“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.