His eyes blazed as he gathered himself together and sprang to his prostrate foe.  He crouched alongside of him, right arm drawn back and ready for a smashing blow the instant Joe should start to rise.  The referee, still bending over and counting with his right hand, shoved Ponta back with his left.  The latter, crouching, circled around, and the referee circled with him, thrusting him back and keeping between him and the fallen man.

“Four—­five—­six—­” the count went on, and Joe, rolling over on his face, squirmed weakly to draw himself to his knees.  This he succeeded in doing, resting on one knee, a hand to the floor on either side and the other leg bent under him to help him rise.  “Take the count!  Take the count!” a dozen voices rang out from the audience.

“For God’s sake, take the count!” one of Joe’s seconds cried warningly from the edge of the ring.  Genevieve gave him one swift glance, and saw the young fellow’s face, drawn and white, his lips unconsciously moving as he kept the count with the referee.

“Seven—­eight—­nine—­” the seconds went.

The ninth sounded and was gone, when the referee gave Ponta a last backward shove and Joe came to his feet, bunched up, covered up, weak, but cool, very cool.  Ponta hurled himself upon him with terrific force, delivering an uppercut and a straight punch.  But Joe blocked the two, ducked a third, stepped to the side to avoid a fourth, and was then driven backward into a corner by a hurricane of blows.  He was exceedingly weak.  He tottered as he kept his footing, and staggered back and forth.  His back was against the ropes.  There was no further retreat.  Ponta paused, as if to make doubly sure, then feinted with his left and struck fiercely with his right with all his strength.  But Joe ducked into a clinch and was for a moment saved.

Ponta struggled frantically to free himself.  He wanted to give the finish to this foe already so far gone.  But Joe was holding on for life, resisting the other’s every effort, as fast as one hold or grip was torn loose finding a new one by which to cling.  “Break!” the referee commanded.  Joe held on tighter.  “Make ’m break!  Why the hell don’t you make ’m break?” Ponta panted at the referee.  Again the latter commanded the break.  Joe refused, keeping, as he well knew, within his rights.  Each moment of the clinch his strength was coming back to him, his brain was clearing, the cobwebs were disappearing from before his eyes.  The round was young, and he must live, somehow, through the nearly three minutes of it yet to run.

The referee clutched each by the shoulder and sundered them violently, passing quickly between them as he thrust them backward in order to make a clean break of it.  The moment he was free, Ponta sprang at Joe like a wild animal bearing down its prey.  But Joe covered up, blocked, and fell into a clinch.  Again Ponta struggled to get free, Joe held on, and the referee thrust them apart.  And again Joe avoided damage and clinched.