chin and then on down his neck.

"What yu been doin'? Plowin' with yore nose?" Returned Red, smiling
blandly at his friend's appearance.

"Yah!" snorted Hopalong, wheeling toward the corral. "Come on, yu
pie-eatin' doodle-bug; I'll beat yu to th' gate!"

The two ponies sent showers of sand all over Billy, who eyed them
in pugnacious disgust. "Of all th' locoed imps that ever made life
miserable fer a man, them's th' worst! Is there any piece of fool
nonsense they hain't harnessed me with?" He beseeched of Buck. "Is there
anything they hain't done to me? They hides my liquor; they stuffs th'
sweat band of my hat with rope; they ties up my pants; they puts water
in. My boots an' toads in my bunk--ain't they never goin' to get sane?"

"Oh, they're only kids--they can't help it," offered Buck. "Didn't they
hobble my cayuse when I was on him an' near bust my neck?"

Hopalong interrupted the conversation by driving up another calf, and
Buck, glancing at his watch, declared the contest at an end.

"Yu wins," he remarked to the newcomer. "An' now yu get scarce or Billy
will shore straddle yore nerves. He said as how he was goin' to get
square on yu to-night."

"I didn't, neither, Hoppy!" earnestly contradicted Billy, who bad
visions of a night spent in torment as a reprisal for such a threat.
"Honest I didn't, did I, Johnny?" He asked appealingly.

"Yu shore did," lied Johnny, winking at Red, who had just ridden up.

"I don't know what yore talkin' about, but yu shore did," replied Red.

"If yu did," grinned Hopalong, "I'll shore make yu hard to find. Come
on, fellows," he said; "grub's ready. Where's Frenchy?"

"Over chewin' th' rag with Waffles about his hat--he's lost it again,"
answered Red. "He needs a guardian fer that bonnet. Th' Kid an'
Salvation has jammed it in th' corral fence an' Waffles has to stand fer
it."

"Let's put it in th' grub wagon an see him cuss cookie," suggested
Hopalong.

"Shore," indorsed Johnny; Cookie'll feed him bum grub for a week to get
square.

Hopalong and Johnny ambled over to the corral and after some trouble
located the missing sombrero, which they carried to the grub wagon and
hid in the flour barrel. Then they went over by the excited owner and
dropped a few remarks about how strange the cook was acting and how he
was watching Frenchy.

Frenchy jumped at the bait and tore over to the wagon, where he and the
cook spent some time in mutual recrimination. Hopalong nosed ar