to a higher grade, so that at twelve he was robbing freight
cars in the yards along Kinzie Street, and it was about this
same time that he commenced to find pleasure in the feel of
his fist against the jaw of a fellow-man.

He had had his boyish scraps with his fellows off and on
ever since he could remember; but his first real fight came
when he was twelve. He had had an altercation with an
erstwhile pal over the division of the returns from some
freight-car booty. The gang was all present, and as words
quickly gave place to blows, as they have a habit of doing
in certain sections of the West Side, the men and boys formed
a rough ring about the contestants.

The battle was a long one. The two were rolling about
in the dust of the alley quite as often as they were upon their
feet exchanging blows. There was nothing fair, nor decent,
nor scientific about their methods. They gouged and bit and
tore. They used knees and elbows and feet, and but for
the timely presence of a brickbat beneath his fingers at the
psychological moment Billy Byrne would have gone down to
humiliating defeat. As it was the other boy went down, and
for a week Billy remained hidden by one of the gang pending
the report from the hospital.

When word came that the patient would live, Billy felt an
immense load lifted from his shoulders, for he dreaded arrest
and experience with the law that he had learned from
childhood to deride and hate. Of course there was the loss
of prestige that would naturally have accrued to him could