It required but a few minutes to make fast the saddle bags Hop Joy had filled with food, tin plates, cups, knives and forks, coffee pot, sugar and coffee and to tie on their sleeping blankets.

Then they buckled on their cartridge belts, slung their rifles across their shoulders and again mounted.

By the time they were ready, however, the grub wagon was coming into the yard.

“Where’s Hans?” gasped Larry, the first one to discover that there was only one occupant.

With a broad grin suffusing his face, the driver cried: 

“Whoa!”

As the horses stopped Mr. Wilder, fearing that the boy had been made the butt of some mad prank, said severely: 

“If anything happened to that lad, I shall hold you responsible, Ned.  Where is he?”

“Gone with his brother Chris.”

“His brother!” cried Tom.  “Did his brother come back?”

“He did—­yesterday.  Hans found him, and such a meeting nobody ever see before.  The brother is going to another town and Hans with him.  They started to-day.”

The knowledge that Hans had found his brother was a great relief to Tom and Larry, and they lost no time in saying so.

“If you feel that way, then it surely is all right,” declared the ranchman.  “We’re going into the hills for a few days hunting, Ned.  If you need me, you’ll find me somewhere on the ‘Lost Lode’ trail.”

“With them tenderfeet?” inquired the handy man, eyeing Tom and Larry doubtfully.

“Don’t take them for easy, Ned.  They put the laugh on Gus Megget, so I reckon they can take care of themselves in the hills and on the Half-Moon, too,” he added with an emphasis which was to act as a warning to be passed along to the cowboys.

“So it’s them two I heard ’em talkin’ about in Tolopah?  Howdy, gents!  I sure takes off my bonnet to you,” and Ned swept his sombrero good naturedly from his head.  “Say, you two are the only topic of conversation in Tolopah about now.  Couple of passengers told what you all done, and now everybody’s telling everybody else.  So it was you kids put the kibosh on Gus Megget.  Phew!  I hope I don’t get you riled up.”  And clucking to his horses, Ned drove on to the wagon shed.

“When you go into Tolopah, you’ll own the town,” smiled Mr. Wilder, looking at the brothers.  “You see, you are famous already.”

But Larry and Tom only laughed, while the latter exclaimed: 

“I’d rather find the Lost Lode than fight Megget.”

“So my boys have told you about the mine and the ghosts, eh?” And shaking his bridle, the ranchman waved good-by to his wife and cantered away, followed by the others.

For a few minutes they rode without talking, the Wilder boys a trifle envious of the reputation their friends had achieved and the chums trying to get accustomed to riding with a rifle bumping their backs.

They soon got the swing of it, however, and, as the ponies settled into an easy, steady lope, Tom exclaimed: