ate a quitter; but I can't do nothing, nohow," mused the 4X
foreman. He cleared his throat and turned to look at the house. "All
right; when you get them cows you get out of here, an' don't never come
back!"

Hopalong flung his arm with a shout to his men and the other kicked
savagely at an inoffensive stick and slouched back to his bunk house, a
beaten man.

CHAPTER XXIII

TEX EWALT HUNTS TROUBLE

Not more than a few weeks after the Bar-20 drive outfit returned to the
ranch a solitary horseman pushed on towards the trail they had followed,
bound for Buckskin and the Bar-20 range. His name was Tex Ewalt and he
cordially hated all of the Bar-20 outfit and Hopalong in particular. He
had nursed a grudge for several years and now, as he rode south to rid
himself of it and to pay a long-standing debt, it grew stronger until he
thrilled with anticipation and the sauce of danger. This grudge had been
acquired when he and Slim Travennes had enjoyed a duel with Hopalong
Cassidy up in Santa Fe, and had been worsted; it had increased when he
learned of Slim's death at Cactus Springs at the hands of Hopalong; and,
some time later, hearing that two friends of his, "Slippery" Trendley
and "Deacon" Rankin, with their gang, had "gone out" in the Panhandle
with the same man and his friends responsible for it, Tex hastened to
Muddy Wells to even the score and clean his slate. Even now his face
burned when he remembered his experiences on that never-to-be-forgotten
occasion. He had been played with, ridiculed, and shamed, until he fled
from the town as a place accursed, hating everything and everybody. It
galled him to think that he had allowed Buck Peters' momentary sympathy
to turn him from his purpose, even though he was convinced that the
foreman's action had saved his life. And now Tex was returning, not to
Muddy Wells, but to the range where the Bar-20 outfit held sway.

Several years of clean living had improved Tex, morally and physically.
The liquor he had once been in the habit of consuming had been reduced
to a negligible quantity; he spent the money on cartridges instead,
and his pistol work showed the results of careful and dogged practice,
particularly in the quickness of the draw. Punching cows on a remote
northern range had repaid him in health far more than his old game of
living on his wits and other people's lack of them, as proved by his
clear eye and the pink showing through the tan above his beard; while
hi