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 perhaps you'd rather show him how it's done." Lennox looked, straight at him. "Nothing doing. And I serve notice right here that I'll have no more trouble with you. If it's got to come to that either you or I will quit the company." The bully's eyes narrowed. "Which one of us?" "It'll be up to Threewit to pass on that." Harrison put on his coat and slouched sulkily out of the building. He knew quite well that if it came to a choice between him and Lennox the director would sacrifice him without a moment's consideration. Farrar, who had been grinding out pictures since the beginning of hostilities, came forward to greet Yeager with a little whoop of joy. "Say, you sure go some, Cactus Center. I never did see a fellow eat up such a licking and come up smiling. You're certainly one Mellin's Food baby. I'm for you--strong." One of Steve's eyes was closing rapidly, but the other had not lost its twinkle. "Does a fellow's system good to assimilate a tanning oncet in a while--sort o' corrects any mistaken notions he's liable to collect. Gentlemen, hush! Ain't Harrison the boss eat-em-alive white hope that ever turkey-trotted down the pike?"