"Yu better come with me," coaxed Hopalong, not liking what his friend
had said about being afraid of the trail past the ca on and wishing to
have some one with whom to talk on his trip. "I'm goin' to have a nice
long swim to-morrow night," he added, trying bribery.

"An' I'm goin' to try to keep from hittin' my blisters," responded Red.
"I don't want to go swimmin' in no creek full of moccasins--I'd rather
sleep with rattlers or copperheads. Every time I sees a cotton-mouth I
feels like I had just sit down on one.

"I'll flip a coin to see whether yu comes or not," proposed Hopalong.

"If yu wants to gamble so bad I'll flip yu to see who draws our pay
next month, but not for what you said," responded Red, choking down the
desire to try his luck.

Hopalong grinned and turned toward the south. "If I sees Buck afore yu
do, I'll tell him yu an' Frenchy are growin' watermelons up near Last
Stand Rock an' are waitin' for rain. Well, so long," he said.

"Yu tell Buck we're obeyin' orders!" shouted Red, sorry that he was not
going with his bunkie.

Frenchy and Red rode on in silence, the latter feeling strangely
lonesome, for he and the departed man had seldom been separated when
journeys like this were to be taken. And when in search of pleasure they
were nearly always together. Frenchy, while being very friendly with
Hopalong, a friendship that would have placed them side by side against
any odds, was not accustomed to his company and did not notice his
absence.

Red looked off toward the south for the tenth time and for the tenth
time thought that his friend might return. "He's a son-of-a-gun," he
soliloquized.

His companion looked up: "He shore is, an' he's right about this rustler
business, too. But we'll look around for a day or so an' then yu raise
dust for th' Lake. I'll go back to th' ranch an' get things primed, so
there'll be no time lost when we get th' word."

"I'm sorry I went an' said what I did about me takin' th' trail he was
a-scared of," confessed Red, after a pause. "Why, he ain't a-scared of
nothin'."

"He got back at yu about them watermelons, so what's th' difference?"
Asked Frenchy. "He don't owe yu nothin'."

An hour later they searched the Devil's Rocks, but found no rustlers.
Filling their canteens at a tiny spring and allowing their mounts to
drink the remainder of the water, they turned toward Hell Arroyo, which
they reached at nightfall. Here, also, their search availed them nothing