There now stretched a taut doubled line, with a downward slant, from the tree under which the bull waited patiently for his prey to drop. “Looks good to me!” announced Bones, as he changed his position on the fence so as to get a better view of the coming “stunt” of the thin chum. “Course it does,” grumbled Lanky, as he prepared to trust himself to the slender line. “Think I’m a featherweight, do you, just because I’m thin; but bones weigh a heap, just you remember. What if she breaks, Frank?” “It will hold you, all right, Lanky,” replied the other, confidently; “I tested the single line with my weight and it stood firm. Now that we’ve made it double, honestly, I believe it would hold even Buster Billings.” As the boy mentioned was considered the fattest scholar, without exception, in any one of the three high schools, such positive information should have gone far toward giving Lanky confidence. “All right, here I come, then. Phew! I hope the blooming old thing doesn’t give enough to let me down so he can poke his horns into me.” That was really the only thing that Frank feared in the least. It was with more or less concern, therefore, that he saw Lanky get in readiness to start sliding along the rope. As this had a pretty good slant from the lone tree’s upper branches, he need not do any climbing, but just work his way along, and remember to hold on with a firm grip, no matter what happened. “Wow! there he comes!” exclaimed Bones Shadduck, as the thin boy let go his hold above, and launched himself upon his aerial passage. It was a strange sight indeed, with Lanky moving slowly but steadily down that doubled rope, and the prancing bull keeping directly underneath him, giving vent to all sorts of queer noises as he even reared up on his short hind legs and tried to reach Lanky’s long, dangling figure with his horns. “Thank goodness, the rope holds!” cried Bones, who had been rather doubtful of its strength all along. “And it doesn’t seem to sag so very much,” added Frank, mentally figuring how close bull and boy might come before Lanky found shelter across the line of fence. “It’s going to be a close shave, I’m afraid, though, Lanky; can’t you pull up your legs some; he might get you when you’re near the fence?” “Sure he can,” remarked Bones. “You know what sort of gymnast Lanky is. Watch him put his feet in his pockets now.” Of course, the dangling boy did not go quite that far, because in the first place he had no such thing as a pocket in his running togs, and even if he had, he felt no inclination to carry out the suggestion of humorous Bones. But he did throw one leg up over the line, and this took his form just so much further away from the ugly horns below.