So she said, and to herself, her words still ringing in her ears, she marveled that she, not least among the stubbornly independent of the breed of Sangster, should utter them. Yet she knew they were true, and she was glad. "It will be fun," he said. "But I don't understand all the gleeful details." "I haven't worked them out yet. You might help me. In the first place I'm going to double-cross Stubener and the betting syndicate. It will be part of the joke. I am going to put Cannam out in the first round. For the first time I shall be really angry when I fight. Poor Tom Cannam, who's as crooked as the rest, will be the chief sacrifice. You see, I intend to make a speech in the ring. It's unusual, but it will be a success, for I am going to tell the audience all the inside workings of the game. It's a good game, too, but they're running it on business principles, and that's what spoils it. But there, I'm giving the speech to you instead of at the ring." "I wish I could be there to hear," she said. He looked at her and debated. "I'd like to have you. But it's sure to be a rough time. There is no telling what may happen when I start my program. But I'll come straight to you as soon as it's over. And it will be the last appearance of Young Glendon in the ring, in any ring." "But, dear, you've never made a speech in your life," she objected. "You might fail." He shook his head positively. "I'm Irish," he announced, "and what Irishman was there who couldn't speak?" He paused to laugh merrily. "Stubener thinks I'm crazy. Says a man can't train on matrimony. A lot he knows about matrimony, or me, or you, or anything except real estate and fixed fights. But I'll show him that night, and poor Tom, too. I really feel sorry for Tom." "My dear abysmal brute is going to behave most abysmally and brutally, I fear," she murmured. He laughed. "I'm going to make a noble attempt at it. Positively my last appearance, you know. And then it will be you, YOU. But if you don't want that last appearance, say the word." "Of course I want it, Big Man. I want my Big Man for himself, and to be himself he must be himself. If you want this, I want it for you, and for myself, too. Suppose I said I wanted to go on the stage, or to the South Seas or the North Pole?" He answered slowly, almost solemnly. "Then I'd say go ahead. Because you are you and must be yourself and do whatever you want. I love you because you are you." "And we're both a silly pair of lovers," she said, when his embrace had relaxed. "Isn't it great!" he cried. He stood up, measured the sun with his eye, and extended his hand out over the big woods that covered the serried, purple ranges. "We've got to sleep out there somewhere. It's thirty miles to the nearest camp." X