Shorty had two weeks in which to train. The nature of his work in the mine had kept his muscles hard enough, so his training was largely a matter of dieting and boxing an imaginary foe with a rock in each fist. He was so vigorous in his exercise and in the matter of what he ate and drank that the day before the entertainment he had got himself down to a razor-edge, and was in a fair way of going fine. When a man gets into too good condition, the least little slip will spoil him. Shorty knew this well enough, and told himself in consequence that he must be very careful. The night before the entertainment Shorty went to call on Miss Starbird. Miss Starbird was one of the cooks at the mine. She was a very pretty girl, just turned twenty, and lived with her folks in a cabin near the superintendent’s office, on the road from the mine to Iowa Hill. Her father was a shift boss in the mine, and her mother did the washing for the "office." Shorty was recognised by the mine as her "young man." She was going to the entertainment with her people, and promised Shorty the first "walk-around" in the "Grand Ball" that was to follow immediately after the Genteel Glove Contest. Shorty came into the Starbird cabin on that particular night, his hair neatly plastered in a beautiful curve over his left temple, and his pants outside of his boots as a mark of esteem. He wore no collar, but he had encased himself in a boiled shirt, which could mean nothing else but mute and passionate love, and moreover, as a crowning tribute, he refrained from spitting. "How do you feel, Shorty?" asked Miss Starbird. Shorty had always sedulously read the interviews with pugilists that appeared in the San Francisco papers immediately before their fights and knew how to answer. "I feel fit to fight the fight of my life," he alliterated proudly. "I’ve trained faithfully and I mean to win." "It ain’t a regular prize fight, is it, Shorty?" she enquired. "Pa said he wouldn’t take ma an’ me if it was. All the women folk in the camp are going, an’ I never heard of women at a fight, it ain’t genteel." "Well, I d’n know," answered Shorty, swallowing his saliva. "The committee that got the programme up called it a genteel boxing exhibition so’s to get the women folks to stay. I call it a four round go with a decision." "My, itull be exciting!" exclaimed Miss Starbird. "I ain’t never seen anything like it. Oh, Shorty, d’ye think you’ll win?" "I don’t _think_ nothun about it. I know I will," returned Shorty, defiantly. "If I once get in my left upper cut on him, _huh_!" and he snorted magnificently. Shorty stayed and talked to Miss Starbird until ten o’clock, then he rose to go. "I gotta get to bed," he said, "I’m in training you see." "Oh, wait a minute," said Miss Starbird, "I been making some potato salad for the private dining of the office, you better have some; it’s the best I ever made." "No, no," said Shorty, stoutly, "I don’t want any."