Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/382

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

stop Rags and Rags knocks him flat with the butt of the gun. As Garth fell he yanked out his own gun and fired one shot from the ground. He couldn't of aimed, he didn't have time, but Rags dropped like a stone and he was a stone when we reached him—stone dead!

The poor, poor kid—with all he done to me, Rags was unfortunate from birth in a great many ways. His mind was shaped all wrong and when the breaks went against him he didn't have the stuff to fight back fair and you can't foul Fate. Yet that was a tough way to go out. It broke us all up for quite a while.

Well, when the day of my fight with Battling Long arrived it was almost a unexpected visitor. Putting "Judy Punch" on the market had gave me little time for training and I was miles from being in perfect condition when I climbed through the ropes to defend my title for the last time. This ain't a alibi—Long is a good boy, a sweet puncher and a fair fighter. For all I know, he might of been able to take me the best day I ever seen and as I don't know, why, let's say maybe he would of and give him the credit. He's still in the fight game and I ain't. I got a trick worth two of that now!

Before this melee had gone a round I had a sensation I never had before while I was box-fighting. I knew I was going to be trimmed! The thought even struck me that I might be knocked cold, for the first time since I pulled on a padded glove and stepped into the squared circle under the blinding lights to do my stuff. My wind was all shot to pieces and I run to my corner at the bell, blowing like a porpoise and my body a mass