“Well, take the tip from me and tire him out. He’s too big to rush, and if he hits you square once, he’ll knock you out of the ring. Sprint all you can. Get him mad. He’s got a wicked temper, if I know anything of men; and when he loses it, he’ll forget to guard, and you can slug him.” Under other circumstances Howard would have smiled at the detective’s unaccustomed volubility, but at the moment he had other things to think about. With a nod to show that he understood, he stepped forward to face his adversary. The disproportion between the two men was very marked. Howard was not a small man, but Forbes was several inches taller, and at least forty pounds heavier. His corded arms looked capable of felling an ox. On the other hand, he was twenty years older, and presumably, slower in his movements than the naval officer, who was in the prime of the late twenties. Forbes wasted no time in preliminaries. Evidently he meant to show his power by crushing his adversary without delay. The moment that Howard faced him he sprang forward and launched a right-hand swing that would have ended the fight then and there had it connected with Howard’s body. But it did not connect. Howard sprang back, just out of reach, and returned a half-arm jolt that brought the big man up standing. “Ugh!” he exclaimed, stepping back. Then he grinned viciously. “You know something, do you,” he half soliloquized. “So much the better. There’ll be some sport in it.” He rushed in again, striking furiously. Howard gave ground slowly under the attack, dodging when he could, parrying as he might, every nerve alert to save himself from being crushed by the sheer weight of his adversary. In vain Forbes tried to beat down his guard. Dorothy’s frightened face was ever before his eyes, and he fought on breathless, but unharmed, until the first fury of the attack had spent itself; until the passing moments told him that the struggle would not be so uneven as it had seemed. Exultation swelled in him when at last he could stand steady and give back blow for blow. Gradually his opponent’s mood changed. From coolness to anger; from anger to baffled fury. Howard watched the changes as they mirrored themselves in the other’s face. And when, with the recklessness of utter rage, Forbes dropped his guard and threw all his weight into one smashing blow, Howard ducked beneath it, swung his right with deadly force against the bull neck and beat the devil’s tattoo on the thick ribs before him. Then the round ended. But Howard knew that there was still plenty of fight in the big man. He had shaken him, but had accomplished nothing more. Indeed, the fury of the attack in the second round was little less than that of the first, and Howard again had to give ground. Had Forbes been able to regain his temper as he had regained his strength, there would still have been little doubt as to the result.