The news of the boxing lessons traveled to Harrison. He set his heavy jaw and waited. He intended that Yeager should go to the hospital after their next mix-up.
Meanwhile he found other causes for disliking the new man. Always a vain man, his jealousy was inflamed because Steve was a better rider than he. At any time he was ready with a sneer for what he called the cowpuncher's "grandstanding."
"It gets across, Harrison," Threewit told him bluntly one day. "We've never had a rider whose work was so snappy. He's doing fine."
"Watch him blow up one of these days—nothing to him," growled the heavy.
"There's a whole lot to him," disagreed the producing director as he walked away to superintend the arrangement of a set.
Several days after this some new horses were added to the remuda of the Lunar Company. Harrison picked a young mustang to ride in a chase scene they were going to pull off. The pony was a wiry buckskin with powerful flanks and withers. The prizefighter was no sooner in the saddle than it developed that the animal had not been half broken. It took to pitching at once and presently spilled the rider.
Steve, sitting on the corral fence with Jackson and Orman, two other riders for the company, called across cheerfully,—
"Not hurt, are you?"
The heavy got up swearing. "Any of your damned business, is it?"
He caught at the pony bridle, jerked it violently, and hammered the lifted head of the dancing mustang with his fist. After several attempts he succeeded in kicking its ribs. Yeager said nothing, but his eyes gleamed. In the cow country men interfere rarely when a vicious rider abuses his mount, but such a man soon finds himself under an unvoiced ban.