“Yes; that’s right.  I sort of forgot,” grinned the reckless one, obeying with alacrity and looking sheepish.  “But you know there’s two thundering big tarantulas out there fighting like blazes.  You ought to see ’em jump!  It’s a sort of a leap-frog fight, Red.”

“Fool!” snorted Mr. Connors belligerently. “You’d ‘a’ jumped if one of them slugs had ‘a’ got you!  Yo’re the damnedest fool that ever walked on two laigs, you blasted sage-hen!” Mr. Connors was beginning to lose his temper and talk in his throat.

“Well, they didn’t get me, did they?  What you yelling about, anyhow?” growled Hopalong, trying to brazen it out.

“An’ you talking about suicide to me!” snapped Mr. Connors, determined to rub it in and have the last word.

Mr. Holden stared, open-mouthed, at the man who could enjoy a miserable spider fight under such distressing circumstances, and his shaken nerves became steadier as he gave thought to the fact that he was a companion of the two men about whose exploits he had heard so much.  Evidently the stories had not been exaggerated.  What must they think of him for giving way as he had?  He rose to his feet in time to see a horse blunder into the open on Red’s side of the house, and after it blundered its owner, who immediately lost all need of earthly conveyances.  Holden laughed from the joy of being with a man who could shoot like that, and he took up his rifle and turned to a crack in the wall, filled with the determination to let his companions know that he was built of the right kind of timber after all, wounded as he was.

Red’s only comment, as he pumped a fresh cartridge into the barrel, was, “He must ‘a’ thought he saw a spider fight, too.”

“Hey, Red,” called Hopalong.  “The big one is dead.”

“What big one?”

“Why, don’t you remember?  That big tarantula I was watching.  One was bigger than the other, but the little feller shore waded into him an’—­”

“Go to the devil!” shouted Red, who had to grin, despite his anger.

“Presently, presently,” replied Hopalong, laughing.

So the day passed, and when darkness came upon them all of the defenders were wounded, Holden desperately so.

“Red, one of us has got to try to make the ranch,” Hopalong suddenly announced, and his friend knew he was right.  Since Holden had appeared upon the scene they had known that they could not try a dash; one of them had to stay.

“We’ll toss for it; heads, I go,” Red suggested, flipping a coin.

“Tails!” cried Hopalong.  “It’s only thirty miles to Buckskin, an’ if I can get away from here I’m good to make it by eleven to-night.  I’ll stop at Cowan’s an’ have him send word to Lucas an’ Bartlett, so there’ll be enough in case any of our boys are out on the range in some line house.  We can pick ’em up on the way back, so there won’t be no time lost.  If I get through you can expect excitement on the outside of this sieve by daylight.  You an’ Holden can hold her till then, because they never attack at night.  It’s the only way out of this for us—­we ain’t got cartridges or water enough to last another day.”