“I don't know horses,” Saxon said. “I've never been on one's back, and the only ones I've tried to drive were single, and , or almost falling down, or something. But I'm not afraid of horses. I just love them. I was born loving them, I guess.”  
Billy threw an admiring, glance at her.
 
“That's the stuff. That's what I like in a woman—. Some of the girls I've had out—well, take it from me, they made me sick. Oh, I'm hep to 'em. Nervous, an' trembly, an' , an' wabbly. I reckon they come out on my account an' not for the . But me for the brave kid that likes the ponies. You're the real goods, Saxon, honest to God you are. Why, I can talk like a with you. The rest of 'em make me sick. I'm like a . They don't know nothin', an' they're that scared all the time—well, I guess you get me.”
 
“You have to be born to love horses, maybe,” she answered. “Maybe it's because I always think of my father on his roan war-horse that makes me love horses. But, anyway, I do. When I was a little girl I was drawing horses all the time. My mother always encouraged me. I've a scrapbook mostly filled with horses I drew when I was little. Do you know, Billy, sometimes I dream I actually own a horse, all my own. And lots of times I dream I'm on a horse's back, or driving him.”
 
“I'll let you drive 'em, after a while, when they've worked their edge off. They're pullin' now.—There, put your hands in front of mine—take hold tight. Feel that? Sure you feel it. An' you ain't feelin' it all by a long shot. I don't dast slack, you bein' such a lightweight.”
 
Her eyes sparkled as she felt the pull of the mouths of the beautiful, live things; and he, looking at her, sparkled with her in her delight.
 
“What's the good of a woman if she can't keep up with a man?” he broke out enthusiastically.
 
“People that like the same things always get along best together,” she answered, with a that the joy that was hers at being so spontaneously in touch with him.
 
“Why, Saxon, I've fought battles, good ones, frazzlin' my silk away to beat the band before whisky-soaked, smokin' audiences of rotten fight-fans, that just made me sick clean through. An' them, that couldn't take just one stiff or hook to or stomach, a-cheerin' me an' yellin' for blood. Blood, mind you! An' them without the blood of a in their bodies. Why, honest, now, I'd sooner fight before an audience of one—you for instance, or anybody I liked. It'd do me proud. But them sickenin', sap-headed stiffs, with the grit of rabbits and the silk of mangy ky-yi's, a-cheerin' me—ME! Can you blame me for quittin' the dirty game?—Why, I'd sooner fight before broke-down old plugs of work-horses that's candidates for chicken-meat, than before them rotten bunches of stiffs with nothin' thicker'n water in their , an' Contra Costa water at that when the rains is heavy on the hills.”
 
“I... I didn't know prizefighting was like that,” she , as she released her hold on the lines and sank back again beside him.
 
“It ain't the fightin', it's the fight-crowds,” he defended with instant . “Of course, fightin' hurts a young fellow because it frazzles the silk outa him an' all that. But it's the low-lifers in the audience that gets me. Why the good things they say to me, the praise an' that, is insulting. Do you get me? It makes me cheap. Think of it—booze-guzzlin' stiffs that 'd be afraid to mix it with a sick cat, not fit to hold the coat of any decent man, think of them a-standin' up on their legs an' yellin' an' cheerin' me—ME!”
 
“Ha! ha! What d'ye think of that? Ain't he a ?”
 
A big bulldog, sliding and silently across the street, unconcerned with the team he was avoiding, had passed so close that Prince, baring his teeth like a stallion, his head down against and check in an effort to seize the dog.
 
“Now he's some fighter, that Prince. An' he's natural. He didn't make that reach just for some low-lifer to yell'm on. He just done it outa pure cussedness and himself. That's clean. That's right. Because it's natural. But them fight-fans! Honest to God, Saxon....”
 
And Saxon, glimpsing him sidewise, as he watched the horses and their way on the Sunday morning streets, checking them back suddenly and to avoid two boys coasting across street on a toy , saw in him deeps and , all the magic connotations of , the and hint of rages profound, bleaknesses as cold and far as the stars, as keen as a wolf's and clean as a stallion's, as implacable as a destroying angel's, and youth that was fire and life beyond time and place. She was and fascinated, with the hunger of woman bridging the vastness to him, daring to love him with arms and breast that ached to him, murmuring to herself and through all the halls of her soul, “You dear, you dear.”
 
“Honest to God, Saxon,” he took up the broken thread, “they's times when I've hated them, when I wanted to jump over the ropes and into them, knock-down and drag-out, an' show'm what fightin' was. Take that night with Billy Murphy. Billy Murphy!—if you only knew him. My friend. As clean an' game a boy as ever jumped inside the ropes to take the decision. Him! We went to the Durant School together. We grew up chums. His fight was my fight. My trouble was his trouble. We both took to the fightin' game. They matched us. Not the first time. Twice we'd fought draws. Once the decision was his; once it was mine. The fifth fight of two lovin' men that just loved each other. He's three years older'n me. He's a wife and two or three kids, an' I know them, too. And he's my friend. Get it?
 
“I'm ten pounds heavier—but with heavyweights that 's all right. He can't time an' distance as good as me, an' I can keep set better, too. But he's cleverer an' quicker. I never was quick like him. We both can take punishment, an' we're both two-handed, a wallop in all our fists. I know the kick of his, an' he knows my kick, an' we're both real respectful. And we're even-matched. Two draws, and a decision to each. Honest, I ain't any kind of a who's goin' to win, we're that even.
 
“Now, the fight.—You ain't squeamish, are you?”
 
“No, no,” she cried. “I'd just love to hear—you are so wonderful.”
 
He took the praise with a clear, unwavering look, and without hint of acknowledgment.
 
“We go along—six rounds—seven rounds—eight rounds; an' honors even. I've been timin' his rushes an' straight-leftin' him, an' meetin' his duck with a wicked little right upper-cut, an' he's shaken me on the jaw an' walloped my ears till my head's all singin' an' buzzin'. An' everything lovely with both of us, with a noise like a draw decision in sight. Twenty rounds is the distance, you know.
 
“An' then his bad luck comes. We're just mixin' into a that ain't arrived yet, when he shoots a short hook to my head—his left, an' a real hay-maker if it reaches my jaw. I make a forward duck, not quick enough, an' he lands bingo on the side of my head. Honest to God, Saxon, it's that heavy I see some stars. But it don't hurt an' ain't serious, that high up where the bone's thick. An' right there he finishes himself, for his bad thumb, which I've known since he first got it as a kid fightin' in the sandlot at Tract—he smashes that thumb right there, on my hard head, back into the with an out-twist, an' all the old cords that'd never got strong gets theirs again. I didn't mean it. A dirty trick, fair in the game, though, to make a guy smash his hand on your head. But not between friends. I couldn't a-done that to Bill Murphy for a million dollars. It was a accident, just because I was slow, because I was born slow.
 
“The hurt of it! Honest, Saxon, you don't know what hurt is till you've got a old hurt like that hurt again. What can Billy Murphy do but slow down? He's got to. He ain't fightin' two-handed any more. He knows it; I know it; The knows it; but nobody else. He goes on a-moving that left of his like it's all right. But it ain't. It's hurtin' him like a knife dug into him. He don't dast strike a real blow with that left of his. But it hurts, anyway. Just to move it or not move it hurts, an' every little dab-feint that I'm too wise to guard, knowin' there's no weight behind, why them little dab-touches on that poor thumb goes right to the heart of him, an' hurts worse than a thousand boils or a thousand knockouts—just hurts all over again, an' worse, each time an' touch.
 
“Now suppose he an' me was boxin' for fun, out in the back yard, an' he hurts his thumb that way, why we'd have the gloves off in a jiffy an' I'd be putting cold compresses on that poor thumb of his an' bandagin' it that tight to keep the inflammation down. But no. This is a fight for fight-fans that's paid their admission for blood, an' blood they're goin' to get. They ain't men. They're wolves.
 
“He has to go easy, now, an' I ain't a-forcin' him none. I'm all shot to pieces. I don't know what to do. So I slow down, an' the fans get hep to it. 'Why don't you fight?' they begin to yell; 'Fake! Fake!' 'Why don't you kiss'm?' 'Lovin' cup for yours, Bill Roberts!' an' that sort of .
 
“'Fight!' says the referee to me, low an' . 'Fight, or I'll disqualify you—you, Bill, I mean you.' An' this to me, with a touch on the shoulder so they's no mistakin'.
 
“It ain't pretty. It ain't right. D'ye know what we was fightin' for? A hundred . Think of it! An' the game is we got to do our best to put our man down for the count because of the fans has bet on us. Sweet, ain't it? Well, that's my last fight. It finishes me deado. Never again for yours truly.
 
“'Quit,' I says to Billy Murphy in a clinch; 'for the love of God, Bill, quit.' An' he says back, in a whisper, 'I can't, Bill—you know that.'
 
“An' then the referee drags us apart, an' a lot of the fans begins to an' boo.
 
“'Now kick in, damn you, Bill Roberts, an' finish'm' the referee says to me, an' I tell'm to go to hell as Bill an' me into the next clinch, not hittin', an' Bill touches his thumb again, an' I see the pain shoot across his face. Game? That good boy's the limit. An' to look into the eyes of a brave man that's sick with pain, an' love 'm, an' see love in them eyes of his, an' then have to go on givin' 'm pain—call that sport? I can't see it. But the crowd's got its money on us. We don't count. We've sold ourselves for a hundred bucks, an' we gotta deliver the goods.
 
“Let me tell you, Saxon, honest to God, that was one of the times I wanted to go through the ropes an' drop them fans a-yellin' for blood an' show 'em what blood is.
............