Apparently Janet did not hear him. A little color had risen into her cheeks, and her bosom was heaving against her tightly clenched hands. She was still fearful of the final result, but he with whom her throbbing heart sympathized had met his brutal enemy like a man of courage, and made it a worthy battle. She could hear Hoover breathing heavily, like one on whom the tremendous strain was beginning to tell at last, while Locke, although his breast rose and fell rapidly, was, to all outward seeming, the fresher of the two. Once a little, choking gasp escaped her, for the youth was sent reeling by a blow, Jock rushing forward to follow it up. Locke, however, kept his feet with the agility of a cat, avoiding that rush, and getting in a body punch that made the other man grunt. Following this, discovering at last the drain his efforts were putting upon him, Hoover sought to take it easier, and recuperate. This quickly became apparent, and a cry arose: “He’s stalling, Lefty! Go to him! Don’t let him get his wind back!” Locke had no intention of permitting his antagonist to rest, and now he took the aggressive, and kept at it with persistence that wore on Hoover. Up to this point, Mike Riley had entertained no doubt as to what the end must be, but now uncertainty seized him, followed by alarm as he beheld tokens which seemed to denote that Hoover was becoming a bit groggy. The Bancroft manager had no wish to see his puissant slabman whipped, for that would leave him no longer the terror he had been to opposing batsmen; and much of his success as a pitcher had doubtless come through the awe which he had inspired. “Hey!” croaked Riley suddenly. “I guess this here’s gone ’bout fur enough.” But, with his first movement to interfere, he was seized by more than one pair of hands, jerked back, and held. “Guess again!” cried Larry Stark. “Hoover forced it on the boy, and now he’ll have to take his medicine.” “That’s right! That’s right!” shouted half a hundred voices. “You bet it’s right!” roared a big millman in the crowd. “If this Bancroft bunch tries to meddle now in a square fight, they’ll have the whole o’ Kingsbridge on top of ’em.” Possibly a free-for-all fight might have broken out at this point, but suddenly Tom Locke’s fist fell on Hoover’s jaw with a crack like a pistol report, and the Bancroft pitcher’s legs seemed to melt beneath him. Prone upon the trampled ground he sank in a huddled heap, while Locke, lowering his hands at his sides, stepped back and stood looking down at him. A hush came over the crowd. The fallen man made a blind, feeble effort to lift himself, turned his body partly, then slumped back, his face in the turf, and lay still. “He’s put Jock out!” said some one in an awed and marveling voice. With a yell, Larry Stark leaped forward and seized the victor’s hand. That yell was echoed by the mob. “Lefty did it!” “Oh, you, Lefty! Oh, you, Lefty!”