e remained but
half an hour more in which to compete. As Red disappeared into the sea
of tossing horns Hopalong dashed out with a whoop.

"Hi, yu trellis-built rack of bones, come along there! Whoop!" he
yelled, turning the prisoner over to the squad by the fire.

"Chalk up this here insignificant wart of cross-eyed perversity: an' how
many?" He called as he galloped back to the corral.

"One ninety-eight," announced Buck, blowing the sand from the tally
sheet. "That's shore goin' some," he remarked to himself.

When the calf sprang up it was filled with terror, rage and pain, and
charged at Billy from the rear as that pessimistic soul was leaning over
and poking his finger at a somber horned-toad. "Wow!" he yelled as his
feet took huge steps up in the air, each one strictly on its own course.
"Woof!" he grunted in the hot sand as he arose on his hands and knees
and spat alkali.

"What's s'matter?" He asked dazedly of Johnny Nelson. "Ain't it funny!"
he yelled sarcastically as he beheld Johnny holding his sides with
laughter. "Ain't it funny!" he repeated belligerently. "Of course that
four-laigged, knock-kneed, wobblin' son-of-a-Piute had to cut me out.
They wasn't nobody in sight but Billy! Why didn't yu say he was comin'?
Think I can see four ways to once? Why didn't--" At this point Red
cantered up with a calf, and by a quick maneuver, drew the taut rope
against the rear of Billy's knees, causing that unfortunate to sit down
heavily. As he arose choking with broken-winded profanity Red dragged
the animal to the fire, and Billy forgot his grievances in the press of
labor.

"How many, Buck?" Asked Red.

"One-eighty."

"How does she stand?"

"Yore eighteen to th' bad," replied the foreman. "Th' son-of-a-gun!"
marveled Red, riding off.

Another whoop interrupted them, and Billy quit watching out of the
corner eye for pugnacious calves as he prepared for Hopalong.

"Hey, Buck, this here cuss was with a Barred-Horseshoe cow," he
announced as he turned it over to the branding man. Buck made a tally in
a separate column and released the animal. "Hullo, Red! Workin'?" Asked
Hopalong of his rival.

"Some, yu little cuss," answered Red with all the good nature in the
world. Hopalong was his particular "side partner," and he could lose to
him with the best of feelings.

"Yu looks so nice an' cool, an' clean, I didn't know," responded
Hopalong, eyeing a streak of sweat and dust which ran from Red's eyes to
his