he from lack of grub if you don't earn yore
right to eat purty soon," retorted Buck. "You ain't had a toothache in
yore whole life, an' you don't know what one is. G'wan, now, or I'll
give you a backache that'll ache!"

"Huh! Devil of a way to treat a sick man!" Johnny retorted, but he
departed exultantly, whistling with much noise and no music. But he was
sorry for one thing: he sincerely regretted that he had not been present
when Hopalong met his Waterloo. It would have been pleasing to look
upon.

While the outfit blessed the proposed lease of range that took him out
of their small circle for a time, Hopalong rode farther and farther
into the northwest, frequently lost in abstraction which, judging by its
effect upon him, must have been caused by something serious. He had not
heard from Dave Wilkes about that individual's good horse which had been
loaned to Ben Ferris, of Winchester. Did Dave think he had been killed
or was still pursuing the man whose neck-kerchief had aroused such
animosity in Hopalong's heart? Or had the horse actually been returned?
The animal was a good one, a successful contender in all distances from
one to five miles, and had earned its owner and backers much money--and
Hopalong had parted with it as easily as he would have borrowed five
dollars from Red. The story, as he had often reflected since, was as old
as lying--a broken-legged horse, a wife dying forty miles away, and a
horse all saddled which needed only to be mounted and ridden.

These thoughts kept him company for a day and when he dismounted before
Stevenson's "Hotel" in Hoyt's Corners he summed up his feelings for the
enlightenment of his horse.

"Damn it, bronc! I'd give ten dollars right now to know if I was a
jackass or not," he growled. "But he was an awful slick talker if he
lied. An' I've got to go up an' face Dave Wilkes to find out about it!"

Mr. Cassidy was not known by sight to the citizens of Hoyt's Corners,
however well versed they might be in his numerous exploits of wisdom and
folly. Therefore the habitues of Stevenson's Hotel did not recognize him
in the gloomy and morose individual who dropped his saddle on the floor
with a crash and stamped over to the three-legged table at dusk and
surlily demanded shelter for the night.

"Gimme a bed an' something to eat," he demanded, eyeing the three men
seated with their chairs tilted against the wall. "Do I get 'em?" he
asked, impatiently.

"You do," replied a one