Shorty came into the Starbird cabin on that particular night, his hair neatly plastered in a beautiful curve over his left temple, and his pants outside of his boots as a mark of esteem. He wore no collar, but he had encased himself in a boiled shirt, which could mean nothing else but mute and passionate love, and moreover, as a crowning tribute, he refrained from spitting.
"How do you feel, Shorty?" asked Miss Starbird.
Shorty had always sedulously read the interviews with pugilists that appeared in the San Francisco papers immediately before their fights and knew how to answer.
"I feel fit to fight the fight of my life," he alliterated proudly. "I've trained faithfully and I mean to win."
"It ain't a regular prize fight, is it, Shorty?" she enquired. "Pa said he wouldn't take ma an' me if it was. All the women folk in the camp are going, an' I never heard of women at a fight, it ain't genteel."
"Well, I d'n know," answered Shorty, swallowing his saliva. "The committee that got the programme up called it a genteel boxing exhibition so's to get the women folks to stay. I call it a four round go with a decision."
"My, itull be exciting!" exclaimed Miss Starbird. "I ain't never seen anything like it. Oh, Shorty, d'ye think you'll win?"
"I don't think nothun about it. I know I will," returned Shorty, defiantly. "If I once get in my left upper cut on him, huh!" and he snorted magnificently.
Shorty stayed and talked to Miss Starbird until ten o'clock, then he rose to go.
"I gotta get to bed," he said, "I'm in training you see."