Four or five men could have demolished Clay.
Fifteen or twenty found it a tough job because they interfered with
each other at every turn. They were packed too close for hard hitting.
Clay was not fighting but wrestling. He used his arms to push with
rather than to strike blows that counted.
The Arizonan could not afterward remember at exactly what stage of the
proceedings the face of Jerry Durand impinged itself on his
consciousness. Once, when the swirl of the crowd flung him close to
the door, he caught a glimpse of it, tight-lipped and wolf-eyed, turned
to him with relentless malice. The gang leader was taking no part in
the fight.
The crowd parted. Out of the pack a pair of strong arms and lean broad
shoulders ploughed a way for a somewhat damaged face that still carried
a debonair smile. With pantherish litheness the Arizonan ducked a
swinging blow. The rippling muscles of the plunging shoulders tossed
aside a little man in evening dress clawing at him. Yet a moment, and
he was outside taking the three steps that led to the street.
Into his laboring lungs he drew deliciously the soft breath of the
night. It cooled the fever of his hammered face, was like an icy bath
to his hot body. A little dizzy from the blows that had been rained on
him, he stood for a moment uncertain which way to go. From his throat
there rippled a low peal of joyous mirth. The youth in him delighted
in the free-for-all from which he had just emerged.
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