“You shoot that dog,” flared Rorke, striding up to the little manager, his thick fingers working convulsively, “and, by the good Lord, I swear I’ll break your neck over my knee; if I go to the chair for it. That goes for you, too, Curly! If you think I’m bluffing, you’d best change your mind—unless you’re sick of staying alive. It goes!”
To Bud Curly’s surprise the irascible Red did not retort. Instead, he stood looking long and earnestly at the raging fighter. Then he said with conciliatory calm:
“Nobody wants to hurt the purp, Dan. Climb down off the ceiling. And if you’re so dead set on playing the fool—well, I s’pose I’ll have to trail my bets along with yours. You can’t lick Feltman on the square. But it won’t be my fault if you don’t put up the best fight of your life ag’in him. It’s too late to cancel the match now. All me and Curly c’n do is to train you to the minute and trust to luck for the rest.”
Glad to have won his sorry point, Dan settled down with grim energy to the task of training. He knew how slight were his chances of victory. Yet he was ready to meet the suddenly reconciled Keegan halfway, by training at his level best.
Feltman and a little retinue came to Pitvale, in order to be on the ground, and to avoid travel before the fight. They set up training quarters scarce two blocks away from Keegan’s bungalow.
For nearly a month the two rivals wrought at their preparations for the battle. Once or twice on hike or sprint they chanced to meet in street or highroad. And such well-rehearsed chance meetings, with their mutual scowling frigidity, served Kampfmuller as splendid “grudge-fight” copy for the Chronicle.
The fight was to be held in the Pitvale Coliseum, a vast and barnlike structure originally built for state conventions and for summer Chautauqua lectures. It was scheduled for ten o’clock on the night of April second.
On the morning of April second Dan Rorke awoke from a ten-hour sleep, ran under the shower, rubbed down, slipped into his clothes, and started for breakfast with the appetite of a longshoreman. His nerves as well as his physique had profited by his hard and wise training.
If he was due to end the day in defeat, at least the thought of it had not marred his night’s rest or his appetite.
Outside his bedroom door he paused as usual for his morning frolic with Jeff. But Jeff was not there.