The cowpuncher's face brightened. "I sure would. The boys say you're the best ever with the mitts."
"I'm a pretty good boxer, but I don't trail in your class as a fighter. What you need is to take some lessons. If you'd care to have me show you what I know—"
"Say, you've rung the bell first shot."
"Come up to the hotel to-night, then. No need advertising it. Harrison might pick another quarrel with you to show you what you don't know."
Steve laughed. "He's ce'tainly one tough citizen. He can look at a pine board so darned sultry it begins to smoke. All right. Be up there to-night, Mr. Lennox."
From that day the boxing lessons became a regular thing. The claim Lennox had made for himself had scarcely done him justice. He was one of the best amateur boxers in the West. In Yeager he had a pupil quick to learn. The extra was a perfect specimen physically, narrow of flank, broad of shoulder, with the well-packed muscles of one always trained to the minute. Fifteen years in the saddle had given him a toughness of fiber no city dweller could possibly equal. Nights under the multiple stars in the hills, cool, invigorating mornings with the pine-filled air strong as wine in his clean blood, long days of sunshine full of action, had all contributed to make him the young Hermes that he was. Cool and wary, supple as a wildcat, light as a dancing schoolgirl on his feet, he had the qualities which go to help both the fighter and the boxer. Lennox had never seen a man with more natural aptitude for the sport.
Sometimes Farrar was present at these lessons. Often Baldy Cummings, who liked the cowpuncher because Steve was always willing to help him get the properties ready for the required sets, would put on the gloves with him and try him out for a round or two. Manderson, the melancholy comedian, occasionally dropped in with some other member of the company.
The same thought was in the mind of all of them except Yeager himself. The extra was being trained to meet Harrison. It was apparent to all of them that the prizefighter was nursing a grudge. The jaunty insouciance of the young range-rider irritated him as a banderilla goads a bull in the ring.
"Steve gets under his hide. Some day he's going to break loose again," Farrar told Manderson as they watched Lennox and Yeager box.
"The kid shapes fine. If Mr. Chad Harrison waits long enough he's liable to find himself in trouble when he tackles that young tiger cub," answered the comedian. "Ever see anybody quicker on his feet? Reminds me of Jim Corbett when he was a youngster."