Then came the fourth round. Of course there was no question in the minds of the majority of the spectators as to who would win the fight. The stranger had merely shown one of those sudden and ephemeral bursts of form that occasionally are witnessed in every branch of sport; but he couldn't last against such a man as the “white hope”!--they looked for a knock-out any minute now. Nor did they look in vain. Billy was quite satisfied with the work he had done in the preceding round. Now he would show them another style of fighting! And he did. From the tap of the gong he rushed his opponent about the ring at will. He hit him when and where he pleased. The man was absolutely helpless before him. With left and right hooks Billy rocked the “coming champion's” head from side to side. He landed upon the swelling optics of his victim as he listed. Thrice he rushed him to the ropes, and once the man fell through them into the laps of the hooting spectators--only now they were not hooting Billy. Until the gong Billy played with his man as a cat might play with a mouse; yet not once had he landed a knock-out blow. “Why didn't you finish him?” cried Professor Cassidy, as Billy returned to his corner after the round. “You had 'im goin' man--why in the world didn't yeh finish him?” “I didn't want to,” said Billy; “not in that round. I'm reserving the finish for the fifth round, and if you want to win some money you can take the hunch!” “Do you mean it?” asked Cassidy. “Sure,” said Billy. “You might make more by laying that I'd make him take the count in the first minute of the round--you can place a hundred of mine on that, if you will, please.” Cassidy took the hunch, and a moment later as the two men faced each other he regretted his act, for to his surprise the “white hope” came up for the fifth round smiling and confident once more. “Someone's been handin' him an earful,” grumbled Cassidy, “an' it might be all he needed to take 'im through the first minute of the round, and maybe the whole round--I've seen that did lots o' times.” As the two men met the “white hope” was the aggressor. He rushed in to close quarters aiming a stinging blow at Billy's face, and then to Cassidy's chagrin and the crowd's wonder, the mucker lowered his guard and took the wallop full on the jaw. The blow seemed never to jar him the least. The “hope” swung again, and there stood Billy Byrne, like a huge bronze statue taking blow after blow that would have put an ordinary man down for the count.