Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/298

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confident. He let Enright come in and, shiftin' his attack to the body, grinned jovially and pounded the wind with one arm free, the other protectin' himself. As the referee run over to break 'em, Enright's terrible right come up in a half circle, smashed through a openin' and clipped McCabe on the chin. McCabe's knees sagged, and a goofy look spread over his face. The mob's yell rocked the buildin', Quick as a flash, Enright's left flicked up around McCabe's neck, the glove droppin' with a thud just as the pantin' referee shoved 'em apart. McCabe fell with a crash, his face hittin' first.

He was still there at "ten." He was still there half a hour later when the disgusted, grumblin' crowd had milled out of the clubhouse. He was still there two hours after that, when another kind of a boxer—the undertaker—come to take him and his broken neck away from the perspirin' medicos and the dumfounded, white-faced club officials.

"Well," I says to the Kid as we climb into his car on the en route to the hotel, "d'ye still think Enright's a set-up?"

"Why not?" he says. "This tragedy to-night doesn't change my opinion a particle! I grant you Enright can hit—that short right uppercut that literally tore poor McCabe's head off would have felled an ox—but he isn't going to hit me with it, that's all. I've stopped a dozen men who could hit as hard as Enright, haven't I?"

"As hard—yes," I agrees, noddin' my head and gazin' out at the town generally. Then I looked back at him.