THE BUM!

By Don Shea

His dirty record was behind him. Tonight, he'd fight a good clean battle. He'd go out on a note of triumph. He went out all right.. ... but the note was terribly sour.

HARSH GRAVEL ground into the palms of Perry Walsh's hands and grated against his cheek. Searing pains chased each other through his neck and down into his chest. Three bullet holes can cause a lot of pain. It was deathlike still in the alley after the thundering of the guns and the metallic patter of running feet. The three thugs had fled, leaving him to die.

The first trickling of a crowd was beginning to gather, their feet scraping on the gravel, their awed voices low.

"He's unconscious," a voice from the crowd came to him dimly. "Look at his lips move. He thinks he's fightin' a fight, I guess.'

Thinks he's fightin' a fight? Huh! That was a laugh! Just like a fight fan. This was the toughest fight he'd ever had. He'd better get to work before the kid stabbed him to death with that left.

What round was this? The fourth? Six more rounds! About twenty-five more minutes to go!

The cocky youngster glided toward him behind that razor-sharp left hand; darting in and out and circling to his left; jarring, his left, and effortlessly backed by a smooth fighting machine. Mike Travis was plenty good. Lean, a hard young battler, a fancypants with an unmarked face. A tanned, glistening body bouncing another step toward the championship.

Perry Walsh trailed him closely, patiently, rationing his strength, until the kid committed a technical mistake, delayed a fraction of a step in sliding out of a corner. Perry looped a whistling left hook into his body that should have dulled some of his spark, but didn't. The youngster drove needle-point lefts into his face, stinging, sneered as he spun to the left out of range, away from the ropes, back to the middle of the ring.