It was quiet--oddly, peacefully quiet for a second--in that long room. Then in obedience to a nod from Hogarty the lanky boy called Legs languidly touched a bell, and all that peaceful silence was shattered to bits. Ogden shouted aloud, without knowing it, a shrill, dismayed cry of warning, as Sutton catapulted from his corner; he shouted and shut his eyes and winced as if that rushing attack had been launched at himself. But he opened them again--opened them at the sound of a sickening smash of glove against flesh--to see Denny blink both eyes as his whole body rebounded from that blow. Ogden waited, forgetting to breathe, for the boy to go down; he waited to see his knees weaken and his shoulders slump forward. But instead of shriveling before that pile-driver swing, he realized that Denny somehow was weathering the storm of blows that followed it; that somehow he had managed to keep his feet and was backing away, trying to follow faithfully his instructions. Just as Ogden had pictured it would be, it all happened. Foot by foot Sutton drove him around the ring. There was no opening for Denny to return a blow--nothing but a maze of battering fists to be blocked and ducked and covered. Even the speed, the natural speed of lithe muscles for which Bobby had hoped, and hopelessly expected, was entirely lacking in every motion. Heavy-footed, ponderous, Young Denny gave way before that attack. Sutton, always reputed slow, was terribly, brutally swift of movement in comparison with the boy's faltering uncertainty. Twice and a third time in the first minute of fighting Boots feinted aside his guard with what seemed childish ease and then drove his glove against the other's unprotected face. Time after time he repeated the blow, and at each sickening smack that answered the crash of leather against flesh Bobby Ogden gasped aloud and marveled. For at each jolt Denny merely blinked his eyes as he recoiled--blinked, and retreated a little more slowly than before. At the bell Ogden was through the ropes and dragging him to his corner. A little trickle of blood was gathering on the point of Denny's chin where the glove had opened afresh the half-healed cut on his cheek; he was shaking his head as he waved aside the wet towel in Ogden's hands. "Man, but you're some bear for punishment!" Ogden chattered, strangely weak himself beneath his belt. "If you only had a little speed--just a little! Why, he sent over a dozen to your chin that ought to have laid you away. But you're playing him right! You're working him, and if you can manage to hang on you'll get him in the end. Just keep away--keep away and let him wear himself out. But--oh, if you did have it. Just one real punch!" Young Denny continued to shake his head--continued to shake it doggedly. "Do--do you mean that that is as hard as he is likely to hit?" he queried slowly. "Do you mean--he was really trying--hard?"