ad
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 melee 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