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FRAME-UP

A Story of the Prize Ring
Chucked Full of Live Situations
and Much Undercover
Work

By
HARRY GOLDBERG

Illustrated by Watterson Cole

[[Image]]
[[caption]] "No, that’s final—" 
"But—" Morgan began.
[[/caption]]

Fred Warren thought he would get to bed early this evening. Tomorrow night he was
scheduled to fight Mike Morgan for the light-heavyweight championship of the world.

Fred was stopped in the middle of a yawn by the ringing of the door bell. Lazily he got to his feet and crossed over to the door. Must be Tom Grant, his manager.

“Wonder why Tom doesn’t carry a key with him?” 
Fred asked himself. "I’ll mention it to him now before I forget.”

But Fred had to postpone the proposed lecture when he swung open the door. In fact, Fred promptly forgot all about what he was going to say and almost fainted in the bargain when he glimpsed his visitor, Mike Morgan! The light-heavyweight champ of the world, the man he was going to fight tomorrow night!

"Come in," Fred managed to gasp.

Morgan had a smile on his face, a smile which seemed to heighten the cunning of his thin features. The men took chairs.

"Surprised to see me?” Morgan asked. Fred noted the long heavy fingers that locked together.

“Why, yes,” Fred said frankly.

Morgan laughed lightly. "I don't suppose it very often happens that a champion visits a challenger before the fight." He paused and Fred waited for him to go on.

The smile vanished from Morgan's face. His features tensed.

"Warren, I have a purpose in coming here tonight. I didn't come to ask you how you're feeling. Now listen to what I'm going to say.

"Since I won the championship more than a year ago I haven't been in a fight. To tell you the truth I haven't fought twenty rounds with my sparring partners. I've been acting in vaudeville ever since I became champ. Now along comes a moving picture concern and offers me a contract, provided, of course, I win tomorrow's fight.

"I tell you frankly, Warren, I'm not in condition to put on gloves tomorrow. I don't know what training is like.

Fred began to see where Morgan's talk was leading. He gripped the arms of his chair until his  knuckles were drained of blood.

"Now," Morgan continued, "is where you come in. Warren, I can't afford to lose tomorrow night. If I do I'm through. But if I win I get that movie contract— and you get ten thousand dollars besides your share of the gate."

Morgan placed a hand on Fred's arm and pleaded. "Think what it means, Warren. Even if you do get counted out in the third or fourth round, you can make a comeback again. You're in good condition. Perhaps," he added with a clinching argument —

26



for May, 1931   27

TO A GIRL IN RED
By S. Miller Johnson

Are you a red rose on a bush
Pinned from behind a high gray wall
That scares the glowing sunlight out?
Will you not heed a sunbeam's call?

I sometimes think that red has wings
Of gay and wild and sparkling hues.
I've often heard that bright red sings;
But red could never sing the blues.

I picked you dahlias on then stem,
And brought them to you one by one;
And one by one you shattered them,
And let them wither in the sun.

If red could only speak to me
Of all it hears and feels and sees
My slender soul would come to be
As big and strong as red-wood trees!


“we could arrange a fight a few months from now.” He swallowed and licked his dry lips.

For one fleeting instant Fred was tempted. Ten thousand dollars and he could whip Morgan any time they fought. Then he saw the whole thing and it sickened him.

He flung Morgan’s hand from his arm. He whirled on the champ, his brown eyes sparkling fire.

“No! That’s final.”

“But ...” Morgan began.

“I said no and I meant no!” Fred flung back. “You’re a crooked snake, Morgan. Tomorrow night is going to be your finish. I’m going to beat you worse than I ever 
intended to. Now get out!” Fred pointed toward the door.

Morgan bounded to his feet. "I'll fix you for this, Warren. You don't know when you're well off.”

"Get out!” Fred yelled, and Morgan left hurriedly.

Fred went into the fight with a desire to finish Morgan. Fred had over thirty knockouts to his credit and most of them had occurred in the first two rounds. Tonight he was going to batter Morgan without knocking him out for a while. Fred had always fought cleanly, had always played the game according to the rules.

Fred forced the fighting from the start. Morgan was saving his wind and strength for the later rounds. Fred clouted Morgan twice with blows to the head. He drove the champ to the ropes with a flurry of padded mitts.

Morgan was wily and for the most part kept Fred at long range. Often he fell into clinches. Tenaciously he hung onto Fred until the referee pulled them apart. 

It was a ten-round fight. In the sixth round Morgan was still on his feet. Fred was determined to finish the fight in short order. Morgan was bleeding from a cut above the eye, a cut at which Fred constantly jabbed.

The gong rang for the seventh round. Fred leaped from his stool. He tore into Morgan. He swung a right into the champ's midriff. Then two left jabs. Morgan was covering desperately. The crowd was yelling itself hoarse.

Fred went into close quarters. With hammer-like blows he belted Morgan's face and body. The champ's mouth and nose were running blood.

DUCKING, his head Fred waded into Morgan, Right, left, right, left, he pummeled his opponent. Then suddenly his head snapped downward.

Fred was dazed from the rabbit punch, an illegal blow. Now Morgan took the offensive. He put everything into his blows. Fred managed to keep out of range when Morgan swung his most effective thrusts.

A FEELING of fury surged through Fred. The blow had escaped the referee's notice. Fred determined to make the champ pay for his foul blow. Then the gong.

In the eighth round Fred hit Morgan with everything but the turnstiles. He cut his face in a dozen places. He tattooed his body until the champ's chest and solar plexus were fire-red.

Morgan again tried the rabbit and kidney punches. Once, in a clinch, he almost broke Fred's wrist.

But no human being could long stand Fred's attack. Morgan wilted under the continual barrage of jabs and hooks and haymakers. He went down once but he got up at the count of nine. The next time he went down, a scant minute later, he remained inert on the canvas. The light-heavyweight title had changed hands.

In the dressing-room Fed had to listen to his manager's ceaseless chatter. Tom Grant was stumpy, round, and bald-headed; a fussy, nervous man. Tom heaped loads of praise on Fred.

The new champ was about to tell Grant to shut up when he discovered a piece of paper pinned to his shirt. Quickly Fred unfastened the note before his manager saw it.

"You are champ now, but you won't be very long. You missed your chance and you are going to pay." The note was unsigned.

Fred guessed that Morgan or one of his cronies had written the message. Fred was worried a little. He shrugged his shoulders as he crumpled the note in his hand. Then he grew thoughtful. Morgan was dangerous. You could never tell.

Grant was still droning on but his words went unheeded by Fred.

Fred's first fight came three months after he had wrested the crown from Morgan's head. The new champ believed in letting all comers have a crack at the championship.

IT was six o'clock in the evening. Fred would soon be leaving for the arena. Grant had already gone to the scene of the fight. Grant always did that. He had to see that everything was in order in the dressing-room; that the seconds would be on hand' that a hundred other things were attended to that a man of Grant's type couldn't until the last minute.

Fred was planning in his mind the method of attack he would use against Battler Byrne, the challenger.

Not that it took much planning. For Fred invariably fought the same kind of attack. That consisted in