Perry kept his eyes on the timekeeper and was out of his corner with the bell. Buzz was yelling at his back for him to bore in, to infight. The kid tossed some rights, hard and sharp. Perry worked over his stomach with both hands before switching to a clean uppercut. He was feeling good now, and getting stronger. The sweat rolled freely, lubricated his big muscles. Travis took a lesson from what had happened before when he tried to swap punches and went back to his educated left hand, unstitching the cut under Perry's eye. Perry grinned at these tactics. Travis circled, always back and away to his left and Walsh deliberately stopped in the middle of the ring and waved him in. But Travis merely spat out a foul word which Perry couldn't identify. Then the kid moved in swiftly to bounce two knife-like lefts off the cut again.

The youngster was working even faster now. Swift, like a collie, in and out. What round was it? Eighth round? Perry wasn't sure. It was a good, hard fight.

He went after Travis, blocking him into a corner while his eye sopped up a dozen of those snake-like left hands. Blood flowed freely now and Travis was trying to out-maneuver him, to stagger him with a right cross and dance free. Perry knew the punch was coming, flexed his knees slightly to let it slide past his jaw over his left shoulder and then curved a looping left hook against Travis' ribs. Travis grunted and scowled, smashed a hard right below the belt. It hurt, but Perry only grinned at him. He had that temper situation well in hand now. The kid finally worked out of the trap back into the middle of the ring.

Perry had remained standing, his legs spread far apart, weaving slightly, a dazed look in his eyes. From the floor the third bandit had propped himself on an elbow to pump another bullet just below Perry's heart. Then the bandits had fled, racing into the street. Perry had staggered to the open door after them. They were running up the alley alongside the building. Perry had followed a few weak steps, then had collapsed in the gravel.

Travis was there in front of him, always stabbing, moving away from Perry's right hand, his chin hidden behind a raised left shoulder. He was tough and fast, all right. The blood ran into Perry's eye again and he cocked his head to see. Travis roughed him in the clinches and he was proud of his ability to curb the instinct to reply with similar tactics, to refrain from grating the laces across Travis' face, or to clip him with an elbow. Perry ducked his head and bored in.

That round was even, maybe a shade on his side. He was breathing hard, but the pace was telling on Travis, too. A hard red lump was raised on one cheek, one eye was dark and his ribs would ache. But every wallop still had plenty of sting.