“You’ll have to excuse me, gentlemen,” replied Mr. Elkins, smiling deprecatingly.  “When a man likes it as much as I do it ain’t very easy to foller instructions an’ let it alone.  Sometimes I almost break loose an’ indulge, regardless of whether it kills me or not.  I reckon it’ll get me yet.”  He struck the bar a resounding blow with his clenched hand.  “But I ain’t going to cave in till I has to!”

“That’s purty tough,” sympathized Wood Wright, reflectively.  “I ain’t so very much taken with it, but I know I would be if I knowed I couldn’t have any.”

“Yes, that’s human nature, all right,” laughed Lucas.  “That reminds me of a little thing that happened to me once—­”

“Listen!” exclaimed Cowan, holding up his hand for silence.  “I reckon that’s the Bar-20 now, or some of it—­sounds like them when they’re feeling frisky.  There’s allus something happening when them fellers are around.”

The proprietor was right, as proved a moment later when Johnny Nelson, continuing his argument, pushed open the door and entered the room.  “I didn’t neither; an’ you know it!” he flung over his shoulder.

“Then who did?” demanded Hopalong, chuckling.  “Why, hullo, boys,” he said, nodding to his friends at the bar.  “Nobody else would do a fool thing like that; nobody but you, Kid,” he added, turning to Johnny.

“I don’t care a hang what you think; I say I didn’t an’—­”

“He shore did, all right; I seen him just afterward,” laughed Billy Williams, pressing close upon Hopalong’s heels.  “Howdy, Lucas; an’ there’s that ol’ coyote, Wood Wright.  How’s everybody feeling?”

“Where’s the rest of you fellers?” inquired Cowan.

“Stayed home to-night,” replied Hopalong.

“Got any loose money, you two?” asked Billy, grinning at Lucas and Wright.

“I reckon we have—­an’ our credit’s good if we ain’t.  We’re good for a dollar or two, ain’t we, Cowan?” replied Lucas.

“Two dollars an’ four bits,” corrected Cowan.  “I’ll raise it to three dollars even when you pay me that ’leven cents you owe me.”

“’Leven cents?  What ’leven cents?”

“Postage stamps an’ envelope for that love letter you writ.”

“Go to blazes; that wasn’t no love letter!” snorted Lucas, indignantly.  “That was my quarterly report.  I never did write no love letters, nohow.”

“We’ll trim you fellers to-night, if you’ve got the nerve to play us,” grinned Johnny, expectantly.

“Yes; an’ we’ve got that, too.  Give us the cards, Cowan,” requested Wood Wright, turning.  “They won’t give us no peace till we take all their money away from ’em.”

“Open game,” prompted Cowan, glancing meaningly at Elkins, who stood by idly looking on, and without showing much interest in the scene.

“Shore!  Everybody can come in what wants to,” replied Lucas, heartily, leading the others to the table.  “I allus did like a six-handed game best—­all the cards are out an’ there’s some excitement in it.”