“You handed yourself that one, kid,” Spike had said, applying raw beef to it after their rubdown.

Wilbur had removed the beef after leaving the store.  He didn’t want the thing to go down too soon.  It was an honourable mark, wasn’t it?  Nothing to make the fuss about that Winona had made.  Of course you had to go to Pegleg McCarron’s to do the boxing, but Spike had warned him never to drink if he expected to get anywhere in this particular trade; not even to smoke.  That he had entirely abandoned the use of tobacco at Spike’s command should—­he considered—­have commended his hero to Winona’s favourable notice.  He wore the eye proudly in the public gaze; regretted its passing as it began to pale into merely rainbow tints.

But Winona took steps.  She was not going to see him die, perish morally, without an effort to save him.  She decided that Sharon Whipple would be the one to consult.  Sharon liked the boy—­had taken an interest in him.  Perhaps words in time from him might avert the calamity, especially after her father had refused to be concerned.

“Prize fighting!” said the judge, scornfully.  “What’ll he be doing next?  Never settles down to anything.  Jack-of-all-trades and good at none.”

It was no use hoping for help from a man who thought fighting was foolish for the boy merely because he would not earnestly apply himself to it.

She went to Sharon Whipple, and Sharon listened even more sympathetically than she had hoped he would.  He seemed genuinely shocked that such things had been secretly going on in the life of his young friend.  He clicked deprecatingly with his tongue as Winona became detailed in her narrative.

“My great glory!” he exclaimed at last.  “You mean to say they mix it down there every afternoon?”

“Every single day,” confirmed Winona.  “He’s been going to that low dive for weeks and weeks.  Think of the debasing associations!”

“Just think of it!” said Sharon, impatiently.  “Every afternoon—­and me not hearing a word of it!”

“If you could only say a word to him,” besought Winona.  “Coming from you it might have an influence for good.”

“I will, I will!” promised Sharon, fervently, and there was a gleam of honest determination in his quick old eyes.

That very afternoon, in Pegleg McCarron’s shed, he said words to Wilbur that might have an influence for good.

“Quit sticking your jaw out that way or he’ll knock it off!” had been his first advice.  And again:  “Cover up that stomach—­you want to get killed?” He was sitting at one end of the arena, on a plank supported by the ends of two beer kegs, and he held open a large, thick, respectable gold watch.  “Time!” he called.

Beside him sat the red-eyed and disreputable Pegleg McCarron, who whacked the floor with the end of his crutch from time to time in testimony of his low pleasure.

The round closed with one of Wilbur Cowan’s right crosses—­started from not too far back—­landing upon the jaw of Spike Brennon with what seemed to be a shattering impact.  Sharon Whipple yelled and Pegleg McCarron pounded the floor in applause.  Spike merely shook his head once.