The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-05-28

TaLes .Of Hard- EEsttl lE7Eistttti4q Heroes Of .2
fWRITTEN FOR THE FARMER)
zEzEaESE
1he Rasf o4nd Rreseaf

a full-fledged cow-puncher and a fine horseman- He loved the range. and his early ambition, which he. never quite abandoned, was to be- come cattle baron. The free-and- easy life of the towns and mining camps had an irresistible appeal to him, and when the range life began to pail on him he got a job as a miner. For some time he was em-' ployed in loading ore on the cars, and this strenuous activity was responsi- b1e for the magnificent development of his muscles.
 He landed in Butte early in 1903, and, having soon spent his savings, got a job waiter in a cheap res- taurant. His nights he spent in the dance hall where his prowess as battIer was first publicly demonstrat-s ed
 Stanley KetcheI, as he soon came to call himself, was highly successful as a dance hall bouncer. Frequently. the entertainment at the hall was varied by ring bouts on the dance hall floor between Ketchel and other can didates for pugiHstic glory AL though the sixteen-year- lad often fought fuII-grown men, he was uni- fornly victorious. He had never had a boxing lesson, but he had natural style of fighting all his own that
 early earned for him the nickname of t"The Human Buzz-Saw.'' His rep
 utation was greatly increased by his
 defeat of two professionals, Kid Tracy and Nose La Fontise. The lat ter was 8 clever boxer 0 Hong expe- rience, whose stunt was to travel about the west, working at odd jobs and pretending to be a rank novice 1 at the fighting game, until he could l get a match with some local favorite. Nose would then bet his bankro1l on 1 himself, and clean up. In Butte. the t.ringer'' was offered a match with
 Young KetcheI. and on that occasion 1 Nose got the surprise party of his i baffled Ketchel, but the latter ab-
 sorbed all the punishment Nose
 could give and then knocked him out
 in the twenty-fourth round.
 l Even after this victory Ketchel had no intention of taking up fighting as
 a profession, and he soon returned
 to the ranch. For months he remain
 gay lights attracted him to Miles City There he fought a stalwart
 miner, Rudolph Hing, who weighed about fifty pounds more than the round draw. KetcheI then returned l to Butte, where he worked as ! bouncer, waiter, miner. and at other l jobs fighting frequently for purses of
 a few dollars in the dance halls.
 l By 1907, when he was in his | y 1 cleaned up all possible opponents in
 Montana, and decided to visit the coast, where the fighting game was l going strong. KetchePs arrival in
 Sacramento created something of a i sensation. He was attired in broad i conbrero, flannel shirt, high boots,
 cartridge belt, and the other habili-
 ments of a puncher. At first the | Cowboy Fighter was considered as
 something of joke by the newspaper
 scribes of Sacramento, San Francisco
 and Los Angeles, but he soon demon
 strated that he had the goods. Af-
 ter knocking out George Brown at
 Sacramento, Ketche1 was matched to
 fight Joe Thomas at MaryvilIe, Cal l Thomas had 9 great reputation and l was then claiming the weIterweight
 championship of the world In the
 Ndarysville contest they went twenty
 rounds to 8 draw, but when they fought in the Co1na arena little