me!” he growled. “I don’t have to be carried around this junk. I’m goin’ through it!” and lunging ahead he put his weight against a tall bureau, causing it to topple toward the glass doors of a sideboard directly beyond. The new boy sprang forward in time to prevent the smash and succeeded in restoring the bureau to its place. The good-humored expression of his face had changed to one of surprise, not unmixed with indignation.

“I’ll ask you not to knock over our stuff,” he began in a voice that seemed to tremble slightly in spite of his effort to control it.

“Ho! Ho!” jeered Slade, pleased by what he interpreted as an indication of fear. “Now who do you think is goin’ to stop me?”

The freckled face paled slightly, but the wide humorous mouth compressed itself to a thin line and the blue eyes grew steely. Stepping forward, the new boy placed himself squarely in front of his tormentor. “I’ll try to stop you,” he said quietly.

It is doubtful if Slade had intended to do more than merely amuse himself by bullying the weaker boy into a condition of pleading, but this unexpected show of resistance nettled him. Evidently the youngster had not been sufficiently impressed. At Slade’s feet lay a box containing articles of fireplace furniture. Stooping, he picked up a poker made from a square rod of heavy iron. He seized the implement by its ends and fixed his bold black eyes upon the freckled face opposite him.

“You’ll try to stop me, eh,” he sneered, “Why, I’d bend you like I bend this here poker!” and with a wrench of his powerful arms Slade changed the straight bar into a letter U. “It takes somebody who can do that to stop me,” he warned as he flung the distorted bar back into its box.

“That’s quite a stunt,” exclaimed a voice at his elbow. “Now can you straighten it again?”

Slade spun round to face Ned Blake, who had stepped into view closely followed by Tommy Beals and Dave Wilbur. A belligerent expression crossed Slade’s face as he eyed the group before him. “Who wants to know?” he sneered, doubling his big fists.

For a moment a fight seemed inevitable. Dave and Tommy felt the sudden tension and the new boy stiffened perceptibly; but to provoke a fight was not Ned Blake’s way of settling an argument and he answered without a trace of ill humor. “Why, I guess we’re all interested,” he said smilingly. “It takes some muscle to bend a bar like that, but they say it’s even harder to straighten it. Can you do it?”

Slade hesitated. Into his rather dull mind there crept a suspicion that perhaps he was being made the butt of some joke, and the thought brought an angry flush to his face. He would have welcomed an opportunity to try conclusions with this gray-eyed youth, who appeared so irritatingly cool and unafraid and yet offered no reasonable grounds for offense. Slade looked him up and down for a minute. “Sure I can straighten it—if I want to,” he growled.

“I’m wondering,” laughed Ned.

Stung to action as much by the tone as by the look of doubt in the smiling gray eyes, Slade snatched up the poker. “I’ll show you,” he gritted as he put forth his strength upon it.

To his surprise the U-shaped poker resisted stubbornly. It was an awkward shape to handle, and in addition the attempted straightening brought into play a very different set of muscles from those required to bend it. Pausing for a new hold, Slade strained upon the bar till the sweat streamed down his face and his breath came in wheezy gasps. Slowly the ends of the poker yielded to his power until the bar had assumed the general shape of a crude letter W, much elongated. With a grunt of disgust, Slade flung it upon the ground.

“It’s crookeder than ever,” grinned Tommy Beals with an audible chuckle.

Slade made no reply, but his hard breathing was as much the result of rage as of physical effort. Ned Blake picked up the bar and balanced it lightly in his hand.

“Bending a bar is much like mischief,” he remarked. “It’s easier to do than to undo.” As he spoke, Ned shifted his grip close to one end of the bar and that portion of the crooked iron straightened slowly in his grasp. It was done with seeming ease, but a close observer would have detected evidence of a tremendous effort in the whitening of the knuckles and the quiver of the muscles in chest and neck. The other crooked end yielded in much the same manner, and the poker had again assumed the shape of a letter U or horseshoe.

Ned paused and drew his knuckles across his eyes, into which the sweat of effort had rolled. Stooping, he dried his hands in the powdery dust of the gutter and grasped the bar, not as Slade had done, but close upon each side of the crook. With elbows pressed against his sides he inhaled to the full capacity of his lungs, bringing into play at the same moment every ounce of power in his wrists and forearms. Slowly the stubborn metal yielded until, after another quick shifting of grip, Ned’s extended thumbs came together in a straight line where the crook of the U had been.

“Here you are,” he said as he handed the bar to its owner, who had watched with no little surprise and uncertainty the little by-play enacted before his eyes. “And by the way,” continued the speaker, “my name is Blake—Ned Blake—next door, you know.”

The new boy’s freckles vanished in the flood of color that flushed his cheeks, as still keeping a wary eye upon Slade he reached forward to grip the friendly hand extended toward him. “Somers is my name—Dick Somers.” And as he spoke, the humorous expression again lighted his face.

“You seem to be obstructing traffic,” laughed Ned. “We’ll give you a hand with this stuff. Tommy Beals, here, is a great worker and as for Dave Wilbur—why, he’s absolutely pining for a job.”

For a moment Slade listened with ill-concealed disgust to this conversation, then realizing how completely the mastery of the situation had been wrested from him, he swung round on his heel and slouched away.

“Is he a neighbor?” asked Somers with a jerk of his thumb in the direction of the departing Slade.

“No, thank heaven, he’s not,” replied Beals. “His name is Dan Slade—Slugger Slade they call him where he lives up in the town of Bedford. He’s got a reputation as a great bully, but I don’t know just how far he’d really go.”

“‘A barking dog seldom bites,’” drawled Wilbur, “but just the same, Somers, you showed a lot of spunk standing up to him the way you did. My guess is that you’re the right sort.”

“I don’t mind admitting I was plumb scared half to death when I saw him bend that poker,” grinned Somers, “but that wasn’t anything compared with straightening it,” he continued with a look of genuine admiration at Ned Blake.

“Both stunts are mostly trick stuff,” declared the latter, “but let’s get busy with this furniture, before somebody else gets sore about the sidewalk being blocked.”

Four pairs of hands made short work of the pile, and by the time the van had arrived from the freight house with its second load, the walk was cleared and the boys were helping Mrs. Somers arrange the articles indoors.

“This is awfully kind of you boys!” exclaimed Dick’s mother gratefully when the job was finished. “I wish I could offer you something cold to drink after your hard, hot