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 a.s.similate 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?"

The melancholy Manderson smiled. "You make a hit with me, Arizona. If I were in your place I'd be waiting for the undertaker. You look like you'd out come of a railroad wreck, two fires, and a cattle stampede over your carca.s.s. Here, boys, hustle along first aid to our friend the punching-bag."

They got him water and towels and a sponge. Steve, protesting humorously, submitted to their ministrations. He was grateful for the friendliness that prompted their kindness. The atmosphere had subtly changed. During the afternoon he had sensed a little aloofness, an intention on the part of the company members to stand off until they knew him better. Now the ice was melted. They had taken him into the family. He had pa.s.sed with honors his preliminary examination.

CHAPTER III

CHAD HARRISON

As soon as Steve stepped into the dining-room he knew that the story of his fight with Harrison had preceded him. His battered face became an immediate focus of curious veiled glances. These exhibited an animated interest rather than surprise.

Mrs. Seymour introduced him in turn to each of the other boarders, and the furtive looks stared for a moment their frank questions at him. As he drew in his chair beside a slender, tanned young woman, he knew with some amus.e.m.e.nt that his arrival had interrupted a conversation of which he had been the theme.

The film actress seated beside Yeager must have been in her very early twenties, but her pretty face, finely modeled, had the provocative effrontery that is the note of twentieth-century young womanhood. Its audacity, which was the quintessence of worldliness, held an alert been-through-it-all expression.

"I hope you like Los Robles, Mr. Yeager. Some of us don't, you know,"

she suggested.

"Like it fine, Miss Ellington," he answered with enthusiasm, accepting from Ruth Seymour a platter of veal croquettes.

Daisy Ellington slanted mischievous eyes toward him. "Not much doing here. It's a dead little hole. You'll be bored to death--if you haven't been already."

"Me! I've found it right lively," retorted Steve, his eyes twinkling.

"Had all the excitement I could stand for one day. You see I come from way back in the cow country, ma'am."

"And I came from New York," she sighed. "When it comes to little old Broadway I'm there with bells on. What d'you mean, cow country? Ain't this far enough off the map? Say, were you ever in New York?"

"Oncet. With a load of steers my boss was shipping to England. Lemme see. It was three years ago come next October."

"Three years ago. Why, that was when I was in the pony ballet with 'Adam, Eve, and the Apple.' Did you see the show?"

"Bet I did."

Her eyes sparkled. "I was in the first row, third from the left in the 'Good-Night' chorus. Some kick to that song, wasn't there?"

"I should say yes. We're old friends, then, aren't we?" exclaimed Yeager promptly. He buried her little hand in his big brown paw, a friendly smile beaming through the disfigurements of his bruised face.

"He didn't do a thing to you, did he?" she commented, looking him over frankly.

"Not a thing--except run me through a sausage-grinder, drop me out of one of these aeroplanes, hammer my haid with a pile-driver, and jounce me up and down on a big pile of sharp rocks. Outside of trifles like that I had it all my own way."

"I don't see any alfalfa in _your_ hair," she laughed. Then, lowering her voice discreetly, she added: "Harrison's a brute. I'll tell you about him some time when Ruth isn't round."

"Ruth!" Steve glanced at the young girl who moved about the room with such rhythmic grace helping the Chinese waiter serve her mother's guests. "What has she got to do with Harrison?"

"Engaged to him--that's all. See that sparkler on her finger? Wouldn't it give you a jolt that a nice little girl like her would take up with a stiff like Harrison?"

"What's her mother thinking about?" asked the cowpuncher under cover of the conversation that was humming briskly all around the tables.

Daisy lifted her shoulders in a careless little shrug. "Oh, her mother!

What's she got to do with it? Harrison has hypnotized the kid, I guess.

He throws a big chest, and at that he ain't bad-looking. He's one man too, if he is a rotten bad lot."

The young woman breezed on to another subject in the light, inconsequent fashion she had, and presently deserted Yeager to meet the badinage of an extra sitting at an adjoining table.

After dinner Steve went to his new quarters to get a cigar he had left on the table. It was one Farrar had given him. He was cherishing it because his financial a.s.sets had become reduced to twenty cents and he did not happen to know when pay-day was.

Yeager climbed the barn stairs humming a range song:--

"Black Jack Davy came a-riding along, Singing a song so gayly, He laughed and sang till the merry woods rang And he charmed the heart of a lady, And he charmed--"

Abruptly he pulled up in his stride and in his song. Ruth Seymour was in the room putting new sheets and pillow-cases on the bed.

"I haven't had time before. I didn't think you would be through dinner so soon," she explained in a voice soft and low.

"That's all right. I only dropped up to get a cigar I left on the table.

Don't let me disturb you."

Her troubled eyes rested on the strong, lean face that went so well with the strong, lean body. One eye was swollen and almost shut. Red bruises glistened on the forehead and the cheeks. A bit of plaster stretched diagonally above the right cheekbone where the prizefighter's knuckles had cut a deep gash. Little ridges covered his countenance as if it had been a contour map of a mountainous country. But through all the havoc that had been wrought flashed his white teeth in a cheerful smile.

The girl's lip trembled. "I'm sorry you--were hurt."

He flashed a quick look at her. "Sho! Forget it, Miss Seymour. I wasn't hurt any--none to speak of. It don't do a big husky like me any harm to be handed a licking."

"You--hit him first, didn't you?"

"Yes, ma'am,--knocked him out cold before he knew where he was at. He was ent.i.tled to a come-back. I'm noways hos-tile to him because he's a better man than I am."

She stood with the pillow in her hands, shy as a fawn, but with a certain resolution, too, the trouble of her soul still reflected on the sweet face.

"Why do men--do such things?" she asked with a catch of her breath.

He scratched his curly head in apologetic perplexity. "Search me. I reckon the cave man is lurking around in most of us. We hadn't ought to.

That's a fact."

"It was all a mistake, Miss Ellington says. You thought he was hurting Miss Winters. Why didn't you tell him you were sorry? Then it would have been all right."

The cowpuncher did not bat an eye at this innocent suggestion.