"You're goin' to get the maulin' of your life," Ned Merrill
promised as he slipped out of his coat. "Webber'll lick you if he
finds out you been fightin'," James Farnum prophesied cheerfully
to his cousin. He intended to do his duty in the way of protest
and then watch the fight.

Ned worked his wiry little foe to the fence and pummeled him. Jeff
ducked and backed out of danger. Keeping to the defensive, he was
being badly punished. Once he slipped in the mud and went down,
but he was up again before his slower antagonist could close with
him. Blood streamed from his nose. His lip was gashed. Under the
buffeting he was getting his head began to sing.

"Punch him good, Ned," one of the champion's friends advised.

"You bet he is," another chortled.

Their jeers had an unexpected effect. Jeff's fears were blotted
out by his desperate need. Some spark of the fighting edge,
inherited from his father, was fanned to a flame in the heart of
the bruised little warrior. Like a tiger cat he leaped for Ned's
throat, twisted his slim legs round the sturdy ones of his enemy,
and went down with him in a heap.

Jeff landed on the bottom, but like an eel he squirmed to the top
before the other had time to get set. The champion's patrician
head was thumped down into the mud and a knobby little fist played
a painful tattoo on his mouth and cheek.