After the excitement incident to the affair at Powers’ shack had died down and the Bar-20 outfit worked over its range in the old, placid way, there began to be heard low mutterings, and an air of peevish discontent began to be manifested in various childish ways.  And it was all caused by the fact that Hopalong Cassidy had a grouch, and a big one.  It was two months old and growing worse daily, and the signs threatened contagion.  His foreman, tired and sick of the snarling, fidgety, petulant atmosphere that Hopalong had created on the ranch, and driven to desperation, eagerly sought some chance to get rid of the “sore-thumb” temporarily and give him an opportunity to shed his generous mantle of the blues.  And at last it came.

No one knew the cause for Hoppy’s unusual state of mind, although there were many conjectures, and they covered the field rather thoroughly; but they did not strike on the cause.  Even Red Connors, now well over all ill effects of the wounds acquired in the old ranch house, was forced to guess; and when Red had to do that about anything concerning Hopalong he was well warranted in believing the matter to be very serious.

Johnny Nelson made no secret of his opinion and derived from it a great amount of satisfaction, which he admitted with a grin to his foreman.

“Buck,” he said, “Hoppy told me he went broke playing poker over in Grant with Dave Wilkes and them two Lawrence boys, an’ that shore explains it all.  He’s got pack sores from carrying his unholy licking.  It was due to come for him, an’ Dave Wilkes is just the boy to deliver it.  That’s the whole trouble, an’ I know it, an’ I’m damned glad they trimmed him.  But he ain’t got no right of making us miserable because he lost a few measly dollars.”

“Yo’re wrong, son; dead, dead wrong,” Buck replied.  “He takes his beatings with a grin, an’ money never did bother him.  No poker game that ever was played could leave a welt on him like the one we all mourn, an’ cuss.  He’s been doing something that he don’t want us to know—­made a fool of hisself some way, most likely, an’ feels so ashamed that he’s sore.  I’ve knowed him too long an’ well to believe that gambling had anything to do with it.  But this little trip he’s taking will fix him up all right, an’ I couldn’t ‘a’ picked a better man—­or one that I’d rather get rid of just now.”

“Well, lemme tell you it’s blamed lucky for him that you picked him to go,” rejoined Johnny, who thought more of the woeful absentee than he did of his own skin.  “I was going to lick him, shore, if it went on much longer.  Me an’ Red an’ Billy was going to beat him up good till he forgot his dead injuries an’ took more interest in his friends.”

Buck laughed heartily.  “Well, the three of you might ‘a’ done it if you worked hard an’ didn’t get careless, but I have my doubts.  Now look here—­you’ve been hanging around the bunk house too blamed much lately.  Henceforth an’ hereafter you’ve got to earn your grub.  Get out on that west line an’ hustle.”