Chapter V: Johnny Fights for Fun

News travels fast in the north. When the time came for the boys to make one more journey to the store at Palmer everyone had heard of their catch.

“Here they come,” someone shouted as, stamping the snow from their feet, they entered the smoke-filled room.

“Here they come. They bring ’em back alive!” someone else shouted.

“Well,” Lawrence drawled, “we bring them anyway. Got two minks today. That’s two more that won’t carry off folks’ chickens.”

“I hear you boys got a silver fox.” There was a suggestion of antagonism in Jack Mayhorn’s voice as he said this.

“Yes,” Johnny replied. “And we’ve still got him.”

“Do you know, fellows,” Jack gave vent to a chuckle that seemed a little strained, “back in Michigan, where I lived on the shores of Lake Superior, there was a feller who used to go lake-trout fishin’. He trolled with an out-board motor. Always got ’em, too, a whale of a fine catch.

“But you know,” he edged forward in his chair, “there was net fishermen there, too. Fished fer a living. And one day when we was lookin’ over this sportin’ fellow’s catch, the fish he claimed he’d caught trollin’ we found had net marks on ’em.”

“Net marks?” someone said.

“Sure.” There was a shifty look in Jack’s eyes. “He’d been liftin’ nets an’ helping himself to the fish that didn’t belong to him. And I was wonderin’,” he paused, “just wonderin’, Johnny, if that silver fox of yours mebby had a lame foot or—or somethin’.”

The silence that followed was painful. Johnny made no reply. His fingers worked along his palm, that was all.

It was Blackie Dawson who spoke at last. “I take it, Jack,” he spoke slowly, “you are insinuating that these boys took the fox from your trap. Let me tell you, old man, that sort of thing calls for a fight; in the north it does.”

Jack made no reply, but Johnny did.

“I’m sorry,” he said, speaking slowly. “It doesn’t mean a fight to me.”

“You won’t fight?” Blackie stared at him.

“Not to settle a personal grudge,” Johnny replied slowly. “If Jack wants to think we took the fox from his trap, that’s his privilege. If he would like to examine the fox that’s his privilege also. But I’m not going to beat him up just to make him take back something he’s said. That might seem to be a point of honor but we all have our own codes of honor. It may seem queer but I’d rather take an insult than give someone a beating.”

“Take a beating you mean,” Jack sneered. He was nearly twice Johnny’s size.

“Joe,” said Johnny, turning to the store-keeper, “you told me you got two pairs of boxing gloves through the mail.”

“Sure, Johnny, I did. Here they are.” Reaching behind him the store-keeper drew out two pairs of gloves.

“Put ’em on, Johnny,” Blackie encouraged.

“Put ’em on! Put ’em on!” came from all over the room. There was a stir of expectancy in the air.

“Sure, I’ll put them on,” Johnny grinned. “What do you say, Joe? I’ll box you five rounds. Five friendly bouts for fun, money or marbles.”

The crowd stared, Johnny was talking not to the man who had offered the insult but to his friend the store-keeper.

For a moment Joe stood staring at him. Then, as the light of a smile spread over his face, he said, “Sure, Johnny, I’ll box you, not for money or marbles, but just, you might say, for fun.”

It will be a long time before the settlers of Matanuska Valley will again witness such a match as followed. Five rounds for fun, between friends? Yes, perhaps. And yet there were times when even Johnny doubted that. True, he was not angry for a moment, just in there doing his best. But Joe? He was wondering about him.

Though he had told no one in the valley about it, Joe had, only the year before, belonged to the U. S. Marines. The Marines neither give nor ask quarters. And Joe had been champion of his regiment. As for Johnny, well you know Johnny. If you don’t, you should have been there that night.

From the start it was leather against leather, a slap for the chin, a thrust at the heart, a bang on the side of the head, and after that a clinch.

Seldom had men been more evenly matched. Joe was older, more experienced, Johnny younger, faster on his feet.

They had not been going a minute when an involuntary ring had formed about them. In that ring, gaping open-mouthed was Jack Mayhorn.

Twice Johnny was down on a knee. Each time he was up and at it. Once, backed into a corner, Joe tripped and fell. He, too, was up before the count of three.

The fifth round was wild. Had there been an announcer, he must surely have lost his mind calling, “A right to Johnny’s chin, a left to his ear. The ear is bleeding. Oh—a! A slam on the side of Joe’s head that makes him slightly groggy. Johnny’s following through. The clinch! The referee (Blackie) separates them. They are sparring now. Now! Oh, now! Johnny takes one on the chin. He’s down. One—two—three—He’s up again.” So it went to the end.

As the cowbell, rung by young Larry Hooker, announced the close of the round, the crowd went wild with enthusiasm, but Joe, seizing Johnny by the glove, dragged him into the kitchen at the back of the store.

“Boy, you’re a whiz!” he exclaimed. “There was a time or two when I thought you had me.” He was mopping Johnny’s face with a wet towel.

“Not a chance,” Johnny laughed. “I didn’t know what I was stepping into but I did my best.”

“Listen,” Joe held up a hand. The tumult in the outer room had died down. Blackie Dawson was about to make a short speech. “Gentlemen,” he was saying, “the day after tomorrow at early candle light, there’ll be another boxing bout in this room. It will be between—” he paused—“between Jack Mayhorn and—he—he has a choice—Johnny Thompson or Joe Lawrence.”

“No!” a voice fairly roared after the shouts had subsided, “I got a bad foot. My footwork, it ain’t no good at all.” It was Jack Mayhorn who spoke.

“So it’s _your_ foot that’s bad and not that silver fox’s foot?” Blackie bantered.

The crowd let out a roar that could have been heard a mile.

“That’ll about fix Jack Mayhorn,” said Joe. “He’s not likely to bother you much now.”

An hour later, when the customers had “cleared out and gone home,” Johnny and Lawrence found themselves in Joe’s kitchen. Blackie and Joe were there. So was Mrs. Joe. They were all eating huckleberry pie and drinking hot chocolate.

“Johnny,” said Joe, feeling a plaster on his chin, “why did you do it?”

“Do what?” Johnny stared.

“Pick on me for a fight. I never done you no wrong.”

“That’s why,” was Johnny’s astonishing reply. “It’s an old Eskimo custom.”

“What is?” They all stared at him.

“According to the Eskimo law,” Johnny went on soberly, “if you are going to be killed it has to be done by a near relative or very close friend. So-o—” he added with a spreading grin, “I thought you’d do as well as anyone. And you did—even better.”

“Anyway,” Blackie supplemented after their laugh was over, “folks in Matanuska Valley will know who among us can put up a good scrap and that always helps.”

When one is young he thinks only of the present and the future, never of the past. As the two boys walked home that night, they thought much of the future. The bond of friendship between them and Blackie Dawson was growing stronger every day. When spring came, would they go booming away with him on a Coast Guard boat in search of adventure in Bristol Bay? Who could tell?

In the meantime there was work to be done, plenty of it. Some twenty acres of land was yet to be cleared. In the spring stumps must be pulled. Without a tractor this would mean back-breaking labor.

“Perhaps we can get more foxes?” Lawrence said, thinking out loud.

“Yes, and other wild creatures,” Johnny added. “That country ‘back of the beyond’ has never even been explored. There must be wild life back there that’s never been seen. Peary found white reindeer on one of his expeditions. Who can tell what we’ll come upon if we keep up our search?”

Who, indeed? The boy had spoken more wisely than he knew.