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20 THE SllTURD.R.Y EVENING POST Jlugust J, 19J5

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With JEDJJJlY OR.CUTT

GOT away from the crowds for a little while; I money, and I figured money was made to
took a six weeks' trip down into the Colorado spend. I still think so; I don't regret 'the
I River delta country, south of Yuma, and eut money I blew, having a good time, or handing
down in to the wilds around the Gulf of California. It a century now and again to some guy that
was an exciting trip, tough in spots. I learned queer needed it. I laid enough of it away. I had
things about the Indians and the renegade white nothing to worry about. But I was not doing
men, down there south of the line. Some of the out- my stuff.
laws were glad to meet me, because I was champion The minute Bra,dy's contract ran out, I put
of the world, and we fixed up a truce with the In- Delaney in charge again- he and Brady were
dians. But we were watched, somehow, all the time; still on the outs- and told Billy to get me a
twice I think I came near to getting bumped off. fight. "Never mind the money end this time,"
Ba.ck in the States again, though, I hit the old I told him, '"but just get me a fight."
routine. There was nobody to give me a fight. I went He got me Gus Ruhlin.
in training to meet Gus Ruhlin again, in Akron;
Ohio-I wanted to wipe out that draw he held The Second Ruhlin Fight
against me-but the governor of the state called it
off. Brady put me in a show, The Man from the HE fight was billed for San Francisco,
West. T November 15, 1901, but I was so anxious
"You know what a great fighter Jim Jeffries is?" to get back in the ring, and so worried about
our advance man would ask, when he hit some news- the shape I was in, that I began training
paper editor for a press-agent story. "Well," he sometime along in August. Delaney fixed up K EYSTONE VIEW
would say, "Jeffries is as great an actor as he is a quarters at Harbin Springs, up in Lake T h e Old Rivals, Jeffries and Sha r key, on June TO ,
:fighter!" County. I got my brother Jack to work with 19J S , at the Califo rnia Jlmateu r Championships
Then he would lay his head on the editor's desk me. Joe [Kid] Eagan joined me then. He'd
) . and sob. "God forgive me!" he would say. "I'm been Brady's representative on the road, and
taking money for telling you stuff like that!" he threw in with me when I broke with Brady. Joe is Sunny Jim Coffroth, Eddie Graney, the referee, and
Anyway, that's what they used to tell me he did. a mite of a man-a great little guy with a big heart, others came up from San Francisco, and we had
It was not a bad time, but it wasn't good; I and smart as a whip. I put him in charge of my per- some great times, but I still worked hard on the road,
wanted to do my stuff, and my stuff was fighting in sonal affairs, and he's been with me ever since. The and when I went down to the city to fight Ruhlin, I
the ring. I had great friends, aµd a lot of them. I first thing Joe did was book me a couple of tune-up was in good shape.
had fun, parties, chasing around. I was making fights before the Ruhlin battle. I started working so In a wa,y I don't like to say it, but I think I never
hard in the summer heat that wrecked a fighter as badly as I wrecked Gus Ruhlin
Delaney was afraid I'd go stale. in that second fight.
Joe got me a bout in Los An- We fought in the old Mechanics Pavilion, and the
geles with Hank Griffin, and house was jammed. I don't know why that fight
another at the Reliance Club drew the way it did, but one of the great old-time
against a lad named Joe Ken- sport crowds turned out to see it. All the big shots in
nedy, just to get me out of town were at the ringside that night, at twenty-five
camp. dollars a throw. There'd been a special train up from
Griffin was the colored boy Los Angeles. There was $40,000 in the box office.
I'd knocked out in my first pro Harry Corbett, Jim's brother, was the referee. The
start-you remember my tell- cops were still trying to clear some of the mob out of
ing you that he taught me the galleries when the first gong rang.
plenty in my first fight. Well, in The mob was in an uproar most of the time from
that tune-up fight in Los An- then on.
geles, he taught me plenty too. Ruhl was big and rangy, with long arms, and he
He taught me I was in no shape swung hard. I got inside right away, and went after
to defend my title. He ducked, his body. From the first time I hit him there, I knew
clinched, fell and ran through that was the way to get him. Gus made his fight in
the four-round exhibition-I the second round, but from then on he was gone. I
couldn't get to him. The long bored in, belted him to the belly. I found I was hit-
layoff had raised hell with me. ting cleaner and timing better than I had in training
Against Joe Kennedy, a week camp. I had no notion how. much damage I was
later, I was r'arin' to go-and really doing.
Joe really fought. He came to "Make him quit follerin' me!" Ruhl kept yelling
me from the minute the gong at Harry. Some of the ringsiders thought he said:
rang. Not a damn bit scared. I "Make him quit fouling me!" I don't think Ruhl
got him in the second with the ever made any such charge. But he had the mob
same punch I'd stopped Cor- riding him from the first of the third, and he only
bett with-that combination lasted five rounds all told. I think I knocked him off
straight and hook with the left. his feet at ]east five times with smashes to 'the body.
But I respected the kid, and I The bell saved him at the end of the fourth, and
took him back to the Springs again at the end of the fifth. He failed to come out
to train with me. He was a for the sixth round.
good guy to work with, and we The mob. yelled at him, but the mob was wrong-
got to be friends. Ruhl was not yellow. He was badly hurt. If he'd
There was plenty of hell- been yellow, he could have stayed on the floor after
@ UNDERWOOD & UN DE RWOOD
raising and horseplay in that any one of those body punches that knocked IJ..im
J ack Johnso n at Jluckl and in 1907. Johnson Won the Ti t le
Fro m T ommy Burns on Christmas Day of 1908, at Sydney camp, and I did my share of it. down. Nobody would have booed him for that.