“I will if you’ll call me when you get sleepy.”

“Why, shore I will.  But don’t you want the rest of the water?  I ain’t a bit thirsty—­I had all I could hold just before you came,” Red remarked as his companion pushed the canteen against him in the dark.  He was choking with thirst.  “Well, then; all right,” and Red pretended to drink.  “Now, then, you go to sleep; a good snooze will do you a world of good—­it’s just what you need.”

CHAPTER X

BUCK TAKES A HAND

Cowan’s saloon, club, and place of general assembly for the town of Buckskin and the nearby ranches, held a merry crowd, for it was pay-day on the range and laughter and liquor ran a close race.  Buck Peters, his hands full of cigars, passed through the happy-go-lucky, do-as-you-please crowd and invited everybody to smoke, which nobody refused to do.  Wood Wright, of the C-80, tuned his fiddle anew and swung into a rousing quick-step.  Partners were chosen, the “women” wearing handkerchiefs on their arms to indicate the fact, and the room shook and quivered as the scraping of heavy boots filled the air with a cloud of dust.  “Allaman left!” cried the prompter, and then the dance stopped as if by magic.  The door had crashed open and a blood-stained man staggered in and towards the bar, crying, “Buck!  Red’s hemmed in by ’Paches!”

“Good God!” roared the foreman of the Bar-20, leaping forward, the cigars falling to the floor to be crushed and ground into powder by careless feet.  He grasped his puncher and steadied him while Cowan slid an extra generous glassful of brandy across the bar for the wounded man.  The room was in an uproar, men grabbing rifles and running out to get their horses, for it was plain to be seen that there was hard work to be done, and quickly.  Questions, threats, curses filled the air, those who remained inside to get the story listening intently to the jerky narrative; those outside, caring less for the facts of an action past than for the action to come, shouted impatiently for a start to be made, even threatening to go on and tackle the proposition by themselves if there were not more haste.  Hopalong told in a graphic, terse manner all that was necessary, while Buck and Cowan hurriedly bandaged his wounds.

“Come on!  Come on!” shouted the mounted crowd outside, angry, and impatient for a start, the prancing of horses and the clinking of metal adding to the noise.  “Get a move on! Will you hurry up!”

“Listen, Hoppy!” pleaded Buck, in a furore.  “Shut up, you outside!” he yelled.  “You say they know that you got away, Hoppy?” he asked.  “All right—­Lanky!” he shouted. “Lanky!”

“All right, Buck!” and Lanky Smith roughly pushed his way through the crowd to his foreman’s side.  “Here I am.”

“Take Skinny and Pete with you, an’ a lead horse apiece.  Strike straight for Powers’ old ranch house.  Them Injuns’ll have pickets out looking for Hoppy’s friends.  You three get the pickets nearest the old trail through that arroyo to the southeast, an’ then wait for us.  We’ll come along the high bank on the left.  Don’t make no noise doing it, neither, if you can help it.  Understand?  Good!  Now ride like the devil!”