“Happy,” said Chip bluntly, “I don’t grab that yarn.  Weary may be in town, and he may be having a little fun with Dry Lake, but he isn’t drunk.  When you try to run a whizzer like that, you can put me down as being from Missouri.”

“Same here,” put in Pink, ominously soft as to voice.  “Anybody that tries to make me believe Weary’s performing that way has sure got his work cut out for him.  If it was Happy, now—­”

“Gee!” cried Jack Bates, laughing as a possible solution came to him.  “I’m willing to bet money he was just stringing Happy.  I’ll bet he done it deliberate and with malice aforethought, just to make Happy sneak out uh town and burn the earth getting here so he could tell it scarey to the rest of us.”

“Yeah, that’s about the size of it,” assented Cal.

The Family felt that they had a new one on Happy Jack, and showed it in the smiles they sent toward him.

“By golly, yes!” broke out Slim.  “Weary’s been layin’ for Happy for a long while to pay off making the tent leak on him, that night; he’s sure played a good one, this time!”

Happy carefully balanced his plate on the wagon-tongue near the doubletrees, and stood glaring down upon his tormentors.

“Aw, look here!” he began, with his voice very near to tears.  Then he gulped and took a more warlike tone.  “I don’t set m’self up t’ be a know-it-all—­but I guess I can tell when a man’s full uh booze.  And I ain’t claimin’ t’ be no Jiujitsu sharp” (with a meaning glance at Pink) “and I know the chances I’m takin’ when I stand up agin the bunch—­but I’m ready, here and now, t’ fight any damn man that says I’m a liar, er that Weary was jest throwin’ a load into me.  Two or three uh yuh have licked me mor’n once—­but that’s all right.  I’m willing t’ back up anything I’ve said, and yuh can wade right in a soon as you’re a mind to.

“I don’t back down a darn inch.  Weary’s in Dry Lake.  He is drunk.  And he is shootin’ up the town.  If yuh don’t want t’ believe it, I guess they’s no law t’ make yuh—­but if yuh got any sense, and are any friends uh Weary’s, yuh’ll mosey in and fetch him out here if yuh have t’ bring him the way he brung ole Dock that time Patsy took cramps.  Go on in and see fer yourselves, darn yuh!  But don’t go shootin’ off your faces to me till yuh got a license to.”

This, if unassuring, was convincing.  The Happy Family stopped smiling, and looked at one another uncertainly.

“I guess two or three of you better ride in and see what there is to it,” announced Chip, dryly.  “If Happy is romancing—­” His look was eloquent.

But Happy Jack, though he stood a good deal in awe of Chip and his sarcasm, never flinched.  He looked him straight in the eye and maintained the calm of conscious innocence.

“I’ll go,” said Pink, getting up and throwing his plate and cup into the dishpan.  “Mind yuh, I don’t believe a word of it; Happy, if this is just a sell, so help me Josephine, you’ll learn some brand new Jiujitsu right away quick.”