much as saw him kick a dog!

"I'm telling you because I don't want you to be disappointed
again--and yet I have to tell you, too, that right at the time I wrote
this stuff, Flash, just for a minute or two, I believe I did almost
think he might be an answer to your riddle. Maybe that was because he
had already licked Jed The Red once, and I should judge, made a very
thorough job of it at that. That must have influenced me some. But let
me tell you all the story and maybe you'll understand a little
better--something that I can't say for myself right at this very
instant."

Morehouse began at the very beginning, looking oftener at the card
between his fingers than at Hogarty's too brilliant eyes, which were
fairly burning his face.

"In the first place, Flash," he went on, "you know as well as I do
that The Red isn't a real champion and never will be. He has the build
and the punch, and he's game, too--you'll have to hand him that. But
stacked up against the men who held the title ten years ago he'd last
about five rounds--if he was lucky. I don't know why that is, either,
unless he is so crooked at heart that he loses confidence even in
himself when he has to face a real man. But the public at this minute
thinks he is as great as the greatest. The way he polished off The
Texan had convinced them of that--and we--well, the paper always tries
to give them what they want, you know.

"Now that was the reason I ran up north last week, after I'd got a tip
that Conway hailed originally from a little New England village back
in the hills--one of those towns that are almost as up-to-date today
as they were fifty years ago. It looked like a nice catchy little
story, which I will, of course, admit I could have faked just as well
as not. But it was the cartoons I wanted. You can't really fake
them--not after you've once known the real thing. And as it happens I
have known it, for I came from a village up that way myself.

"And, then, I was curious, too. I've always had a private opinion that
if chance hadn't pitchforked Conway into the prize-ring he'd have made
a grand success as a blackjack artist or a second-story man. But I
wanted the pictures, and it wasn't a very difficult matter either to
get them. You see I knew just where I'd find what I wanted, and things
panned out pretty much as I thought they would.

"It didn't take more than a half hour to spread the report that Conway
was practically the only really famous man in