“Easy!  Easy there, pardner; we want them wedges,” Hopalong replied, somewhat hurriedly.  “The others ain’t no good; I choked on the very first screw.  Why, I wouldn’t hurt you for the world,” Hopalong assured him, gazing interestedly down the twin tunnels.

Johnny leaned over a nail keg and loosed the shot and screws into it, smiling with childlike simplicity as he listened to the tintinnabulation of the metal shower among the nails.  “It does drop when you let go of it,” he observed.

“Didn’t I tell you it would?  I allus said so,” replied Hopalong, looking back to the clerk and the shotgun.  “Didn’t I, stranger?”

The clerk’s reply was a guttural rumbling, ninety per cent profanity, and Hopalong, nodding wisely, picked up two wedges.  “Johnny, here’s yore gun.  If this man will stop talking to hisself and drop that lead-sprayer long enough to take our good money, we’ll wear em.”

He tossed a gold coin on the table, and the clerk, still holding tightly to the shotgun, tossed the coin into the cash box and cautiously slid the change across the counter.  Hopalong picked up the money and, emptying his holster into the nail keg, followed his companion to the street, in turn followed slowly by the suspicious clerk.  The door slammed shut behind them, the bolt shot home, and the clerk sat down on a box and cogitated.

Hopalong hooked his arm through Johnny’s and started down the street.  “I wonder what that feller thinks about us, anyhow.  I’m glad Buck sent Red over to El Paso instead of us.  Won’t he be mad when we tell him all the fun we’ve had?” he asked, grinning broadly.

They were to meet Red at Dent’s store on the way back and ride home together.

They were strangely clad for their surroundings, the chaps glaringly out of place in the Seaman’s Port, and winks were exchanged by the regular habitues when the two punchers entered the room and called for drinks.  They were very tired and a little under the weather, for they had made the most of their time and spent almost all of their money; but any one counting on robbing them would have found them sober enough to look out for themselves.  Night had found them ready to go to the hotel, but on the way they felt that they must have one more bracer, and finish their exploration of Jeremiah T. Jones’ tabooed section.  The town had begun to grow wearisome and they were vastly relieved when they realized that the rising sun would see them in the saddle and homeward bound, headed for God’s country, which was the only place for cow-punchers after all.

“Long way from the home port, ain’t you, mates?” queried a tar of Hopalong.  Another seaman went to the bar to hold a short, whispered consultation with the bartender, who at first frowned and then finally nodded assent.

“Too far from home, if that’s what yo’re driving at,” Hopalong replied.  “Blast these hard trails—­my feet are shore on the prod.  Ever meet my side pardner?  Johnny, here’s a friend of mine, a salt-water puncher, an’ he’s welcome to the job, too.”