Hard Times

A man dressed in simple clothes with a hobo appearance carrying a handbag jumps down from the boxcar of a slow-moving train on the outskirts of an anonymous town somewhere in Louisiana. He soon comes upon a bare-knuckled street fighting run by gamblers, which he intently observes. After the bout, the man approaches the fast-talking "Speed", the backer of the losing fighter. Introducing himself as Chaney, he asks Speed to set up a fight for him, which Speed does. Before the fight, his opponent, the winner of the contest he previously witnessed, looks Chaney up and down and asks disparagingly if he isn't a little too old to be there. Betting all of the six dollars he possesses on himself, Chaney responds by dispatching the younger man with a single punch.