snarled like a
Scotch terrier through his ragged beard.

"Where is this?" he rasped through his parched throat. "It's a damn
farm in an old field. What'd you bring me here for--say? Did I say I
wanted to come here? What are you Reubs rubberin' at--hey? G'wan or
I'll punch some of yer faces."

"Drag him out, Collins," said Ranse.

Curly took a slide and felt the ground rise up and collide with his
shoulder blades. He got up and sat on the steps of the store shivering
from outraged nerves, hugging his knees and sneering. Taylor lifted
out a case of tobacco and wrenched off its top. Six cigarettes began
to glow, bringing peace and forgiveness to Sam.

"How'd you come in my wagon?" repeated Ranse, this time in a voice
that drew a reply.

Curly recognised the tone. He had heard it used by freight brakemen
and large persons in blue carrying clubs.

"Me?" he growled. "Oh, was you talkin' to me? Why, I was on my way to
the Menger, but my valet had forgot to pack my pyjamas. So I crawled
into that wagon in the wagon-yard--see? I never told you to bring me
out to this bloomin' farm--see?"

"What is it, Mustang?" asked Poky Rodgers, almost forgetting to smoke
in his ecstasy. "What do it live on?"

"It's a galliwampus, Poky," said Mustang. "It's the thing that hollers
'willi-walloo' up in ellum trees in the low grounds of nights. I don't
know if it bites."

"No, it ain't, Mustang," volunteered Long Collins. "Them galliwampuses
has fins on their backs, and eighteen toes. This here is a
hicklesnifter. It lives under the ground and eats cherries. Don't
stand so close to it. It wipes out villages with one stroke of its
prehensile tail."

Sam, the cosmopolite, who called bartenders in San Antone by their
first name, stood in the door. He was a better zoologist.

"Well, ain't that a Willie for your whiskers?" he commented. "Where'd
you dig up the hobo, Ranse? Goin' to make an auditorium for
inbreviates out of the ranch?"

"Say," said Curly, from whose panoplied breast all shafts of wit fell
blunted. "Any of you kiddin' guys got a drink on you? Have your fun.
Say, I've been hittin' the stuff till I don't know straight up."

He turned to Ranse. "Say, you shanghaied me on your d----d old prairie
schooner--did I tell you to drive me to a farm? I want a drink. I'm
goin' all to little pieces. What's doin'?"

Ranse saw that the tramp's nerves were racking him. He despatched one
of the Mexican boys to the ranch-house for a gl