low, nor two, nor a dozen. He was a gyroscope
of blows, a whirlwind of destruction. Rivera was nowhere. He was
overwhelmed, buried beneath avalanches of punches delivered from every
angle and position by a past master in the art. He was overborne, swept
back against the ropes, separated by the referee, and swept back against
the ropes again.

It was not a fight. It was a slaughter, a massacre. Any audience, save
a prize fighting one, would have exhausted its emotions in that first
minute. Danny was certainly showing what he could do--a splendid
exhibition. Such was the certainty of the audience, as well as its
excitement and favoritism, that it failed to take notice that the
Mexican still stayed on his feet. It forgot Rivera. It rarely saw him,
so closely was he enveloped in Danny's man-eating attack. A minute of
this went by, and two minutes. Then, in a separation, it caught a clear
glimpse of the Mexican. His lip was cut, his nose was bleeding. As he
turned and staggered into a clinch, the welts of oozing blood, from his
contacts with the ropes, showed in red bars across his back. But what
the audience did not notice was that his chest was not heaving and that
his eyes were coldly burning as ever. Too many aspiring champions, in
the cruel welter of the training camps, had practiced this man-eating
attack on him. He had learned to live through for a compensation of from
half a dollar a go up to fifteen dollars a week--a hard school, and he
was schooled hard.

Then happened the amazing thing. The whirling, blurring mix-up ceased
suddenly. Rivera stood alone. Danny, the redoubtable Danny, lay on his
back. His body quivered as consciousness strove to return to it. He had
not staggered and sunk down, nor had he gone over in a long slumping
fall. The right hook of Rivera had dropped him in midair with the
abruptness of death. The referee shoved Rivera back with one hand, and
stood over the fallen gladiator counting the seconds. It is the custom
of prize-fighting audiences to cheer a clean knock-down blow. But this
audience did not cheer. The thing had been too unexpected. It watched
the toll of the seconds in tense silence, and through this silence the
voice of Roberts rose exultantly:

"I told you he was a two-handed fighter!"

By the fifth second, Danny was rolling over on his face, and when seven
was counted, he rested on one knee, ready to rise after the count of
nine and before the count of ten. If his knee still t