Adventure Magazine Cover — page 135: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Weak Spot stepped back and swung rights and lefts so fast it was difficutt for the eye to follow them. At least half his blows registered. He cut Lynn’s lip with a left hook and bruised his eye with a straight right. Lynn revenged himself with a short-arm right jab on the jaw that rocked McCrady. Time and time again Lynn tried to land his famous left jab and failed every time. McCrady was particularly alert for Lynn’s left. When the gong separated them both were breathing freely. ‘Take it easy next time,” Ward advised during the intermission. ‘Save your wind; that’s your weak spot.” McCrady took the advice. Lynn’s or- ders were no doubt similar, for the third round was a round of feinting and bluffing, with few telling blows landed. The fourth round was considerably faster, due to Lynn, who waded in as if bent on a knockout. The fourth roun@ was plainly Lynn’s. “Muzzle his wind, Tommy,” whispered Trimble to his man while they were waiting for the gong to call the fifth round. “T notice he’s breathin’ kinda hard. An’ don’t forget the li’l old throat racket. Needn’t be afraid of Slater; he’s spendin” my money. ‘There’s the bell.” The fifth round was rampant with fouls; fouls so palpably evident that even the fans howled against them. Three times Lynn forced a clinch purposedly in order to choke off McCrady’s wind with the heel of his glove pressed against McCrady’s mouth and nose. Each time this occurred Ward screamed to the referee to take notice, but no notice was taken. McCrady broke from the third clinch without any interference from the referee and sent a left swing against the side of his opponent’s head. The blow whirled Lynn clean around and he fell back into clinch again. He threw his left arm about McCrady’s shoulders, a foul that with an honest referee would have forfeited the fight to McCrady instantly, and brought his right forearm against McCrady’s throat and began to saw back and forth. McCrady’s wind was immediately shut off and the pain of the sawing-was intense. By sheer force of will alone he beat Lynn off with several terrific short-arm jolts with his right to Lynn’s stomach. But the damage was done. “Now Pll get you, you fates alarm!”’ snarled Lynn as they broke. 9 129 McCrady was gasping for breath. The choking had dazed him. Hazily he saw Lynn’s left fist shooting straight for his stomach. But coordination between brain and muscle had not been broken down. McCrady stooped a little to save his stom- ach and take the blow on a less vulnerable spot. Lynn’s fist landed with the force of a pile driver against McCrady’s chest. The breath left McCrady’s lungs in a wheezing belch. He sank to his knees and sprawled face down on the canvas. ““One——two three——” As if from an immeasurable distance he heard the voice of the referee counting him out, and Chick Ward’s hoarse voice cursing Slater for cganting too fast. But he felt that he would never be able to rise unas- sisted. The pain in his chest was excrucia- ting, unbearable. Time was when the hardest blow on the chest would not have feazed him. He had not been sufficiently hardened in the thirty days Trimble had allowed him for training. He made a heroic effort to get up and fell back again. “Four five——six a2 That devilish counting never stopped. The words beat against his ears like the thump of a trip hammer. He heard the audience yelling and screaming and groan- ing, “Up, Kid! For the love of heaven get up!” Ward bawled at him through the din. He struggled to his knees and got one foot flat on the canvas, and there he paused o suck a big breath of air into his panting lungs. The air was foul with tobacco smoke, stifling, but it was precious air, something to inflate his lungs. Objects appeared but dimly before his eyes. He saw the referee’s pumping arm; he saw Tommy Lynn standing before him ready to smash him down again the instant he rose erect; he saw thousands of white, anxious faces, chief of which was the plead- ing face of Chick Ward. And floating far up there under the roof in a fog of tobacco smoke he saw a vision of Kitty McCrady, her soft lips twisted into a jeering smile and her eves taunting him. ‘Seven eight nine——” An effort that was nothing short of superhuman brought him to his feet. Lynn leaped at him tigerishly. By a lucky cast of his arms he got hold of Lynn and hugged him desperately. Lynn cursed him COMnmicloooKxs (E@)