Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/67

 was the familiar uniform which they had adopted for their own—dark blue tights, white flannel shirt with blue trimmings, and white helmet. The boy who wore it was standing with his back to them, examining the register.

"I never noticed before that Roy was so fine a figure," whispered Arthur. "Look at the muscles on his legs. He fills out those tights as though he had been melted and poured into them."

Without saying or doing anything to attract the boy's notice, the two friends slipped up behind him, and Arthur threw his arms over his shoulders.

"Now, you runaway, give an account of yourself!" he exclaimed.

The effect produced by these innocent words was surprising in the extreme. In less than a second the supposed Roy Sheldon proved that he was quite as muscular as he looked to be. Uttering a cry of surprise and alarm he doubled himself up like a jack-knife and lunged forward with all his strength, and then almost as quickly jerked himself backward. By the first