Loaded Dice

by Ellery H. Clark

With the readiness born of much experience, Harrison and Stickney in a twinkling had the simple preparations under way. The rough dimensions of a twenty-four-foot ring were paced off; the spectators took their places where corner posts and ropes should have been, and a messenger was despatched to the ball field for the two players' benches there in use. In short order he returned, aided with his burden by many willing hands; behind him trailing some two score eager followers, for in the eyes of the Lake a fist fight still took precedence without competition over all else in the line of true diversion.

There was a moment's silence, and then Stickney, spitting furiously in his excitement, looked at his watch, and nodded. "All ready!" he cried, his voice vibrant with excitement, and at the word the two men, stripped to the waist, stepped quickly forward and shook hands.

Gordon smiled at his burly antagonist. "No ill-feeling?" he queried good-naturedly.

The miner shook his massive head. "Oh, no, not a bit," he said grimly, and his tone and the smoldering wrath in his eyes belied his words.

Both men turned and walked slowly toward their corners; then "Time!" yelled Stickney, and, turning again, they put up their hands and warily faced each other.

Martin stood upright in the center of the ring, body a little thrown back, his left arm held straight in front of him, and his right doubled across his chest. Gordon, standing easily and loosely, with muscles relaxed, eyed his man for a moment, and then suddenly dropped into the more modern fighting pose, crouched catlike, his weight well over his hips, shoulders hunched, both arms held loosely in front of him. Slowly he walked around the miner with quick and cautious steps, Martin pivoting slowly to meet him as he advanced. Nearer, nearer still, they came; imperceptibly the distance between them grew less and less, and then, all at once, like a flash, Gordon jumped in.

Thud! came his right on Martin's ribs, and crack! came his left on Martin's face. The miner's head jerked suddenly back; he gave an involuntary grunt of pain; and from his twitching nostrils there came a sudden dark red stream of blood.

Just for an instant he stood motionless, inert; then, smarting with pain, and half mad with rage, he lowered his head and charged like a bull. Gordon, hard-pressed, gave ground at once, stalling off as best he might the angry giant's reckless charge. Once the miner's right found his ribs, and his face contracted with a sudden spasm of pain, while the angry red blotches showed mottled against the clear white skin. Twice a mighty left swing just missed his jaw, and both times the indrawn breath of the crowd expended itself in a sigh, half of relief, half of disappointment, as they saw the easterner still unharmed.

Thus two minutes of the round had gone, and then all at once there came a change, for by this time it had become evident to Gordon, long skilled in all the craft and science of the ring, that he had opposed to him a man, unskilful, to be sure, but untireable as well, and that the longer the fight lasted the better it would be for the miner and the worse for him. Thus, his mind made up, he summoned to his aid every particle of strength and cunning at his command, and when next the miner rushed, he no longer gave ground, but for an instant met the attack squarely and then again forced the fighting in his turn. Three times he landed straight lefts on Martin's face that should have put an ordinary man away for good, and three times the giant grunted and came on for more. Again Gordon drove home a smashing blow on the miner's gory nose, and then, in trying to get his right to the heart, he left himself for an instant unprotected, and in that instant Martin, fighting more craftily in his turn and biding his time, landed one of his wild right swings on Gordon's left cheek, just under the eye. Gordon staggered back, reeling; earth and sky blazed suddenly in a mist of swimming red; the wild yells of the miners reached him as the faintest buzzing of a swarm of bees; and, flushed and eager, Martin came on to finish his man. Like a drunken man Gordon blocked weakly, clenched mechanically with the fighter's instinct for an instant's respite, and then as Harrison, pitying but firm, walked between them, pushing them roughly apart and ordering them to take the center of the ring, in that blessed moment the mist cleared from Gordon's eyes, the red tide of life pulsed again through every vein, and brave heart and cunning brain waked again to life.

Fortunate it would have been for Martin had he realized the change, but all unmindful he came gaily on, thrilling with the triumph of the fighting beast. Carelessly, recklessly, well-nigh disdainfully, he started in to demolish his weakening foe, and then—sudden, unlooked-for, amazing—Gordon's left caught him with a lightning jab in the ribs, Gordon's right caught him full on the point of the jaw, and, like a pole-axed bullock, he stood still for the veriest instant of time, and then, crashing face downward, lay motionless on the field.