Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 198: what you’re looking at

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

196 challenges,” he said. “But if I could stage a bout between headliners like McGuire and you, I could clean up a pile. There’s a lot of oil millionaires ’round this country, and there wouldn’t be no labor in gettin’ a gate of twenty thousand.” “Tt ain’t the challenge that counts,” replied Abe, sagely. ‘‘Boxin’ is a business, like everything else. If you can put up purse enough, I wouldn’t wonder but what McGuire would listen to you.” “Maybe,” answered Burgess. “But, you see, you couldn’t make the weight.” Abe laughed tolerantly. “IT can train down as low as Marty can, at that,” he grinned. “If you want to, Dinky, you can publish in the papers that there never was a time when I couldn’t give that slob five pounds in the weight and knock him cold if only I could run as fast as him. You tell your friend, the sportin’ editor, what I say, and remark that, if necessary, I’ll pay McGuire five hundred cases to get between the ropes with me, and let him have the gate, if that’s the only way to do it. “Just say I said that the time I knocked him down in N’Orleans wasn’t no fluke like he said, but that I could ha’ done it again in every round—only he was cryin’ on my shoulder in the clinches and beggin’ me to let him stay the limit, and I didn’t have the heart to hit him hard again. After that gets to Marty, and you come over with a good offer, maybe there’ll be something doin’ with him.” “T reckon that’d make him red-headed!”’ chuckled Burgess. ‘“‘If he bites at that, I can promise you the split of ten thousand between you.”’ ‘““Well,”’ said Young Kelly, as he rose and picked up his suit-case, in an apparent afterthought carelessly stuffing the wad of money in his pocket, “I wouldn’t say it’d actually rile him up. In this business it don’t pay to be too hot-headed. But if there’s a liberal purse and enough notice of the fuss in the papers, there’d ought to be something stirring. But—” he frowned upon the promoter—“‘this’ll be a certified check deposited before the fight and nothin’ like a paper guarantee.” “If you can get me a rise outa Marty McGuire,” said Burgess fervently, “‘T’ll stand ready to put up the cash in gold double eagles if you want it that way!” “Well, I’ve given the challenge and you Adventure know what I think of him,” said Abe in- differently. ‘It’s up to you to lay the bait where he can smell it.” He then sauntered out of the room and made his way to the street and down it to his hotel, his hat set jauntily on one side and his features looking tolerantly and with good nature on the surroundings. The young man of Fort Jones who had been his second followed him at a respect- ful distance, and wondered if he would ever achieve such distinction in the fistic field as would cause the loss of four hundred and forty-seven dollars and fifty cents to appear like a mere nothing. II SS four hours to carry a letter, under normal conditions, from Fort Jones IT TAKES the mails about twenty- to St. Louis. Ina little less than three days, ' if the correspondent is prompt, an answer may be expected. This fact explains why Abe Bernstein, for the ensuing week, showed no disposition to forsake the environs of Fort Jones. A correspondence of some importance was going on between himself and a party in the latter city, and, until it was completed, he had no intention of moving. The hotel was a good one, and he com- manded money enough to make his stay comfortable. His composition expended considerable energy, for he was not a ready penman, and the hour or more that he spent in the writing-room of the hotel on that first night and the periods of literary activity that followed cost him more real effort than all. the exercise that he took in Riley’s gymnasium, where he kept up a pretense of training. The result was the following production. This was a letter addressed to John Simpson in St. Louis: FrreND HOty: You heard by this time that I put away this here Kid Walcott in the seventh, which same wouldn’t be no news to you because he’s a cheese and a rank one at that. But I reckon you wouldn’t know that Dinky Burgess put it over me on the guarantee, because you wouldn’t think I could ever be that ey as to go on without seeing the cash in my fist rst. But then you never been in this burg and you ain’t seen the way they bulge around the hip pocket, and if there wasn’t more than a couple hundred sports in the crowd, if you’d ’a’ searched them I bet you’d got more than a bushel of gatlings COMmMichoooks (©