unate's
shirt.

"Ow! wow! WOW!" wailed the recipient, heaving and straining. The
unengaged leg was suddenly wrested loose, and as it shot up and out
Billy Williams, with his pessimism aroused to a blue-ribbon pitch, sat
down forcibly in an adjacent part of the room, from where he lectured
between gasps on the follies of mankind and the attributes of army
mules.

Red tiptoed around the squirming bunch, looking for an opening, his
pleased expression now having added a grin.

"Seems to be gittin' violent-like," he soliloquized, as he aimed a
stream at Hopalong's ear, which showed for a second as Pete Wilson
strove for a half-nelson, and he managed to include Johnny and Pete in
his effort.

Several minutes later, when the storm had subsided, the woeful crowd
enthusiastically urged Hopalong to the bar, where he "bought."

"Of all th' ornery outfits I ever saw--" began the man at the table,
grinning from ear to ear at the spectacle he had just witnessed.

"Why, hullo, Frenchy! Glad to see yu, yu old son-of-a-gun! What's th'
news from th' Hills?" Shouted Hopalong.

"Rather locoed, an' there's a locoed gang that's headin' that way. Goin'
up?" he asked.

"Shore, after round-up. Seen any punchers trailin' around loose?"

"Ya-as," drawled Frenchy, delving into the possibilities suddenly opened
to him and determining to utilize to the fullest extent the opportunity
that had come to him unsought. "There's nine over to Muddy Wells that yu
might git if yu wants them bad enough. They've got a sombrero of mine,"
he added deprecatingly.

"Nine! Twisted Jerusalem, Buck! Nine whole cow-punchers a-pinin' for
work," he shouted, but then added thoughtfully, "Mebby they's engaged,"
it being one of the courtesies of the land not to take another man's
help.

"Nope. They've stampeded for th' Hills an' left their boss all alone,"
replied Frenchy, well knowing that such desertion would not, in the
minds of the Bar-20 men, add any merits to the case of the distant
outfit.

"Th' sons-of-guns," said Hopalong, "let's go an' get 'em," he suggested,
turning to Buck, who nodded a smiling assent.

"Oh, what's the hurry?" Asked Frenchy, seeing his projected game
slipping away into the uncertain future and happy in the thought that he
would be avenged on the O-Bar-O outfit.

"They'll be there till to-morrow noon--they's waitin' for their cookie,
who's goin' with them."

"A cook! A cook! Oh, joy, a cook!" exulted Johnny, not for one insta