from that little rat middleweight which had blowed our camp before the fight.
"The face, Al!" screams this guy. "Bring it up!"
As the referee tore them apart, Kennedy, badly outpointed and almost all in, let fly a desperate right to the jaw. It barely grazed the Kid, but it made him nervous for that infernal face of his and up came his guard. "Now!" comes bellerin' from Kennedy's corner, and Zam!—he buries his left to the wrist in the Kid's body with a sock that could be plainly heard in South Dakota. The Kid flashed white and his head tolled. I knew what was comin', but I yelled to the Kid to clinch, at the same time gettin' the sponge ready. Kennedy, now wild with eagerness to finish the Kid, missed a coupla swings and then fin'ly connected with a right hook to the jaw that dropped the Kid on one knee. He looked over to me like he didn't know what it was all about (which he didn't, by the way), took a count of "eight," and then, grabbin' Kennedy's leg for a brace, he pulled himself up—out on his feet. A feint for the jaw, the Kid's hands goes up mechanically and a solid left under the heart sprawled him dead to the world, knocked out for the first time, almost at my feet! I had started into the ring with the punch.
To the mob of maniacs around me it was only the sensational end of a sensational fight, but to me it was the probable wind-up of a chance to make a million! All I could think as I helped carry the Kid to his corner was would he ever forget he had been knocked cold, or was this his finish and mine?
The first thing the Kid called for in the dressin'
