before, Sutton feinted and saw his opening and swung. Young Denny knew
only one best way to fight; he knew only that he had to take a blow in
order to give one, and Sutton's fist shot home against his unprotected
chin. He blinked with the shock, just as he had blinked before, and
swayed back a little. Sutton had swung hard--he had swung from his
heels--and he was still following that blow through when Denny snapped
forward again.

It wasn't a long swing, but it was wickedly quick. From the waist it
started, a short, vicious jolt that carried all the boy's weight
behind it, and the instant that Denny whipped it over Sutton's chin
seemed to come out to meet it--seemed almost to lift to receive it.
And then, as his head leaped back, even before his body had lifted
from the floor, the boy's other hand drove across and set him spinning
in the air as he fell. He went down sideways, a long, crashing fall
that dropped him limp in the corner which he had just left.

For a moment Denny crouched waiting for him to rise. Then he realized
that Sutton would not rise again--not for a time. He saw Hogarty leap
over the ropes and kneel--saw the boy Legs rush across with ammonia
and water--and he understood. Ogden was at his side, pounding him upon
th