"Soak him, Nicky!" cheered the barometric Miss Yockley, wriggling with delight; "he's ran short o' tricks. He's all yours."
Daisy's sympathies had swung, quite without conscious mental volition, to the side of the masked man, as she saw that he seemed to be losing. Her eyes never left his face, as she watched sympathetically for the spreading red stain that should show broken skin. But, although the stranger's cheek below the black edge of the mask, as well as the sides and even the point of the jaw, were dull red where Cluett had landed—but landed as on something pneumatic—there came no vivider crimson. Instead, Daisy saw come on the lips a smile. The smile was still there when the round ended with the masked man skilfully covering from a shower of taps that, though his guard broke or lightened them, landed as true as the arrows of Locksley. Nor had the smile on the bulldoggy lips faded when, upon Cluett being declared winner of the bout, the stranger, followed by the commending cheers of the crowd, vaulted out of the ring over the ropes, and was gone. A moment afterwards, there came the great, smooth snarl of a high-powered auto springing from the curb outside.
"Some big bug amateur," observed Miss Yockley, shrewdly, "hence the mask. Must have slipped on his auto-coat over his fightin' togs, to get away that quick. Them seconds with the masks on was likely college chums, or something. But, O teaberries! didn't he cover up from our Nicky though! I never saw a man could do like that before.... Come on, now, kid: let's get out in our car and wait for the boys. There's something," Miss Stella added volubly, as she rose, "that I don't quite understand, about that last round. Didn't seem as if the other man was trying; he never started one punch. Can't get nothin' out of Nicky on it—he's too close-mouthed. But Bob'll tell us."
It was not long after the two reached the automobile, standing long and alert by the curb where Mr. Masterman and Daisy and Miss Yockley had left it when they entered the theatre, till they saw the two men approaching. Mr. Cluett had just had a shower-bath in one of the dressing-rooms, and his hair showed wet and black around the edges of his cap. He was silent, but the perennial smile was in its place. There was not a bruise visible to Daisy, except the slight skin-break above his eyebrow. She scrutinized the champion with a new, but not exactly intensified interest, as he slipped into the tonneau beside her.
"Well," he said, taking off his cap and running his fingers through his thick damp hair; "how's our little one? All here?"
Mr. Masterman, getting in by Miss Yockley on the front seat, swung his head around as he took the wheel.
"Some boy with the mitts—eh, what?" he grinned at Daisy. Miss Yockley caught the speaker by the ear, and promptly turned him eyes front.
"I'm here," she said, as she extracted a fresh piece of gum out of her handbag, "not there. Now, who's this buck with the Hallowe'en fixings, Bob?"
"I know," said Mr. Masterman, "but I'm ferbid to say."
"Well," observed Miss Yockley, as her teeth industriously kneaded her new slice of gum, "he pretty near threw a monkey-wrench into our machinery, whoever he is. Bar all masked fighters after this, is my little word of advice to you boys. Eatin' snowballs ain't fattening, and it wouldn't even be nice for a change.... But who was he, Bob? Come o-on; we're all friends here."