ight 'less we has to. Better pay up."

"Send yore bills to the ranch--if they're O. K., Buck'll pay 'em."

"Nix; I take it when I can get it."

"I ain't got no money with me that I can spare."

"Then you can leave enough cows to buy back again."

"I'm not going to pay you one damned cent, an' the only cows I'll leave
are the dead ones--an' if I could take them with me I'd do it. An' I'm
not going around the fence, neither."

"Oh, yes; you are. An' yo're going to pay," snapped Cranky Joe.

"Take it out of the price of two hundred dead cows an' gimme what's
left," Hopalong retorted. "It'll cost you nine of them twelve men to pry
it out'n me."

"You won't pay?" demanded the other, coldly.

"Not a plugged peso."

"Well, as I said before, I don't want to fight nobody 'less I has to,"
replied Cranky Joe. "I'll give you a chance to change yore mind.
We'll be out here after it to-morrow, cash or cows. That'll give you
twenty-four hours to rest yore herd an' get ready to drive. Then you
pay, an' go back, 'round the fence."

"All right; to-morrow suits me," responded Hopalong, who was boiling
with rage and felt constrained to hold it back. If it wasn't for the
cows--!

Red and three companions swept up and stopped in a swirl of dust and
asked questions until Hopalong shut them up. Their arrival and the
manner of their speech riled Cranky Joe, who turned around and loosed
one more remark; and he never knew how near to death he was at that
moment.

"You fellers must own the earth, the way you act," he said to Red and
his three companions.

"We ain't fencing it in to prove it," rejoined Hopalong, his hand on
Red's arm.

Cranky Joe wheeled to rejoin his friends. "To-morrow," he said,
significantly.

Hopalong and his men watched the six ride away, too enraged to speak for
a moment. Then the drive foreman mastered himself and turned to Hawkins.
"Where's their ranch house?" he demanded, sharply. "There must be some
way out of this, an' we've got to find it; an' before to-morrow."

"West; three hours' ride along the fence. I could find 'em the darkest
night what ever happened; I was out there once," Hawkins replied.

"Describe 'em as exact as you can," demanded Hopalong, and when Hawkins
had done so the Bar-20 drive foreman slapped his thigh and laughed
nastily. "One house with one door an' only two windows--are you shore?
Good! Where's the corrals? Good again! So they'll take pay for their
blasted fence, eh? Cash