his cayuse; an' the wind's puffy. Why don't
you dirty or rust this gun? The sun glitters all along the barrel. Well,
here goes."

"Missed by a mile," reproved Hopalong, who would have been stunned by
such a thing as a hit under the circumstances, even if his good-shooting
friend had made it.

"Yes! Missed the coyote I aimed for, but I got the cayuse of his off
pardner; see it?"

"Talk about luck!"

"That's all right: it takes blamed good shooting to miss that close in
this case. Look! It's slowed 'em up a bit, an' that's about all I hoped
to do. Bet they think I'm a real, shore-'nuff medicine-man. Now gimme
another cartridge."

"I will not; no use wasting lead at this range. We'll need all the
cartridges we got before we get out of this hole. You can't do nothing
without stopping--an' that takes time."

"Then I'll stop! The blazes with the time! Gimme another, d'ye hear?"

Mr. Cassidy heard, complied, and stopped beside his companion, who was
very intent upon the matter at hand. It took some figuring to make a
hit when the range was so great and the sun so blinding and the wind
so capricious. He lowered the rifle and peered through the smoke at the
confusion he had caused by dropping the nearest warrior. He was said to
be the best rifle shot in the Southwest, which means a great deal,
and his enemies did not deny it. But since the Sharps shot a special
cartridge and was reliable up to the limit of its sight gauge, a matter
of eighteen hundred yards, he did not regard the hit as anything worthy
of especial mention. Not so his friend, who grinned joyously and loosed
his admiration.

"Yo're a shore wonder with that gun, Red! Why don't you lose that
repeater an' get a gun like mine? Lord, if I could use a rifle like you,
I wouldn't have that gun of yourn for a gift. Just look at what you did
with it! Please get one like it."

"I'm plumb satisfied with the repeater," replied Red. "I don't miss very
often at eight hundred with it, an' that's long enough range for most
anybody. An' if I do miss, I can send another that won't, an' right on
the tail of the first, too."

"Ah, the devil! You make me disgusted with yore fool talk about that
carbine!" snapped his companion, and the subject was dropped.

The merits of their respective rifles had always been a bone of
contention between them and one well chewed, at that. Red was very well
satisfied with his Winchester, and he was a good judge.

"You did stop 'em a lit