no one.

[Illustration: "THE MALIGN EYE WAS WORN SO PROUDLY THAT THE WEARER
BUBBLED VAINGLORIOUSLY OF HOW HE HAD ACHIEVED THE STIGMA BY STEPPING
INTO ONE OF SPIKE BRENNON'S STRAIGHT LEFTS."]

He had stopped amiably to chat with the boy. He was sweating profusely,
and chewed gum. It may be said that he was not the proud young Spike
Brennon of the photograph. He was all of twenty-five, and his later
years had told. Where once had been the bridge of his nose was now a
sharp indentation. One ear was weirdly enlarged; and his mouth, though
he spoke through narrowly opened lips, glittered in the morning sun with
the sheen of purest gold. Wilbur Cowan was instantly enmeshed by this
new personality.

The runner wished to know what he was looking for. Being told golf
balls, he demanded "What for?" It seemed never to have occurred to him
that there would be an object in looking for golf balls. He curiously
handled and weighed a ball in his brown and hairy hand.

"So that's the little joker, is it? I often seen 'em knockin' up flies
with it, but I ain't never been close to one. Say, that pill could hurt
you if it come right!"

He was instructed briefly in the capacity of moving balls to inflict
pain, and more particularly as to their market value. As the boy talked
the sweating man looked him over with shrewd, half-shut eyes.

"Ever had the gloves on, kid?" he demanded at last.

It appeared in a moment that he meant boxing gloves; not gloves in which
to play golf.

"No, sir," said Wilbur.

"You look good. Come down to the store at three o'clock. Mebbe you can
give me a work-out."

Quite astonishingly it appeared then that when he said the store he was
meaning the low saloon of Pegleg McCarron; that he did road work every
morning and wanted quick young lads to give him a work-out with the
gloves in the afternoon, because even dubs was better than shadow boxing
or just punching the bag all the time. If they couldn't box-fight they
could wrestle.

So Wilbur had gone to the store that afternoon, and for many succeeding
afternoons, to learn the fascinating new game in a shed that served
McCarron as storeroom. The new hero had here certain paraphernalia of
his delightful calling--a punching bag, small dumb-bells, a skipping
rope, boxing gloves. Here the neophyte had been taught the niceties of
feint and guard and lead, of the right cross, the uppercut, the straight
left, to duck, to side-step, to shift lightly on his feet