of this new
perplexity of his, felt that she really had seen that account of Young
Denny's first fight and had been watching for the second, and at such
times only a mumbled excuse and a hasty retreat saved him from baring
his secret desire.

"She'd think I'd gone stark crazy," he excused his lack of courage.
"She'd say I was a-goin' into my second childhood!"

Yet in the end it was the girl with the tip-tilted eyes who decided it
for him.

Spring had slipped into early summer when the day came which made the
gossip of "The Pilgrim's" possible bid for the championship a
certainty. It was harder than ever for Old Jerry after that. Each
fresh day's issue brought forth a long and exhaustive comparison of
the two men's chances--of their strength and weaknesses. The technical
discussion the old man skipped; it was undecipherable to him and
enough that Young Denny was hailed as a certain winner.

And then as the day set for the match crept nearer and nearer, he
began to notice a new and alarming change in the tone of that daily
column. At first it was only fleeting--too intangible for one to place
one's finger upon it. But by the end of another week it was openly
inquiring whether "The Pilgrim" had as much as an even chance of
winning after all.

It bewildered Old Jerry; it was beyond his comprehension, and had he
not been so depressed himself he would have noted the change that came
over the girl, too, these days. He never entered the big back kitchen
now to hear her humming softly to herself, and sometimes he had to
speak several times before she even heard him.

That continued for almost a week, and then there came a day, a scant
three days before the date which he had hungrily underlined in red
upon a mental calendar, which brought the whole vexing indecision to a
precipitate head.

Old Jerry read that day's column in the sporting extra with weazened
face going red with anger--read it with fists knotted. Those others
had been merely skeptical--doubtful of "The Pilgrim's" willingness to
meet the champion--and now it openly scoffed at him; it laughed at his
ability, lashed him with ridicule. And, to cap it all, it accused him
openly of having already "sold out" to his opponent.

When the little white-haired driver of the buggy reached the house on
the hill that night he was as pale as he had been red, hours before,
and he pleaded fatigue to excuse his too hasty departure. He did not
see that she was almost as op