known. Swollen, bruised, discolored, every
feature had been beaten out of all semblance of familiarity. One eye
was entirely closed, the other showed through a narrow slit of
blood-congested flesh. One ear seemed to have lost most of its skin. The
whole face was a swollen pulp. His right jaw, in particular, was twice
the size of the left. No wonder his speech had been thick, was her
thought, as she regarded the fearfully cut and swollen lips that still
bled. She was sickened by the sight, and her heart went out to him in
a great wave of tenderness. She wanted to put her arms around him, and
cuddle and soothe him; but her practical judgment bade otherwise.

"You poor, poor boy," she cried. "Tell me what you want me to do first.
I don't know about such things."

"If you could help me get my clothes off," he suggested meekly and
thickly. "I got 'em on before I stiffened up."

"And then hot water--that will be good," she said, as she began gently
drawing his coat sleeve over a puffed and helpless hand.

"I told you they was all thumbs," he grimaced, holding up his hand and
squinting at it with the fraction of sight remaining to him.

"You sit and wait," she said, "till I start the fire and get the hot
water going. I won't be a minute. Then I'll finish getting your clothes
off."

From the kitchen she could hear him mumbling to himself, and when she
returned he was repeating over and over:

"We needed the money, Saxon. We needed the money."

Drunken he was not, she could see that, and from his babbling she knew
he was partly delirious.

"He was a surprise box," he wandered on, while she proceeded to undress
him; and bit by bit she was able to piece together what had happened.
"He was an unknown from Chicago. They sprang him on me. The secretary
of the Acme Club warned me I'd have my hands full. An' I'd a-won if
I'd been in condition. But fifteen pounds off without trainin' ain't
condition. Then I'd been drinkin' pretty regular, an' I didn't have my
wind."

But Saxon, stripping his undershirt, no longer heard him. As with his
face, she could not recognize his splendidly muscled back. The white
sheath of silken skin was torn and bloody. The lacerations occurred
oftenest in horizontal lines, though there were perpendicular lines as
well.

"How did you get all that?" she asked.

"The ropes. I was up against 'em more times than I like to remember.
Gee! He certainly gave me mine. But I fooled 'm. He couldn't put me