Then a strange thing happened. Before any one had time to realize just how it occurred, Clark's body was describing a sweeping arc in the air. His heels rushed through the atmosphere fully five feet from the floor. Like the lash of a whip, his powerless body was straightened out as he reached the limit of the aerial curve he had described. At the same instant a dismayed yell broke from his pallid lips as Rob let go. Over the veranda rail, and out into the dusty road the young cow-puncher followed his revolver. He landed in a heap in the white dust, while Rob yelled triumphantly: "Now pick up your gun and profit by the lesson in manners I've given you." So saying, the boy calmly seated himself once more in the disputed chair, only a slight, quick movement of his chest betraying the great physical effort he had been through. After all, surprising as it had seemed, there was nothing very amazing about Rob's achievement. At the Hampton Academy athletics had always been a boast. The trick Rob had just put into execution he had learned from his physical instructor, who in his turn had picked it up from a Samurai wrestler of Japan. But to the cowboys, and other loungers about the Mesaville Hotel, the feat had been little short of marvelous. They eagerly thronged about the boy as he took his seat once more, and this time he remained in undisputed possession of it. "Whip-sawed, that's what Clark was," exclaimed one of the group. Another, the same tall, lanky fellow who had just been urging the young cow-puncher on to what he thought would be an easy victory, approached Rob. "Say, stranger," he asked eagerly, "will you teach me that thar contraption?" "Couldn't do it," rejoined Rob soberly, although a smile played about the corners of his lips. "Why not?" "Because, then, you'd know as much as I do," responded Rob. The assemblage burst into a loud roar of laughter, in which you may be sure, however, there were two voices which did not join. Those two were Clark Jennings' and Jess Randell's. The former had just picked himself up and stuffed his gun in his pistol pocket. A malevolent scowl marked his face as he did so. Nor did Jess smooth over matters by remarking audibly: "Say, Clark, what was the matter with you?" "Chilled feet, I guess," chortled Tubby, who had overheard the remark. "Get away from me, can't you?" snarled Clark irritably, facing round on his well-meaning crony, "why didn't you help me out?" "Help you out--how?" "Why, trip that tenderfoot up when I rushed him." "Oh, shucks, I thought you fought fair," said Jess, a little disgusted in spite of himself. "So I do," snorted Clark, "when I'm winning." "Well, come on round and see to the ponies. We'll think up some way to get even with these grain-fed mavericks before very long," comforted Jess. "You bet, and in a way they won't forget, either," Clark Jennings promised himself, as he followed his companion to the corral.