Target Practice

It’s Science that Counts

“I guess I never could learn to do that,” Peter Boley, the grocer, declared admiringly. Jone Simmons, to whom the remark was addressed, paused to clear his brow of perspiration, which came from the strenuous exercise of knocking a leather punching bag from one side to another of an inverted board platform about four feet square, suspended from the ceiling.

“It ain’t half as hard as hittin’ a man,” he observed, as one who should know.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Boley objected. “I guess you wouldn’t have much trouble hittin’ me.”

Jone Simmons seemed to find this observation absurd. “I meant a fightin’ man,” he explained. “Of course I could probably floor you maybe once a minute. But you take a man that’s had training and studied the science, and maybe I could hit him and maybe I couldn’t. I’m not what I used to be.”

“Well, you’re mighty quick at knockin’ that bag around,” declared the grocer, moving his cigar from the right corner of his mouth to the left. “I wish you’d teach me some day. I was saying to Harry Vawter last week, it’s too bad there’s not somebody in town could put on the gloves with you, and we could have a regular match at the Annual Picnic.”

“Huh!” Simmons snorted. “I guess there’s nobody would want to take that job. I’m not what I used to be, but you can see I’m still a little too lively for anybody in Holtville.”

He hauled off and gave the punching bag a smash that caused it to rebound madly back and forth against the boards.

In order to avoid a misconception, it is best to explain at once that Jone Simmons was not, and never had been, a pugilist. He ran the only hardware store in Holtville, Ohio, whither he had come three or four years before from some town up the river, and in action he was the most peaceful and easy-going citizen imaginable. Within two weeks after his coming to Holtville everybody in town knew him and liked him — all me more because his predecessor in the hardware store had been the most unpopular member of the community.

Jone Simmons had only one weakness in conversation, and that a mild one. The subject was fistic prowess, or more correctly, fistic science; and particularly the fistic science of Jone Simmons. No sooner had he got the stock inventoried and in place in the hardware store than he put up a punching bag in the back room; and Peter Boley, the grocer next door, led to investigate by mysterious and insistent thumpings which he could not logically connect with the hardware trade, had been me first to discover this curious fad of the new inhabitant of Holtville.

He found, as all Holtville did later, that Jone was anything but averse to talk on the subject. He told stories of himself. It appeared that in his youth he had been a pretty bad customer. He wished he had a nickel for every nose he’d broke before he was twenty. Now that he was twice that age, of course he wasn’t as spry as formerly, but still it was science that counted — bang! against the punching bag.

Then Jone would produce an old number of the Police Gazette containing an article by Bob Fitzsimmons on the relative merits of the uppercut and the half-swing.

When midsummer came Jone’s fame was such that he was invited to give a punching bag exhibition at the Eleventh Annual Picnic of the Holtville Merchants’ Association, and the performance had proven so popular that it was repeated the two following summers.

It must not be thought that Jone made use of his prowess in any unjust or cruel manner. He was no bully. Two or three of his fellow townsmen had at one time or another put on the gloves with him to learn something of the defensive art, but they had frankly been scared half to death by Jone’s professional attitudes and gestures, and he had merely dealt them gentle taps on the chest as they danced around with their hands waving frantically to and fro in front of their faces.

Nobody in Holtville wanted to “go up against” Jone Simmons.

One afternoon in the early part of July Pete Boley, the grocer, entered Simmon’s hardware store with his face alight with the excitement of discovery.

“Hello, Pete, where you been since noon?” called Simmons from the rear of the store, where he was wrapping up a package of nails for Mrs. Pearl’s little boy.

When the customer had gone the grocer approached and said with the importance of one who brings news:

“Jonas, our picnic is going to be a bigger success this year than ever before.”

“What’s up?” demanded Simmons, stopping to pick up a nail and throw it in the bin.

“Something new and good,” declared the grocer. “I guess they won’t be sorry they chose me chairman of the entertainment committee.”

“You goin’ to have a circus?”

“No. Wait till I tell you. I was just down to Bill Ogilvy’s store. Went down to get some muslin for the Missis. You know, Bill has a new fellow in there clerkin’ for him, a fellow named Notter that he got from Columbus about a week ago. Well, this Notter waited on me, and I noticed he lifted down a big bolt of muslin, must have weighed thirty pounds, just like it was a feather.

“ ‘You must be pretty strong,’ says I.

“He just nodded, measuring off the muslin. “ ‘Funny, too, because you don’t get much exercise in a job like this,’ says I.

“ ‘I don’t need it,’ he says, looking at me. ‘I’ve always been strong. I’m an athlete. I was amateur champion of Columbus once.’

“ ‘Champion of what?’ I asked.

“ ‘Why, just champion,’ he says. ‘Lightweight champion. I licked everybody in town under a hundred and forty pounds.’ ”

At this point the grocer broke off his narrative to ask the other abruptly:

“How much do you weigh, Jonas?”

“About a hundred and thirty-seven,” Simmons replied. His voice was rather low.

“I thought so. Well, this Notter got started talkin’. Bill Ogilvy came up and he told both of us about how he was champion down at Columbus. That was some years ago. There was one man he knocked clear out of the ropes, he said, and he was unconscious for two days. Of course I was thinkin’ of you all the time.

“Finally I says to him, ‘Well, Mr. Notter, I’m mighty glad you come to Holtville. You’ve come just in time to give us a boxing match at our Merchants’ Association Annual Picnic’

“ ‘But there’s nobody in Holtville to box with,’ he says.

“ ‘Oh yes there is,’ says I, ‘there’s Jone Simmons that runs the hardware store. He knocks a punching bag two hours every day. You ought to see him! He’ll box with you and welcome.’

“ ‘Well,’ says he, ‘I’d just as soon knock his block off as anybody else’s, but I have to be here in the store every day and evening too, and I wouldn’t have time to train.’

“ ‘That’s all right, Mr. Notter,’ Bill Ogilvy puts in. ‘I reckon I can hold the fort here an hour or so every day so you can have time for training. I’ll be more than paid for it by seeing you and Jone Simmons box.’

“So we fixed it up,” the grocer concluded. “Bill and I didn’t know anything about the rules or anything, but Mr. Notter helped us. It’s to be a match for ten rounds, with six ounce gloves. I told ’em you’d have some in the store. To tell the truth, Jonas, I don’t like this fellow from Columbus very much, and I’ll be right glad to see you kind of hurt him a little.”

The grocer finished. A silence followed. Simmons had opened a showcase and was carefully picking an assortment of files and wrenches from a box and putting them into another one exactly similar. The operation appeared to interest him intently.

“What kind of a lookin’ man is this Mr. Notter?” he asked finally, without looking up.

“Oh, medium-like,” was the reply. “About your size, I guess; maybe a little bigger. He’s got a mustache and he looks kind of pinched in the face, but he’s got a good muscle on him. He rolled up his sleeve and showed us.

I should say he’s about thirty-eight or nine, maybe a little older.”

Simmons was silent.

“Of course you’ll have to train,” continued the grocer. “He’s goin’ to.”

“Of course,” Simmons agreed. His tone was entirely without enthusiasm. After a moment he added thoughtfully: “You know, Peter, maybe it wouldn’t be wise to have a boxing match at the picnic after all. It’s a mighty brutal thing, and all the children will be there — it’s a bad example—”

“But it’s not exactly a fight,” the grocer protested. “It’s an exhibition. It’s more like science. You ain’t exactly goin’ to hurt each other.”

Simmons shook his head dubiously. “I don’t know. Of course I know it’s science, but you must remember there might be an accident. For instance, say I aim an uppercut for his cheek and it happened to hit his jaw instead. The jaw’s a dangerous spot, Peter. It might kill him.”

“Shucks, you’re not going to hit as hard as all that,” the grocer snorted. “You ain’t going to be mad.”

“No,” Simmons agreed slowly, “no, we’re not going to be mad.”

“It’ll do me children good,” declared Peter Boley heartily. “I’ve often heard you say every boy ought to know how to fight without pullin’ hair and kickin’. I tell you, Jonas, it’ll be the greatest attraction we ever had at Holtville. I stopped in at Riley’s, and Harry Vawters on the way up and told ’em about it, and they each gave five dollars more for the refreshment fund. Why, people’ll come from all over the county just to see it. Holtville is going to be proud of you, Jonas!”

And at that, fired by this flattery and rosy vision of the glory to come, Simmons closed the showcase with a bang.

“All right, Peter,” said he, firmly. “I’ll begin training tomorrow.”

By the following afternoon the boxing match between Jone Simmons and Bill Ogilvy’s new clerk was the only topic of conversation on Holtville’s street.

Almost at once, much to Peter Boley’s painful surprise, opposition made itself felt. The Ladies’ Reading Circle, at their weekly meeting on the following Wednesday, passed resolutions condemning the projected match in unmeasured terms. The most striking phrase of the document was that which referred to the affair as a “brutal, inhuman and degrading exhibition of the lowest instinct in man.”

In a body, reinforced by the pastor of the Methodist Church, they carried the resolution, carefully typewritten by the pastor, to Peter Boley in his capacity as Chairman of the Entertainment Committee of the Merchants’ Association at Holtville.

Poor Boley was flabbergasted out of speech. By pure luck Harry Vawter, the druggist, happened to be there at the time, and he spoke as follows:

“Ladies, this isn’t going to be a fight. It is a scientific exhibition by two gentlemen, one of whom has been known and respected in this city for three years. There will be blows struck, but purely in the interests of science. There may even be a bloody nose, but that happens when your little boy falls against the woodbox, so it cannot justly be termed brutal. Mr. Boley and myself, as a majority of the Entertainment Committee, must respectfully refuse your request.”

The indignant ladies departed to argue the matter with their husbands over the supper table, where they met with no better success.

The following morning about nine o’clock the citizens of Holtville were astonished to see a man with his legs bare to his knees and his arms and shoulders entirely so, clad apparently in white muslin drawers and an abbreviated shirt of the same material, run down the length of Main Street at a goodly pace, looking neither to right nor left, and turn at the end into the lane that led to the country. His hair streamed in the wind behind him and his bristly moustache poked ahead.

Holtville gasped.

“It’s Mr. Notter getting up his wind,” explained Slim Pearl, the barber, standing in the door of his shop with a shaving mug in his hand. “Looks like he’d have to take off eight or nine pounds.”

Jone Simmons, letting down the awning in front of his hardware store, stopped and turned to watch the runner go by. Then, happening to encounter the grin on the face of Peter Boley, whose grocery was next door, he hastily turned away and set to work fastening the awning ropes.

An hour later the grocer came in to find his neighbor, naked to the waist, standing before the punching bag with a frown on his face and a book in his hand.

“One thing I’d like to know,” said Boley as he sat down on a nail keg, “how does it help a man to fight to go runnin’ around the country in his underwear?”

The reply was a terrific smash of Simmons’s fist on the punching bag.

“I think that’s it,” said he, disregarding the other’s question. “It says that a full swing on the ear should be landed with one foot drawn back and the body weight thrown all on one side. Watch, Peter. Does this look right?”

He stopped the punching bag from swinging, stepped back, trailed his right foot, lunged forward and swung on the bag with all his might.

“I don’t know whether it’s right or not,” said the grocer feelingly, “but it looks mighty dangerous. I hope, Jonas, you ain’t going to hit Mr. Notter as hard as that.”

“I may not hit him at all,” the other returned gloomily. “I tell you, Peter, I’ve got to have a sparring partner. Nobody ever trained for a fight without one.”

This expression of a need on the part of Simmons led no later than the following afternoon to a regrettable occurrence. Since no one suitable for the position of sparring partner was to be found in Holtville, Peter Boley decided to sacrifice himself for the good of science. They put on the gloves in the back room of the hardware store. Within the first ten seconds Simmons landed a savage swing on the grocer’s nose, and the blood spurted out as from a miniature fountain.

“Good Lord, Jonas, why did you hit so hard?” groaned Peter, holding his face over a basin of water.

“I got to train, haven’t I?” demanded Simmons. “You should have dodged, Peter. You should have sidestepped and countered with your right. Didn’t I tell you that was the defense for a body swing?”

Thenceforth Simmons was forced to get along without a sparring partner. He spent hours daily with the punching bag, and he also indulged in an exercise which he found explained in detail in a chapter of his book on pugilism. Entering the rear of the hardware store one afternoon, Peter Boley found its proprietor, stripped to the waist, dancing madly around in front of a large mirror, making a bewildering succession of lunges and swings and uppercuts at his reflection in the glass.

Simultaneously he skipped agilely from one foot to the other, jerking his head with wary quickness to the right or left and throwing now one arm, now the other, in a defensive position before his face.

“Good Lord, Jonas, what you tryin’ to do?” exclaimed the grocer, halting in astonishment.

“Shadowboxing,” returned Simmons grimly, without stopping to look around.

Thus the month passed, and the eve of the picnic arrived. On that Friday night, a little after ten o’clock, which was quite late for Holtville, Jone Simmons sat alone on a box in the back room of the hardware store, holding his chin in his hands and gazing broodingly at the darkness in a corner of the room. It had been a strenuous month. He had trained hard and long. Lively tales had run down the main street of the town concerning the past glory of the career of Mr. Notter.

The expression on Jone Simmons’s face as he sat there was not one of pleasurable expectation.

“Amateur champion of Columbus,” he mused finally, aloud.

Another brooding silence followed. After a time he rose to put out the light and go upstairs to join his wife in bed, and as he gave a vicious kick at the box on which he had been sitting he spoke again aloud:

“And Columbus is a mighty big town, too!”

The following day all Holtville was up early. The Annual Picnic of the Merchants’ Association was the great outdoor event of the season, having even become of more importance than the Republican Rally. Wellman’s Grove, a little over two miles from the center of the town, was the spot which had served as the scene of festivals for many years, and thither, in wagon and buggy, by auto and on foot, Holtville and the whole countryside made their way on this bright July morning, having first locked their doors and windows and put out the cats.

The families of Jone Simmons and Peter Boley, which included only themselves and wives, since neither had any children, went together in the grocer’s five-passenger gasoline runabout. Boley had already made the trip half a dozen times since six o’clock that morning, carrying sundry paraphernalia for the entertainments and games of the afternoon.

Among them was a clothesline from his own back yard, which, stretched around four stakes driven in the ground to form a square, was to inclose the “ring” for the unique and principal event of the day. Jone Simmons, as he sat on the driver’s seat beside the grocer, held on his knees a carefully wrapped parcel, which contained two sponges, four towels, a set of boxing gloves and his own costume for the encounter.

The costume had been much admired by the two or three select friends who had been permitted a glimpse of it. It had been made by the fair hands of Mrs. Simmons herself from red silk and white-and-blue muslin, and it was an exact replica of the one worn by Jess Willard in his triumph over Jack Johnson, having been copied from a picture discovered by Slim Pearl, the barber, in an old number of the Police Gazette.

Jone Simmons was the center of all eyes that morning at Wellman’s Grove. Farmers from all over the country, some of whom he had never seen before, sought him out and started conversation. Young country girls, fresh-faced and laughing as they strolled past in groups, would glance at him with shyly interested eyes, giving Jone a curiously pleasurable thrill that he had not experienced for years.

As the sun reached the top of the heavens and the grove filled with its hundreds of pleasure seekers, parties were formed to make excursions down the little river, shady and sparkling, that wound its way between grassy banks at one end of the grove, and here and there a group of young men and girls would start some country game.

Jone was surprised out of speech when one such group broke up at his approach and ran to ask him to join the fun in “drop the handkerchief.” It was their tribute to a fighting man.

Among the men there was only one topic of conversation. Politics and crops were put aside for once to discuss the great event of the afternoon, and more often than not the discussions warmed into arguments. Slim Pearl, the barber, having witnessed several professional prize fights in Cincinnati, suddenly assumed a new importance, being called upon to settle endless disputes on some nice point or other of the technicalities of pugilism. As far as the outcome of the match was concerned, opinion was pretty much one way; nearly everybody favored the chances of Simmons as against the newcomer from Columbus, and there was very little betting.

It was well toward noon before Simmons caught his first glimpse that day of his opponent. He had approached a group of men who appeared to be in the midst of an animated discussion, and suddenly, in the center of the group, he saw a medium-sized, bare-headed man with a little bristly mustache and sharp gray eyes.

It was Mr. Notter. He was talking in a half-bored, half-lively sort of manner with the farmers and village men who had garnered about him.

“He looks mighty cheerful,” muttered Simmons to himself, turning hastily away before Mr. Notter should see him.

It is time now to admit that Simmons himself was far from being cheerful. It would be unjust perhaps to say that he had any feeling of fear, but he was at least mentally uncomfortable.

As he walked away from the group which contained

Mr. Notter toward the other end of the grove, where preparations were in progress for the picnic feast, a feeling of indignation mounted slowly and steadily within him. What did Peter Boley mean by dragging him into this thing, anyway? Of course, he thought bitterly, it meant nothing to Peter; it meant nothing to all these people, gathered together from a morbid curiosity to see the flowing of blood; they weren’t going to stand roped in a ten-foot ring and let an ex-champion of Columbus smash them in the face! He hated them.

How absurd it was, anyway, for two grown men to deliberately set about punching each other! Perfectly silly. Oh, what an awful fool he had been to let it go so far as this! The scorn of the whole country would fall on his head if he should back out now. He gritted his teeth. He would have to see it through!

What an ugly look there was about that fellow Notter’s eyes... Sort of bestial... Perhaps he had been a professional!...

These were the thoughts that coursed through Simmons’s head throughout the picnic feast, to which all were soon summoned by the jangling of a string of cowbells. He couldn’t eat, and he hated the others for eating. How utterly heartless they seemed, laughing and talking and munching their sandwiches and pickles and cake! Didn’t they realize the seriousness of a fistic contest between two trained men? Didn’t they know that a full swing on the jaw, scientifically delivered, was very apt to prove fatal?

After the feast the program of amusements began. There was a potato race and a bag race and other games and contests peculiar to the country. Simmons stood aside, leaning against a tree, trying to remain unnoticed. He felt faint, as though if he didn’t lean against something he would be unable to stand. Really, he didn’t feel well.

He was telling himself fiercely that he was no coward. It wasn’t that. He just thought it was silly, and anyway he shouldn’t be expected to fight an ex-champion. Probably Mr. Notter knew just how to land a blow so as to knock a man out.

Suddenly he heard Peter Boley’s stentorian tones calling out:

“This way, entries for the greased pig contest! This way, entries for the greased pig contest!”

Simmons felt an immense lump rise in his throat. The greased pig contest! According to the program of the Entertainment Committee, the boxing match was to follow that. The hour had come!

He heard his name pronounced from behind. He turned and saw Harry Vawter, the druggist.

“Come on, Jonas, you’d better get ready while they’re running down the pig. Here’s your stuff. Peter told me to help you. We’ve got the ring all fixed, buckets and towels and sponges and everything. Slim Pearl’s putting down the sawdust now.”

Simmons got himself clear of the tree. Over toward the middle of the grove he saw the ring on a raised platform, surrounded by a crowd of the curious, not to be pulled away even by anything so exciting as a greased pig contest. And people were standing around, looking at him.

“Where’s Mr. Notter?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

“He’s gone over to the shanty to get ready,” replied Vawter. “Come on, here’s your stuff. You can dress over in the tent.”

“All right; but I’m going down to the creek first.”

“You’ll have to hurry.”

“I’ll be back in a minute. Go on over to the tent and wait for me. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Simmons had been seized by panic. Was the ghastly thing really going to happen? He must have a minute to think.

He walked down toward the little river. The path there was almost deserted, since the greased pig contest was on the other side of the grove. He reached the bank and stood looking down at the clear, rippling water. Vawter had said he would have to hurry — the time had actually come — in twenty minutes now, maybe fifteen, he would be standing in that roped-off ring, with that brutal Notter facing him, waiting for a chance to land a fatal blow—

He looked around. There was nobody in sight. He sneaked slowly down the bank of the creek, away from the grove. He began to walk faster, glancing back over his shoulder. Still there was nobody in sight.

He broke into a run.

He ran with short, jerky steps, on his tiptoes, almost noiselessly, and every minute he ran faster. Soon he left the bank of the creek, for that was dangerous — some of the picnickers might be rowing and see him — and broke into the woods to the left. Then he left caution behind and went forward in great, broad leaps, like a startled jackrabbit. He stumbled over logs and was scratched in the face by low-hanging branches, but he paid no attention to these things. He dashed blindly on.

At length, figuring that he had left the grove and the roped ring at least a mile behind, he came to a halt in the midst of a tiny clearing surrounded by trees and shrubbery. He glanced warily in every direction, and for a full minute he stood perfectly still, listening intently. The only sound was the cry of blackbirds from above the woods. Exhausted, panting, he sank down on the grass and stretched himself out to rest and think.

He had ran away. All right, he said to himself fiercely, what of it? What was anybody going to do about it? Of course he had ran away. Who wouldn’t? If everybody was so anxious to see a fight, why didn’t they fight themselves? They’d laugh at him, would they? Well, they wouldn’t laugh very long. He’d leave Holtville, that’s what he’d do. He’d never liked the town very well, anyhow.

One thing, he’d like to hear anybody say he was a coward. He’d just like to hear ’em. He’d smash their face, that’s what he’d do. In fact, if he was back there right now he’d walk up to Mr. Notter and smash his face. That was different from letting ’em rope you in a ring. That’s what he should have done in the first place.

The day Peter Boley came and told him that Bill Ogilvy’s new clerk had said he’d box him at the Annual Picnic he should have gone right down to Bill Ogilvy’s store and walked up to Mr. Notter and said to him, “So you want to fight me, do you?” and smashed him in the face. That would have been—

At this point the course of Simmons’s thoughts was abruptly halted. He heard a noise somewhere to the right — no, the left. A sound of something moving.

Instantly he was on the alert. He rose cautiously to his hands and knees and crawled across the grass to the shrubbery. Noiselessly pulling a branch aside, he looked through—

And found himself face to face with Mr. Notter!

Simmons stopped short, squatting there on his hands and knees, gazing into Mr. Notter’s eyes not three feet away. Mr. Notter, too, appeared to be startled out of speech. He had forced his way half through the shrubbery, when the apparition of Simmons burst suddenly upon him, and now he stood there, surrounded by the leaves and branches, with a stupid, amazed stare in his usually keen eyes, like a steer that has just been felled with an ax.

For several seconds the two men gazed at each other, silent and motionless. Suddenly a new look flashed into the eyes of each; a look of comprehension, of mutual understanding.

“Hello,” said Jone Simmons weakly.

Mr. Notter nodded. Then he removed his eyes from the other’s face to glance hastily behind him, as though he contemplated retreat. But appearing to think better of it, he moved forward instead, pushed his way through the tangled shrubbery and stood within the clearing. Simultaneously Simmons backed in again and rose to his feet.

“Hello,” said Mr. Notter then, as though he had just remembered that he had not returned the other’s greeting.

Simmons nodded. There was a silence. Suddenly a grin appeared on Mr. Notter’s face. He looked about him for a nice grassy spot, selected one near the trunk of a tree at the edge of the clearing and deliberately sat down on it, stretching his legs out comfortably and leaning against the tree.

“Very nice here,” he observed pleasantly.

Simmons felt that he didn’t want to sit down. He thought that he would feel silly if he sat down, and he tried to think of something else to do. No go. He couldn’t very well stand there like a man ready to run.

So he sat down, somewhat abruptly, a little distance away. He was trying to decide whether he ought to reply to Mr. Notter’s observations. After all, there was no reason why he shouldn’t.

“Nice and shady,” he declared, plucking a blade of grass and placing it between his teeth.

All at once a great burst of laughter came from Mr. Notter. He kicked up his heels and roared. He rocked to and fro, shaking all over, reveling in mirth, waking the forest.

“What you laughin’ at?” Simmons demanded.

“Oh, all them people,” the other managed to get out between gasps.

“All what people?”

“Why, back there waitin’ and lookin’ for us. Waitin’ to see a bloody nose. And here we sit, laughin’ at ’em!”

“Well, if you’re going to make so much noise they’ll soon find us,” Simmons observed. But he grinned in spite of himself. It was funny. He could see Peter Boley and Slim Pearl and the rest running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

“It’s queer we should both come to the same spot,” observed Mr. Notter presently. “One of life’s calm incidents.”

That was the way Simmons understood it at first, then he realized that the other had meant to say “coincidences.” He nodded in agreement. But another thought was occupying his mind, and after a moment he gave it speech.

“You know,” he said abruptly, “if I was an ex-champion I think I’d just as soon fight as not.”

“So would I,” chuckled Mr. Notter.

“But you are,” Simmons objected in surprise.

“You mean what I told old Boley,” the other grinned. “I was just stringin’ him. I used to belong to an athletic club, all right. Up in Columbus.”

“Then you wasn’t a fighter?”

“Not so as you could notice it.”

Silence. Simmons cursed himself mentally. This was the kind of man he had run away from! A liar and braggart! A bag of wind! He, Jone Simmons, man of science, absolute master of the punching bag, had run away from this little, white-faced city dry-goods clerk!

“Of course,” he said contemptuously, “then it’s not much wonder you was afraid to fight.”

“I didn’t say I was afraid,” returned Mr. Notter, glancing at him. “I just didn’t want to.”

“Well, it’s easy enough to see why you didn’t want to.”

“I don’t know whether it is or not.”

“I do.”

“I don’t.”

Simmons opened his mouth to say “I do” again, but reflected that the remark would seem pointless on repetition. He substituted another—

“Anyhow, you run away.”

“I suppose you didn’t,’ retorted Mr. Notter sarcastically.

“That’s my business.”

“And mine’s mine.”

“If I did come away it wasn’t because I was afraid of you, I tell you that!”

Mr. Notter laughed coldly. “No,” he returned, “I suppose you was afraid of the greased pig.”

Simmons rose to his knees, trembling a little. “Are you lookin’ for trouble?” he demanded.

“What if I am?” retorted the other crushingly.

“I say, are you lookin’ for trouble?”

“And I say what if I am?”

“You coward, you, are you lookin’ for trouble?”

Mr. Notter’s face grew suddenly red. “I’m a coward, am I?” His voice was raised hoarsely. “That’s a lie!”

There was a silence. A tense, pendent silence, while the two men, glaring at each other, breathed heavily. And then, surprising even himself by the suddenness of it, Jone Simmons lunged forward and swung at Mr. Notter’s jaw. A vicious, full swing, and it nearly hit him.

“You would, would you?” Mr. Notter cried furiously, leaping to his feet. Simmons followed him. But before he could get set for another blow Mr. Notter had reached out and grasped his hair with both hands, jerking with all his strength.

“Wow!” screamed Simmons, tears of pain starting to his eyes. He drew back his right foot and delivered a well-placed-kick on the other’s shin. It had the desired effect. He felt the grasp on his hair loosen.

The next moment he had jumped forward to throw his arms around Mr. Notter’s neck, and together the two men went to the ground in a savage embrace.

They landed with Simmons on top, but Mr. Notter somehow got hold of his ear and pulled him beneath, wriggling out from under. Both were kicking frantically, and Simmons managed to get a hand fastened in the other’s hair. He was at a disadvantage there, for Mr. Notter’s scalp was not sensitive.

Over and over they rolled on the grass from one side of the clearing to the other and back again, pulling hair, scratching, kicking, both boiling with rage. Once they rolled against a tree, knocking Simmons’s head against the trunk, and he thought the other had hit him.

“You damn coward!” he yelled.

He released his hold around his opponent’s neck, doubled his fists and pushed them savagely against Mr. Notter’s nose. That brought first blood for Simmons, and moved Mr. Notter, wild with fury, to superhuman efforts. He wriggled on top and pinned Simmons down with his knees, and began raining blows all over his face.

More blood. Simmons felt it on his face and thought he was being killed. With a sudden mighty upheaving of his body he unseated his opponent and sent him tumbling to one side, and then rolled over on top of him.

Again they closed in an embrace, each with his fingers fastened in the other’s hair.

“Leggo my hair!” screamed Simmons in agony.

“You leggo mine!” yelled Mr. Notter in return.

Simmons pulled harder, but it was quite evident even to his frenzied brain that his opponent’s scalp was the toughest part of him. Accordingly, he released his hold on Mr. Notter’s hair and gripped his nose instead. He clutched the nose, sore and bleeding, with the fingers of both hands, and jerked it savagely from right to left and back again.

Mr. Notter emitted a fearful yell, but pulled harder on the hair, rolling over meantime so that he was on top. In desperate fury Simmons let go of the nose and closed his fingers around the other’s throat.

“Let go my hair!” he screamed again, blinded with tears.

Mr. Notter began to gurgle, and his grasp weakened. They began to roll again, first one on top and then the other, mad with frenzy. Simmons got his knuckles against Mr. Notter’s eye and bored in with them, twisting his fist from side to side. Mr. Notter jerked away and butted his forehead against Simmons’s nose, causing the blood to spurt afresh.

Simmons let out an awful oath and began pounding his opponent’s face with both fists — his eyes, his nose, his mouth. They rolled over once, twice, toward a tree at the edge of the clearing, Mr. Notter coming out on top.

They were both about exhausted by that time, and the end would have come soon in any event, but the chance of their rolling close to the tree hastened it.

Mr. Notter reached out again for Simmons’s hair; Simmons, anticipating the maneuver, closed his fingers firmly around the other’s nose; Mr. Notter jerked violently backward to free himself, his head struck against the trunk of the tree, and he rolled over limp and unconscious.

For a moment Simmons didn’t know what had happened. But as he saw his opponent lying there beside him still and motionless, comprehension came, and he was seized with a sudden, terrible fright. He scrambled frantically to his feet. Mr. Notter was dead! He had killed him! Good heavens! He stood looking at the prostrate form in speechless horror, scarcely able to keep on his feet from fatigue and the exhaustion of rage—

“Here they are!” came a sudden shout from behind.

Simmons jumped half out of his skin, whirled around and saw a man pushing his way through the shrubbery into the clearing. It was Peter Boley.

“Here they are!” Boley shouted again, and Simmons heard answering calls from the wood in all directions.

The grocer entered the clearing, and his glance fell on the form of Mr. Notter on the ground; as he looked it stirred a little.

“Here they are!” he shouted a third time. “Come quick! Quick! Jonas has knocked him out!”

Toward noon of the following day Peter Boley and Jone Simmons were seated talking in the back room of the hardware store. Simmons looked considerably the worse for wear. His nose was swollen to twice its usual size, there was a bandage over one eye and innumerable scratches made his face look something like a railroad map.

Still his expression, as far as it could be ascertained underneath these disfigurements, was not exactly unhappy.

“It’s not that I blame you for, Jonas,” Peter Boley was saying. “If you and Mr. Notter decided to go off in the woods together and fight it out because there was too many women and children around, I don’t blame you a bit. When you found out you was mad at each other, that was the only thing to do. But what I say is, you might have let some of us come along — at least Slim Pearl and Harry Vawter and me. You might have told us. By jumpers, Jonas, I tell you I wouldn’t of missed that fight for twenty dollars! It must of been an awful blow when you knocked him out. He didn’t come to for five minutes. A swing on the jaw, eh?”

Simmons nodded negligently. “He put up an awful good fight,” he admitted magnanimously. “He’s no slouch, Peter, I tell you that. I guess it was the hardest fight I ever had. He’s stronger than I am.

“But,” he added, producing a plug of tobacco, “you see how much good it did him. It’s science that counts!”