Steve Yeager Read online

  CHAPTER II

  "ENOUGH'S A-PLENTY"

  While driving his car back to Los Robles, Billie Threewit, producingdirector at the border studio of the Lunar Film Manufacturers, indulgedin caustic comment on his own idiocy.

  "Now, what in hell did I take on this Yeager rube for? He had justfinished crabbing one scene. Wasn't that enough without me paying himgood money to spoil more? Harrison's sore on him too. There's going tobe trouble there. He ain't going to stand for that roughhouse stuff alittle bit."

  Frank Farrar, the camera man, took a more cheerful view of thesituation.

  "He's a find, if you ask me--the real thing in cowpunchers. And I don'tknow as this outfit has to be run to please Harrison. The big bully hasgot us all stepping sideways and tiptoeing so as not to offend him. I'mabout fed up with the brute. Wish this rube would mop the earth up withhim when Harrison gets gay."

  "No chance. Harrison's a bully all right, but he's one grand littlefighter too. You saw him clean up that bunch of greasers. He's therewith both feet on the Marquis of Q. business, and don't you forget it.I put up with more from him than I ever did from a dozen other actorsbecause he's so mean when he's sulky."

  "Here too," agreed Farrar. "It's take your hat off when you speak to Mr.Chad Harrison. I can't yell at him that he's getting out of the picture;I've got to pull the Alphonse line of talk.--'Mr. Harrison, if you'd beso kind as to get that left hind hoof of yours six inches more to theright.' He makes me good and weary."

  "He gets his stuff across good. Wasn't for that I wouldn't stand for hima minute. But we're down here, son, to get this three-reel Mexican wardope. As long as Harrison delivers the goods we'll have to put up withhim."

  "Well, I'm going to give this Yeager lad a tip what he's up against.Then if he wants to he can light out before Harrison gets to him."

  Farrar was as good as his word. As soon as he reached the hotel hedropped around to the room where the new extra was staying. His knockbrought no answer, but as the door was ajar the camera man steppedacross the threshold.

  Steve lay on the bed asleep, his lithe, compact figure stretched atnegligent ease. The flannel shirt was open at the throat, the strongmuscles of which sloped beautifully into the splendid shoulders. Therewas strength in the clean-cut jaw of the brown face. It was an easyguess that he had wandered by paths crooked as well as straight, that hehad taken the loose pleasures of his kind joyously. But when he hadfollowed forbidden trails it had been from the sheer youthful exuberanceof life in him and not from weakness. Farrar judged that the heart ofthe young vagabond was sound, that the desert winds and suns had kepthis head washed clean of shameful thoughts.

  The cowpuncher opened his eyes. He looked at his visitor withoutspeaking.

  "Didn't expect to find you asleep," apologized the camera man.

  Yeager got up and stretched his supple body in a yawn. "That's allright. Just making up the sleep I lost last night on the road. No mattera-tall."

  He was in blue overalls, the worn shiny chaps tossed across the back ofa chair. On the table lay the dusty, pinched-in hat, through thedisreputable crown of which Farrar had lately seen a lock of his brindlehair rising like an aigrette.

  "Glad to have you join us. We need riders like you. Say, it was worthfive dollars to me to see the way you laid out Harrison."

  The cowpuncher's boyish face clouded.

  "I'm right sorry about that. It ce'tainly was a fool play. I don't blameHarrison for getting sore."

  "He's sore all right. That's what I came to see you about. He's a rowdy,Harrison is. And he'll make you trouble."

  "Most generally I don't pack a gun," Yeager observed casually.

  "It won't be a gun play; not to start with, anyhow. He used to be aprizefighter. He'll beat you up."

  "Well, it don't hurt a man's system to absorb a licking once in a bluemoon."

  The cowpuncher said it smilingly, with a manner of negligent competencethat came from an experience of many dangers faced, of many perilousways safely trodden.

  Farrar had not yet quite discharged his mind. "There's nothing toprevent you from slipping round to the stable and pulling your freightquietly."

  "Except that I don't want to," added the new extra. "No, sir. I've got ajob and I'm staying with it. I'll sit here like a horned toad till theboss gives me my time."

  The camera man beamed. To meet so debonair and care-free a specimen ofhumanity warmed the cockles of his heart.

  "I'll bet you're some scrapper yourself," he suggested.

  "Oh, no. He'll lick me, I reckon. Say, what do they hold you up for atthis hacienda?"

  The lank camera man supplied information, adding that he knew of a goodcheap boarding-place where one or two of the company put up.

  "If you say so, I'll take you right round there."

  Yeager reached promptly for his hat. "You talk like a dollar's worth ofnickels rattling out of a slot machine--right straight to the point."

  They walked together down the white, dusty street, crossed the outskirtsof the old Mexican adobe town, and came to a suburb of bungalows. Infront of one of these Farrar stopped. He unlatched the gate.

  "Here we are."

  There was an old-fashioned garden of roses and mignonettes andhollyhocks, with crimson ramblers rioting over the wire trellis in frontof the broad porch. A girl with soft, thick, blue-black hair was bendingover a rosebush. She was snipping dead shoots with a pair of scissors.At the sound of their feet crunching the gravel of the walk, her slenderfigure straightened and she turned to them. The ripe lips parted abovepearly teeth in a smile of welcome to the camera man.

  "I've come begging again, Miss Ruth," explained Farrar. "This is Mr.Yeager, a new member of our company. He wants to find a goodboarding-place, so of course I thought of your mother. Don't tell methat you can't take him."

  A little frown of doubt furrowed her forehead. "I don't know, Mr.Farrar. Our tables are about full. I'll ask mother."

  The eyes of the girl rested for an instant on the brown-faced youthwhose application the camera man was backing. He had taken off his hat,and the sun-pour was on his tawny hair, on the lean, bronzed face andbroad, muscular shoulders. In his torn, discolored hat, his stained andtravel-worn clothes, he looked a very prince of tramps. But in hisquiet, steady gaze was the dynamic spark of self-respect that forebadeher to judge him by his garb.

  A faint flush burned in the dusky cheeks to which the long lashesdrooped because of a touch of embarrassment. He had seemed to read herhesitation with an inner amusement that found expression in hisgray-blue eyes.

  "Tell her I'll be much obliged if she'll take me," Yeager said in hisgentle drawl.

  Considering his request, she stripped the gauntlet without purpose fromone of her little brown hands. A solitaire sparkled on the third finger.Again she murmured, "I'll ask mother"; then turned and flashed up thesteps, her slender limbs carrying with fluent grace the pliant youngbody.

  Presently appeared on the porch a plump, matronly woman of a wholesomecleanness without and within. Judging by fugitive dabs of flour whichdecorated her temple and her forehead, she had been making bread or piesat the time she had been called by her daughter. Much of her life shehad lived in the Southwest, and one glance at Yeager was enough tosatisfy her. Through the dust and tarnished clothes of him youth shoneresplendent. The sun was still in his brindle hair, in his gay eyes. Shehad a boy of her own, and the heart of her warmed to him.

  In five sentences they had come to an arrangement. The barn behind thehouse had been remodeled so that it contained several bedrooms. Into oneof these Yeager was to move his scant effects at once.

  He and Farrar walked back to the hotel together. Harrison was waitingfor them on the porch. As soon as he caught sight of the cowpuncher hestrode forward. The straight line of his set mouth looked like a gash ina melon.

  "Will you have it here or back of the garage?" he demanded, gettingstraight to business.

  "Any place that suits you," agreed Steve affably. "Won't the bulls pinchu
s if we do a roughhouse here?"

  Harrison turned with triumphant malice to Farrar.

  "Get your camera. You say you don't like phony stuff. Good enough. I'llpull off the real goods for you in licking a rube. There's plenty ofroom back of the garage."

  The camera man protested. "See here, Harrison. Yeager ain't looking fortrouble. He told you he was sorry. It was an accident. What's the use ofbearing a grudge?"

  The heavy glared at him. "You in this, Mr. Farrar? You're liable to havea heluvatime if you butt into my business without an invite. Shack--andgit that camera."

  Yeager nodded to his new friend. "Go ahead and get it. We'll be waitingback of the garage."

  Farrar hesitated, the professional instinct in him awake and active.

  "If you're dead keen on a mix-up, Harrison, why not come over to thestudio where I can get the best light? We'll make an indoor set of it."

  "Go you," promptly agreed Harrison. His vanity craved a picture of himthrashing the extra, a good one that the public could see and that hecould afterwards gloat over himself.

  Yeager laughed in his slow way. "I'm to be massa-creed to make a Romanholiday, am I? All right. Might as well begin earning that two-fifty perI've been promised."

  The news spread, as if on the wings of the wind. Before Farrar had astage arranged to suit him and his camera ready, a dozen members of thecompany drifted in with a casual manner of having arrived accidentally.Fleming Lennox, leading man, appeared with Cliff Manderson, chiefcomedian for the Lunar border company. Baldy Cummings, the property man,strolled leisurely in to look over some costumes. But Steve observedthat he was panting rapidly.

  As he sat on a soap box waiting for Farrar to finish his preparations,Yeager became aware that Lennox was watching him closely. He did notknow that the leading man would cheerfully have sacrificed a week'ssalary to see Harrison get the trimming he needed. The handsome youngfilm actor was an athlete, a trained boxer, but the ex-prizefighter hadgiven him the thrashing of his life two months before. He simply hadlacked the physical stamina to weather the blows that came from thoselong, gorilla-like arms with the weight of the heavy, rounded shouldersback of them. The fight had not lasted five minutes.

  "Shapes well," murmured Manderson, nodding toward the new extra.

  The leading man agreed without much hope. He conceded the boyishcowpuncher a beautiful trim figure, with breadth of shoulder, grace ofpoise, and long, flowing muscles that rippled under the healthy skinlike those of a panther in motion. But these would serve him littleunless he was an experienced boxer. Harrison had tremendous strengthand 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 movedforward 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 wasso great that Yeager was scarcely conceded a fighting chance. Stevehimself knew quite well that he was in for a licking at the hands ofthis wall-eyed Hercules with the leathery brown face.

  He got it, efficiently and scientifically, but not before Harrison hadfound out he was in a fight. The big man disdained any defense exceptthat which went naturally with his crouch. He had a tremendously longreach and knew how to get the weight of his shoulders behind hispunishing blows. Usually Harrison did all the fighting. The other manwas at the receiving end.

  It was a little different this time. Yeager met his first rush with astraight left that got home and jarred the prizefighter to his heels. Tosee the look on the face of the heavy, compound of blank astonishmentand 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. Theybeat upon Steve's body and face as a hammer does upon an anvil. Only byhis catlike agility and the toughness born of many clean years in thesaddle did the cowpuncher weather for the time the hurricane that lashedat him. He dodged and ducked and parried by instinct, smothering whatblows he could, evading those he might, absorbing the ones he must. Outof that first melee he came reeling and dizzy, quartering round andround before the panting professional.

  The bully enraged was not a sight pleasant to see. He was too near akinto the primeval brute. He glared savagely at his victim, who grinnedback at him with an indomitable jauntiness.

  "This is the life," the cowpuncher assured his foe cheerfully afterdodging a blow that was like the kick of a mule.

  Harrison rocked him with a short stiff uppercut. "Glad you like it," hejeered.

  Yeager crossed with his right, catching him flush on the cheek. "Here'syour receipt for the same," he beamed.

  Like a wild bull the prizefighter was at him again. He beat down thecowpuncher's defense and mauled him savagely with all the punishingskill of his craft. Steve was a man of his hands. He had held his own inmany a rough-and-tumble bout. But he had no science except that whichnature had given him. As long as a man could, he stood up to Harrison'strained skill. When at last he was battered to the ground it was becausethe 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 satdizzily, his head reeling. He saw things through a mist in a queer jerkyway. 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, Ilove a scrap, but I don't yearn for no encore after I've been clawed bya panther and chewed up by a threshing-machine and kicked by anable-bodied mule into the middle o' next week. Enough's a-plenty, as oldJim 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 couldstand up and take. For the conviction was sifting home to him that hehad not beaten the man at all. His pile-driver blows had hammered downhis 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 uponLennox, who was clapping his hands softly.

  "You'd be one grand little fighter, Yeager, if you only knew how," theleading 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 righthere that I'll have no more trouble with you. If it's got to come tothat 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. Heknew quite well that if it came to a choice between him and Lennox thedirector would sacrifice him without a moment's consideration.

  Farrar, who had been grinding out pictures since the beginning ofhostilities, 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 upsuch a licking and come up smiling. You're certainly one Mellin's Foodbaby. I'm for you--strong."

  One of Steve's eyes was closing rapidly, but the other had not lost itstwinkle.

  "Does a fellow's system good to assimilate a tanning oncet in awhile--sort o' corrects any mistaken notions he's liable to collect.Gentlemen, hush! Ain't Harrison the boss eat-em-alive white hope thatever turkey-trotted down the pike?"

  The melancholy Manderson smiled. "You make a hit with me, Arizona. If Iwere in your place I'd be waiting for the undertaker. You look likeyou'd out come of a railroad wreck, two fires, and a cattle stampedeover your carcass. Here, boys, hustle along first aid to our friend thepunching-bag."

&
nbsp; They got him water and towels and a sponge. Steve, protestinghumorously, submitted to their ministrations. He was grateful for thefriendliness that prompted their kindness. The atmosphere had subtlychanged. During the afternoon he had sensed a little aloofness, anintention on the part of the company members to stand off until theyknew him better. Now the ice was melted. They had taken him into thefamily. He had passed with honors his preliminary examination.