instant Bucky mounted the chair and looked over the densely
packed mass of heads in front of him.

The ranger's keen glance swept to the wall and took in the
target. A slim lad of about fifteen stood against it with his
arms outstretched. Above and below each hand and on either side
of the swelling throat knives quivered in the frame wall. There
was a flash of steel, and the seventh knife sank into the wood so
close to the crisp curls that a lock hung by a hair, almost
completely severed by the blade. The boy choked back a scream,
his big brown eyes dilating with terror.

The bully sipped at his highball and deliberately selected
another knife. To Bucky's swift inspection it was plain he had
drunk too much and that a very little slip might make an end of
the boy. The fascinated horror in the lad's gaze showed that he
realized his danger.

"Now, f'ler cit'zens, I will continue for your 'musement by
puttin' next two knives on right and lef' sides of his cheek.
Observe, pleash, that these will land less than an inch from hish
eyes. As the champion knife thrower in the universe I claim--"

What he claimed his audience had to guess, for at this instant
another person took a part in the act. Bucky had stepped lightly
across the intervening space on the shoulders of the tightly
packed crowd and had dropped as lightly to the ground in front of
the astonished champion of the universe.

"I reckon you've about wore out that target. What's the matter