The gymnasium was packed as Jimmy Torrance stepped into the ringfor the final event of the evening that was to decide the boxingchampionship of the university. Drawing to a close were the nearlyfour years of his college career—profitable years, Jimmyconsidered them, and certainly successful up to this point. In thebeginning of his senior year he had captained the varsity eleven,and in the coming spring he would again sally forth upon thediamond as the star initial sacker of collegedom.
His football triumphs were in the past, his continued baseballsuccesses a foregone conclusion—if he won to-night his cup ofhappiness, and an unassailably dominant position among his fellows,would be assured, leaving nothing more, in so far as Jimmyreasoned, to be desired from four years attendance at one ofAmerica’s oldest and most famous universities.
The youth who would dispute the right to championship honorswith Jimmy was a dark horse to the extent that he was a freshman,and, therefore, practically unknown. He had worked hard, however,and given a good account of himself in his preparations for thebattle, and there were rumors, as there always are about everycampus, of marvelous exploits prior to his college days. It waseven darkly hinted that he was a professional pugilist. As a matterof fact, he was the best exponent of the manly art of self-defensethat Jimmy Torrance had ever faced, and in addition thereto heoutweighed the senior and outreached him.
The boxing contest, as the faculty members of the athleticcommittee preferred to call it, was, from the tap of the gong, aspretty a two-fisted scrap as ever any aggregation o