They had been counting out the man whom Barbara Harding had once loved!—­the man she had thought the bravest in the world!—­they were making a monkey and a coward of him!  He’d show them!

The “white hope” was waiting for him.  Billy was scarce off his knees before the man rushed at him wickedly, a smile playing about his lips.  It was to be the last of that smile, however.  Billy met the rush with his old familiar crouch, and stopped his man with a straight to the body.

Cassidy saw it and almost smiled.  He didn’t think that Billy could come back—­but at least he was fighting for a minute in his old form.

The surprised “hope” rushed in to punish his presuming foe.  The crowd was silent.  Billy ducked beneath a vicious left swing and put a right to the side of the “hope’s” head that sent the man to his knees.  Then came the gong.

In the third round Billy fought carefully.  He had made up his mind that he would show this bunch of pikers that he knew how to box, so that none might say that he had won with a lucky punch, for Billy intended to win.

The round was one which might fill with delight the soul of the fan who knows the finer points of the game.  And when it was over, while little damage had been done on either side, it left no shadow of a doubt in the minds of those who knew that the unknown fighter was the more skilful boxer.

Then came the fourth round.  Of course there was no question in the minds of the majority of the spectators as to who would win the fight.  The stranger had merely shown one of those sudden and ephemeral bursts of form that occasionally are witnessed in every branch of sport; but he couldn’t last against such a man as the “white hope"!—­they looked for a knock-out any minute now.  Nor did they look in vain.

Billy was quite satisfied with the work he had done in the preceding round.  Now he would show them another style of fighting!  And he did.  From the tap of the gong he rushed his opponent about the ring at will.  He hit him when and where he pleased.  The man was absolutely helpless before him.  With left and right hooks Billy rocked the “coming champion’s” head from side to side.  He landed upon the swelling optics of his victim as he listed.

Thrice he rushed him to the ropes, and once the man fell through them into the laps of the hooting spectators—­only now they were not hooting Billy.  Until the gong Billy played with his man as a cat might play with a mouse; yet not once had he landed a knock-out blow.

“Why didn’t you finish him?” cried Professor Cassidy, as Billy returned to his corner after the round.  “You had ’im goin’ man—­why in the world didn’t yeh finish him?”

“I didn’t want to,” said Billy; “not in that round.  I’m reserving the finish for the fifth round, and if you want to win some money you can take the hunch!”

“Do you mean it?” asked Cassidy.