big as yours."

"That don't mean anything. What counts is what's behind the
fists. He'd turn loose like a buckin' bronco. If I couldn't drop
him at the start, all I'd do is to keep away, smother up, an'
wait. An' all of a sudden he'd blow up--go all to pieces, you
know, wind, heart, everything, and then I'd have him where I
wanted him. And the point is he knows it, too."

"You're the first prizefighter I ever knew," Saxon said, after a
pause.

"I'm not any more," he disclaimed hastily. "That's one thing the
fightin' game taught me--to leave it alone. It don't pay. A
fellow trains as fine as silk--till he's all silk, his skin,
everything, and he's fit to live for a hundred years; an' then he
climbs through the ropes for a hard twenty rounds with some tough
customer that's just as good as he is, and in those twenty rounds
he frazzles out all his silk an' blows in a year of his life.
Yes, sometimes he blows in five years of it, or cuts it in half,
or uses up all of it. I've watched 'em. I've seen fellows strong
as bulls fight a hard battle and die inside the year of
consumption, or kidney disease, or anything else. Now what's the
good of it? Money can't buy what they throw away. That's why I
quit the game and went back to drivin' team. I got my silk, an'
I'm goin' to keep it, that's all."

"It must make you feel proud to know you are the master of other
men," she said softly, aware herself of pride in the strength and
skill of him.