“Who’s doing that fine work?” wondered Dave, stepping closer.  “Why, it’s Jetson!  Well, he has one accomplishment that I really envy him!”

Midshipman Jetson was now going through some rapid evolutions, first hanging head downward, and then, after developing speed, raising himself and turning over the crossbar.  It was really work of which any athlete might have been proud.

“Say, Jim,” muttered one attendant to the other, “that middie has me nervous for fair.”

“Forget it,” advised the other attendant, “It’s the middie’s neck, not yours.”

“But we took the net down that goes with that bar.  Suppose the young man should fall.  He’d break his neck, and what could we say with the net gone?”

“He’s no business up there at this late hour in the afternoon,” grumbled the other man.

“That talk won’t save us, either, if anything happens.”

Jetson, filled with the desire to show off before the comrade he hated, had increased the speed of his brilliant flying movements.

But suddenly he slipped.  There was no regaining his grip.  With a howl of fright he felt himself plunging head downward more than thirty feet to the hard floor of the gym.  He was in a fair way of landing on his head, cracking his skull and breaking his neck.  Worse, in his sudden dread, he seemed to have lost control of his muscles.

“Turn!  Land on your feet!” called Dave.

It all happened in a second.  Dave, brief as the instant was, realized that the other midshipman was not going to land on his feet.  In the same fleeting moment that Darrin called he hurled himself into position.

Straight down shot Jetson.  Dave waited, with outstretched arms, ready to risk his own neck in the effort to save his sulky comrade.

From their end of the gym. the two startled attendants had watched the impending disaster, but there was no time for them to do anything.

From the way that Jetson fell it looked as though he had made a straight dive for Dave Darrin’s head.  At all events, their heads met in sharp collision.

Down went Dave, as though shot, and Jetson went with him, but Darrin’s outstretched arms had grasped the other’s body, and Jetson was saved the worst of his fall.

Now the two midshipmen lay where they had fallen, Jetson lying somewhat across Dave’s motionless body.

“They’re killed!” yelled the attendant Jim hoarsely.

“We’ll look ’em over first, before we give up,” retorted the other attendant, stooping and gently rolling Jetson over on his back.

“Sure they’re killed, Bob,” protested Jim huskily.  “They met head on.  You’ll find that both middies have their skulls broken.”

“Bring two pails of water, you chump,” ordered Bob.  “I tell you, we won’t raise a row until we’ve done the best we can for ’em.”

[Illustration:  Straight Down Shot Jetson.]

The water was brought.  Under liberal dashes of it over his face and neck Jetson soon opened his eyes.