And at a distance of a quarter of an inch from her chin he administered the slightest flick of a tap.
On the instant Saxon's brain snapped with a white flash of light, while her whole body relaxed, numb and weak, volitionless, sad her vision reeled and blurred. The next instant she was herself again, in her eyes terror and understanding.
'And it was at a foot that you struck him,' she murmured in a voice of awe.
'Yes, and with the weight of my shoulders behind it,' Billy laughed. 'Oh, that's nothing.-Here, let me show you something else.'
He searched out her solar plexus, and did no more than snap his middle finger against it. This time she experienced a simple paralysis, accompanied by a stoppage of breath, but with a brain and vision that remained perfectly clear. In a moment, however, all the unwonted sensations were gone.
'Solar Plexus,' Billy elucidated. 'Imagine what it's like when the other fellow lifts a wallop to it all the way from his knees. That's the punch that won the championship of the world for Bob Fitzsimmons.'
Saxon shuddered, then resigned herself to Billy's playful demonstration of the weak points in the human anatomy. He pressed the tip of a finger into the middle of her forearm, and she knew excruciating agony. On either side of her neck, at the base, he dented gently with his thumbs, and she felt herself quickly growing unconscious.
'That's one of the death touches of the Japs,' he told her, and went on, accompanying grips and holds with a running exposition. 'Here's the toe-hold that Notch defeated Hackenschmidt with. I learned it from Farmer Burns.-An' here's a half-Nelson.-An' here's you makin' roughhouse at a dance, an' I 'm the floor manager, an' I gotta put you out.'
One hand grasped her wrist, the other hand passed around and under her forearm and grasped his own wrist. And at the first hint of pressure she felt that her arm was a pipe-stem about to break.
'That's called the 'come along.'-An' here's the strong arm. A boy can down a man with it. An' if you ever get into a scrap an' the other fellow gets your nose between his teeth-you don't want to lose your nose, do you? Well, this is what you do, quick as a flash.'
Involuntarily she closed her eyes as Billy's thumb-ends pressed into them. She could feel the fore-running ache of a dull and terrible hurt.
'If he don't let go, you just press real hard, an' out pop his eyes, an' he's blind as a bat for the rest of his life. Oh, he'll let go all right all right.'
He released her and lay back laughing.
'How d'ye feel?' he asked. 'Those ain't boxin' tricks, but they're all in the game of a roughhouse.'
'I feel like revenge,' she said, trying to apply the 'come along' to his arm.
When she exerted the pressure she cried out with pain, for she had succeeded only in hurting herself. Billy grinned at her futility. She dug her thumbs into his neck in imitation of the Japanese death touch, then gazed ruefully at the bent ends of her nails. She punched him smartly on the point of the chin, and again cried out, this time to the bruise of her knuckles.
'Well, this can't hurt me,' she gritted through her teeth, as she assailed his solar plexus with her doubled fists.
By this time he was in a roar of laughter. Under the sheaths of muscles that were as armor, the fatal nerve center remained impervious.
'Go on, do it some more,' he urged, when she had given up, breathing heavily. 'It feels fine, like you was ticklin' me with a feather.'
'All right, Mister Man,' she threatened balefully. 'You can talk about your grips and death touches and all the rest, but that's all man's game. I know something that will beat them all, that will make a strong man as helpless as a baby. Wait a minute till I get it. There. Shut your eyes. Ready? I won't be a second.'
He waited with closed eyes, and then, softly as rose petals fluttering down, he felt her lips on his mouth.
'You win,' he said in solemn ecstasy, and passed his arms around her.
CHAPTER XIV
In the morning Billy went down town to pay for Hazel and Hattie. It was due to Saxon's impatient desire to see them, that he seemed to take a remarkably long time about so simple a transaction. But she forgave him when he arrived with the two horses hitched to the camping wagon.
'Had to borrow the harness,' he said. 'Pass Possum up and climb in, an' I'll show you the Double H Outfit, which is some outfit, I'm tellin' you.'
Saxon's delight was unbounded and almost speechless as they drove out into the country behind the dappled chestnuts with the cream-colored tails and manes. The seat was upholstered, high-backed, and comfortable; and Billy raved about the wonders of the efficient brake. He trotted the team along the hard county road to show the standard-going in them, and put them up a steep earthroad, almost hub-deep with mud, to prove that the light Belgian sire was not wanting in their make-up.
When Saxon at last lapsed into complete silence, he studied her anxiously, with quick sidelong glances. She sighed and asked:
'When do you think we'll be able to start?'
'Maybe in two weeks… or, maybe in two or three months.' He sighed with solemn deliberation. 'We're like the Irishman with the trunk an' nothin' to put in it. Here's the wagon, here's the horses, an' nothin' to pull. I know a peach of a shotgun I can get, second-hand, eighteen dollars; but look at the bills we owe. Then there's a new '22 Automatic rifle I want for you. An' a 30-30 I've had my eye on for deer. An' you want a good jointed pole as well as me. An' tackle costs like Sam Hill. An' harness like I want will cost fifty bucks cold. An' the wagon ought to be painted. Then there's pasture ropes, an' nose-bags, an' a harness punch, an' all such things. An' Hazel an' Hattie eatin' their heads off all the time we're waitin'. An' I 'm just itchin' to be started myself.'
He stopped abruptly and confusedly.
'Now, Billy, what have you got up your sleeve?-I can see it in your eyes,' Saxon demanded and indicted in mixed metaphors.
'Well, Saxon, you see, it's like this. Sandow ain't satisfied. He's madder 'n a hatter. Never got one punch at me. Never had a chance to make a showin', an' he wants a return match. He's blattin' around town that he can lick me with one hand tied behind 'm, an' all that kind of hot air. Which ain't the point. The point is, the fight-fans is wild to see a return-match. They didn't get a run for their money last time. They'll fill the house. The managers has seen me already. That was why I was so long. They's three hundred more waitin' on the tree for me to pick two weeks from last night if you'll say the word. It's just the same as I told you before. He's my meat. He still thinks I 'm a rube, an' that it was a fluke punch.'
'But, Billy, you told me long ago that fighting took the silk out of you. That was why you'd quit it and stayed by teaming.'
'Not this kind of fightin',' he answered. 'I got this one all doped out. I'll let 'm last till about the seventh. Not that it'll be necessary, but just to give the audience a run for its money. Of course, I'll get a lump or two, an' lose some skin. Then I'll time 'm to that glass jaw of his an' drop 'm for the count. An' we'll be all packed up, an' next mornin' we'll pull out. What d'ye say? Aw, come on.'
Saturday night, two weeks later, Saxon ran to the door when the gate clicked. Billy looked tired. His hair was wet, his nose swollen, one cheek was puffed, there was skin missing from his ears, and both eyes were slightly bloodshot.
'I 'm darned if that boy didn't fool me,' he said, as he placed the roll of gold pieces in her hand and sat down with her on his knees. 'He's some boy when he gets extended. Instead of stoppin' 'm at the seventh, he kept me hustlin' till the fourteenth. Then I got 'm the way I said. It's too bad he's got a glass jaw. He's quicker'n I thought, an' he's got a wallop that made me mighty respectful from the second round-an' the prettiest little chop an' come- again I ever saw. But that glass jaw! He kept it in cotton wool till the fourteenth an' then I connected.
'-An', say. I 'm mighty glad it did last fourteen rounds. I still got all my silk. I could see that easy. I wasn't
