cigarette for his breakfast,
Hopalong, grouchy and hungry, rode slowly to the place appointed for his
meeting with Red, but Mr. Connors was over two hours late. It was now
mid-forenoon and Hopalong occupied his time for a while by riding out
fancy designs on the sand; but he soon tired of this makeshift diversion
and grew petulant. Red's tardiness was all the worse because the erring
party to the agreement had turned in his saddle at Hoyt's Corners and
loosed a flippant and entirely uncalled-for remark about his friend's
ideas regarding appointments.

"Well, that red-headed Romeo is shore late this time," Hopalong
muttered. "Why don't he find a girl closer to home, anyhow? Thank the
Lord I ain't got no use for shell games of any kind. Here I am, without
anything to eat an' no prospects of anything, sitting up on this locoed
layout like a sore thumb, an' can't move without hitting myself! An'
it'll be late to-day before I can get any grub, too. Oh, well," he
sighed, "I ain't in love, so things might be a whole lot worse with me.
An' he ain't in love, neither, only he won't listen to reason. He gets
mad an' calls me a sage hen an' says I'm stuck on myself because some
fool told me I had brains."

He laughed as he pictured the object of his friend's affections. "Huh;
anybody that got one good, square look at her wouldn't ever accuse him
of having brains. But he'll forget her in a month. That was the life of
his last hobbling fit an' it was the worst he ever had."

Grinning at his friend's peculiarly human characteristics he leaned back
in the saddle and felt for tobacco and papers. As he finished pouring
the chopped alfalfa into the paper he glanced up and saw a mounted man
top the sky-line of the distant hills and shoot down the slope at full
speed.

"I knowed it: started three hours late an' now he's trying to make it up
in the last mile," Hopalong muttered, dexterously spreading the tobacco
along the groove and quickly rolling the cigarette. Lighting it he
looked up again and saw that the horseman was wildly waving a sombrero.

"Huh! Wigwagging for forgiveness," laughed the man who waited. "Old
son-of-a-gun, I'd wait a week if I had some grub, an' he knows it.
Couldn't get mad at him if I tried."

Mr. Connors' antics now became frantic and he shouted something at the
top of his voice. His friend spurred his mount. "Come on, bronc; wake
up. His girl said 'yes' an' now he wants me to get him out of his
trouble." Wh