Steve Yeager | Page 6

new extra.
The leading man agreed without much hope. He conceded the boyish
cowpuncher a beautiful trim figure, with breadth of shoulder, grace of
poise, and long, flowing muscles that rippled under the healthy skin
like those of a panther in motion. But these would serve him little
unless he was an experienced boxer. Harrison had tremendous strength
and power; moreover, he knew the game from years of battle in the
ring.
"He'll lose--won't be able to stand the gaff," Lennox replied gloomily,
his eyes fixed on Yeager as the young fellow rose lightly and moved
forward to meet his opponent.
The extra was as tall as Harrison, but he looked like a boy beside him,
so large and massive did the heavy bulk. The contrast between them
was so great that Yeager was scarcely conceded a fighting chance.
Steve himself knew quite well that he was in for a licking at the hands
of this wall-eyed Hercules with the leathery brown face.
He got it, efficiently and scientifically, but not before Harrison had
found out he was in a fight. The big man disdained any defense except
that which went naturally with his crouch. He had a tremendously long
reach and knew how to get the weight of his shoulders behind his
punishing blows. Usually Harrison did all the fighting. The other man
was at the receiving end.
It was a little different this time. Yeager met his first rush with a
straight left that got home and jarred the prizefighter to his heels. To
see the look on the face of the heavy, compound of blank astonishment
and chagrin, was worth the price of admission.
Lennox sang out encouragement. "Good boy. Go to him."
Harrison put his head down and rushed. His arms worked like flails.
They beat upon Steve's body and face as a hammer does upon an anvil.
Only by his catlike agility and the toughness born of many clean years
in the saddle did the cowpuncher weather for the time the hurricane that

lashed at him. He dodged and ducked and parried by instinct,
smothering what blows he could, evading those he might, absorbing the
ones he must. Out of that first mêlée he came reeling and dizzy,
quartering round and round before the panting professional.
The bully enraged was not a sight pleasant to see. He was too near akin
to the primeval brute. He glared savagely at his victim, who grinned
back at him with an indomitable jauntiness.
"This is the life," the cowpuncher assured his foe cheerfully after
dodging a blow that was like the kick of a mule.
Harrison rocked him with a short stiff uppercut. "Glad you like it," he
jeered.
Yeager crossed with his right, catching him flush on the cheek. "Here's
your receipt for the same," he beamed.
Like a wild bull the prizefighter was at him again. He beat down the
cowpuncher's defense and mauled him savagely with all the punishing
skill of his craft. Steve was a man of his hands. He had held his own in
many a rough-and-tumble bout. But he had no science except that
which nature had given him. As long as a man could, he stood up to
Harrison's trained skill. When at last he was battered to the ground it
was because the strength had all oozed out of him.
Harrison stood over him, swaggering. "Had enough?"
Where he had been flung, against one of the studio walls, Steve sat
dizzily, his head reeling. He saw things through a mist in a queer jerky
way. But still a smile beamed on his disfigured face.
"Surest thing you know."
"Don't want some more of the same?" jeered the victor.
"Didn't hear me ask for more, did you? No, an' you won't either. Me, I
love a scrap, but I don't yearn for no encore after I've been clawed by a

panther and chewed up by a threshing-machine and kicked by an
able-bodied mule into the middle o' next week. Enough's a-plenty, as
old Jim Butts said when his second wife died."
The prizefighter looked vindictively down at him. He was not satisfied,
though he had given the range-rider such a whaling as few men could
stand up and take. For the conviction was sifting home to him that he
had not beaten the man at all. His pile-driver blows had hammered
down his body, but the spirit of him shone dauntless out of the gay,
unconquerable eyes.
With a sullen oath Harrison turned away. His sulky glance fell upon
Lennox, who was clapping his hands softly.
"You'd be one grand little fighter, Yeager, if you only knew how," the
leading man said with enthusiasm.
"Mebbe you'd like to teach him, Mr. Lennox," sneered Harrison.
The star flushed. "Maybe I would, Mr. Harrison."
"Or