beat in yore heads!" he gritted,
savagely. "Harlan, put yore paws up in sight or I'll drill you clean!
Now climb over an' get in line--quick!"

Johnny moaned and opened his eyes. "Did--did I--get him?"

"No; but he gimleted you, all right," Hopalong replied. "You'll come
'round if you keep quiet." He arose, his face hard with the desire to
kill. "I'm coming back for _you_, Harlan, after I get yore friend! An'
all th' rest of you pups, too!"

"Get me out of here," whispered Johnny.

"Shore enough, Kid; but keep quiet," replied Hopalong, picking him up in
his arms and moving carefully towards the door. "We'll get him, Johnny;
an' all th' rest, too, when"--the voice died out in the direction of
Jackson's and the marshal, backing to the front door, slipped out and to
one side, running backward, his eyes on the saloon.

"Yore day's about over, Harlan," he muttered.

"There's going to be some few funerals around here before many hours
pass."

When he reached the store he found the owner and two Double-Arrow
punchers taking care of Johnny. "Where's Hopalong?" he asked.

"Gone to tell his foreman," replied Jackson. "Hey, youngster, you let
them bandages alone! Hear me?"

"Hullo, Kansas," remarked John Bartlett, foreman of the Double-Arrow. "I
come nigh getting yore man; somebody rode past me like a streak in th'
dark, so I just ups an' lets drive for luck, an' so did he. I heard him
cuss an' I emptied my gun after him."

* * * * *

The rain slanted down in sheets and the broken plain, thoroughly
saturated, held the water in pools or sent it down the steep side of the
cliff to feed the turbulent flood which swept along the bottom,
foam-flecked and covered with swiftly moving driftwood. Around a bend
where the angry water flung itself against the ragged bulwark of rock
and flashed away in a gleaming line of foam, a horseman appeared,
bending low in the saddle for better protection against the storm. He
rode along the edge of the stream on the farther bank, opposite the
steep bluff on the northern side, forcing his wounded and jaded horse to
keep fetlock deep in the water which swirled and sucked about its legs.
He was trying his hardest to hide his trail. Lower down the hard, rocky
ground extended to the water's edge, and if he could delay his pursuers
for an hour or so, he felt that, even with his tired horse, he would
have more than an even chance.

But they had gained more than he