“Fence!  What fence?” exclaimed Red.

“Where’s there any fence?” demanded Hopalong sharply.

“Twenty mile north of the creek,” replied the stranger, carefully packing his pipe.

“What?  Twenty miles north of the creek?” cried Hopalong.  “What creek?”

“Bennett’s.  The 4X has strung three strands of barb wire from Coyote Pass to the North Arm.  Thirty mile long, without a gate, so they says.”

“But it don’t close this trail!” cried Hopalong in blank astonishment.

“It shore does.  They say they owns that range an’ can fence it in all they wants.  I told ’em different, but naturally they didn’t listen to me.  An’ they’ll fight about it, too.”

“But they can’t shut off this trail!” exclaimed Billy, with angry emphasis.  “They don’t own it no more’n we do!”

“I know all about that—­you heard me tell you what they said.”

“But how can we get past it?” demanded Hopalong.

“Around it, over the hills.  You’ll lose about three days doing it, too.”

“I can’t take no sand-range herd over them rocks, an’ I ain’t going to drive ’round no North Arm or Coyote Pass if I could,” Hopalong replied with quiet emphasis.  “There’s poison springs on the east an’ nothing but rocks on the west.  We go straight through.”

“I’m afraid that you’ll have to fight if you do,” remarked the stranger.

“Then we’ll fight!” cried Johnny, leaning forward.  “Blasted coyotes!  What right have they got to block a drive trail that’s as old as cattle-raising in these parts!  That trail was here before I was born, it’s allus been open, an’ it’s going to stay open!  You watch us go through!”

“Yo’re dead right, Kid; we’ll cut that fence an’ stick to this trail, an’ fight if we has to,” endorsed Red.  “The Bar-20 ain’t crawling out of no hole that it can walk out of.  They’re bluffing; that’s all.”

“I don’t think they are; an’ there’s twelve men in that outfit,” suggested the stranger, offhand.

“We ain’t got time to count odds; we never do down our way when we know we’re right.  An’ we’re right enough in this game,” retorted Hopalong, quickly.  “For the last twelve days we’ve had good luck, barring the few on this dry range; an’ now we’re in for the other kind.  By the Lord, I wish we was here without the cows to take care of—­we’d show ’em something about blocking drive trails that ain’t in their little book!”

“Blast it all!  Wire fences coming down this way now,” mused Johnny, sullenly.  He hated them by training as much as he hated horse-thieves and sheep; and his companions had been brought up in the same school.  Barb wire, the death-knell to the old-time punching, the bar to riding at will, a steel insult to fire the blood—­it had come at last.

“We’ve shore got to cut it, Red,—­” began Hopalong, but the cook had to rid himself of some of his indignation and interrupted with heat.