Hippy Wingate. Now we _are_ in for
trouble," rebuked Grace Harlowe.

"Brown Eyes, this fellow is a rank fraud. He isn't a constable, and I
will wager that, were he to think there were such an animal within a
mile of him, he would hit out for the bushes right smart."

"I agree with you. But, Hippy, you shouldn't have done that. The man was
only bluffing. I saw that, or thought I did."

"So was I bluffing. The difference is that he and I do not bluff in the
same way. Wait!" Hippy snatched the mountaineer's revolver from its
holster, removed the cartridges and tossed them away, after which he
returned the weapon to its holster. He then unbuckled the man's
ammunition belt, shook all the cartridges out of that and rebuckled the
belt about the fellow's waist.

"Laundry!" called Lieutenant Wingate.

"Yassuh! Yassuh!"

"Fetch me a pail of water. On the run!"

"I reckon this will wake him up," chuckled Hippy as he dashed the
pailful of water that Washington brought, full into the face of the
unconscious "constable."

It did. The man gasped and choked and struggled, and sat up, brushing
the water out of his eyes with a sleeve. His blinking eyes slowly swept
the camp, finally coming to rest on Hippy Wingate's face.

"Question him," suggested Grace.

"Who sent you here to try to bluff us?" asked Hippy sternly.

"Ah'll show ye." The mountain man's revolver was out of its holster in a
flash as he leaped to his feet, and aimed it at Hippy. He pulled the
trigger, but there was no report, only the click of the hammer as it
struck the rim of an empty chamber of the revolver.

Five times did the fellow pull the trigger of his weapon, but with no
better result, Hippy standing at ease before him, a smile on his face.

"I have a perfect right to shoot you for that, Mister 'Constable.' I may
yet decide to do so. Who sent you here to play tricks on us?"

Uttering an exclamation of disgust, the mountain man thrust his revolver
into its holster, one hand having crept about his ammunition belt and
found it empty. He appeared to be dazed, but whether from the rap Hippy
had given him, or because of the mysterious disappearance of his
cartridges, they were not certain.

"Are you going to answer my question?"

The fellow shook his head.

"Do you know Jed Thompson?"

The mountaineer regarded his questioner sullenly, scowlingly, and
without much change of expression. The scowl had been there ever since
he woke up from the blow o