"Well, really," said our hero, "I've nothing to say. Fists and not talk must decide this matter. You have already seen Allen; have you not?" "Yes," replied Dr. Miller, "I have." "Well," said Ben, rising to go, "he has done talk enough for six men!" It was a notorious fact that Allen had offered to bet money that Hogan would never enter the ring with him. The secret of this may be very briefly explained. The hackman who was to drive Ben and Sweeney to the place of meeting had been bribed to carry them so much out of the way that they would lose the train, and thus prevent the fight from taking place. This little game might have worked to a charm, had it not been for the fact that the occupants of the coach discovered that they were on the wrong road, whereupon Sweeney jumped out, pistol in hand, and threatened to shoot the driver on the spot if he did not carry them to the train. The man, frightened at this emphatic way of making a request, whipped up his horses and got over the ground at a lively rate. The coach reached the station just in time to intercept the train. Allen and his friends looked somewhat astonished when they discovered, in spite of their well-laid plans, Ben had been able to reach the train. It was a cold, drizzly day in the fall of the year. The excursion train stopped at a point some twenty miles beyond Council Bluffs, and there the party disembarked. It should not be forgotten that Hogan was by no means a well man on that day. The damp, piercing air was the very worst there could have been for his disease, and the ague held him still by a pretty firm grasp. Nevertheless, he was dead in earnest that the fight should take place then and there. "Take anybody," he said to Sweeney, "for a referee, but don't let the affair fall through." Allen, who knew very well what his antagonist's condition was, kept him waiting a quarter of an hour in the mist and cold, while he was professedly preparing himself in a neighboring house. The referee chosen was one Ryan, of whose future conduct in the case the reader will be able to form his own opinion. Sweeney and Thurston acted as Ben's seconds, while Arthur Chambers and a friend did similar duty for Allen. The spot selected for the fight was in a retired section of the country, with only a single house anywhere in the neighborhood. In a field near this solitary dwelling, the ring was staked out, and the three hundred spectators, more or less, gathered about to witness the fight. It was a memorable affair to all who beheld it. The long-existing feud between these two famous pugilists seemed at last to be upon the point of a decisive settlement. The backers of each were confident that their respective men would win, and were ready to back this confidence to their last dollar. So in the leaden light of the autumn day, the two men stepped forward to batter each other's faces until one or the other should throw up the sponge. [Illustration: _TRAINING SHOES._]