"Torellas left the ring, and the banderilleros took possession. These were the men with the wooden stakes of the length of a man's arm and the thickness of a thumb, and wrapped around in gay colored paper ribbon streamers, and at one end a thin iron spike about as long as a man's little finger. The banderilleros had to stand in front of the bull, with a stake in each hand, and, as he charged, to step in between his horns and reach over and plant a stake on each side of his neck. 'It is most simple,' explained Ferrero, as he left Cogan to do his part--'only--surely--we must not make mistake.' And Cogan could not help thinking that bull-fighting was like a thousand other games, a man mustn't make mistakes. "Ferrero, who was rated the best banderillero in Peru, first faced the bull. He held his stakes up near the end furthest from the bull, to get as much distance at the start as possible, though it wasn't that alone which saved him from the bull's rush. That helped, but the bull stopping up short when he felt the spikes going into his neck, was what Ferrero reckoned on, when it wasn't done too late. An instant after the stakes were planted in his neck, the bull continued his charge, but by then Ferrero was out of the way. "Cogan, watching Ferrero and his companions from his retreat, began to get the bull-fighting fever. He thought he would like to try the banderillero's game--that is, after he'd had a few weeks' training at it. These were fine athletes--and something more. They were risking their lives every minute. "They leaped like panthers. The jabbing in of the stakes and the wiggling aside to escape the bull's plunge, it was like one movement. Soon the bull was going round the ring, with five or six pairs of banderillas decorating his neck. Of these Ferrero had planted the first and last pair. When he came back to his place in the refuge beside Cogan, the air was quivering with buenos. 'Buenos!' said Cogan also to him. 'Not bad--no.' said Ferrero very well pleased.