n that crowd."

The detective drew back slowly and buried himself again in the straw,
but never once through the long fight which followed did his eyes leave
the person of the murderer. The newspaper men took their places in the
foremost row close around the ring, and kept looking at their watches
and begging the master of ceremonies to "shake it up, do."

There was a great deal of betting, and all of the men handled the great
rolls of bills they wagered with a flippant recklessness which could
only be accounted for in Gallegher's mind by temporary mental
derangement. Some one pulled a box out into the ring and the master of
ceremonies mounted it, and pointed out in forcible language that as they
were almost all already under bonds to keep the peace, it behooved all
to curb their excitement and to maintain a severe silence, unless they
wanted to bring the police upon them and have themselves "sent down" for
a year or two.

Then two very disreputable-looking persons tossed their respective
principals' high hats into the ring, and the crowd, recognizing in this
relic of the days when brave knights threw down their gauntlets in the
lists as only a sign that the fight was about to begin, cheered
tumultuously.

This was followed by a sudden surging forward, and a mutter of
admiration much more flattering than the cheers had been, when the
principals followed their hats and, slipping out of their great-coats,
stood forth in all the physical beauty of the perfect brute.

Their pink skin was as soft and healthy-looking as a baby's, and glowed
in the lights of the lanterns like tinted ivory, and underneath this
silken covering the great biceps and muscles moved in and out and looked
like the coils of a snake around the branch of a tree.

Gentleman and blackguard shouldered each other for a nearer view; the
coachmen, whose metal buttons were unpleasantly suggestive of police,
put their hands, in the excitement of the moment, on the shoulders of
their masters; the perspiration stood out in great drops on the
foreheads of the backers, and the newspaper men bit somewhat nervously
at the ends of their pencils.

And in the stalls the cows munched contentedly at their cuds and gazed
with gentle curiosity at their two fellow-brutes, who stood waiting the
signal to fall upon and kill each other, if need be, for the delectation
of their brothers.

"Take your places," commanded the master of ceremonies.

In the moment in which t