“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.

“But the great thing was to come.  ’El matador, el matador!  Torellas, Torellas,’ they were shouting.  And again Torellas came.  He crossed the ring, with his even, unhurried walk to Cogan’s place of refuge, and asked for his cape—­’You will allow me—­please—­yes?  Gracias, senor,’ and, with the one word ‘Americano,’ and a nod of his head toward Cogan, Torellas held the cape to the nearest section of American blue-jackets who had been wondering, ever since the word had been passed, which was the American among the bull-fighters.  Cogan, of course, was dressed like any other bull-fighter, and being dark-haired and pretty well tanned wasn’t to be picked out easily, especially as he buried himself to the eyes in his place of refuge.  He didn’t want to be recognized—­not then, and so he stayed hid away, and so it was Ferrero, in the same refuge with Cogan, but looming above him, who was cheered by the many blue-jackets for their countryman.  And Ferrero gleefully bowed and bowed again to their applause.

“Torellas wrapped the cape around his left forearm.  He then took from an attendant and gripped in his right hand the espada, the short sword, with which he was to give the bull the finishing stroke.

“Now, to Cogan’s way of thinking, Ferrero and the other banderilleros took a chance when they placed their beribboned stakes, but they had the length of their stakes the start of the bull, and they did not have to linger over doing it.  A light touch, the stakes were in, and they were off.  But to drive a knife through twelve or fourteen inches of bull gristle!  Cogan pictured himself walking into a butcher’s shop, picking out twelve or