“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.