Black human shrubbery bent forward III the square pit; a thousand eyes gleaming like jet spangles against the cyclorama of black looked on with hushed attention. On the roped raft under the sharp light, pale and dark flesh see-sawed, tugged, strained, wrenched, pounded, staggered dizzily and blindly sputtered back and forth like sparks in a candle flame, with the white wick of the referee’s arm always breaking them up.

Round after round of this remorseless, unrelenting impact. Charlie was crouched back in his chair, hands clenched over his knees in a sweaty grip. Babe’s face was a grave mask. The colored boy had had the best of it since that cannon-cracker first round.

A crash of flesh! The jungle was on its haunches again in a fury of noise, like smashing locomotives. The white body was pitched into the ropes and Joe Hastings rushed at it to pound it into unconsciousness. Charlie went pale with agony. Babe did not stir; her face was like cold steel.

Hastings swung and missed as the Bearcat dropped to his knees. The Bearcat staggered out to the open space, Hastings bearing down on him mercilessly. Lunging, swaying, zig-zagging Bearcat drifted along the ropes, Hastings doggedly following with desperate swings and uppercuts.

The din was ear-splitting. Bearcat suddenly stood firm in the center of the ring, set for one supreme effort. A straight left crashed into the astonished black body. Hastings sank slowly to the canvas but not before a smashing right had crossed to the jaw. The four slopes quivered with an earthquake that ripped wide cracks in that human mountain of black lava. The referee’s arm pumped up and down with the count. It came to a stop.

Harlem Joe Hastings still slumbered.

The Bearcat’s gloved hand was raised in victory.

Another K.O. was added to his record.

The Bearcat sat in his dressing room, which was jammed with eager questioning reporters, while his trainer and seconds were applying gauze bandages to his battered body. His face was scraped to red round-steak, one eye shut tight, lips swollen out of shape; and chest skinned in entirety in the desperate punishment he took during the last round. He merely nodded his head, yes or no, to the barrage of questions hurled at him by the sports writers.

“Will you challenge at once for the middleweight crown?”

A nod, “Yes.”

“If you win the middleweight championship will you draw the color line?”

A shake of the head, “No.”

“Are you hurt much?” from a cub reporter.

The Bearcat tried his best to laugh.

“Will you marry?”

The door opened and Babe entered. The reporters crowded around her. Bearcat’s one good eye smiled as big as it could. He reached out his right arm to her—the lamp post that had piled up Harlem Joe on the curbing. Babe smiled and patted his cheek. The reporters climbed about her.

“Are you his sweetheart?”