CHAPTER XVII.

The Famous Fight with Tom Allen.

We come now to an incident in the career of our hero which gained wide publicity at the time of its occurrence, and which is still remembered among all sporting men.

Numerous misrepresentations have been made with regard to the Hogan-Allen fight, and it will be my object to correct these, as well as to give a plain and simple statement of the facts, leaving the reader to form his own opinion of the relative merits of the case.

As soon as the arrangements described in the preceding chapter had been perfected, Ben at once went into training for the forthcoming fight. He took up his headquarters at Wash Home, and there devoted himself diligently to the work in hand.

Under the assumed name of Benedict, he joined the gymnasium in St. Louis, and while professing to receive instructions, he really became the teacher of those who patronized the place. Nobody suspected that it was the notorious Ben Hogan with whom they practiced daily in the gymnasium.

Ben's system of training was thorough and severe. He cut off from his diet every thing except the most nourishing articles, abstained entirely from all intoxicating liquors, and exercised regularly and constantly.

In the interim between the making of the match and the time appointed for its fulfillment, occurred the fight between Allen and McCool. In that contest, as the reader probably knows, Allen was an easy winner, knocking McCool completely out of time before his backers knew what ailed him.

Ben was present at this fight, and, as may readily be imagined, watched its result with keen interest. After the sponge had been thrown up by McCool, Hogan stepped up to Allen and said:

"If you whip me as easily as you have this man, I will stand a champagne supper for you and all your friends."

"You're getting high-toned," retorted Allen, with a derisive laugh.

"I beg your pardon," said Ben; "I forgot who I was talking to. I will stand the lager, as that will probably be more to your taste."

Three days after the Allen-McCool fight, the remaining five hundred dollars a side was put up by Allen and Hogan. Ben then went into training with even more earnestness than he had before done. Dublin Trix acted as his trainer, and things were looking most hopeful, until a sudden stroke of bad luck changed the aspect of affairs.

Fully fifteen hundred cases of dumb ague were raging in and about St. Louis, and Ben fell a victim to the disease. This, it will be remembered, was on the eve of the battle, so to speak, and a most discouraging circumstance it was. A less plucky man than Hogan would have thrown up the game then and there. But he determined to meet his antagonist, whatever might come. Of course the ague interfered seriously with his training; indeed, it may be said to have put a stop to it altogether. All that Ben could do was to fight against the disease and attend strictly to the laws of health.

He tried any number of remedies, and offered four hundred dollars to any doctor who would cure him, but all to no purpose. The ague held on with an iron grip.

Two weeks before the day appointed for the fight, Dublin Trix left Ben, and his position as trainer was filled by Jerry Donovan. There was still little training to do, as Ben was in no condition to bear it. However, he did not grow disheartened. During this time he made many friends among the better class of people in St. Louis, all of whom were surprised to find so gentlemanly an appearing man in the pugilistic profession.

The long-expected day, on which the fight was appointed to take place, came at last. During the night, Ben had succeeded in getting six hours' sleep, and he awoke feeling better than he had for many days.

At an early hour in the morning, Tom Kelley put in an appearance with a horse and buggy to drive our hero to the river, where they were to take the boat.

It had been arranged, in order to avoid any interruption from the authorities, that the two principals should meet the boat at points below the city on the Missouri side of the river. The boat itself was packed to overflowing with admirers of the manly art. The matter had not been kept as quiet as caution would have dictated, and the result, as will be seen, was of an unpleasant nature.

Ben and Kelley drove to the point agreed upon, while Allen struck the river a mile or two lower down. So confident was Hogan that morning of winning the fight, that he told Kelley he would go another five hundred dollars on the result.

While the two principals waited on the shore, the steamer made its way down the river. When some distance below the city, the wind which had been blowing a small hurricane, drove the boat toward the Illinois bank, and such was the force of the wind and current combined, that it was impossible to change her course.

A deputy sheriff and a posse of men, who had got scent of the party, were waiting near the point where the steamer struck the shore, and they immediately made a descent upon the craft. Those on board were arrested, and some of the leaders were kept in Illinois and taken back to St. Louis. The real game for which the officers were searching, that is, the pugilists themselves, was not captured. This mishap to the boat of course put an end to the fight for that day. It was asserted by those who ought to know that the excursion money amounted to four thousand dollars. If it did, Hogan never received a dollar of the sum, and to the best of his knowledge, neither did Allen.

The _New York Clipper_ and other sporting papers charged that this running ashore of the boat was all a put-up job on the part of Hogan and Allen. The statement which I have here given will, it is believed, show that such charges were wholly without foundation. Hogan had not the remotest idea that any such thing was about to happen, and it is only fair to assume that Allen was equally blameless. Neither of the men profited financially by the occurrence, and they certainly did not expect to gain in reputation by any such proceeding. It is more reasonable to conclude that the boat was driven ashore purely by accident, and that the arrest of the party was simply a piece of bad luck--not bad intention.

After the first postponement of the match, Ben was anxious to go to Detroit, but Allen and his backers would not agree to this. They insisted upon making Omaha the place; and Ben, who was ready to yield anything rather than give up the match, consented to the latter place.

The second match was made for five hundred dollars additional a side, and the championship of the world. Each man was to select one umpire, and these together were to choose a referee. Allen named Looney as his man, and Ben selected Tom Kelley.

At the time when these selections were made, Allen offered to bet three hundred dollars to two hundred that he would win the fight _by the referee's decision_. This, as will be seen, was a singular sort of proposition, and hinted pretty strongly of fraud somewhere.

"I don't know anything about the referee's decision," said Ben. "But I'm willing to fight you in this saloon here now, for all the stakes that have been put up. We can decide the matter without any more nonsense. There has been too much talk already. It's time that we began to fight!"

Allen would not agree to any such proposition. He was ready enough to abide by the referee's decision, but not by the decision of Hogan's fists.

Ben, from this time forward until the fight, made his headquarters at the Southern Hotel. During his sojourn there, he was one day informed by the chief detective, whom he happened to meet on Fifth street, that unless he left the town at once, he would be locked up. Ben replied that as long as he attended to his own business, the authorities would better attend to theirs, and leave him alone. The vagabond law, then in force in St. Louis, made it possible for any stranger to be arrested on the simple grounds that he had no home. However, the police did not deem it their duty to take Hogan into custody, although they knew perfectly well that he was preparing to fight Allen.

It was at this time, also, that Cal Wagner visited St. Louis, and suggested a remedy for the ague, from which Ben was still suffering, and which afforded our hero some relief.

At the appointed time, Ben set out for Omaha, stopping en route in Kansas City. Allen had reached this place in advance, and was doing some pretty lively talk about the forthcoming fight.

Ben gave a sparring exhibition in Kansas City on the Sunday night preceding his departure, which was largely attended, and which proved quite a successful affair. He also met with a physician whose course of treatment proved so beneficial that he followed it out from that time forward. It should be mentioned that when he arrived in Kansas City, he was scarcely able to stand upon his feet--rather an awkward predicament for a man to be in who was on his way to the prize ring.

From Kansas City Ben proceeded direct to Omaha. He took with him John Sweeney, to act as one of his seconds in the fight. Upon reaching Omaha, he put up at the Grand Central Hotel, and began to make his final arrangements for the battle. For the purpose of furthering his training, he subsequently removed to a private boarding-house, where he had all facilities for his work.

When Ben first struck Omaha, he was really a sick man. The dumb ague had not left him. His flesh was wasted, and what was the most serious thing of all, he was not able to sleep more than six hours out of seventy-two. By a careful and systematic course of treatment, he gained, during one week, seven pounds in weight. He submitted daily to a severe rubbing, in order to get up circulation, and he took short walks, as his strength would permit. His diet consisted of oatmeal, mutton chops and bread. Had it not been for this intelligent and conscientious care of himself, Ben would never have been able to have faced Allen at all. As it was, he was not in a condition which enables a man to use his fists to the best advantage.

During his brief sojourn in Omaha, Ben was one day called into the office of the _Daily Herald_ by the genial and gifted editor of that paper, Dr. Miller. The doctor had already listened to a good deal of Allen's talk, and, with true journalistic instinct, was anxious to hear what Ben had to say for himself.

"Well, really," said our hero, "I've nothing to say. Fists and not talk must decide this matter. You have already seen Allen; have you not?"

"Yes," replied Dr. Miller, "I have."

"Well," said Ben, rising to go, "he has done talk enough for six men!"

It was a notorious fact that Allen had offered to bet money that Hogan would never enter the ring with him. The secret of this may be very briefly explained. The hackman who was to drive Ben and Sweeney to the place of meeting had been bribed to carry them so much out of the way that they would lose the train, and thus prevent the fight from taking place.

This little game might have worked to a charm, had it not been for the fact that the occupants of the coach discovered that they were on the wrong road, whereupon Sweeney jumped out, pistol in hand, and threatened to shoot the driver on the spot if he did not carry them to the train.

The man, frightened at this emphatic way of making a request, whipped up his horses and got over the ground at a lively rate. The coach reached the station just in time to intercept the train. Allen and his friends looked somewhat astonished when they discovered, in spite of their well-laid plans, Ben had been able to reach the train.

It was a cold, drizzly day in the fall of the year. The excursion train stopped at a point some twenty miles beyond Council Bluffs, and there the party disembarked.

It should not be forgotten that Hogan was by no means a well man on that day. The damp, piercing air was the very worst there could have been for his disease, and the ague held him still by a pretty firm grasp. Nevertheless, he was dead in earnest that the fight should take place then and there.

"Take anybody," he said to Sweeney, "for a referee, but don't let the affair fall through."

Allen, who knew very well what his antagonist's condition was, kept him waiting a quarter of an hour in the mist and cold, while he was professedly preparing himself in a neighboring house.

The referee chosen was one Ryan, of whose future conduct in the case the reader will be able to form his own opinion. Sweeney and Thurston acted as Ben's seconds, while Arthur Chambers and a friend did similar duty for Allen.

The spot selected for the fight was in a retired section of the country, with only a single house anywhere in the neighborhood. In a field near this solitary dwelling, the ring was staked out, and the three hundred spectators, more or less, gathered about to witness the fight.

It was a memorable affair to all who beheld it. The long-existing feud between these two famous pugilists seemed at last to be upon the point of a decisive settlement. The backers of each were confident that their respective men would win, and were ready to back this confidence to their last dollar. So in the leaden light of the autumn day, the two men stepped forward to batter each other's faces until one or the other should throw up the sponge.