“What’s the trouble?” inquired Tex. Walker tapped Firpo’s elbow. “This.” Rickard turned pale. He had staked a fortune on the fight. He stood there, clenching his jaws so that the muscles stood out. Despair was in his eyes. His face grew even grimmer as he heard Doc Walker say to Muldoon: “Firpo seems to have a dislocated fracture of the left arm.” Firpo, who spoke no English, apparently grasped what was going on, for he burst into a torrent of Spanish. The interpreter explained that the Wild Bull had kept his injury secret because he didn’t think it serious and didn’t want the fight called off. The doctor then asked the interpreter to explain to Luis that to fight in his condition was dangerous and against the law. The challenger laughed and said he was all right. Muldoon thought otherwise. He was seething with rage. “Why weren’t we told about this?” he demanded. “What the devil do you mean by keeping us in the dark about this?” Firpo waved his arms violently. He didn’t want to be called a quitter, he said. And then he screeched in Spanish, “I can beat Dempsey. It is nothing.” Then, as though to prove it, this man of iron courage raised his left arm and brought his fist down upon the table. The doctor was horrified, for he knew, more than the rest of us, how terrible the agony of that gesture must have been. But Firpo, with gritted teeth and a wild look in his eyes, smiled. Rickard and Muldoon looked on in amazement. Neither could understand the Wild Bull’s confidence in himself. Then Tex’s hard shell of calm left him. The poker face fell off like a mask, showing his features distorted with rage. Tapping his walking stick on the floor—always a sign that he had lost his temper—he swore at Firpo in Spanish, threatening him with God knows what. Muldoon, who had remained calm while sizing up the situation, laid a restraining hand on Rickard, saying “Tex, you’ve had a bad break, and I feel like taking the hide out of this fellow myself. We can’t get a substitute and if the fight isn’t staged, there’ll be a riot and you’ll lose a fortune. But I’ll see what we can do. From my examination, I think it’s a simple dislocation without a break. I’m sure I can handle it.” Walker had another probe at the left arm and agreed with the Commissioner. Muldoon asked Firpo to put out his left arm and when he did, suddenly jerked it forward, snapping the bone back into position. That, to me, was the moment when Luis proved his absolute gameness. Despite the suffering, he didn’t utter a sound, but the beads of perspiration on his forehead showed the torture he was going through.