'So that's the guy,' Danny said, running an appraising eye over his proposed antagonist. 'How de do, old chap.'
Rivera's eyes burned venomously, but he made no sign of acknowledgment. He disliked all Gringos, but this Gringo he hated with an immediacy that was unusual even in him.
'Gawd!' Danny protested facetiously to the promoter. 'You ain't expectin' me to fight a deef mute.' When the laughter subsided, he made another hit. ' Los Angeles must be on the dink when this is the best you can scare up. What kindergarten did you get 'm from?'
'He's a good little boy, Danny, take it from me,' Roberts defended. 'Not as easy as he looks.'
'And half the house is sold already,' Kelly pleaded. 'You'll have to take 'm on, Danny. It is the best we can do.'
Danny ran another careless and unflattering glance over Rivera and sighed.
'I gotta be easy with 'm, I guess. If only he don't blow up.'
Roberts snorted.
'You gotta be careful,' Danny's manager warned. 'No taking chances with a dub that's likely to sneak a lucky one across.'
'Oh, I'll be careful all right, all right,' Danny smiled. 'I'll get in at the start an' nurse 'im along for the dear public's sake. What d' ye say to fifteen rounds, Kelly—an' then the hay for him?'
'That'll do,' was the answer. 'As long as you make it realistic.'
'Then let's get down to biz.' Danny paused and calculated. 'Of course, sixty-five per cent of the gate receipts, same as with Carthey. But the split'll be different. Eighty will just about suit me.' And to his manager, 'That right?'
The manager nodded.
'Here, you, did you get that?' Kelly asked Rivera.
Rivera shook his head.
'Well, it is this way,' Kelly exposited. 'The purse'll be sixty-five per cent of the gate receipts. You're a dub, and an unknown. You and Danny split, twenty per cent goin' to you, an' eighty to Danny. That's fair, isn't it, Roberts?'
'Very fair, Rivera,' Roberts agreed.
'You see, you ain't got a reputation yet.'
'What will sixty-five per cent of the gate receipts be?' Rivera demanded.
'Oh, maybe five thousand, maybe as high as eight thousand,' Danny broke in to explain. 'Something like that. Your share'll come to something like a thousand or sixteen hundred. Pretty good for takin' a licking from a guy with my reputation. What d' ye say?'
Then Rivera took their breaths away. 'Winner takes all,' he said with finality.
A dead silence prevailed.
'It's like candy from a baby,' Danny's manager proclaimed.
Danny shook his head.
'I've been in the game too long,' he explained.
'I'm not casting reflections on the referee, or the present company. I'm not sayin' nothing about book- makers an' frame-ups that sometimes happen. But what I do say is that it's poor business for a fighter like me. I play safe. There's no tellin'. Mebbe I break my arm, eh? Or some guy slips me a bunch of dope?' He shook his head solemnly. 'Win or lose, eighty is my split. What d' ye say, Mexican?'
Rivera shook his head.
Danny exploded. He was getting down to brass tacks now.
'Why, you dirty little greaser! I've a mind to knock your block off right now.'
Roberts drawled his body to interposition between hostilities.
'Winner takes all,' Rivera repeated sullenly.
'Why do you stand out that way?' Danny asked.
'I can lick you,' was the straight answer.
Danny half started to take off his coat. But, as his manager knew, it was a grand stand play. The coat did not come off, and Danny allowed himself to be placated by the group. Everybody sympathized with him. Rivera stood alone.
'Look here, you little fool,' Kelly took up the argument. 'You're nobody. We know what you've been doing the last few months—putting away little local fighters. But Danny is class. His next fight after this will be for the championship. And you're unknown. Nobody ever heard of you out of Los Angeles .'
'They will,' Rivera answered with a shrug, 'after this fight.'
'You think for a second you can lick me?' Danny blurted in.
Rivera nodded.
'Oh, come; listen to reason,' Kelly pleaded. 'Think of the advertising.'
'I want the money,' was Rivera's answer.
'You couldn't win from me in a thousand years,' Danny assured him.
'Then what are you holdin' out for?' Rivera countered. 'If the money's that easy, why don't you go after it?'
'I will, so help me!' Danny cried with abrupt conviction. 'I'll beat you to death in the ring, my boy—you monkeyin' with me this way. Make out the articles, Kelly. Winner take all. Play it up in the sportin' columns. Tell 'em it's a grudge fight. I'll show this fresh kid a few.'
Kelly's secretary had begun to write, when Danny interrupted.
'Hold on!' He turned to Rivera.
'Weights?'
'Ringside,' came the answer.
'Not on your life, Fresh Kid. If winner takes all, we weigh in at ten A.M.'
'And winner takes all?' Rivera queried.
Danny nodded. That settled it. He would enter the ring in his full ripeness of strength.
'Weigh in at ten,' Rivera said.
The secretary's pen went on scratching.
'It means five pounds,' Roberts complained to Rivera.
'You've given too much away. You've thrown the fight right there. Danny'll lick you sure. He'll be as strong as a bull. You're a fool. You ain't got the chance of a dewdrop in hell.'
Rivera's answer was a calculated look of hatred. Even this Gringo he despised, and him had he found the whitest Gringo of them all.
IV
Barely noticed was Rivera as he entered the ring. Only a very slight and very scattering ripple of half-hearted hand-clapping greeted him. The house did not believe in him. He was the lamb led to slaughter at the hands of the great Danny. Besides, the house was disappointed. It had expected a rushing battle between Danny Ward and Billy Carthey, and here it must put up with this poor little tyro. Still further, it had manifested its disapproval of the change by betting two, and even three, to one on Danny. And where a betting audience's money is, there is its heart.
The Mexican boy sat down in his corner and waited. The slow minutes lagged by. Danny was making him wait. It was an old trick, but ever it worked on the young, new fighters. They grew frightened, sitting thus and facing their own apprehensions and a callous, tobacco-smoking audience. But for once the trick failed. Roberts was right. Rivera had no goat. He, who was more delicately coordinated, more finely nerved and strung than any of them, had no nerves of this sort. The atmosphere of foredoomed defeat in his own corner had no effect on him. His handlers were Gringos and strangers. Also they were scrubs—the dirty driftage of the fight game, without honor, without efficiency. And they were chilled, as well, with certitude that theirs was the losing corner.
'Now you gotta be careful,' Spider Hagerty warned him. Spider was his chief second. 'Make it last as long as
