“Spot knows he's goin' to fight to-night as well as you and me,” said Martin, as we returned to the bar. “Be d' way! don't you want to go?”
It was nine o'clock that evening. The pit, sixteen feet square, with board walls three feet high, was built in the centre of an empty loft on Bleecker street. Directly over the pit was a bunch of electric lights. All about, raised six inches one above the other, were a dozen rows of board seats like a circus. These were crowded with perhaps two hundred sports. They sat close, and in the vague, smoky atmosphere, their faces, row on row, tier above tier, put me in mind of potatoes in a bin.
Fincher was a bull terrier, the counterpart of Spot, save for the markings about the face which gave Spot his name. Pincher seemed very sanguine and full of eager hope; and as he and Spot, held in the arms of their handlers, lolled at each other across the pit, it was plain they languished to begin. Neither, however, made yelp or cry or bark. Bull terriers of true worth on the battle-field were, I learned, a tacit, wordless brood, making no sound.
Martin “handled” Spot and McDermott did kindly office for Pincher in the same behalf. Martin and McDermott “tasted” Spot and Pincher respectively; smelled and mouthed them for snuffs and poisons. Spot and Pincher submitted to these examinations in a gentlemanly way, but were glad when they ended.
At the word of the referee, Spot and Pincher were loosed, each in his corner. They went straight at each other's throats. They met in the exact centre of the pit like two milk-white thunderbolts, and the battle began.
Spot and Pincher moiled and toiled bloodily for forty-five minutes without halt or pause or space to breathe. Their handlers, who were confined to their corners by quarter circles drawn in chalk so as to hem them in, leaned forward toward the fray and breathed encouragement.
What struck me as wonderful, withal, was a lack of angry ferocity on the parts of Spot and Pincher. There was naught of growl, naught of rage-born cry or comment. They simply blazed with a zeal for blood; burned with a blind death-ardour.
When Spot and Pincher began, all was so flash-like in their motions, I could hardly tell what went on. They were in and out, down and up, over and under, writhing like two serpents. Now and then a pair of jaws clicked like castanets as they came together with a trap-like snap, missing their hold. Now and then one or the other would get a half-grip that would tear out. Then the blood flowed, painting both Spot and Pincher crimson.
As time went on my eyes began to follow better, and I noted some amazing matters. It was plain, for one thing, that both Spot and Pincher were as wise and expert as two boxers. They fought intelligently, and each had a system. As Martin had said, Pincher fought “under,” in never-ending efforts to seize Spot's feet and legs. Spot was perfectly aware of this, and never failed to keep his fore legs well back and beneath him, out of Pinchers reach.