THE 
 ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
THE 
 ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 BY 
 JACK LONDON 
 
 Author of "The Call of the Wild," "The Sea 
 
 Wolf," "Smoke Bellew," "The 
 
 Night Born," etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1913 
 
Copyright, 1913, by 
 THE CENTURY Co. 
 
 Copyright, 1911, by 
 STREET & SMITH. NEW YORK 
 
 Published, May, 1913 
 
&% 
 
 THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 i 
 
 171 
 
THE 
 ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 SAM STUBENER ran through his 
 mail carelessly and rapidly. As be 
 came a manager of prize-fighters, 
 he was accustomed to a various and bi 
 zarre correspondence. Every crank, sport, 
 near sport, and reformer seemed to have 
 ideas to impart to him. From dire 
 threats against his life to milder threats, 
 such as pushing in the front of his face, 
 from rabbit-foot fetishes to lucky horse 
 shoes, from dinky jerkwater bids to the 
 quarter-of-a-million-dollar offers of irre 
 sponsible nobodies, he knew the whole 
 run of the surprise portion of his mail. 
 3 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 In his time having received a razor-strop 
 made from the skin of a lynched negro, 
 and a finger, withered and sun-dried, cut 
 from the body of a white man found in 
 Death Valley, he was of the opinion that 
 never again would the postman bring him 
 anything that could startle him. But this 
 morning he opened a letter that he read 
 a second time, put away in his pocket, 
 and took out for a third reading. It was 
 postmarked from some unheard-of post- 
 office in Siskiyou County, and it ran: 
 
 Dear Sam: 
 
 You don t know me, except my reputa 
 tion. You come after my time, and I Ve 
 been out of the game a long time. But take 
 it from me I ain t been asleep. I Ve fol 
 lowed the whole game, and I Ve followed 
 you, from the time Kal Aufman knocked you 
 out to your last handling of Nat Belson, and 
 I take it you re the niftiest thing in the lin* 
 of managers that ever came down the pike 
 4 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 I got a proposition for you. I got the 
 greatest unknown that ever happened. This 
 ain t con. It s the straight goods. What 
 do you think of a husky that tips the scales 
 at two hundred and twenty pounds fighting 
 weight, is twenty-two years old, and can hit 
 a kick twice as hard as my best ever? 
 That s him, my boy, Young Pat Glendon, 
 that s the name he 11 fight under. I ve 
 planned it all out. Now the best thing you 
 can do is hit the first train and come up here. 
 
 I bred him and I trained him. All that 
 I ever had in my head I Ve hammered into 
 his. And maybe you won t believe it, but 
 he s added to it. He s a born fighter. He s 
 a wonder at time and distance. He just 
 knows to the second and the inch, and he 
 don t have to think about it at all. His six- 
 inch jolt is more the real sleep medicine than 
 the full-arm swing of most geezers. 
 
 Talk about the hope of the white race. 
 This is him. Come and take a peep. When 
 you was managing Jeffries you was crazy 
 about hunting. Come along and I 11 give 
 you some real hunting and fishing that will 
 5 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 make your moving picture winnings look 
 like thirty cents. I 11 send Young Pat out 
 with you. I ain t able to get around. 
 That s why I m sending for you. I was 
 going to manage him myself. But it ain t 
 no use. I m all in and likely to pass out any 
 time. So get a move on. I want you to 
 manage him. There s a fortune in it for 
 both of you, but I "want to draw up the 
 contract. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 PAT GLENDON. 
 
 Stubener was puzzled. It seemed, on 
 the face of it, a joke the men in the 
 fighting game were notorious jokers 
 and he tried to discern the fine hand of 
 Corbett or the big friendly paw of Fitz- 
 simmons in the screed before him. But 
 if it were genuine, he knew it was worth 
 looking into. Pat Glendon was before 
 his time, though, as a cub, he had once 
 seen Old Pat spar at the benefit for Jack 
 Dempsey. Even then he was called 
 6 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 " Old " Pat, and had been out of the ring 
 for years. He had antedated Sullivan^ in 
 the old London Prize Ring Rules, though 
 his last fading battles had been put up 
 under the incoming Marquis of Queens- 
 bury Rules. 
 
 What ring-follower did not know of 
 Pat Glendon? though few were alive 
 who had seen him in his prime, and there 
 were not many more who had seen him 
 at all. Yet his name had come down in 
 the history of the ring, and no sporting 
 writer s lexicon was complete without it. 
 His fame was paradoxical. No man was 
 honored higher, and yet he had never at 
 tained championship honors. He had 
 been unfortunate, and had been known 
 as the unlucky fighter. 
 
 Four times he all but won the heavy 
 weight championship, and each time he 
 had deserved to win it. There was the 
 time on the barge, in San Francisco Bay, 
 7 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 when, at the moment he had the cham 
 pion going, he snapped his own forearm; 
 and on the island in the Thames, slosh 
 ing about in six inches of rising tide, he 
 broke a leg at a similar stage in a win 
 ning fight; in Texas, too, there was the 
 never-to-be-forgotten day when the police 
 broke in just as he had his man going in 
 all certainty. And finally, there was the 
 fight in the Mechanics Pavilion in San 
 Francisco, when he was secretly jobbed 
 from the first by a gun-fighting bad man 
 of a referee backed by a small syndicate 
 of bettors. Pat Glendon had had no ac 
 cidents in that fight, but when he had 
 knocked his man cold with a right to the 
 jaw and a left to the solar plexus, the ref 
 eree calmly disqualified him for fouling. 
 Every ringside witness, every sporting 
 expert, and the whole sporting world, 
 knew there had been no foul. Yet, like 
 all fighters, Pat Glendon had agreed to 
 8 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 abide by the decision of the referee. Pat 
 abided, and accepted it as in keeping with 
 the rest of his bad luck. 
 
 This was Pat Glendon. What bothered 
 Stubener was whether or not Pat had 
 written the letter. He carried it down 
 town with him. What s become of Pat 
 Glendon? Such was his greeting to all 
 sports that morning. Nobody seemed to 
 know. Some thought he must be dead, 
 but none knew positively. The fight ed 
 itor of a morning daily looked up the 
 records and was able to state that his 
 death had not been noted. It was from 
 Tim Donovan, that he got a clue. 
 
 " Sure an he ain t dead," said Donovan. 
 "How could that be? a man of his 
 make that never boozed or blew himself? 
 He made money, and what s more, he 
 saved it and invested it. Did n t he have 
 three saloons at the one time? An* 
 was n t he rnakin slathers of money with 
 9 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 them when he sold out? Now that I m 
 thinkin , that was the last time I laid eyes 
 on him when he sold them out. T was 
 all of twenty years and more ago. His 
 wife had just died. I met him headin* for 
 the Ferry. * Where away, old sport? says 
 I. It s me for the woods/ says he. 
 I Ve quit. Good-by, Tim, me boy. 
 And I Ve never seen him from that day 
 to this. Of course he ain t dead." 
 
 " You say when his wife died did he 
 have any children? " Stubener queried. 
 
 " One, a little baby. He was luggin it 
 in his arms that very day." 
 
 "Was it a boy?" 
 
 " How should I be knowin ? " 
 
 It was then that Sam Stubener reached 
 a decision, and that night found him in a 
 Pullman speeding toward the wilds of 
 Northern California. 
 
 10 
 
II 
 
 STUBENER was dropped off the 
 overland at Deer Lick in the early 
 morning, and he kicked his heels 
 for an hour before the one saloon opened 
 its doors. No, the saloonkeeper didn t 
 know anything about Pat Glendon, had 
 never heard of him, and if he was in that 
 part of the country he must be out be 
 yond somewhere. Neither had the one 
 hanger-on ever heard of Pat Glendon. 
 At the hotel the same ignorance obtained, 
 and it was not until the storekeeper and 
 postmaster opened up that Stubener 
 struck the trail. Oh, yes, Pat Glendon 
 lived out beyond. You took the stage at 
 Alpine, which was forty miles and which 
 was a logging camp. From Alpine, on 
 ii 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 horseback, you rode up Antelope Valley 
 and crossed the divide to Bear Creek. 
 Pat Glendon lived somewhere beyond 
 that. The people of Alpine would know. 
 Yes, there was a young Pat. The store 
 keeper had seen him. He had been in to 
 Deer Lick two years back. Old Pat had 
 not put in an appearance for five years. 
 He bought his supplies at the store, and 
 always paid by check, and he was a white- 
 haired, strange old man. That was all 
 the storekeeper knew, but the folks at 
 Alpine could give him final directions. 
 
 It looked good to Stubener. Beyond 
 doubt there was a young Pat Glendon, as 
 well as an old one, living out beyond. 
 That night the manager spent at the log 
 ging camp of Alpine, and early the fol 
 lowing morning he rode a mountain 
 cayuse up Antelope Valley. He rode 
 over the divide and down Bear Creek. 
 He rode all day, through the wildest, 
 12 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 roughest country he had ever seen, and 
 at sunset turned up Pinto Valley on a 
 trail so stiff and narrow that more than 
 once he elected to get off and walk. 
 
 It was eleven o clock when he dis 
 mounted before a log cabin and was 
 greeted by the baying of two huge deer- 
 hounds. . ,Then Pat Glendon opened the 
 door, fell on his neck, and took him in. 
 
 " I knew ye d come, Sam, me boy," 
 said Pat, the while he limped about, build 
 ing a fire, boiling coffee, and frying a big 
 bear-steak. " The young un ain t home 
 the night. We was gettin short of meat, 
 and he went out about sundown to pick 
 up a deer. But I 11 say no more. Wait 
 till ye see him. He 11 be home in the 
 morn, and then you can try him out. 
 There s the gloves. But wait till ye see 
 him. 
 
 " As for me, I m finished. Eighty-one 
 come next January, an pretty good for 
 13 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 an ex-bruiser. But I never wasted me- 
 self, Sam, nor kept late hours an* burned 
 the candle at all ends. I had a damned 
 good candle, an* made the most of it, as 
 you 11 grant at lookin at me. And I Ve 
 taught the same to the young un. What 
 do you think of a lad of twenty-two that s 
 never had a drink in his life nor tasted 
 tobacco? That s him. He s a giant, 
 and he s lived natural all his days. Wait 
 till he takes you out after deer. He 11 
 break your heart travelin light, him a 
 carryin the outfit and a big buck deer 
 belike. He s a child of the open air, an 
 winter nor summer has he slept under a 
 roof. The open for him, as I taught him. 
 The one thing that worries me is how 
 he 11 take to sleepin in houses, an how 
 he 11 stand the tobacco smoke in the ring. 
 Tis a terrible thing, that smoke, when 
 you re fighting hard an gaspin for air. 
 But no more, Sam, me boy. You re 
 14 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 tired an sure should be sleepin . Wait 
 till you see him, that s all. Wait till you 
 see him." 
 
 But the garrulousness of age was on 
 old Pat, and it was long before he per 
 mitted Stubener s eyes to close. 
 
 " He can run a deer down with his own 
 legs, that young un," he broke out again. 
 " T is the dandy trainin for the lungs, the 
 hunter s life. He don t know much of 
 else, though he s read a few books at 
 times an poetry stuff. He s just plain 
 pure natural, as you 11 see when you clap 
 eyes on him. He s got the old Irish 
 strong in him. Sometimes, the way he 
 moons about, it s thinkin strong I am 
 that he believes in the fairies and such 
 like. He s a nature lover if ever there 
 was one, an he s afeard of cities. He s 
 read about them, but the biggest he was 
 ever in was Deer Lick. He misliked the 
 many people, and his report was that 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 they d stand weedin out. That was two 
 years agone the first and the last time 
 he s seen a locomotive and a train of cars. 
 
 * Sometimes it s wrong I m thinkin I 
 am, bringin him up a natural. , It s given 
 him wind and stamina and the strength o 
 wild bulls. No city-grown man can have 
 a look-in against him. I m willin to 
 grant that Jeffries at his best could a 
 worried the young un a bit, but only a bit. 
 The young un could a broke him like a 
 straw. An he don t look it. That s the 
 everlasting wonder of it. He s only a 
 fine-seeming young husky ; but it s the 
 quality of his muscle that s different. 
 But wait till ye see him, that s all. 
 
 "A strange liking the boy has for 
 posies, an little meadows, a bit of pine 
 with the moon beyond, windy sunsets, or 
 the sun o morns from the top of old 
 Baldy. An he has a hankerin for the 
 drawin* o pitchers of things, an of spout- 
 16 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 ing about Lucifer or night from the 
 poetry books he got from the red-headed 
 school teacher. But tis only his young- 
 ness. He 11 settle down to the game 
 once we get him started, but watch out 
 for grouches when it first comes to livin 
 in a city for him. 
 
 " A good thing ; he s woman-shy. 
 They 11 not bother him for years. He 
 can t bring himself to understand the 
 creatures, an damn few of them has he 
 seen at that. Twas the school teacher 
 over at Samson s Flat that put the poetry 
 stuff in his head. She was clean daffy 
 over the young un, an he never a-knowin . 
 A warm-haired girl she was not a 
 mountain girl, but from down in the flat- 
 lands an as time went by she was fair 
 desperate, an the way she went after him 
 was shameless. An what d ye think the 
 boy did when he tumbled to it? He was 
 scared as a jackrabbit. He took blankets 
 17 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 an ammunition an hiked for tall timber. 
 Not for a month did I lay eyes on him, 
 an then he sneaked in after dark and was 
 gone in the morn. Nor would he as 
 much as peep at her letters. * Burn em/ 
 he said. An burn em I did. Twice she 
 rode over on a cayuse all the way from 
 Samson s Flat, an I was sorry for the 
 young creature. She was fair hungry for 
 the boy, and she looked it in her face. 
 An at the end of three months she gave 
 up school an went back to her own 
 country, an then it was that the boy 
 came home to the shack to live again. 
 
 " Women ha ben the ruination of many 
 a good fighter, but they won t be of him. 
 He blushes like a girl if anything young 
 in skirts looks at him a second time or too 
 long the first one. An they all look at 
 him. But when he fights, when he 
 fights ! God ! it s the old savage Irish 
 that flares in him, an drives the fists of 
 18 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 him. Not that he goes off his base. 
 Don t walk away with that. At my best 
 I was never as cool as he. I misdoubt 
 twas the wrath of me that brought the 
 accidents. But he s an iceberg. He s 
 hot an cold at the one time, a live wire 
 in an ice-chest." 
 
 Stubener was dozing, when the old 
 man s mumble aroused him. He listened 
 drowsily. 
 
 " I made a man o him, by God ! I 
 made a man o him, with the two fists of 
 him, an the upstanding legs of him, an* 
 the straight-seein eyes. And I know the 
 game in my head, an I ve kept up with 
 the times and the modern changes. The 
 crouch? Sure, he knows all the styles 
 an economies. He never moves two 
 inches when an inch and a half will do the 
 turn. And when he wants he can spring 
 like a buck kangaroo. In-fightin ? Wait 
 till you see. Better than his out-fightin , 
 19 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 and he could sure a sparred with Peter 
 Jackson an outfooted Corbett in his best. 
 I tell you, I Ve taught m it all, to the last 
 trick, and he s improved on the teachin . 
 He s a fair genius at the game. An* he s 
 had plenty of husky mountain men to try 
 out on. I gave him the fancy work and 
 they gave him the sloggin . Nothing shy 
 or delicate about them. Roarin bulls an* 
 big grizzly bears, that s what they are, 
 when it comes to huggin in a clinch or 
 swingin* rough-like in the rushes. An* 
 he plays with em. Man, d ye hear me? 
 he plays with them, like you an me 
 would play with little puppy-dogs." 
 
 Another time Stubener awoke, to hear 
 the old man mumbling : 
 
 " Tis the funny think he don t take 
 fightin seriously. It s that easy to him 
 he thinks it play. But wait till he s 
 tapped a swift one. That s all, wait. 
 An you 11 see m throw on the juice in 
 20 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 that cold storage plant of his an* turn 
 loose the prettiest scientific wallopin that 
 ever you laid eyes on." 
 
 In the shivery gray of mountain dawn, 
 Stubener was routed from his blankets by 
 old Pat. 
 
 " He s comin up the trail now," was 
 the hoarse whisper. " Out with ye an* 
 take your first peep at the biggest fightin* 
 man the ring has ever seen, or will ever 
 see in a thousand years again." 
 
 The manager peered through the open 
 door, rubbing the sleep from his heavy 
 eyes, and saw a young giant walk into the 
 clearing. In one hand was a rifle, across 
 his shoulders a heavy deer under which 
 he moved as if it were weightless. He 
 was dressed roughly in blue overalls and 
 woolen shirt open at the throat. Coat he 
 had none, and on his feet, instead of 
 brogans, were moccasins. Stubener noted 
 that his walk was smooth and catlike, 
 21 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 without suggestion of his two hundred 
 and twenty pounds of weight to which 
 that of the deer was added. The fight 
 manager was impressed from the first 
 glimpse. Formidable the young fellow 
 certainly was, but the manager sensed the 
 strangeness and unusualness of him. He 
 was a new type, something different from 
 the run of fighters. He seemed a crea 
 ture of the wild, more a night-roaming 
 figure from some old fairy story or folk 
 tale than a twentieth-century youth. 
 
 A thing Stubener quickly discovered 
 was that young Pat was not much of a 
 talker. He acknowledged old Pat s intro 
 duction with a grip of the hand but with 
 out speech, and silently set to work at 
 building the fire and getting breakfast. 
 To his father s direct questions he an 
 swered in monosyllables, as, for instance, 
 when asked where he had picked up the 
 deer. 
 
 22 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 "South Fork," was all he vouch 
 safed. 
 
 " Eleven miles across the mountains," 
 the old man exposited pridefully to 
 Stubener, " an a trail that d break your 
 heart." 
 
 Breakfast consisted of black coffee, 
 sourdough bread, and an immense quan 
 tity of bear-meat broiled over the coals. 
 Of this the young fellow ate ravenously, 
 and Stubener divined that both the Glen- 
 dons were accustomed to an almost 
 straight meat diet. Old Pat did all the 
 talking, though it was not till the meal 
 was ended that he broached the subject 
 he had at heart. 
 
 " Pat, boy," he began, " you know who 
 the gentleman is? " 
 
 Young Pat nodded, and cast a quick, 
 comprehensive glance at the manager. 
 
 " Well, he 11 be takin you away with 
 him and down to San Francisco." 
 23 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 " I d sooner stay here, dad," was the 
 answer. 
 
 Stubener felt a prick of disappointment, 
 It was a wild goose chase after all. This 
 was no fighter, eager and fretting to be 
 at it. His huge brawn counted for noth 
 ing. It was nothing new. It was the 
 big fellows that usually had the streak of 
 fat. 
 
 But old Pat s Celtic wrath flared up, 
 and his. voice was harsh with command 
 
 " You 11 go down to the cities an fight, 
 me boy. That s what I ve trained you 
 for, an you 11 do it." 
 
 "All right," was the unexpected re 
 sponse, rumbled apathetically from the 
 deep chest. 
 
 "And fight like hell," the old man 
 added. 
 
 Again Stubener felt disappointment at 
 the absence of flash and fire in the young 
 man s eyes as he answered : 
 24 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 " All right. When do we start? " 
 
 " Oh, Sam, here, he 11 be wantin a 
 little huntin and to fish a bit, as well as 
 to try you out with the gloves." He 
 looked at Sam, who nodded. " Suppose 
 you strip and give m a taste of your 
 quality." 
 
 An hour later, Sam Stubener had his 
 eyes opened. An ex-fighter himself, a 
 heavyweight at that, he was even a bet 
 ter judge of fighters, and never had he 
 seen one strip to like advantage. 
 
 "See the softness of him," old Pat 
 v chanted. " T is the true stuff. Look at 
 y the slope of the shoulders, an the lungs 
 of him. Clean, all clean, to the last drop 
 an ounce of him. You re lookin at a 
 man, Sam, the like of which was never 
 seen before. Not a muscle of him bound. 
 No weight-lifter or Sandow exercise ar 
 tist there. See the fat snakes of muscles 
 a-crawlin soft an* lazy-like. Wait till 
 25 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 you see them flashin like a strikin rat 
 tler. He s good for forty rounds this 
 blessed instant, or a hundred. Go to it! 
 Time!" 
 
 They went to it, for three-minute 
 rounds with a minute rests, and Sam 
 Stubener was immediately undeceived. 
 Here was no streak of fat, no apathy, only 
 a lazy, good-natured play of gloves and 
 tricks, with a brusk stiffness and harsh 
 sharpness in the contacts that he knew 
 belonged only to the trained and instinct 
 ive fighting man. 
 
 " Easy, now, easy," old Pat warned. 
 " Sam s not the man he used to be." 
 
 This nettled Sam, as it was intended to 
 do, and he played his most famous trick 
 and favorite punch a feint for a clinch 
 and a right rip to the stomach. But, 
 quickly as it was delivered, Young Pat 
 saw it, and, though it landed, his body 
 was going away. The next time, his 
 26 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 body did not go away. As the rip 
 started, he moved forward and twisted 
 his left hip to meet it. It was only a mat 
 ter of several inches, yet it blocked the 
 blow. And thereafter, try as he would, 
 Stubener s glove got no farther than that 
 hip. 
 
 Stubener had roughed it with big men 
 in his time, and, in exhibition bouts, had 
 creditably held his own. But there was 
 no holding his own here. Young Pat 
 played with him, and in the clinches made 
 him feel as powerful as a baby, landing on 
 him seemingly at will, locking and block 
 ing with masterful accuracy, and scarcely 
 noticing or acknowledging his existence. 
 Half the time young Pat seemed to spend 
 in gazing off and out at the landscape in 
 a dreamy sort of way. And right here 
 Stubener made another mistake. He 
 took it for a trick of old Pat s training, 
 tried to sneak in a short-arm jolt, found 
 27 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 his arm in a lightning lock, and had both 
 his ears cuffed for his pains. 
 
 " The instinct for a blow," the old man 
 chortled. " T is not put on, I m tellin 
 you. He is a wiz. He knows a blow 
 without the lookin , when it starts an 
 where, the speed, an* space, an niceness 
 of it. An* tis nothing I ever showed 
 him. Tis inspiration. He was so 
 born." 
 
 Once, in a clinch, the fight manager 
 heeled his glove on young Pat s mouth, 
 and there was just a hint of viciousness 
 in the manner of doing it. A moment 
 later, in the next clinch, Sam received the 
 heel of the other s glove on his own 
 mouth. There was nothing snappy 
 about it, but the pressure, stolidly lazy as 
 it was, put his head back till the joints 
 cracked and for the moment he thought 
 his neck was broken. He slacked his 
 body and dropped his arms in token that 
 28 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 the bout was over, felt the instant release, 
 and staggered clear. 
 
 " He 11 he 11 do," he gasped, looking 
 the admiration he lacked the breath to 
 utter. 
 
 Old Pat s eyes were brightly moist 
 with pride and triumph. 
 
 " An what will you be thinkin to hap 
 pen when some of the gay an ugly ones 
 tries to rough it on him? " he asked. 
 
 " He 11 kill them, sure," was Stubener s 
 verdict. 
 
 "No; -3 too cool for that. But 
 he 11 just hu.rt them some for their dirti 
 ness." 
 
 " Let s draw up the contract," said the 
 manager. 
 
 " Wait till you know the whole worth 
 of him!" Old Pat answered. " Tis 
 strong terms I 11 be makin you come to. 
 Go for a deer-hunt with the boy over the 
 hills an learn the lungs and the legs of 
 29 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 him. Then we 11 sign up iron-clad and 
 regular." 
 
 Stubener was gone two days on that 
 hunt, and he learned all and more than 
 old Pat had promised, and came back a 
 very weary and very humble man. The 
 young fellow s innocence of the world 
 had been startling to the case-hardened 
 manager, but he had found him nobody s 
 fool. Virgin though his mind was, un 
 touched by all save a narrow mountain 
 experience, nevertheless he had proved 
 possession of a natural keenness and 
 shrewdness far beyond the average. In 
 a way he was a mystery to Sam, who 
 could not understand his terrible equa 
 nimity of temper. Nothing ruffled him or 
 worried him, and his patience was of an 
 enduring primitiveness. He never swore, 
 not even the futile and emasculated cuss- 
 words of sissy-boys. 
 
 " I d swear all right if I wanted to," 
 30 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 he had explained, when challenged by his 
 companion. " But I guess I ve never 
 come to needing it. When I do, I 11 
 swear, I suppose." 
 
 Old Pat, resolutely adhering to his de 
 cision, said good-by at the cabin. 
 
 " It won t be long, Pat, boy, when I 11 
 be readin about you in the papers. I d 
 like to go along, but I m afeard it s me 
 for the mountains till the end." 
 
 And then, drawing the manager aside, 
 the old man turned loose on him almost 
 savagely. 
 
 "Remember what I ve ben tellin ye 
 over an over. The boy s clean an he s 
 honest. He knows nothing of the rot 
 tenness of the game. I kept it all away 
 from him, I tell you. He don t know the 
 meanin of fake. He knows only the 
 bravery, an romance an glory of fightin , 
 and I ve filled him up with tales of the 
 old ring heroes, though little enough, God 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 knows, it s set him afire. Man, man, I* m 
 tellin you that I clipped the fight columns 
 from the newspapers to keep it way from 
 him him a-thinkin I was wantin them 
 for me scrap book. He don t know a 
 man ever lay down or threw a fight. So 
 don t you get him in anything that ain t 
 straight. Don t turn the boy s stomach. 
 That s why I put in the null and void 
 clause. The first rottenness and the con 
 tract s broke of itself. No snide division 
 of stake-money; no secret arrangements 
 with the movin pitcher men for guaran 
 teed distance. There s slathers o money 
 for the both of you. But play it square 
 or you lose. Understand? 
 
 " And whatever you 11 be doin watch 
 out for the women," was old Pat s part 
 ing admonishment, young Pat astride his 
 horse and reining in dutifully to hear. 
 " Women is death an damnation, remem 
 ber that. But when you do find the one, 
 32 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 the only one, hang on to her. She 11 be 
 worth more than glory an money. But 
 first be sure, an when you re sure, don t 
 let her slip through your fingers. Grab 
 her with the two hands of you and hang 
 on. Hang on if all the world goes to 
 smash an smithereens. Pat, boy, a good 
 woman is ... a good woman. T is 
 the first word and the last." 
 
 33 
 
Ill 
 
 ONCE in San Francisco, Sam 
 Stubener s troubles began. Not 
 that young Pat had a nasty tem 
 per, or was grouchy as his father had 
 feared. On the contrary, he was phe 
 nomenally sweet and mild. But he was 
 homesick for his beloved mountains. 
 Also, he was secretly appalled by the city, 
 though he trod its roaring streets imper 
 turbable as a red Indian. 
 
 " I came down here to fight," he an 
 nounced, at the end of the first week. 
 " Where s Jim Hanford? " 
 Stubener whistled. 
 
 " A big champion like him would n t 
 look at you," was his answer. " Go and 
 get a reputation/ is what he d say." 
 " I can lick him." 
 34 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 " But the public does n t know that. 
 If you licked him you d be champion of 
 the world, and no champion ever became 
 so with his first fight." 
 
 " I can." 
 
 " But the public does n t know it, Pat. 
 It would n t come to see you fight. And 
 it s the crowd that brings the money and 
 the big purses. That s why Jim Hanford 
 would n t consider you for a second. 
 There d be nothing in it for him. Be 
 sides, he s getting three thousand a week 
 right now in vaudeville, with a contract 
 for twenty-five weeks. Do you think 
 he d chuck that for a go with a man no 
 one ever heard of? You ve got to do 
 something first, make a record. You Ve 
 got to begin on the little local dubs that 
 nobody ever heard of guys like Chub 
 Collins, Rough-House Kelly, and the Fly 
 ing Dutchman. When you ve put them 
 away, you re only started on the first 
 35 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 round of the ladder. But after that 
 you 11 go up like a balloon." 
 
 " I 11 meet those three named in the 
 same ring one after the other," was Pat s 
 decision. " Make the arrangements ac 
 cordingly." 
 
 Stubener laughed. 
 
 "What s wrong? Don t you think I 
 can put them away? " 
 
 "I know you can," Stubener assured 
 him. " But it can t be arranged that way. 
 You ve got to take them one at a time. 
 Besides, remember, I know the game and 
 I m managing you. This proposition has 
 to be worked up, and I m the boy that 
 knows how. If we re lucky, you may get 
 to the top in a couple of years and be the 
 champion with a mint of money." 
 
 Pat sighed at the prospect, then 
 brightened up. 
 
 " And after that I can retire and go 
 back home to the old man," he said. 
 36 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 Stubener was about to reply, but 
 checked himself. Strange as was this 
 championship material, he felt confident 
 that when the top was reached it would 
 prove very similar to that of all the others 
 who had gone before. Besides, two 
 years was a long way off, and there was 
 much to be done in the meantime. 
 
 When Pat fell to moping around his 
 quarters, reading endless poetry books 
 and novels drawn from the public library, 
 Stubener sent him off to live on a Contra 
 Costa ranch across the Bay, under the 
 watchful eye of Spider Walsh. At the 
 end of a week Spider whispered that the 
 job was a cinch. His charge was away 
 and over the hills from dawn till dark, 
 whipping the streams for trout, shooting 
 quail and rabbits, and pursuing the one 
 lone and crafty buck famous for having 
 survived a decade of hunters. It was 
 the Spider who waxed lazy and fat, while 
 37 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 his charge kept himself in condition. 
 As Stubener expected, his unknown 
 was laughed at by the fight club man 
 agers. Were not the woods full of un 
 knowns who were always breaking out 
 with championship rashes? A prelimi 
 nary, say of four rounds yes, they 
 would grant him that. But the main event 
 never. Stubener was resolved that 
 young Pat should make his debut in noth 
 ing less than a main event, and, by the 
 prestige of his own name he at last man 
 aged it. With much misgiving, the Mis 
 sion Club agreed that Pat Glendon could 
 go fifteen rounds with Rough-House 
 Kelly for a purse of one hundred dollars. 
 It was the custom of young fighters to 
 assume the names of old ring heroes, 
 so no one suspected that he was the 
 son of the great Pat Glendon, while 
 Stubener held his peace. It was a good 
 38 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 press surprise package to spring later. 
 
 Came the night of the fight, after a 
 month of waiting. Stubener s anxiety 
 was keen. His professional reputation 
 was staked that his man would make a 
 showing, and he was astounded to see 
 Pat, seated in his corner a bare five min 
 utes, lose the healthy color from his 
 cheeks, which turned a sickly yellow. 
 
 " Cheer up, boy," Stubener said, slap 
 ping him on the shoulder. " The first 
 time in the ring is always strange, and 
 Kelly has a way of letting his opponent 
 wait for him on the chance of getting 
 stage-fright." 
 
 " It is n t that," Pat answered. " It s 
 the tobacco smoke. I m not used to it, 
 and it s making me fair sick." 
 
 His manager experienced the quick 
 shock of relief. A man who turned sick 
 from mental causes, even if he were a 
 39 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 Samson, could never win to place in the 
 prize ring. As for tobacco smoke, the 
 youngster would have to get used to it, 
 that was all. 
 
 Young Pat s entrance into the ring had 
 been met with silence, but when Rough- 
 House Kelly crawled through the ropes 
 his greeting was uproarious. He did not 
 belie his name. He was a ferocious- 
 looking man, black and hairy, with huge, 
 knotty muscles, weighing a full two hun 
 dred pounds. Pat looked across at him 
 curiously, and received a savage scowl. 
 After both had been introduced to the 
 audience, they shook hands. And even 
 as their gloves gripped, Kelly ground his 
 teeth, convulsed his face with an expres 
 sion of rage, and muttered: 
 
 " You ve got yer nerve wid yeh." He 
 flung Pat s hand roughly from his, and 
 hissed, " I 11 eat yeh up, ye pup ! " 
 
 The audience laughed at the action, 
 40 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 and it guessed hilariously at what Kelly 
 must have said. 
 
 Back in his corner, and waiting the 
 gong, Pat turned to Stubener. 
 
 " Why is he angry with me? " he asked. 
 
 " He ain t," Stubener answered. 
 " That s his way, trying to scare you. 
 It s just mouth-fighting." 
 
 " It is n t boxing," was Pat s comment ; 
 and Stubener, with a quick glance, noted 
 that his eyes were as mildly blue as ever. 
 
 " Be careful," the manager warned, as 
 the gong for the first round sounded and 
 Pat stood up. " He s liable to come at 
 you like a man-eater." 
 
 And like a man-eater Kelly did come at 
 him, rushing across the ring in wild fury. 
 Pat, who in his easy way had advanced 
 only a couple of paces, gauged the other s 
 momentum, side-stepped, and brought his 
 stiff-arched right across to the jaw. 
 Then he stood and looked on with a great 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 curiosity. The fight was over. Kelly 
 had fallen like a stricken bullock to the 
 floor, and there he lay without movement 
 while the referee, bending over him, 
 shouted the ten seconds in his unheeding 
 ear. When Kelly s seconds came to lift 
 him, Pat was before them. Gathering 
 the huge, inert bulk of the man in his 
 arms, he carried him to his corner and 
 deposited him on the stool and in the 
 arms of his seconds. 
 
 Half a minute later, Kelly s head lifted 
 and his eyes wavered open. He looked 
 about him stupidly and then to one of his 
 seconds. 
 
 " What happened? " he queried hoarse 
 ly. " Did the roof fall on me? " 
 
 42 
 
IV 
 
 AS a result of his fight with Kelly, 
 though the general opinion was 
 that he had won by a fluke, Pat 
 was matched with -Rufe Mason. This 
 took place three weeks later, and the 
 Sierra Club audience at Dreamland Rink 
 failed to see what happened. Rufe Ma 
 son was a heavyweight, noted locally for 
 his cleverness. When the gong for the 
 first round sounded, both men met in the 
 center of the ring. Neither rushed. Nor 
 did they strike a blow. They felt around 
 each other, their arms bent, their gloves 
 so close together that they almost 
 touched. This lasted for perhaps five 
 seconds. Then it happened, and so 
 quickly that not one in a hundred of the 
 43 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 audience saw. Rufe Mason made a feint 
 with his right. It was obviously not a 
 real feint, but a feeler, a mere tentative 
 threatening of a possible blow. It was 
 at this instant that Pat loosed his punch. 
 So close together were they that the dis 
 tance the blow traveled was a scant eight 
 inches. It was a short-arm left jolt, and 
 it was accomplished by a twist of the left 
 forearm and a thrust of the shoulder. It 
 landed flush on the point of the chin and 
 the astounded audience saw Rufe Mason s 
 legs crumple under him as his body sank 
 to the floor. But the referee had seen, 
 and he promptly proceeded to count him 
 out. Again Pat carried his opponent to 
 his corner, and it was ten minutes before 
 Rufe Mason, supported by his seconds, 
 with sagging knees and rolling, glassy 
 eyes, was able to move down the aisle 
 through the stupefied and incredulous au 
 dience on the way to his dressing room. 
 44 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 " No wonder," he told a reporter, " that 
 Rough-House Kelly thought the roof hit 
 him." 
 
 After Chub Collins had been put out in 
 the twelfth second of the first round of 
 a fifteen-round contest, Stubener felt com 
 pelled to speak to Pat. 
 
 " Do you know what they re calling 
 you now? " he asked. 
 
 Pat shook his head. 
 
 " One Punch Glendon," 
 
 Pat smiled politely. He was little in 
 terested in what he was called. He had 
 certain work cut out which he must do 
 ere he could win back to his mountains, 
 and he was phlegmatically doing it, that 
 was all. 
 
 " It won t do," his manager continued, 
 with an ominous shake of the head. 
 !< You can t go on putting your men out 
 so quickly. You must give them more 
 
 time." 
 
 45 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 " I m here to fight, ain t I? " Pat de 
 manded in surprise. 
 
 Again Stubener shook his head. 
 
 " It s this way, Pat. You ve got to be 
 big and generous in the fighting game. 
 Don t get all the other fighters sore. 
 And it s not fair to the audience. They 
 want a run for their money. Besides, no 
 one will fight you. They 11 all be scared 
 out. And you can t draw crowds with 
 ten-second fights. I leave it to you. 
 Would you pay a dollar, or five, to see a 
 ten-second fight? " 
 
 Pat was convinced, and he promised to 
 give future audiences the requisite run 
 for their money, though he stated that, 
 personally, he preferred going fishing to 
 witnessing a hundred rounds of fighting. 
 
 And still, Pat had got practically no 
 where in the game. The local sports 
 laughed when his name was mentioned. 
 It called to mind funny fights and Rough- 
 46 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 House Kelly s remark about the roof. 
 Nobody knew how Pat could fight. 
 They had never seen him. Where was 
 his wind, his stamina, his ability to mix 
 it with rough customers through long 
 grueling contests? He had demonstrated 
 nothing but the possession of a lucky 
 punch and a depressing proclivity for 
 flukes. 
 
 So it was that his fourth match was 
 arranged with Pete Sosso, a Portuguese 
 fighter from Butchertown, known only 
 for the amazing tricks he played in the 
 ring. Pat did not train for the fight. In 
 stead he made a flying and sorrowful trip 
 to the mountains to bury his father. Old 
 Pat had known well the condition of his 
 heart, and it had stopped suddenly on 
 him. 
 
 Young Pat arrived back in San 
 Francisco with so close a margin of time 
 that he changed into his fighting togs 
 47 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 directly from his traveling suit, and even 
 then the audience was kept waiting ten 
 minutes. 
 
 " Remember, give him a chance," 
 Stubener cautioned him as he climbed 
 through the ropes. " Play with him, but 
 do it seriously. Let him go ten or twelve 
 rounds, then get him." 
 
 Pat obeyed instructions, and, though it 
 would have been easy enough to put 
 Sosso out, so tricky was he that to stand 
 up to him and not put him out kept his 
 hands full. It was a pretty exhibition, 
 and the audience was delighted. Sosso s 
 whirlwind attacks, wild feints, retreats, 
 and rushes, required all Pat s science to 
 protect himself, and even then he did not 
 escape unscathed. 
 
 Stubener praised him in the minute- 
 rests, and all would have been well, had 
 not Sosso, in the fourth round, played one 
 of his most spectacular tricks. Pat, in a 
 48 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 mix-up, had landed a hook to Sosso s 
 jaw, when to his amazement, the latter 
 dropped his hands and reeled backward, 
 eyes rolling, legs bending and giving, in 
 a high state of grogginess. Pat could 
 not understand. It had not been a 
 knock-out blow, and yet there was his 
 man all ready to fall to the mat. Pat 
 dropped his own hands and wonderingly 
 watched his reeling opponent. Sosso 
 staggered away, almost fell, recovered, 
 and staggered obliquely and blindly for 
 ward again. 
 
 For the first and the last time in his 
 fighting career, Pat was caught off his 
 guard. He actually stepped aside to let 
 the reeling man go by. Still reeling, Sos 
 so suddenly loosed his right. Pat received 
 it full on his jaw with an impact that rat 
 tled all his teeth. A great roar of delight 
 went up from the audience. But Pat did 
 not hear. He saw only Sosso before him, 
 49 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 grinning and defiant, and not the least bit 
 groggy: Pat was hurt by the blow, but 
 vastly more outraged by the trick. All 
 the wrath that his father ever had surged 
 up in him. He shook his head as if to get 
 rid of the shock of the blow and steadied 
 himself before his man. It all occurred 
 in the next second. With a feint that 
 drew his opponent, Pat fetched his left to 
 the solar plexus, almost at the same in 
 stant whipping his right across to the jaw. 
 The latter blow landed on Sosso s mouth 
 ere his falling body struck the floor. The 
 club doctors worked half an hour to bring 
 him to. After that they put eleven 
 stitches in his mouth and packed him off 
 in an ambulance. 
 
 " I m sorry," Pat told his manager, 
 " I m afraid I lost my temper. I 11 never 
 do it again in the ring. Dad always cau 
 tioned me about it. He said it had made 
 him lose more than one battle. I did n t 
 50 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 know I could lose my temper that way, 
 but now that I know I 11 keep it in con 
 trol." 
 
 And Stubener believed him. He was 
 coming to the stage where he could 
 believe anything about his young 
 charge. 
 
 " You don t need to get angry," he said, 
 " you re so thoroughly the master of 
 your man at any stage." 
 
 " At any inch or second of the fight," 
 Pat affirmed. 
 
 " And you can put them out any time 
 you want." 
 
 " Sure I can. I don t want to boast. 
 But I just seem to possess the ability. 
 My eyes show me the opening that my 
 skill knows how to make, and time and 
 distance are second nature to me. Dad 
 called it a gift, but I thought he was 
 blarneying me. Now that I ve been up 
 against these men, I guess he was right. 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 He said I had the mind and muscle cor 
 relation." 
 
 "At any inch or second of the fight," 
 Stubener repeated musingly. 
 
 Pat nodded, and Stubener, absolutely 
 believing him, caught a vision of a golden 
 future that should have fetched old Pat 
 out of his grave. 
 
 " Well, don t forget, we Ve got to give 
 the crowd a run for its money," he said. 
 " We 11 fix it up between us how many 
 rounds a fight should go. Now your next 
 bout will be with the Flying Dutchman. 
 Suppose you let it run the full fifteen and 
 put him out in the last round. That will 
 give you a chance to make a showing as 
 well." 
 
 " All right, Sam," was the answer. 
 
 " It will be a test for you," Stubener 
 warned. " You may fail to put him out 
 in that last round." 
 
 "Watch me." Pat paused to put 
 52 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 weight to his promise, and picked up a 
 volume of Longfellow. " If I don t I 11 
 never read poetry again, and that s going 
 some." 
 
 " You bet it is," his manager pro 
 claimed jubilantly, " though what you see 
 in such stuff is beyond me." 
 
 Pat sighed, but did not reply. In all 
 his life he had found but one person who 
 cared for poetry, and that had been the 
 red-haired school teacher who scared him 
 off into the woods. 
 
 53 
 
T IT THERE are you going? " Stube- 
 
 ^y^7 ner demanded in surprise, 
 looking at his watch. 
 
 Pat, with his hand on the door-knob, 
 paused and turned around. 
 
 " To the Academy of Sciences," he said. 
 " There s a professor who s going to 
 give a lecture there on Browning to 
 night, and Browning is the sort of writer 
 you need assistance with. Sometimes I 
 think I ought to go to night school." 
 
 "But great Scott, man!" exclaimed 
 the horrified manager. " You re on with 
 the Flying Dutchman to-night." , - 
 
 " I know it. But I won t enter the ring 
 a moment before half past nine or quar 
 ter to ten. The lecture will be over at 
 54 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 nine fifteen. If you want to make sure, 
 come around and pick me up in your ma 
 chine." 
 
 Stubener shrugged his shoulders help 
 lessly. 
 
 " You Ve got no kick coming," Pat as 
 sured him. " Dad used to tell me a man s 
 worst time was in the hours just before 
 a fight, and that many a fight was lost by 
 a man s breaking down right there, with 
 nothing to do but think and be anxious. 
 Well, you 11 never need to worry about 
 me that way. You ought to be glad I 
 can go off to a lecture." 
 
 And later that night, in the course of 
 watching fifteen splendid rounds, Stube 
 ner chuckled to himself more than once 
 at the idea of what that audience of 
 sports would think, did it know that this 
 magnificent young prize-fighter had come 
 to the ring directly from a Browning lec 
 ture. 
 
 55 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 The Flying Dutchman was a young 
 Swede who possessed an unwonted wil 
 lingness to fight and who was blessed 
 with phenomenal endurance. He never 
 rested, was always on the offensive, and 
 rushed and fought from gong to gong. 
 In the out-fighting his arms whirled 
 about like flails, in the in-fighting he was 
 forever shouldering or half-wrestling and 
 starting blows whenever he could get a 
 hand free. From start to finish he was a 
 whirlwind, hence his name. His failing 
 was lack of judgment in time and dis 
 tance. Nevertheless he had won many 
 fights by virtue of landing one in each 
 dozen or so of the unending fusillades of 
 punches he delivered. Pat, with strong 
 upon him the caution that he must not 
 put his opponent out, was kept busy. 
 Nor, though he escaped vital damage, 
 could he avoid entirely those eternal 
 flying gloves. But it was good training, 
 56 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 and in a mild way he enjoyed the con 
 test. 
 
 " Could you get him now? " Stubener 
 whispered in his ear during the minute 
 rest at the end of the fifth round. 
 
 " Sure," was Pat s answer. 
 
 " You know he s never yet been 
 knocked out by any one," Stubener 
 warned a couple of rounds later. 
 
 " Then I m afraid I 11 have to break 
 my knuckles," Pat smiled. " I know the 
 punch I ve got in me, and when I land it 
 something s got to go. If he won t, my 
 knuckles will." 
 
 "Do you think you could get him 
 now? " Stubener asked at the end of the 
 thirteenth round. 
 
 " Any time, I tell you." 
 
 " Well, then, Pat, let him run to the 
 fifteenth/ 
 
 In the fourteenth round the Flying 
 Dutchman exceeded himself. At the 
 57 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 stroke of the gong he rushed clear across 
 the ring to the opposite corner where Pat 
 was leisurely getting to his feet. The 
 house cheered, for it knew the Flying 
 Dutchman had cut loose. Pat, catching 
 the fun of it, whimsically decided to meet 
 the terrific onslaught with a wholly pas 
 sive defense and not to strike a blow. 
 Nor did he strike a blow, nor feint a blow, 
 during the three minutes of whirlwind 
 that followed. He gave a rare exhibition 
 of stalling, sometimes hugging his bowed 
 face with his left arm, his abdomen with 
 his right ; at other times, changing as the 
 point of attack changed, so that both 
 gloves were held on either side his face, 
 or both elbows and forearms guarded his 
 mid-section; and all the time moving 
 about, clumsily shouldering, or half-fall 
 ing forward against his opponent and 
 clogging his efforts; himself never strik 
 ing nor threatening to strike, the while 
 58 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 rocking with the impacts of the storming 
 blows that beat upon his various guards 
 the devil s own tattoo. 
 
 Those close at the ringside saw and ap 
 preciated, but the rest of the audience, 
 fooled, arose to its feet and roared its ap 
 plause in the mistaken notion that Pat, 
 helpless, was receiving a terrible beating. 
 With the end of the round, the audience, 
 dumbfounded, sank back into its seats as 
 Pat walked steadily to his corner. It 
 was not understandable. He should 
 have been beaten to a pulp, and yet noth 
 ing had happened to him. 
 
 " Now are you going to get him? " 
 Stubener queried anxiously. 
 
 " Inside ten seconds," was Pat s con 
 fident assertion. " Watch me." 
 
 There was no trick about it. When 
 
 the gong struck and Pat bounded to his 
 
 feet, he advertised it unmistakably that 
 
 for the first time in the fight he was start- 
 
 59 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 ing after his man. Not one onlooker mis 
 understood. The Flying Dutchman read 
 the advertisement, too, and for the first 
 time in his career, as they met in the cen 
 ter of the ring, visibly hesitated. For the 
 fraction of a second they faced each other 
 in position. Then the Flying Dutchman 
 leaped forward upon his man, and Pat, 
 with a timed right-cross, dropped him 
 cold as he leaped. 
 
 It was after this battle that Pat Glen- 
 don started on his upward rush to fame. 
 The sports and the sporting writers took 
 him up. For the first time the Flying 
 Dutchman had been knocked out. His 
 conqueror had proved a wizard of de 
 fense. His previous victories had not 
 been flukes. He had a kick in both his 
 hands. Giant that he was, he would go 
 far. The time was already past, the 
 writers asserted, for him to waste him 
 self on the third-raters and chopping 
 60 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 blocks. Where were Ben Menzies, Rege 
 Rede, Bill Tarwater, and Ernest Lawson? 
 It was time for them to meet this young 
 cub that had suddenly shown himself a 
 fighter of quality. Where was his man 
 ager anyway, that he was not issuing the 
 challenges? 
 
 And then fame came in a day; for 
 Stubener divulged the secret that his man 
 was none other than the son of Pat Glen- 
 don, Old Pat, the old-time ring hero. 
 " Young " Pat Glendon, he was promptly 
 christened, and sports and writers flocked 
 about him to admire him, and back him, 
 and write him up. 
 
 Beginning with Ben Menzies and 
 finishing with Bill Tarwater, he chal 
 lenged, fought, and knocked out the four 
 second-raters. To do this, he was com 
 pelled to travel, the battles taking place 
 m Goldfield, Denver, Texas, and New 
 York. To accomplish it required months, 
 61 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 for the bigger fights were not easily ar 
 ranged, and the men themselves de 
 manded more time for training. 
 
 The second year saw him running to 
 cover and disposing of the half-dozen big 
 fighters that clustered just beneath the 
 top of the heavyweight ladder. On this 
 top, firmly planted, stood "Big" Jim 
 Hanford, the undefeated world champion. 
 Here, on the top rungs, progress was 
 slower, though Stubener was indefati 
 gable in issuing challenges and in promot 
 ing sporting opinion to force the man to 
 fight. Will King was disposed of in 
 England, and Glendon pursued Tom Har 
 rison half way around the world to defeat 
 him on Boxing Day in Australia. 
 
 But the purses grew larger and larger. 
 In place of a hundred dollars, such as his 
 first battles had earned him, he was now 
 receiving from twenty to thirty thousand 
 dollars a fight, as well as equally large 
 62 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 sums from the moving picture men. 
 Stubener took his manager s percentage 
 of all this, according to the terms of the 
 contract old Pat had drawn up, and both 
 he and Glendon, despite their heavy ex 
 penses, were waxing rich. This was due, 
 more than anything else, to the clean lives 
 they lived. They were not wasters. 
 
 Stubener was attracted to real estate, 
 and his holdings in San Francisco, con 
 sisting of building flats and apartment 
 houses, were bigger than Glendon ever 
 dreamed. There was a secret syndicate 
 of bettors, however, which could have 
 made an accurate guess at the size of 
 Stubener s holdings, while heavy bonus 
 after heavy bonus, of which Glendon 
 never heard, was paid over to his man 
 ager by the moving picture men. 
 
 Stubener s most serious task was in 
 maintaining the innocence of his young 
 gladiator. Nor did he find it difficult. 
 63 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 Glendon, who had nothing to do with the 
 business end, was little interested. Be 
 sides, wherever his travels took him, he 
 spent his spare time in hunting and fish 
 ing. He rarely mingled with those of the 
 sporting world, was notoriously shy and 
 secluded, and preferred art galleries and 
 books of verse to sporting gossip. Also, 
 his trainers and sparring partners were 
 rigorously instructed by the manager to 
 keep their tongues away from the slight 
 est hints of ring rottenness. In every 
 way Stubener intervened between Glen 
 don and the world. He was never even 
 interviewed save in Stubener s presence. 
 Only once was Glendon approached. 
 It was just prior to his battle with Hen 
 derson, and an offer of a hundred thou 
 sand was made to him to throw the fight. 
 It was made hurriedly, in swift whispers, 
 in a hotel corridor, and it was fortunate 
 for the man that Pat controlled his tem- 
 64 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 per and shouldered past him without re 
 ply. He brought the tale of it to Stube- 
 ner, who said: 
 
 " It s only con, Pat. They were trying 
 to josh you." He noted the blue eyes 
 blaze. "And maybe worse than that. 
 If they could have got you to fall for it, 
 there might have been a big sensation in 
 the papers that would have finished you. 
 But I doubt it. Such things don t hap 
 pen any more. It s a myth, that s what 
 it is, that has come down from the middle 
 history of the ring. There has been rot 
 tenness in the past, but no fighter or man 
 ager of reputation would dare anything 
 of the sort to-day. Why, Pat, the men 
 in the game are as clean and straight as 
 those in professional baseball, than which 
 there is nothing cleaner or straighten" 
 
 And all the while he talked, Stubener 
 knew in his heart that the forthcoming 
 fight with Henderson was not to be 
 65 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 shorter than twelve rounds this for the 
 moving pictures and not longer than 
 the fourteenth round. And he knew, 
 furthermore, so big were the stakes in 
 volved, that Henderson himself was 
 pledged not to last beyond the four 
 teenth. 
 
 And Glendon, never approached again, 
 dismissed the matter from his mind and 
 went out to spend the afternoon in taking 
 color photographs. The camera had be 
 come his latest hobby. Loving pictures, 
 yet unable to paint, he had compromised 
 by taking up photography. In his hand 
 baggage was one grip packed with books 
 on the subject, and he spent long hours in 
 the dark room, realizing for himself the 
 various processes. Never had there been 
 a great fighter who was as aloof from the 
 fighting world as he. Because he had 
 little to say with those he encoun 
 tered, he was called sullen and unsocial, 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 and out of this a newspaper reputation 
 took form that was not an exaggeration 
 so much as it was an entire misconcep 
 tion. Boiled down, his character in print 
 was that of an ox-muscled and dumbly 
 stupid brute, and one callow sporting 
 writer dubbed him the " abysmal brute." 
 The name stuck. The rest of the frater 
 nity hailed it with delight, and thereafter 
 Glendon s name never appeared in print 
 unconnected with it. Often, in a headline 
 or under a photograph, " The Abysmal 
 Brute/ capitalized and without quotation 
 marks, appeared alone. All the world 
 knew who was this brute. This made 
 him draw into himself closer than ever, 
 while it developed a bitter prejudice 
 against newspaper folk. 
 
 Regarding fighting itself, his earlier 
 
 mild interest grew stronger. The men he 
 
 now fought were anything but dubs, and 
 
 victory did not come so easily. They 
 
 67 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 were picked men, experienced ring gen 
 erals, and each battle was a problem. 
 There were occasions when he found it 
 impossible to put them out in any des 
 ignated later round of a fight. Thus, 
 with Sulzberger, the gigantic German, 
 try as he would in the eighteenth round, 
 he failed to get him, in the nineteenth it 
 was the same story, and not till the 
 twentieth did he manage to break 
 through the baffling guard and drop him. 
 Glendon s increasing enjoyment of the 
 game was accompanied by severer and 
 prolonged training. Never dissipating, 
 spending much of his time on hunting 
 trips in the hills, he was practically al 
 ways in the pink of condition, and, unlike 
 his father, no unfortunate accidents 
 marred his career. He never broke a 
 bone, nor injured so much as a knuckle. 
 One thing that Stubener noted with 
 secret glee was that his young fighter no 
 68 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 longer talked of going permanently back 
 to his mountains when he had won the 
 championship away from Jim Hanford. 
 
 69 
 
VI 
 
 THE consummation of his career 
 was rapidly approaching. The 
 great champion had even pub 
 licly intimated his readiness to take 
 on Glendon as soon as the latter 
 had disposed of the three or four 
 aspirants for the championship who in 
 tervened. In six months Pat managed to 
 put away Kid McGrath and Philadelphia 
 Jack McBride, and there remained only 
 Nat Powers and Tom Cannam. And 
 all would have been well had not a cer 
 tain society girl gone adventuring into 
 journalism, and had not Stubener agreed 
 to an interview with the woman re 
 porter of the San Francisco " Courier- 
 Journal." 
 
 70 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 Her work was always published over 
 the name of Maud Sangster, which, by 
 the way, was her own name. The Sangs- 
 ters were a notoriously wealthy family. 
 The founder, old Jacob Sangster, had 
 packed his blankets and worked as a 
 farm-hand in the West. He had dis 
 covered an inexhaustible borax deposit in 
 Nevada, and, from hauling it out by mule- 
 teams, had built a railroad to do the 
 freighting. Following that, he had 
 poured the profits of borax into the pur 
 chase of hundreds and thousands of 
 square miles of timber lands in California, 
 Oregon, and Washington. Still later, he 
 had combined politics with business, 
 bought statesmen, judges, and machines, 
 and become a captain of complicated in 
 dustry. . And after that he had died, full 
 of honor and pessimism, leaving his name 
 a muddy blot for future historians to 
 smudge, and also leaving a matter of a 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 couple of hundreds of millions for his 
 four sons to squabble over. The legal, in 
 dustrial, and political battles that fol 
 lowed, vexed and amused California for 
 a generation, and culminated in deadly 
 hatred and unspeaking terms between the 
 four sons. The youngest, Theodore, in 
 middle life experienced a change of heart, 
 sold out his stock farms and racing 
 stables, and plunged into a fight with all 
 the corrupt powers of his native state, in 
 cluding most of its millionaires, in a 
 quixotic attempt to purge it of the infamy 
 which had been implanted by old Jacob 
 Sangster. 
 
 Maud Sangster was Theodore s oldest 
 daughter. The Sangster stock uniformly 
 bred fighters among the men and beauties 
 among the women. Nor was Maud an 
 exception. Also, she must have inherited 
 some of the virus of adventure from the 
 Sangster breed, for she had come to wo- 
 72 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 manhood and done a multitude of things 
 of which no woman in her position should 
 have been guilty. A match in ten thou 
 sand, she remained unmarried. She had 
 sojourned in Europe without bringing 
 home a nobleman for spouse, and had de 
 clined a goodly portion of her own set at 
 home. She had gone in for outdoor 
 sports, won the tennis championship of 
 the state, kept the society weeklies agog 
 with her unconventionalities, walked 
 from San Mateo to Santa Cruz against 
 time on a wager, and once caused a sen 
 sation by playing polo in a men s team at 
 a private Burlingame practice game. In 
 cidentally, she had gone in for art, and 
 maintained a studio in San Francisco s 
 Latin Quarter. 
 
 All this had been of little moment until 
 her father s reform attack became acute. 
 Passionately independent, never yet hav 
 ing met the man to whom she could 
 73 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 / 
 gladly submit, and bored by those 
 
 who had aspired, she resented her 
 father s interference with her way 
 of life and put the climax on all 
 her social misdeeds by leaving home and 
 going to work on the " Courier-Journal." 
 Beginning at twenty dollars a week, her 
 salary had swiftly risen to fifty. Her 
 work was principally musical, dramatic, 
 and art criticism, though she was not 
 above mere journalistic stunts if they 
 promised to be sufficiently interesting. 
 Thus she scooped the big interview with 
 Morgan at a time when he was being 
 futilely trailed by a dozen New York star 
 journalists, went down to the bottom of 
 the Golden Gate in a diver s suit, and flew 
 with Rood, the bird man, when he broke 
 all records of continuous flight by reach 
 ing as far as Riverside. 
 
 Now it must not be imagined that 
 Maud Sangster was a hard-bitten Ama- 
 74 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 zon. On the contrary, she was a gray- 
 eyed, slender young woman, of three or 
 four and twenty, of medium stature, and 
 possessing uncommonly small hands and 
 feet for an outdoor woman or any other 
 kind of a woman. Also, far in excess of 
 most outdoor women, she knew how to 
 be daintily feminine. 
 
 It was on her own suggestion that she 
 received the editor s commission to in 
 terview Pat Glendon. With the excep 
 tion of having caught a glimpse, once, of 
 Bob Fitzsimmons in evening dress at the 
 Palace Grill, she had never seen a prize 
 fighter in her life. Nor was she curious 
 to see one at least she had not been 
 curious until Young Pat Glendon came 
 to San Francisco to train for his fight 
 with Nat Powers. Then his newspaper 
 reputation had aroused her. The Abys 
 mal Brute ! it certainly must be worth 
 seeing. From what she read of him she 
 75 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 gleaned that he was a man-monster, pro 
 foundly stupid and with the sullenness 
 and ferocity of a jungle beast. True, his 
 published photographs did not show all 
 that, but they did show the hugeness of 
 brawn that might be expected to go with 
 it. And so, accompanied by a staff pho 
 tographer, she went out to the training 
 quarters at the Cliff House at the hour 
 appointed by Stubener. 
 
 That real estate owner was having 
 trouble. Pat was rebellious. He sat, 
 one big leg dangling over the side of the 
 arm chair and Shakespeare s Sonnets 
 face downward on his knee, orating 
 against the new woman. 
 
 " What do they want to come butting 
 into the game for? " he demanded. " It s 
 not their place. What do they know 
 about it anyway? The men are bad 
 enough as it is. I m not a holy show. 
 This woman s coming here to make me 
 76 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 one. I never have stood for women 
 around the training quarters, and I don t 
 care if she is a reporter." 
 
 " But she s not an ordinary reporter," 
 Stubener interposed. " You ve heard of 
 the Sangsters? the millionaires?" 
 
 Pat nodded. 
 
 " Well, she s one of them. She s high 
 society and all that stuff. She could be 
 running with the Blingum crowd now if 
 she wanted to instead of working for 
 wages. Her old man s worth fifty mil 
 lions if he s worth a cent." 
 
 " Then what s she working on a papei 
 for? keeping some poor devil out of a 
 job." 
 
 " She and the old man fell out, had a 
 tiff or something, about the time he 
 started to clean up San Francisco. She 
 quit. That s all left home and got a 
 job. And let me tell you one thing, Pat: 
 she can everlastingly sling English. 
 77 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 There is n t a pen-pusher on the Coast 
 can touch her when she gets going." 
 
 Pat began to show interest, and Stube- 
 ner hurried on. 
 
 " She writes poetry, too the regular 
 la-de-dah stuff, just like you. Only I 
 guess hers is better, because she pub 
 lished a whole book of it once. And she 
 writes up the shows. She interviews 
 every big actor that hits this burg." 
 
 " I ve seen her name in the papers," 
 Pat commented. 
 
 " Sure you have. And you re hon 
 ored, Pat, by her coming to interview 
 you. It won t bother you any. I 11 stick 
 right by and give her most of the dope 
 myself. You know I ve always done 
 that." 
 
 Pat looked his gratitude. 
 
 " And another thing, Pat : don t forget 
 you ve got to put up with this interview 
 ing. It s part of your business. It s 
 78 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 big advertising, and it comes free. We 
 can t buy it. It interests people, draws 
 the crowds, and it s crowds that pile up 
 the gate receipts." He stopped and 
 listened, then looked at his watch. " I 
 think that s her now. I 11 go and get 
 her and bring her in. I 11 tip it off to her 
 to cut it short, you know, and it won t 
 take long." He turned in the doorway. 
 " And be decent, Pat. Don t shut up like 
 a clam. Talk a bit to her when she asks 
 you questions." 
 
 Pat put the Sonnets on the table, took 
 up a newspaper, and was apparently deep 
 in its contents when the two entered the 
 room and he stood up. The meeting was 
 a mutual shock. When blue eyes met 
 gray, it was almost as if the man and the 
 woman shouted triumphantly to each 
 other, as if each had found something 
 sought and unexpected. But this was 
 for the instant only. Each had an- 
 79 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 ticipated in the other something so totally 
 different that the next moment the clear 
 cry of recognition gave way to confusion. 
 As is the way of women, she was the first 
 to achieve control, and she did it without 
 having given any outward sign that she 
 had ever lost it. She advanced most of 
 the distance across the floor to meet 
 Glendon. As for him, he scarcely knew 
 how he stumbled through the introduc 
 tion. Here was a woman, a WOMAN. 
 He had not known that such a creature 
 could exist. The few women he had no 
 ticed had never prefigured this. He won 
 dered what Old Pat s judgment would 
 have been of her, if she was the sort he 
 had recommended to hang on to with both 
 his hands. He discovered that in some 
 way he was holding her hand. He looked 
 at it, curious and fascinated, marveling 
 at its fragility. 
 
 She, on the other hand, had proceeded 
 80 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 to obliterate the echoes of that first clear 
 call. It had been a peculiar experience, 
 that was all, this sudden out-rush of her 
 toward this strange man. For was not 
 he the abysmal brute of the prize- 
 ring, the great, fighting, stupid bulk of a 
 male animal who hammered up his fel 
 low males of the same stupid order? 
 She smiled at the way he continued to 
 hold her hand. 
 
 " I 11 have it back, please, Mr. Glen- 
 don," she said. " I ... I really 
 need it, you know." 
 
 He looked at her blankly, followed 
 her gaze to her imprisoned hand, and 
 dropped it in a rush of awkwardness that 
 sent the blood in a manifest blush to his 
 face. 
 
 She noted the blush, and the thought 
 came to her that he did not seem quite 
 the uncouth brute she had pictured. 
 She could not conceive of a brute blush- 
 Si 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 ing at anything. And also, she found 
 herself pleased with the fact that he 
 lacked the easy glibness to murmur an 
 apology. But the way he devoured her 
 with his eyes was disconcerting. He 
 stared at her as if in a trance, while his 
 cheeks flushed even more redly. 
 
 Stubener by this time had fetched a 
 chair for her, and Glendon automatically 
 sank down into his. 
 
 " He s in fine shape, Miss Sangster, in 
 fine shape," the manager was saying. 
 " That s right, is n t it, Pat? Never felt 
 better in your life? " 
 
 Glendon was bothered by this. His 
 brows contracted in a troubled way, and 
 he made no reply. 
 
 " I ve wanted to meet you for a long 
 time, Mr. Glendon," Miss Sangster said. 
 " I never interviewed a pugilist before, so 
 if I don t go about it expertly you 11 for 
 give me, I am sure." 
 82 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 " Maybe you d better start in by see 
 ing him in action," was the manager s 
 suggestion. " While he s getting into 
 his fighting togs I can tell you a lot about 
 him fresh stuff, too. We 11 call in 
 Walsh, Pat, and go a couple of rounds." 
 
 " We 11 do nothing of the sort," Glen- 
 don growled roughly, in just the way an 
 abysmal brute should. " Go ahead with 
 the interview." 
 
 The business went ahead unsatisfac 
 torily. Stubener did most of the talking 
 and suggesting, which was sufficient to 
 irritate Maud Sangster, while Pat volun 
 teered nothing. She studied his fine 
 countenance, the eyes clear blue and wide 
 apart, the well-modeled, almost aquiline, 
 nose, the firm, chaste lips that were sweet 
 in a masculine way in their curl at the 
 corners and that gave no hint of any sul- 
 lenness. It was a baffling personality, 
 she concluded, if what the papers said of 
 83 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 him was so. In vain she sought for ear 
 marks of the brute. And in vain she at 
 tempted to establish contacts. For one 
 .thing, she knew too little about prize 
 fighters and the ring, and whenever she 
 opened up a lead it was promptly 
 snatched away by the information-oozing 
 Stubener. 
 
 " It must be most interesting, this life 
 of a pugilist," she said once, adding with 
 a sigh, " I wish I knew more about it. 
 Tell me: why do you fight? Oh, aside 
 from money reasons." (This latter to 
 forestall Stubener). "Do you enjoy 
 fighting? Are you stirred by it, by pit 
 ting yourself against other men? I 
 hardly know how to express what I 
 mean, so you must be patient with me." 
 
 Pat and Stubener began speaking to 
 gether, but for once Pat bore his manager 
 down. 
 
 " I did n t care for it at first " 
 84 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 " You see, it was too dead easy for 
 him," Stubener interrupted. 
 
 " But later," Pat went on, " when I en 
 countered the better fighters, the real big 
 clever ones, where I was more " 
 
 " On your mettle? " she suggested. 
 
 " Yes ; that s it, more on my mettle, 
 I found I did care for it ... a great 
 deal, in fact. But still, it s not so ab 
 sorbing to me as it might be. You see, 
 while each battle is a sort of problem 
 which I must work out with my wits and 
 muscle, yet to me the issue is never in 
 doubt " 
 
 " He s never had a fight go to a de 
 cision," Stubener proclaimed. " He s 
 won every battle by the knock-out 
 route." 
 
 " And it s this certainty of the outcome 
 that robs it of what I imagine must be 
 its finest thrills," Pat concluded. 
 
 " Maybe you 11 get some of them 
 85 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 thrills when you go up against Jim Han- 
 ford," said the manager. 
 
 Pat smiled, but did not speak. 
 
 " Tell me some more," she urged, 
 " more about the way you feel when you 
 are righting." 
 
 And then Pat amazed his manager, 
 Miss Sangster, and himself, by blurting 
 out: 
 
 " It seems to me I don t want to talk 
 with you on such things. It s as if there 
 are things more important for you and 
 me to talk about. I " 
 
 He stopped abruptly, aware of what he 
 was saying but unaware of why he was 
 saying it. 
 
 "Yes," she cried eagerly. "That s 
 it. That is what makes a good inter 
 view the real personality, you know." 
 
 But Pat remained tongue-tied, and 
 Stubener wandered away on a statistical 
 comparison of his champion s weights, 
 86 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 measurements, and expansions with those 
 of Sandow, the Terrible Turk, Jeffries, 
 and the other modern strong men. This 
 was of little interest to Maud Sangster, 
 and she showed that she was bored. Her 
 eyes chanced to rest on the Sonnets. 
 She picked the book up and glanced in 
 quiringly at Stubener. 
 
 "That s Pat s," he said. "He goes 
 in for that kind of stuff, and color photog 
 raphy, and art exhibits, and such things. 
 But for heaven s sake don t publish any 
 thing about it. It would ruin his reputa 
 tion." 
 
 She looked accusingly at Glendon, who 
 immediately became awkward. To her 
 it was delicious. A shy young man, with 
 the body of a giant, who was one of the 
 kings of bruisers, and who read poetry, 
 and went to art exhibits, and experi 
 mented with color photography! Of a 
 surety there was no abysmal brute here. 
 87 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 His very shyness she divined now was 
 due to sensitiveness and not stupidity. 
 Shakespeare s Sonnets! This was a 
 phase that would bear investigation. 
 But Stubener stole the opportunity away 
 and was back chanting his everlasting 
 statistics. 
 
 A few minutes later, and most unwit 
 tingly, she opened up the biggest lead of 
 all. That first sharp attraction toward 
 him had begun to stir again after the dis 
 covery of the Sonnets. The magnificent 
 frame of his, the handsome face, the 
 chaste lips, the clear-looking eyes, the 
 fine forehead which the short crop of 
 blond hair did not hide, the aura of phys 
 ical well-being and cleanness which he 
 seemed to emanate all this, and more 
 that she sensed, drew her as she had 
 never been drawn by any man, and yet 
 through her mind kept running the 
 nasty rumors that she had heard only 
 88 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 the day before at the " Courier-Journal " 
 office. 
 
 " You were right," she said. " There 
 is something more important to talk 
 about. There is something in my mind 
 I want you to reconcile for me. Do you 
 mind?" 
 
 Pat shook his head. 
 
 " If I am frank? abominably frank? 
 I Ve heard the men, sometimes, talking 
 of particular fights and of the betting 
 odds, and, while I gave no heed to it at 
 the time, it seemed to me it was firmly 
 agreed that there was a great deal of 
 trickery and cheating connected with the 
 sport. Now, when I look at you, for in 
 stance, I find it hard to understand how 
 you can be a party to such cheating. I 
 can understand your liking the sport for 
 a sport, as well as for the money it brings 
 you, but I can t understand " 
 
 " There s nothing to understand," 
 89 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 Stubener broke in, while Pat s lips were 
 wreathed in a gentle, tolerant smile. 
 " It s all fairy tales, this talk about fak 
 ing, about fixed fights, and all that rot. 
 There s nothing to it, Miss Sangster, I 
 assure you. And now let me tell you 
 about how I discovered Mr. Glendon. It 
 was a letter I got from his father " 
 
 But Maud Sangster refused to be side 
 tracked, and addressed herself to Pat. 
 
 " Listen. I remember one case par 
 ticularly. It was some fight that took 
 place several months ago I forget the 
 contestants. One of the editors- of the 
 "Courier-Journal" told me he intended 
 to make a good winning. He didn t 
 hope; he said he intended. He said he 
 was on the inside and was betting on the 
 number of rounds. He told me the fight 
 would end in the nineteenth. This was 
 the night before. And the next day he 
 triumphantly called my attention to the 
 90 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 fact that it had ended in that very round. 
 I did n t think anything of it one way or 
 the other. I was not interested in prize 
 fighting then. But I am now. At the 
 time it seemed quite in accord with the 
 vague conception I had about fighting. 
 So you see, it is n t all fairy tales, is it? " 
 
 "I know that fight," Glendon said. 
 " It was Owen and Murgweather. And 
 it did end in the nineteenth round, Sam. 
 And she said she heard that round named 
 the day before. How do you account for 
 it, Sam?" 
 
 " How do you account for a man pick 
 ing a lucky lottery ticket? " the manager 
 evaded, while getting his wits together to 
 answer. " That s the very point. Men 
 who study form and condition and sec 
 onds and rules and such things often pick 
 the number of rounds, just as men have 
 been known to pick hundred-to-one shots 
 in the races. And don t forget one thing : 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 for every man that wins, there s another 
 that loses, there s another that did n t 
 pick right. Miss Sangster, I assure you, 
 on my honor, that faking and fixing in 
 the fight game is ... is non-exist 
 ent." 
 
 " What is your opinion, Mr. Glendon? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " The same as mine," Stubener 
 snatched the answer. "He knows what 
 I say is true, every word of it. He s 
 never fought anything but a straight fight 
 in his life. Is n t that right, Pat? " 
 
 "Yes; it s right," Pat affirmed, and 
 the peculiar thing to Maud Sangster was 
 that she was convinced he spoke the 
 truth. 
 
 She brushed her forehead with her 
 hand, as if to rid herself of the bepuzzle- 
 ment that clouded her brain. 
 
 " Listen," she said. " Last night the 
 same editor told me that your forthcom- 
 92 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 ing fight was arranged to the very round 
 in which it would end." 
 
 Stubener was verging on a panic, but 
 Pat s speech saved him from replying. 
 
 "Then the editor lies," Pat s voice 
 boomed now for the first time. 
 
 " He did not lie before, about that 
 other fight," she challenged. 
 
 " What round did he say my fight with 
 Nat Powers would end in? " 
 
 Before she could answer, the manager 
 was into the thick of it. 
 
 " Oh, rats, Pat! " he cried. " Shut up. 
 It s only the regular run of ring rumors. 
 Let s get on with this interview." 
 
 He was ignored by Glendon, whose 
 eyes, bent on hers, were no longer mildly 
 blue, but harsh and imperative. She was 
 sure now that she had stumbled on 
 something tremendous, something that 
 would explain all that had baffled her. 
 At the same time she thrilled to the ; 
 93 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 mastery of his voice and gaze. Here 
 was a male man who would take hold of 
 life and shake out of it what he wanted. 
 
 "What round did the editor say?" 
 Glendon reiterated his demand. 
 
 " For the love of Mike, Pat, stop this 
 foolishness," Stubener broke in. 
 
 " I wish you would give me a chance 
 to answer," Maud Sangster said. 
 
 " I guess I m able to talk with Miss 
 Sangster," Glendon added. "You get 
 out, Sam. Go off and take care of that 
 photographer." 
 
 They looked at each other for a tense, 
 silent moment, then the manager moved 
 slowly to the door, opened it, and turned 
 his head to listen. 
 
 " And now what round did he say? " 
 
 " I hope I have n t made a mistake," 
 she said tremulously, " but I am very sure 
 that he said the sixteenth round." 
 
 She saw surprise and anger leap into 
 94 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 Glendon s face, and the anger and accusa 
 tion in the glance he cast at his manager, 
 and she knew the blow had driven home. 
 
 And there was reason for his anger. 
 He knew he had talked it over with 
 Stubener, and they had reached a deci 
 sion to give the audience a good run for 
 its money without unnecessarily prolong 
 ing the fight, and to end it in the six 
 teenth. And here was a woman, from a 
 newspaper office, naming the very round. 
 
 Stubener, in the doorway, looked limp 
 and pale, and it was evident he was hold 
 ing himself together by an effort. 
 
 "I ll see you later," Pat told him. 
 " Shut the door behind you." 
 
 The door closed, and the two were left 
 alone. Glendon did not speak. The ex 
 pression on his face was frankly one of 
 trouble and perplexity. 
 
 "Well?" she asked. 
 
 He got up and towered above her, then 
 95 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 sat down again, moistening his lips with 
 his tongue. 
 
 "I ll tell you one thing," he finally 
 said. "The fight won t end in the six 
 teenth round." 
 
 She did not speak, but her uncon 
 vinced and quizzical smile hurt him. 
 
 " You wait and see, Miss Sangster, and 
 you 11 see that editor man is mistaken." 
 
 " You mean the program is to be 
 changed? " she queried audaciously. 
 
 He quivered to the cut of her words. 
 
 " I am not accustomed to lying," he 
 said stiffly, " even to women." 
 
 " Neither have you to me, nor have you 
 denied the program is to be changed. 
 Perhaps, Mr. Glendon, I am stupid, but 
 I fail to see the difference in what num 
 ber the final round occurs so long as it is 
 predetermined and known." 
 
 " I 11 tell you that round, and not an 
 other soul shall know." 
 96 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. 
 
 " It sounds to me very much like a 
 racing tip. They are always given that 
 way, you know. Furthermore, I am not 
 quite stupid, and I know there is some 
 thing wrong here. Why were you made 
 angry by my naming the round? Why 
 were you angry with your manager? 
 Why did you send him from the room? " 
 
 For reply, Glendon walked over to the 
 window, as if to look out, where he 
 changed his mind and partly turned, and 
 she knew, without seeing, that he was 
 studying her face. He came back and 
 sat down. 
 
 " You ve said I have n t lied to you, 
 Miss Sangster, and you were right. I 
 haven t." He paused, groping painfully 
 for a correct statement of the situation. 
 " Now do you think you can believe what 
 I am going to tell you? Will you take 
 the word of a . . . prize-fighter? " 
 97 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 She nodded gravely, looking him 
 straight in the eyes and certain that what 
 he was about to tell was the truth. 
 
 "I ve always fought straight and 
 square. I ve never touched a piece of 
 dirty money in my life, nor attempted a 
 dirty trick. Now I can go on from that. 
 You Ve shaken me up pretty badly by 
 what you told me. I don t know what 
 to make of it. I can t pass a snap judg 
 ment on it. I don t know. But it looks 
 bad. That s what troubles me. For 
 see you, Stubener and I have talked this 
 fight over, and it was understood between 
 us that I would end the fight in the six 
 teenth round. Now you bring the same 
 word. How did that editor know? Not 
 from me. Stubener must have let it out 
 . . . unless . . ." He stopped to 
 debate the problem. " Unless that editor 
 is a lucky guesser. I can t make up my 
 mind about it. I 11 have to keep my eyes 
 98 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 open and . wait and learn. Every word 
 I Ve given you is straight, and there J s 
 my hand on it." 
 
 Again he towered out of his chair and 
 over to her. Her small hand was gripped 
 in his big one as she arose to meet him, 
 and after a fair, straight look into the eyes 
 between them, both glanced uncon 
 sciously at the clasped hands. She felt 
 that she had never been more aware that 
 she was a woman. The sex emphasis of 
 those two hands the soft and frag 
 ile feminine and the heavy, muscular 
 masculine was startling. Glendon was 
 the first to speak. 
 
 " You could be hurt so easily," he said ; 
 and at the same time she felt the firmness 
 of his grip almost caressingly relax. 
 
 She remembered the old Prussian 
 king s love for giants, and laughed at the 
 incongruity of the thought-association as 
 she withdrew her hand. 
 99 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 " I am glad you came here to-day," he 
 said, then hurried on awkwardly to make 
 an explanation which the warm light of 
 admiration in his eyes belied. " I mean 
 because maybe you have opened my eyes 
 to the crooked dealing that has been go 
 ing on." 
 
 " You have surprised me," she urged. 
 " It seemed to me that it is so generally 
 understood that prize-fighting is full of 
 crookedness, that I cannot understand 
 how you, one of its chief exponents, could 
 be ignorant of it. I thought as a matter 
 of course that you would know all about 
 it, and now you have convinced me that 
 you never dreamed of it. You must be 
 different from other fighters." 
 
 He nodded his head. 
 
 " That explains it, I guess. And that s 
 
 what comes of keeping away from it 
 
 from the other fighters, and promoters, 
 
 and sports. It was easy to pull the wool 
 
 100 
 
THE ABYSM AL. BRUTE. 
 
 over my eyes. Yet it remains to be seen 
 whether it has really been pulled over or 
 not. You see, I am going to find out for 
 myself." 
 
 "And change it?" she queried, rather 
 breathlessly, convinced somehow that he 
 could do anything he set out to accom 
 plish. 
 
 "No; quit it," was his answer. "If 
 it isn t straight I won t have anything 
 more to do with it. And one thing is 
 certain: this coming fight with Nat 
 Powers won t end in the sixteenth round. 
 If there is any truth in that editor s tip, 
 they 11 all be fooled. Instead of putting 
 him out in the sixteenth, I 11 let the fight 
 run on into the twenties. You wait and 
 see." 
 
 " And I m not to tell the editor? " 
 
 She was on her feet now, preparing 
 to go. 
 
 " Certainly not. If he is only guessing, 
 101 
 
. THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 let him take his chances. And if there s 
 anything rotten about it he deserves to 
 lose all he bets. This is to be a little 
 secret between you and me. I 11 tell you 
 what I 11 do. I 11 name the round to 
 you. I won t run it into the twenties. 
 I 11 stop Nat Powers in the eight 
 eenth." 
 
 " And I 11 not whisper it," she assured 
 him. 
 
 " I d like to ask you a favor," he said 
 tentatively. " Maybe it s a big favor." 
 
 She showed her acquiescence in her 
 face, as if it were already granted, and he 
 went on: 
 
 " Of course, I know you won t use this 
 faking in the interview. But I want 
 more than that. I don t want you to pub 
 lish anything at all." 
 
 She gave him a quick look with her 
 searching gray eyes, then surprised her 
 self by her answer. 
 
 102 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 " Certainly," she said. " It will not be 
 published. I won t write a line of it." 
 
 " I knew it," he said simply. 
 
 For the moment she was disappointed 
 by the lack of thanks, and the next mo 
 ment she was glad that he had not 
 thanked her. She sensed the different 
 foundation he was building under this 
 meeting of an hour with her, and she be 
 came daringly explorative. 
 
 " How did you know it? " she asked. 
 
 " I don t know." He shook his head. 
 " I can t explain it. I knew it as a mat 
 ter of course. Somehow it seems to me 
 I know a lot about you and me." 
 
 "But why not publish the interview? 
 As your manager says, it is good adver 
 tising." 
 
 " I know it," he answered slowly. 
 " But I don t want to know you that way. 
 I think it would hurt if you should pub 
 lish it. I don t want to think that I knew 
 103 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 you professionally. I d like to remem 
 ber our talk here as a talk between a man 
 and a woman. I don t know whether you 
 understand what I m driving at. But 
 it s the way I feel. I want to remember 
 this just as a man and a woman." 
 
 As he spoke, in his eyes was all the ex 
 pression with which a man looks at a 
 woman. She felt the force and beat of 
 him, and she felt strangely tongue-tied 
 and awkward before this man who had 
 been reputed tongue-tied and awkward. 
 He could certainly talk straighter to the 
 point and more convincingly than most 
 men, and what struck her most forcibly 
 was her own inborn certainty that it was 
 mere naive and simple frankness on his 
 part and not a practised artfulness. 
 
 He saw her into her machine, and gave 
 her another thrill when he said good-by. 
 Once again their hands were clasped as 
 he said: 
 
 104 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 " Some day I 11 see you again. I want 
 to see you again. Somehow I have a 
 feeling that the last word has not been 
 said between us." 
 
 And as the machine rolled away she 
 was aware of a similar feeling. She had 
 not seen the last of this very disquieting 
 Pat Glendon, king of the bruisers and 
 abysmal brute. 
 
 Back in the training quarters, Glendon 
 encountered his perturbed manager. 
 
 " What did you fire me out for? " Stu- 
 bener demanded. " We re finished. A 
 hell of a mess you Ve made. You Ve 
 never stood for meeting a reporter alone 
 before, and now you 11 see when that in 
 terview comes out." 
 
 Glendon, who had been regarding him 
 with cool amusement, made as if to turn 
 and pass on, and then changed his mind. 
 
 " It won t come out," he said. 
 
 Stubener looked up sharply. 
 105 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 "I asked her not to," Glendon 
 explained. 
 
 Then Stubener exploded. 
 
 " As if she d kill a juicy thing like 
 that. " 
 
 Glendon became very cold and his voice 
 was harsh and grating. 
 
 " It won t be published. She told me 
 so. And to doubt it is to call her a liar." 
 
 The Irish flame was in his eyes, and 
 by that, and by the unconscious clench 
 ing of his passion-wrought hands, Stu 
 bener, who knew the strength of them, 
 and of the man he faced, no longer dared 
 to doubt. 
 
 106 
 
VII 
 
 IT did not take Stubener long to find 
 out that Glendon intended extending 
 the distance of the fight, though try 
 as he would he could get no hint of the 
 number of the round. He wasted no 
 time, however, and privily clinched cer 
 tain arrangements with Nat Powers and 
 Nat Powers manager. Powers had a 
 faithful following of bettors, and the bet 
 ting syndicate was not to be denied its 
 harvest. 
 
 On the night of the fight, Maud Sang- 
 ster was guilty of a more daring uncon- 
 ventionality than any she had yet com 
 mitted, though no whisper of it leaked 
 out to shock society. Under the protec 
 tion of the editor, she occupied a ring-side 
 107 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 seat. Her hair and most of her face were 
 hidden under a slouch hat, while she wore 
 a man s long overcoat that fell to her 
 heels. Entering in the thick of the 
 crowd, she was not noticed; nor did the 
 newspaper men, in the press seats against 
 the ring directly in front of her, recognize 
 her. 
 
 As was the growing custom, there were 
 no preliminary bouts, and she had barely 
 gained her seat when roars of applause 
 announced the arrival of Nat Powers. 
 He came down the aisle in the midst of 
 his seconds, and she was almost fright 
 ened by the formidable bulk of him. Yet 
 he leaped the ropes as lightly as a man 
 half his weight, and grinned acknowledg 
 ment to the tumultuous greeting that 
 arose from all the house. He was not 
 pretty. Two cauliflower ears attested 
 his profession and its attendant brutality, 
 while his broken nose had been so often 
 108 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 spread over his face as to defy the sur 
 geon s art to reconstruct it. 
 
 Another uproar heralded the arrival of 
 Glendon, and she watched him eagerly 
 as he went through the ropes to his cor 
 ner. But it was not until the tedious 
 time of announcements, introductions, 
 and challenges was over, that the two 
 men threw off their wraps and faced each 
 other in ring costume. Concentrated 
 upon them from overhead was the white 
 glare of many electric lights this for 
 the benefit of the moving picture cam 
 eras; and she felt, as she looked at the 
 two sharply contrasted men, that it was 
 in Glendon that she saw the thorough 
 bred and in Powers the abysmal brute. 
 Both looked their parts Glendon, clean 
 cut in face and form, softly and massively 
 beautiful, Powers almost asymmetrically 
 rugged and heavily matted with 
 
 As they made their preliminary pose 
 109 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 for the cameras, confronting each other 
 in fighting attitudes, it chanced that Glen- 
 don s gaze dropped down through the 
 ropes and rested on her face. Though 
 he gave no sign, she knew, with a swift 
 leap of the heart, that he had recognized 
 her. The next moment the gong 
 sounded, the announcer cried " Let her 
 go ! " and the battle was on. 
 
 It was a good fight. There was no 
 blood, no marring, and both were clever. 
 Half of the first round was spent in feel 
 ing each other out, but Maud Sangster 
 found the play and feint and tap of the 
 gloves sufficiently exciting. During some 
 of the fiercer rallies in later stages of the 
 fight, the editor was compelled to touch 
 her arm to remind her who she was and 
 where she was. 
 
 Powers fought easily and cleanly, as 
 became the hero of half a hundred ring 
 battles, and an admiring claque applauded 
 no 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 his every cleverness. Yet he did not un 
 duly exert himself save in occasional 
 strenuous rallies that brought the audi 
 ence yelling to its feet in the mistaken 
 notion that he was getting his man. 
 
 It was at such a moment, when her un 
 practised eye could not inform her that 
 Glendon was escaping serious damage, 
 that the editor leaned to her and said:. 
 
 " Young Pat will win all right. He s 
 a comer, and they can t stop him. But 
 he 11 win in the sixteenth and not before." 
 " Or after? " she asked. 
 She almost laughed at the certitude 
 of her companion s negative. She knew 
 better. 
 
 Powers was noted for hunting his man 
 from moment to moment and round to 
 round, and Glendon was content to ac 
 cede to this program. His defense was 
 admirable, and he threw in just enough 
 of offense to whet the edge of the 
 in 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 audience s interest. Though he knew he 
 was scheduled to lose, Powers had had 
 too long a ring experience to hesitate 
 from knocking his man out if the oppor 
 tunity offered. He had had the double 
 cross worked too often on him to be chary 
 in working it on others. If he got his 
 chance he was prepared to knock his man 
 out and let the syndicate go hang. 
 Thanks to clever press publicity, the idea 
 was prevalent that at last Young Glendon 
 had met his master. In his heart, 
 Powers, however, knew that it was him 
 self who had encountered the better man. 
 More than once, in the faster in-fighting, 
 he received the weight of punches that 
 he knew had been deliberately made no 
 heavier. 
 
 On Glendon s part, there were times 
 and times when a slip or error of judg 
 ment could have exposed him to one of 
 his antagonist s sledge-hammer blows and 
 112 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 lost him the fight. Yet his was that al 
 most miraculous power of accurate tim 
 ing and distancing, and his confidence 
 was not shaken by the several close 
 shaves he experienced. He had never 
 lost a fight, never been knocked down, 
 and he had always been so thoroughly 
 the master of the man he faced, that such 
 a possibility was unthinkable. 
 
 At the end of the fifteenth round, both 
 men were in good condition, though 
 Powers was breathing a trifle heavily and 
 there were men in the ringside seats of 
 fering odds that he would " blow up." 
 
 It was just before the gong for the six 
 teenth round struck that Stubener, lean 
 ing over Glendon from behind in his cor 
 ner, whispered: 
 
 " Are you going to get him now? " 
 
 Glendon, with a back toss of his head, 
 shook it and laughed mockingly up into 
 his manager s anxious face. 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 With the stroke of the gong for the 
 sixteenth round, Glendon was surprised 
 to see Powers cut loose. From the first 
 second it was a tornado of fighting, and 
 Glendon was hard put to escape serious 
 damage. He blocked, clinched, ducked, 
 sidestepped, was rushed backward against 
 the ropes and was met by fresh rushes 
 when he surged out to center. Several 
 times Powers left inviting openings, but 
 Glendon refused to loose the lightning- 
 bolt of a blow that would drop his man. 
 He was reserving that blow for two 
 rounds later. Not in the whole fight had 
 he ever exerted his full strength, nor 
 struck with the force that was in him. 
 
 For two minutes, without the slightest 
 let-up, Powers went at him hammer and 
 tongs. In another minute the round 
 would be over and the betting snydicate 
 hard hit. But that minute was not to 
 be. They had just come together in the 
 114 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 center of the ring. It was as ordinary a 
 clinch as any in the fight, save that 
 Powers was struggling and roughing it 
 every instant. Glendon whipped his left 
 over in a crisp but easy jolt to the side 
 of the face. It was like any of a score 
 of similar jolts he had already delivered 
 in the course of the fight. To his amaze 
 ment he felt Powers go limp in his arms 
 and begin sinking to the floor on sagging, 
 spraddling legs that refused to bear his 
 weight. He struck the floor with a 
 thump, rolled half over on his side, and 
 lay with closed eyes and motionless. The 
 referee, bending above him, was shouting 
 the count. 
 
 At the cry of " Nine ! " Powers quiv 
 ered as if making a vain effort to rise. 
 
 " Ten! and out! " cried the referee. 
 
 He caught Glendon s hand and raised 
 it aloft to the roaring audience in token 
 that he was the winner. 
 "5 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 For the first time in the ring, Glendon 
 was dazed. It had not been a knockout 
 blow. He could stake his life on that. 
 It had not been to the jaw but to the 
 side of the face, and he knew it had gone 
 there and nowhere else. Yet the man 
 was out, had been counted out, and he 
 had faked it beautifully. That final 
 thump on the floor had been a convincing 
 masterpiece. To the audience it was in 
 dubitably a knockout, and the moving 
 picture machines would perpetuate the 
 lie. The editor had called the turn after 
 all, and a crooked turn it was. 
 
 Glendon shot a swift glance through 
 the ropes to the face of Maud Sangster. 
 She was looking straight at him, but her 
 eyes were bleak and hard, and there was 
 neither recognition nor expression in 
 them. Even as he looked, she turned 
 away unconcernedly and said something 
 to the man beside her. 
 116 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 Powers seconds were carrying him to 
 his corner, a seeming limp wreck of a 
 man. Glendon s seconds were advancing 
 upon him to congratulate him and to re 
 move his gloves. But Stubener was 
 ahead of them. His face was beaming as 
 he caught Glendon s right glove in both 
 his hands and cried: 
 
 " Good boy, Pat. I knew you d do it." 
 
 Glendon pulled his glove away. And 
 for the first time in the years they had 
 been together, his manager heard him 
 swear. 
 
 " You go to hell," he said, and turned 
 to hold out his hands for his seconds to 
 pull off the gloves. 
 
 117 
 
VIII 
 
 THAT night, after receiving the 
 editor s final dictum that there 
 was not a square fighter in the 
 game, Maud Sangster cried quietly for a 
 moment on the edge of her bed, grew an 
 gry, and went to sleep hugely disgusted 
 with herself, prize-fighters, and the world 
 in general. 
 
 The next afternoon she began work on 
 an interview with Henry Addison that 
 was destined never to be finished. It was 
 in the private room that was accorded her 
 at the " Courier-Journal " office that the 
 thing happened. She had paused in her 
 writing to glance at a headline in the af 
 ternoon paper announcing that Glendon 
 was matched with Tom Cannam, when 
 118 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 one of the door-boys brought in a card. 
 It was Glendon s. 
 
 "Tell him I can t be seen," she told 
 the boy. 
 
 In a minute he was back. 
 
 " He says he s coming in anyway, but 
 he d rather have your permission." 
 
 " Did you tell him I was busy? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Yes m, but he said he was coming 
 just the same." 
 
 She made no answer, and the boy, his 
 eyes shining with admiration for the im 
 portunate visitor, rattled on. 
 
 "I know m. He s a awful big guy. 
 If he started roughhousing he could clean 
 the whole office out. He s young Glen- 
 don, who won the fight last night." 
 
 " Very well, then. Bring him in. We 
 don t want the office cleaned out, you 
 know." 
 
 No greetings were exchanged when 
 119 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 Glendon entered. She was as cold and 
 inhospitable as a gray day, and neither 
 invited him to a chair nor recognized him 
 with her eyes, sitting half turned away 
 from him at her desk and waiting for him 
 to state his business. He gave no sign 
 of how this cavalier treatment affected 
 him, but plunged directly into his subject. 
 
 " I want to talk to you," he said shortly. 
 " That fight. It did end in that round." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " I knew it would." 
 
 "You didn t," he retorted. "You 
 did n t. I did n t." 
 
 She turned and looked at him with 
 quiet affectation of boredom. 
 
 "What is the use?" she asked. 
 " Prize-fighting is prize-fighting, and we 
 all know what it means. The fight did 
 end in the round I told you it would." 
 
 " It did," he agreed. " But you did n t 
 
 1 20 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 know it would. In all the world you and 
 I were at least two that knew Powers 
 wouldn t be knocked out in the six 
 teenth." 
 
 She remained silent. 
 
 " I say you knew he would n t." He 
 spoke peremptorily, and, when she still 
 declined to speak, stepped nearer to her. 
 " Answer me," he commanded. 
 
 She nodded her head. 
 
 " But he was," she insisted. 
 
 " He was n t. He was n t knocked out 
 at all. Do you get that? I am going to 
 tell you about it, and you are going to 
 listen. I did n t lie to you. Do you get 
 that? I did n t lie to you. I was a fool, 
 and they fooled me, and you along with 
 me. You thought you saw him knocked 
 out. Yet the blow I struck was not 
 heavy enough. It didn t hit him in the 
 right place either. He made believe it 
 did. He faked that knockout." 
 121 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 He paused and looked at her ex 
 pectantly. And somehow, with a leap 
 and thrill, she knew that she believed 
 him, and she felt pervaded by a warm 
 happiness at the reinstatement of this man 
 who meant nothing to her and whom she 
 had seen but twice in her life. 
 
 " Well? " he demanded, and she thrilled 
 anew at the compellingness of him. 
 
 She stood up, and her hand went out 
 to his. 
 
 " I believe you," she said. " And I am 
 glad, most glad." 
 
 It was a longer grip than she had an 
 ticipated. He looked at her with eyes 
 that burned and to which her own uncon 
 sciously answered back. Never was there 
 such a man, was her thought. Her eyes 
 dropped first, and his followed, so that, 
 as before, both gazed at the clasped hands. 
 He made a movement of his whole body 
 toward her, impulsive and involuntary, as 
 122 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 if to gather her to him, then checked him 
 self abruptly, with an unmistakable effort. 
 She saw it, and felt the pull of his hand 
 as it started to draw her to him. And 
 to her amazement she felt the desire to 
 yield, the desire almost overwhelmingly 
 to be drawn into the strong circle of those 
 arms. And had he compelled, she knew 
 that she would not have refrained. She 
 was almost dizzy, when he checked him 
 self and with a closing of his fingers that 
 half crushed hers, dropped her hand, al 
 most flung it from him. 
 
 "God!" he breathed. "You were 
 made for me." 
 
 He turned partly away from her, 
 sweeping his hand to his forehead. She 
 knew she would hate him forever if he 
 dared one stammered word of apology or 
 explanation. But he seemed to have the 
 way always of doing the right thing 
 where she was concerned. She sank into 
 123 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 her chair, and he into another, first draw 
 ing it around so as to face her across the 
 corner of the desk. 
 
 " I spent last night in a Turkish bath," 
 he said. " I sent for an old broken-down 
 bruiser. He was a friend of my father 
 in the old days. I knew there could n t 
 be a thing about the ring he did n t know, 
 and I made him talk. The funny thing 
 was that it was all I could do to convince 
 him that I didn t know the things I 
 asked him about. He called me the babe 
 in the woods. I guess he was right. I 
 was raised in the woods, and woods is 
 about all I know. 
 
 " Well, I received an education from 
 that old man last night. The ring is rot- 
 tener than you told me. It seems every 
 body connected with it is crooked. The 
 very supervisors that grant the fight per 
 mits graft off of the promoters; and the 
 promoters, managers, and fighters graft 
 124 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 off of each other and off the public. It s 
 down to a system, in one way, and on 
 the other nand they re always do you 
 know what the double cross is? " (She 
 nodded.) " Well, they don t seem to miss 
 a chance to give each other the double 
 cross. 
 
 " The stuff that old man told me took 
 my breath away. And here I ve been in 
 the thick of it for several years and knew 
 nothing of it. I was a real babe in the 
 woods. And yet I can see how I Ve been 
 fooled. I was so made that nobody 
 could stop me. I was bound to win, and, 
 thanks to Stubener, everything crooked 
 was kept away from me. This morning 
 I cornered Spider Walsh and made him 
 talk. He was my first trainer, you know, 
 and he followed Stubener s instructions. 
 They kept me in ignorance. Besides, I 
 did n t herd with the sporting crowd. I 
 spent my time hunting and fishing and 
 125 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 monkeying with cameras and such 
 things. Do you know what Walsh and 
 Stubener called me between themselves? 
 the Virgin. I only learned it this 
 morning from Walsh, and it was like 
 pulling teeth. And they were right. I 
 was a little innocent lamb. 
 
 " And Stubener was using me for 
 crookedness, too, only I didn t know it. 
 I can look back now and see how it was 
 worked. But you see, I wasn t inter 
 ested enough in the game to be sus 
 picious. I was born with a good body 
 and a cool head, I was raised in the open, 
 and I was taught by my father, who 
 knew more about fighting than any man 
 living or dead. It was too easy. The 
 ring did n t absorb me. There was never 
 any doubt of the outcome. But I m 
 done with it now." 
 
 She pointed to the headline announc 
 ing his match with Tom Cannam. 
 126 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 "That s Stubener s work," he ex 
 plained. " It was programmed months 
 ago. But I don t care. I m heading for 
 the mountains. I ve quit." 
 
 She glanced at the unfinished inter 
 view on the desk and sighed. 
 
 " How lordly men are," she said. 
 "Masters of destiny. They do as they 
 please " 
 
 " From what I Ve heard," he inter 
 rupted, "you ve done pretty much as 
 you please. It s one of the things I like 
 about you. And what has struck me 
 hard from the first was the way you and 
 I understand each other." 
 
 He broke off and looked at her with 
 burning eyes. 
 
 " Well, the ring did one thing for me," 
 he went on. " It made me acquainted 
 with you. And when you find the one 
 woman, there s just one thing to do. 
 Take her in your two hands and don t 
 127 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 let go. Come on, let us start for the 
 mountains." 
 
 It had come with the suddenness of a 
 thunder-clap, and yet she felt that she 
 had been expecting it. Her heart was 
 beating up and almost choking her in a 
 strangely delicious way. Here at least 
 was the primitive and the simple with a 
 vengeance. Then, too, it seemed a 
 dream. Such things did not take place 
 in modern newspaper offices. Love could 
 not be made in such fashion; it only so 
 occurred on the stage and in novels. 
 
 He had arisen, and was holding out 
 both hands to her. 
 
 " I don t dare," she said in a whisper, 
 half to herself. " I don t dare." 
 
 And thereat she was stung by the 
 quick contempt that flashed in his eyes 
 but that swiftly changed to open incre 
 dulity. 
 
 " You d dare anything you wanted," 
 128 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 he was saying. " I know that. It s not 
 a case of dare, but of want. Do you 
 want?" 
 
 She had arisen, and was now swaying 
 as if in a dream. It flashed into her mind 
 to wonder if it were hypnotism. She 
 wanted to glance about her at the familiar 
 objects of the room in order to identify 
 herself with reality, but she could not 
 take her eyes from his. Nor did she 
 speak. 
 
 He had stepped beside her. His hand 
 was on her arm, and she leaned toward 
 him involuntarily. It was all part of the 
 dream, and it was no longer hers to ques 
 tion anything. It was the great dare. 
 He was right. She could dare what she 
 wanted, and she did want. He was help 
 ing her into her jacket. She was thrust 
 ing the hat-pins through her hair. And 
 even as she realized it, she found herself 
 walking beside him through the opened 
 129 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 door. The " Flight of the Duchess " and 
 "The Statue and the Bust," darted 
 through her mind. Then she remem 
 bered " Waring." 
 
 " What s become of Waring? " she 
 murmured. 
 
 " Land travel or sea-faring? he 
 murmured back. 
 
 And to her this kindred sufficient note 
 was a vindication of her madness. 
 
 At the entrance of the building he 
 raised his hand to call a taxi, but was 
 stopped by her touch on his arm. 
 
 " Where are we going? " she breathed. 
 
 "To the Ferry. We ve just time to 
 catch that Sacramento train." 
 
 "But I can t go this way," she pro 
 tested. " I ... I have n t even a 
 change of handkerchiefs." 
 
 He held up his hand again before re 
 plying. 
 
 " You can shop in Sacramento. We 11 
 130 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 get married there and catch the night 
 overland north. I 11 arrange everything 
 by telegraph from the train." 
 
 As the cab drew to the curb, she looked 
 quickly about her at the familiar street 
 and the familiar throng, then, with al 
 most a flurry of alarm, into Glendon s 
 face. 
 
 " I don t know a thing about you," she 
 said. 
 
 " We know everything about each 
 other," was his answer. 
 
 She felt the support and urge of his 
 arms, and lifted her foot to the step. The 
 next moment the door had closed, he was 
 beside her, and the cab was heading down 
 Market Street. He passed his arm 
 around her, drew her close, and kissed 
 her. When next she glimpsed his face 
 she was certain that it was dyed with a 
 faint blush. 
 
 "I . . . I ve heard there was an 
 131 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 art in kissing," he stammered. " I don t 
 know anything about it myself, but I 11 
 learn. You see, you re the first woman 
 I ever kissed." 
 
 132 
 
IX 
 
 WHERE a jagged peak of rock 
 thrust above the vast virgin 
 forest, reclined a man and a 
 woman. Beneath them, on the edge of 
 the trees, were tethered two horses. Be 
 hind each saddle were a pair of small sad 
 dle-bags. The trees were monotonously 
 huge. Towering hundreds of feet into 
 the air, they ran from eight to ten and 
 twelve feet in diameter. Many were 
 much larger. All morning they had 
 toiled up the divide through this unbroken 
 forest, and this peak of rock had been the 
 first spot where they could get out of the 
 forest in order to see the forest. 
 
 Beneath them and away, far as they 
 could see, lay range upon range of haze- 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 empurpled mountains. There was no 
 end to these ranges. They rose one be 
 hind another to the dim, distant skyline, 
 where they faded away with a vague 
 promise of unending extension beyond. 
 There were no clearings in the forest; 
 north, south, east, and west, untouched, 
 unbroken, it covered the land with its 
 mighty growth. 
 
 They lay, feasting their eyes on the 
 sight, her hand clasped in one of his; for 
 this was their honeymoon, and these were 
 the redwoods of Mendocino. Across 
 from Shasta they had come, with horses 
 and saddle-bags, and down through the 
 wilds of the coast counties, and they had 
 no plan except to continue until some 
 other plan entered their heads. They 
 were roughly dressed, she in travel- 
 stained khaki, he in overalls and woolen 
 shirt. The latter was open at the sun 
 burned neck, and in his hugeness he 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 seemed a fit dweller among the forest 
 giants, while for her, as a dweller with 
 him, there were no signs of aught else but 
 happiness. 
 
 "Well, Big Man," she said, propping 
 herself upTbrT an ^elbo w to gaze at him, 
 " it is more wonderful than you promised. 
 And we are going through it together." 
 
 " And there s a lot of the rest of the 
 world we 11 go through together," he an 
 swered, shifting his position so as to get 
 her hand in both of his. 
 
 " But not till we Ve finished with 
 this," she urged. " I seem never to grow 
 tired of the big woods ... and of 
 you." 
 
 He slid effortlessly into a sitting pos 
 ture and gathered her into his arms. 
 
 " Oh, you lover," she whispered. 
 " And I had given up hope of finding such 
 
 a one." 
 
 " And I never hoped at all. I must 
 i35 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 just have known all the time that I was 
 going to find you. Glad? " 
 
 Her answer was a soft pressure where 
 her hand rested on his neck, and for long 
 minutes they looked out over the great 
 woods and dreamed. 
 
 " You remember I told you how I ran 
 away from the red-haired school teacher? 
 That was the first time I saw this coun 
 try. I was on foot, but forty or fifty 
 miles a day was play for me. I was a 
 regular Indian. I was n t thinking about 
 you then. Game was pretty scarce in the 
 redwoods, but there was plenty of fine 
 trout. That was when I camped on these 
 rocks. I did n t dream that some day I d 
 be back with you, YOU." 
 
 " And be a champion of the ring, too," 
 he suggested. 
 
 " No ; I did n t think about that at all. 
 Dad had always told me I was going to 
 be, and I took it for granted. You see, 
 136 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 he was very wise. He was a great man." 
 
 " But he did n t see you leaving the 
 ring." 
 
 " I don t know. He was so careful in 
 hiding its crookedness from me, that I 
 think he feared it. I ve told you about 
 the contract with Stubener. Dad put in 
 that clause about crookedness. The first 
 crooked thing my manager did was to 
 break the contract." 
 
 " And yet you are going to fight this 
 Tom Cannam. Is it worth while ?" 
 
 He looked at her quickly. 
 
 " Don t you want me to? " 
 
 " Dear lover, I want you to do what 
 ever you want." 
 
 So she said, and to herself, her words 
 still ringing in her ears, she marveled that 
 she, not least among the stubbornly inde 
 pendent of the breed of Sangster, should 
 utter them. Yet she knew they were 
 true, and she was glad. 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 " It will be fun," he said. 
 
 " But I don t understand all the gleeful 
 details." 
 
 " I have n 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 in 
 tend 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 busi 
 ness 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. 
 
 138 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 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 pro 
 gram. But I 11 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 11 show him that night, and 
 poor Tom, too. I really feel sorry for 
 Tom." 
 
 139 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 " 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 appear 
 ance, 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," 
 140 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 she said, when his embrace had relaxed. 
 
 " Is n t it great! " he cried. 
 
 He stood up, measured the sun with his 
 eye, and extended his Jiand out over the 
 big woods that covered the serried, pur 
 ple ranges. 
 
 < We ve got to sleep out there some 
 where. It s thirty miles to the nearest 
 camp." 
 
 141 
 
WHO, of all the sports present, 
 will ever forget the memorable 
 night at the Golden Gate 
 Arena, when Young Glendon put Tom 
 Cannam to sleep and an even greater one 
 than Tom Cannam, kept the great audi 
 ence on the ragged edge of riot for an 
 hour, caused the subsequent graft investi 
 gation of the supervisors and the indict 
 ments of the contractors and the building 
 commissioners, and pretty generally dis 
 rupted the whole fight game. It was a 
 complete surprise. Not even Stubener 
 had the slightest apprehension of what 
 was coming. It was true that his man 
 had been insubordinate after the Nat 
 Powers affair, and had run off and got 
 142 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 married; but all that was over. Young 
 Pat had done the expected, swallowed the 
 inevitable crookedness of the ring, and 
 come back into it again. 
 
 The Golden Gate Arena was new. 
 This was its first fight, and it was the 
 biggest building of the kind San Fran 
 cisco had ever erected. It seated twenty- 
 five thousand, and every seat was oc 
 cupied. Sports had traveled from all the 
 world to be present, and they had paid 
 fifty dollars for their ring-side seats. The 
 cheapest seat in the house had sold for 
 five dollars. 
 
 The old familiar roar of applause went 
 up when Billy Morgan, the veteran an 
 nouncer, climbed through the ropes and 
 bared his gray head. As he opened his 
 mouth to speak, a heavy crash came from 
 a near section where several tiers of low 
 seats had collapsed. The crowd broke 
 into loud laughter and shouted jocular re- 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 grets and advice to the victims, none of 
 whom had been hurt. The crash of the 
 seats and the hilarious uproar caused the 
 captain of police in charge to look at one 
 of his lieutenants and lift his brows in 
 token that they would have their hands 
 full and a lively night. 
 
 One by one, welcomed by uproarious 
 applause, seven doughty old ring heroes 
 climbed through the ropes to be intro 
 duced. They were all ex-heavy-weight 
 champions of the world. Billy Morgan 
 accompanied each presentation to the 
 audience with an appropriate phrase. 
 One was hailed as " Honest John " and 
 "Old Reliable," another was "the 
 squarest two-fisted fighter the ring ever 
 saw." And of others: "the hero of a 
 hundred battles and never threw one and 
 never lay down " ; " the gamest of the 
 old guard " ; " the only one who ever 
 came back " ; " the greatest warrior of 
 144 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 them all " ; and " the hardest nut in the 
 ring to crack." 
 
 All this took time. A speech was in 
 sisted on from each of them, and they 
 mumbled and muttered in reply with 
 proud blushes and awkward shamblings. 
 The longest speech was from " Old Re 
 liable " and lasted nearly a minute. Then 
 they had to be photographed. The ring 
 filled up with celebrities, with champion 
 wrestlers, famous conditioners, and vet 
 eran time-keepers and referees. Light 
 weights and middle-weights swarmed. 
 Everybody seemed to be challenging 
 everybody. Nat Powers was there, de 
 manding a return match from Young 
 Glendon, and so were all the other shin 
 ing lights whom Glendon had snuffed 
 out. Also, they all challenged Jim Han- 
 ford, who, in turn, had to make his state- 
 Vnent, which was to the effect that he 
 would accord the next fight to the winner 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 of the one that was about to take place. 
 The audience immediately proceeded to 
 name the winner, half of it wildly crying 
 " Glendon," and the other half " Powers." 
 In the midst of the pandemonium another 
 tier of seats went down, and half a dozen 
 rows were on between cheated ticket 
 holders and the stewards who had been 
 reaping a fat harvest. The captain des 
 patched a message to headquarters for 
 additional police details. 
 
 The crowd was feeling good. When 
 Cannam and Glendon made their ring en 
 trances the Arena resembled a national 
 political convention. Each was cheered 
 for a solid five minutes. The ring was 
 now cleared. Glendon sat in his corner 
 surrounded by his seconds. As usual, 
 Stubener was at his back. Cannam was 
 introduced first, and after he had scraped 
 and ducked his head, he was compelled 
 to respond to the cries for a speech. He 
 146 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 stammered and halted, but managed to 
 grind out several ideas. 
 
 " I m proud to be here to-night," he 
 said, and found space to capture another 
 thought while the applause was thunder 
 ing. " I Ve fought square. I ve fought 
 square all my life. Nobody can deny 
 that. And I m going to do my best to 
 night." 
 
 There were loud cries of: "That s 
 right, Tom!" "We know that!" 
 "Good boy, Tom!" "You re the boy 
 to fetch the bacon home ! " 
 
 Then came Glendon s turn. From him, 
 likewise, a speech was demanded, though 
 for principals to give speeches was an un 
 precedented thing in the prize-ring. Billy 
 Morgan held up his hand for silence, 
 and in a clear, powerful voice Glendon 
 began. 
 
 "Everybody has told you they were 
 proud to be here to-night," he said. " I 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 am not." The audience was startled, and 
 he paused long enough to let it sink home. 
 " I am not proud of my company. You 
 wanted a speech. I 11 give you a real 
 one. This is my last fight. After to 
 night I leave the ring for good. Why? 
 I have already told you. I don t like my 
 company. The prize-ring is so crooked 
 that no man engaged in it can hide 
 behind a corkscrew. It is rotten 
 to the core, from the little profes 
 sional clubs right up to this affair to 
 night." 
 
 The low rumble of astonishment that 
 had been rising at this point burst into 
 a roar. There were loud boos and hisses, 
 and many began crying : " Go on with 
 the fight!" "We want the fight!" 
 " Why don t you fight? " Glendon, wait 
 ing, noted that the principal disturbers 
 near the ring were promoters and man 
 agers and fighters. In vain did he strive 
 148 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 to make himself heard. The audience 
 was divided, half crying out, " Fight ! " 
 and the other half, " Speech! Speech! " 
 
 Ten minutes of hopeles madness pre 
 vailed. Stubener, the referee, the owner 
 of the Arena, and the promoter of the 
 fight, pleaded with Glendon to go on with 
 the fight. When he refused, the referee 
 declared that he would award the fight in 
 forfeit to Cannam if Glendon did not 
 fight. 
 
 " You can t do it," the latter retorted. 
 " I 11 sue you in all the courts if you try 
 that on, and I 11 not promise you that 
 you 11 survive this crowd if you cheat it 
 out of the fight. Besides, I m going to 
 fight. But before I do I m going to 
 finish my speech." 
 
 " But it s against the rules," protested 
 the referee. 
 
 " It s nothing of the sort. There s 
 not a word in the rules against ring-side 
 149 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 speeches. Every big fighter here to 
 night has made a speech." 
 
 " Only a few words/ shouted the pro 
 moter in Glendon s ear. "But you re 
 giving a lecture." 
 
 " There s nothing in the rules against 
 lectuxfes^" Glendon answered. " And now 
 you fellows get out of the ring or I 11 
 throw you out." 
 
 The promoter, apoplectic and strug 
 gling, was dropped over the ropes by his 
 coat-collar. He was a large man, but so 
 easily had Glendon done it with one hand 
 that the audience went wild with delight. 
 The cries for a speech increased in vol 
 ume. Stubener and the owner beat a 
 wise retreat. Glendon held up his hands 
 to be heard, whereupon those that 
 shouted for the fight redoubled their 
 efforts. Two or three tiers of seats 
 crashed down, and numbers who had thus 
 lost their places, added to the turmoil 
 150 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 by making a concerted rush to squeeze 
 in on the still intact seats, while those 
 behind, blocked from sight of the ring, 
 yelled and raved for them to sit down. 
 
 Glendon walked to the ropes and spoke 
 to the police captain. He was compelled 
 to bend over and shout in his ear. 
 
 " If I don t give this speech," he said, 
 " this crowd will wreck the place. If 
 they break lose you can never hold them, 
 you know that. Now you ve got to help. 
 You keep the ring clear and I 11 silence 
 the crowd." 
 
 He went back to the center of the ring 
 and again held up his hands. 
 
 " You want that speech? " he shouted 
 in a tremendous voice. 
 
 Hundreds near the ring heard him and 
 cried "Yes!" 
 
 "Then let every man who wants to 
 hear shut up the noise-maker next to 
 him!" 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 The advice was taken, so that when he 
 repeated it, his voice penetrated farther. 
 Again and again he shouted it, and 
 slowly, zone by zone, the silence pressed 
 outward from the ring, accompanied by 
 a muffled undertone of smacks and thuds 
 and scuffles as the obstreperous were sub 
 dued by their neighbors. Almost had 
 all confusion been smothered, when a 
 tier of seats near the ring went down. 
 This was greeted with fresh roars of 
 laughter, which of itself died away, so 
 that a lone voice, far back, was heard 
 distinctly as it piped: "Go on, Glendon! 
 We re with you ! " 
 
 Glendon had the Celt s intuitive knowl 
 edge of the psychology of the crowd. He 
 knew that what had been a vast disorderly 
 mob five minutes before was now tightly 
 in hand, and for added effect he deliber 
 ately delayed. Yet the delay was just 
 long enough and not a second too long. 
 152 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 For thirty seconds the silence was com 
 plete, and the effect produced was one 
 of awe. Then, just as the first faint hints 
 of restlessness came to his ears, he began 
 to speak: 
 
 " When I finish this speech," he said, 
 " I am going to fight. I promise you it 
 will be a real fight, one of the few real 
 fights you have ever seen. I am going 
 to get my man in the shortest possible 
 time. Billy Morgan, in making his final 
 announcement, will tell you that it is to 
 be a forty-five-round contest. Let me 
 tell you that it will be nearer forty-five 
 seconds. 
 
 " When I was interrupted I was telling 
 you that the ring was rotten. It is 
 from top to bottom. It is run on busi 
 ness principles, and you all know what 
 business principles are. Enough said. 
 You are the suckers, every last one of 
 you that is not making anything out of it. 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 Why are the seats falling down to-night? 
 Graft. Like the fight game, they were 
 built on business principles." 
 
 He now held the audience stronger 
 than ever, and knew it. 
 
 " There are three men squeezed on two 
 seats. I can see that everywhere. What 
 does it mean? Graft. The stewards 
 don t get any wages. They are supposed 
 to graft. Business principles again. You 
 pay. Of course you pay. How are the 
 fight permits obtained? Graft. And 
 now let me ask you: if the men who 
 build the seats graft, if the stewards 
 graft, if the authorities graft, why 
 should n t those higher up in the fight 
 game graft? They do. And you pay. 
 
 "And let me tell you it is not the 
 fault of the fighters. They don t run the 
 game. The promoters and managers run 
 it ; they re the business men. The 
 fighters are only fighters. They begin 
 i54 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 honestly enough, but the managers and 
 promoters make them give in or kick 
 them out. There have been straight 
 fighters. And there are now a few, but 
 they don t earn much as a rule. I guess 
 there have been straight managers. 
 Mine is about the best of the boiling. 
 But just ask him how much he s got 
 salted down in real estate and apartment 
 houses." 
 
 Here the uproar began to drown his 
 voice. 
 
 " Let every man who wants to hear 
 shut up the man alongside of him ! " 
 Glendon instructed. 
 
 Again, like the murmur of a surf, there 
 was a rustling of smacks, and thuds, and 
 scuffles, and the house quieted down. 
 
 " Why does every fighter work over 
 time insisting that he s always fought 
 square? Why are they called Honest 
 Johns, and Honest Bills, and Honest 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 Blacksmiths, and all the rest? Doesn t 
 it ever strike you that they seem to 
 be afraid of something? When a man 
 comes to you shouting he is honest, you 
 get suspicious. But when a prize-fighter 
 passes the same dope out to you, you 
 swallow it down. 
 
 " May the best man win ! How often 
 have you heard Billy Morgan say that! 
 Let me tell you that the best man does n t 
 win so often, and when he does it s 
 usually arranged for him. Most of the 
 grudge fights you ve heard or seen were 
 arranged, too. It s a program. The 
 whole thing is programmed. Do you 
 think the promoters and managers are 
 in it for their health? They re not. 
 They re business men. 
 
 "Tom, Dick, and Harry are three 
 fighters. Dick is the best man. In two 
 fights he could prove it. But what hap 
 pens? Tom licks Harry. Dick licks 
 156 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 Tom. Harry licks Dick. Nothing 
 proved. Then come the return matches. 
 Harry licks Tom. Tom licks Dick. 
 Dick licks Harry. Nothing proved. 
 Then they try again. Dick is kicking. 
 Says he wants to get along in the game. 
 So Dick licks Tom, and Dick licks Harry. 
 Eight fights to prove Dick the best man, 
 when two could have done it. All ar 
 ranged. A regular program. And you 
 pay for it, and when your seats don t 
 break down you get robbed of them by 
 the stewards. 
 
 " It s a good game, too, if it were only 
 square. The fighters would be square if 
 they had a chance. But the graft is too 
 big. When a handful of men can divide 
 up three-quarters of a million dollars on 
 three fights " 
 
 A wild outburst compelled him to stop. 
 Out of the medley of cries from all over 
 the house, he could distinguish such as 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 " What million dollars? " " What three 
 fights ? " " Tell us ! " " Go on ! " Like 
 wise there were boos and hisses, and cries 
 of " Muckraker ! Muckraker ! " 
 
 " Do you want to hear? " Glendon 
 shouted. " Then keep order ! " 
 
 Once more he compelled the impres 
 sive half minute of silence. 
 
 "What is Jim Hanford planning? 
 What is the program his crowd and mine 
 are framing up ? They know I Ve got 
 him. He knows I Ve got him. I can 
 whip him in one fight. But he s the 
 champion of the world. If I don t give 
 in to the program, they ll never give me 
 a chance to fight him. The program 
 calls for three fights. I am to win the 
 first fight. It will be pulled off in Ne 
 vada if San Francisco won t stand for it. 
 We are to make it a good fight. To 
 make it good, each of us will put up a 
 side bet of twenty thousand. It will be 
 158 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 real money, but it won t be a real bet. 
 Each gets his own slipped back to him. 
 The same way with the purse. We 11 di 
 vide it evenly, though the public division 
 will be thirty-five and sixty-five. The 
 purse, the moving picture royalties, the 
 advertisements, and all the rest of the 
 drags won t be a cent less than two hun 
 dred and fifty thousand. We 11 divide it, 
 and go to work on the return match. 
 Hanford will win that, and we divide 
 again. Then comes the third fight ; I win 
 as I have every right to; and we have 
 taken three-quarters of a million out 
 of the pockets of the fighting public. 
 That s the program, but the money is 
 dirty. And that s why I am quitting 
 the ring to-night " 
 
 It was at this moment that Jim Han- 
 ford, kicking a clinging policeman back 
 among the seat-holders, heaved his huge 
 frame through the ropes, bellowing: 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 "It s a lie!" 
 
 He rushed like an infuriated bull at 
 Glendon, who sprang back, and then, in 
 stead of meeting the rush, ducked cleanly 
 away. Unable to check himself, the big 
 man fetched up against the ropes. Flung 
 back by the spring of them, he was turn 
 ing to make another rush, when Glendon 
 landed him. Glendon, cool, clear-seeing, 
 distanced his man perfectly to the jaw 
 and struck the first full-strength blow of 
 his career. All his strength, and his 
 reserve of strength, went into that one 
 smashing muscular explosion. 
 
 Hanf ord was dead in the air in so far 
 as unconsciousness may resemble death. 
 So far as he was concerned, he ceased at 
 the moment of contact with Glendon s 
 fist. His feet left the floor and he was 
 in the air until he struck the topmost 
 rope. His inert body sprawled across 
 it, sagged at the middle, and fell through 
 1 60 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 the ropes and down out of the ring 
 upon the heads of the men in the press 
 seats. 
 
 The audience broke loose. It had al 
 ready seen more than it had paid to see, 
 for the great Jim Hanford, the world 
 champion, had been knocked out. It was 
 unofficial, but it had been with a single 
 punch. Never had there been such a 
 night in fistiana. Glendon looked rue 
 fully at his damaged knuckles, cast a 
 glance through the ropes to where Han- 
 ford was groggily coming to, and held up 
 his hands. He had clinched his right to 
 be heard, and the audience grew still. 
 
 "When I began to fight," he said, 
 "they called me One-Punch Glendon. 
 You saw that punch a moment ago. I 
 always had that punch. I went after my 
 men and got them on the jump, though 
 I was careful not to hit with all my might. 
 Then I was educated. My manager told 
 161 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 me it was n t fair to the crowd. He ad 
 vised me to make long fights so that the 
 crowd could get a run for its money. I 
 was a fool, a mutt. I was a green lad 
 from the mountains. So help me God, I 
 swallowed it as the truth. My manager 
 used to talk over with me what round 
 I would put my man out in. Then he 
 tipped it off to the betting syndicate, and 
 the betting syndicate went to it. Of 
 course you paid. But I am glad for one 
 thing. I never touched a cent of the 
 money. They did n t dare offer it to me, 
 because they knew it would give the 
 game away. 
 
 " You remember my fight with Nat 
 Powers. I never knocked him out. I 
 had got suspicious. So the gang framed 
 it up with him. I didn t know. I in 
 tended to let him go a couple of rounds 
 over the sixteenth. That last punch in 
 the sixteenth did n t shake him. But he 
 162 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 faked the knock-out just the same and 
 fooled all of you." 
 
 " How about to-night? " a voice called 
 out. " Is it a frame-up? " 
 
 "It is," was Glendon s answer. 
 "How s the syndicate betting? That 
 Cannam will last to the fourteenth." 
 
 Howls and hoots went up. For the 
 last time Glendon held up his hand for 
 silence. 
 
 " I m almost done now. But I want 
 to tell you one thing. The syndicate gets 
 landed to-night. This is to be a square 
 fight. Tom Cannam won t last till the 
 fourteenth round. He won t last the first 
 round." 
 
 Cannam sprang to his feet in his corner 
 and cried out in a fury: 
 
 " You can t do it. The man don t live 
 who can get me in one round ! " 
 
 Glendon ignored him and went on. 
 
 "Once now in my life I have struck 
 163 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 with all my strength. You saw that a 
 moment ago when I caught Hanford. 
 To-night, for the second time, I am going 
 to hit with all my strength that is, if 
 Cannam does n t jump through the ropes 
 right now and get away. And now I m 
 ready." 
 
 He went to his corner and held out his 
 hands for his gloves. In the opposite 
 corner Cannam raged while his seconds 
 tried vainly to calm him. At last Billy 
 Morgan managed to make the final an 
 nouncement. 
 
 "*This will be a forty-five round con 
 test," he shouted. " Marquis of Queens- 
 bury Rules ! And may the best man win ! 
 Let her go!" 
 
 The gong struck. The two men ad 
 vanced. Glendon s right hand was ex 
 tended for the customary shake, but 
 Cannam, with an angry toss of the head, 
 refused to take it. To the general sur- 
 164 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 prise, he did not rush. Angry though he 
 
 was, he fought carefully, his touched 
 
 pride impelling him to bend every effort 
 
 to last out the round. Several times he 
 
 struck, but he struck cautiously, never 
 
 relaxing his defense. Glendon hunted 
 
 him about the ring, ever advancing with 
 
 the remorseless tap-tap of his left foot. 
 
 Yet he struck no blows, nor attempted 
 
 to strike. He even dropped his hands to 
 
 his sides and hunted the other defense- 
 
 lessly in an effort to draw him out. Can- 
 
 nam grinned defiantly, but declined to 
 
 take advantage of the proffered opening. 
 
 Two minutes passed, and then a change 
 
 came over Glendon. By every muscle, 
 
 by every line of his face, he advertised 
 
 that the moment had come for him to 
 
 get his man. Acting it was, and it was 
 
 well acted. He seemed to have become 
 
 a thing of steel, as hard and pitiless as 
 
 steel. The effect was apparent on Can- 
 
 165 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 nam, who redoubled his caution. Glen- 
 don quickly worked him into a corner and 
 herded and held him there. Still he 
 struck no blow, nor attempted to strike, 
 and the suspense on Cannam s part grew 
 painful. In vain he tried to work out of 
 the corner, while he could not summon 
 resolution to rush upon his opponent in 
 an attempt to gain the respite of a clinch. 
 Then it came a swift series of simple 
 feints that were muscle flashes. Cannam 
 was dazzled. So was the audience. No 
 two of the onlookers could agree after 
 ward as to what took place. Cannam 
 ducked one feint and at the same time 
 threw up his face guard to meet another 
 feint for his jaw. He also attempted to 
 change position with his legs. Ring-side 
 witnesses swore that they saw Glendon 
 start the blow from his right hip and leap 
 forward like a tiger to add the weight of 
 his body to it. Be that as it may, the 
 1 66 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 blow caught Cannam on the point of the 
 chin at the moment of his shift of posi 
 tion. And like Hanford, he was uncon 
 scious in the air before he struck the 
 ropes and fell through on the heads of 
 the reporters. 
 
 Of what happened afterward that night 
 in the Golden Gate Arena, columns in the 
 newspapers were unable adequately to 
 describe. The police kept the ring clear, 
 but they could not save the Arena. It 
 was not a riot. It was an orgy. Not a 
 seat was left standing. All over the 
 great hall, by main strength, crowding 
 and jostling to lay hands on beams and 
 boards, the crowd uprooted and over 
 turned. Prize-fighters sought protection 
 of the police, but there were not enough 
 police to escort them out, and fighters, 
 managers, and promoters were beaten 
 and battered. Jim Hanford alone was 
 spared. His jaw, prodigiously swollen, 
 167 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 earned him this mercy. Outside, when 
 finally driven from the building, the 
 crowd fell upon a new seven-thousand- 
 dollar motor car belonging to a well- 
 known fight promoter and reduced it to 
 scrapiron and kindling wood. 
 
 Glendon, unable to dress amid the 
 wreckage of dressing rooms, gained his 
 automobile, still in his ring costume and 
 wrapped in a bath robe, but failed to 
 escape. By weight of numbers the crowd 
 caught and held his machine. The police 
 were too busy to rescue him, and in the 
 end a compromise was effected, whereby 
 the car was permitted to proceed at a 
 walk escorted by five thousand cheering 
 madmen. 
 
 It was midnight when this storm swept 
 past Union Square and down upon the 
 St. Francis. Cries for a speech went up, 
 and though at the hotel entrance, Glendon 
 was good-naturedly restrained from es- 
 168 
 
THE ABYSMAL BRUTE 
 
 caping. He even tried leaping out upon 
 the heads of the enthusiasts, but his feet 
 never touched the pavement. On heads 
 and shoulders, clutched at and uplifted 
 by every hand that could touch his body, 
 he went back through the air to the ma 
 chine. Then he gave his speech, and 
 Maud Glendon, looking down from an 
 upper window at her young Hercules 
 towering on the seat of the automobile, 
 knew, as she always knew, that he meant 
 it when he repeated that he had fought 
 his last fight and retired from the ring 
 forever. 
 
 The End 
 
 169 
 
Other Great Books by Jack London 
 
 Smoke Bellew 
 
 The sting of real appetite, the goodly ache of 
 fatigue, the rush of mad, strong blood that bites 
 like wine through all one s body as work is done, 
 love and comradeship such as the world of civili 
 zation seldom knows all these are vividly por 
 trayed in this splendid tale of adventure and love 
 in the Klondike. 
 
 Eight full-page illustrations by Monahan. 
 Price $1.30 net) postage ij cents. 
 
 The Night-Born 
 
 A woman good to look upon, if unlettered, of clean 
 but sordid life, set free from the pots and kettles 
 of a Juneau kitchen by chance reading of 
 Thoreau s "Cry of the Human" a woman who 
 finds her freedom and her joy queening a tribe of 
 wild Indians and several thousand square miles 
 of Arctic hunting territory this is the heroine 
 Jack London creates for the story which opens 
 this collection of short tales. Jack London is at 
 his splendid best perhaps when his people and 
 his scenes are set in the far north ; but here are 
 some of his more notable short stories, with widely 
 varied settings and character, but with a touch of 
 "the night-born" wildness in all. 
 Frontispiece in color. Price $1.25 net, postage extra. 
 
 At all book-stores. Published by 
 
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 tf ft 1 7 2002 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 FORM NO. DD6 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 50M 6-00 Berkeley, California 94720-6000 
 
.^.BERKELEY