el.

"Easy there!" shouted Red, and Pedro's hand stopped when half way to his
chest. Pedro was a gambler by nature, but the odds were too heavy and he
sullenly obeyed the command.

"Stick 'em up! Stick 'em up! Higher yet, an' hold 'em there," purred
a soft voice from the other end of the room, where Dick Martin smiled
pleasantly upon them and wondered if there was anything on earth harder
to pound good common sense into than a "Greaser's" head. His gun was
blue, but it was, nevertheless, the most prominent part of his make-up,
even if the light was poor.

One of the Mexicans reached involuntarily for his gun, for he was a
gun-man by training; while his companions felt for their knives, deadly
weapons in a melee. Martin, crying, "Watch 'em, Cassidy!" side-stepped
and lunged forward with the speed and skill of a boxer, and his hard
left hand landed on the point of Juan Alvarez' jaw with a force and
precision not to be withstood. But to make more certain that the
Mexican would not take part in any possible demonstration of resistance,
Martin's right circled up in a short half-hook and stopped against
Juan's short ribs. Martin weighed one hundred and eighty pounds and
packed no fat on his well-knit frame.

At this moment a two-legged cyclone burst upon the scene in the person
of Johnny Nelson, whose rage had been worked up almost to the weeping
point because he had lost so much time hunting for the crevice where
it was not. Seeing Juan fall, and the glint of knives, he started in
to clean things up, yelling, "I'm a ghost! I'm a ghost! Take 'em alive!
Take 'em alive!"

Hopalong and Red felt that they were in his way, and taking care of one
Mexican between them, while Martin knocked out another, they watched the
exits,--for anything was possible in such a chaotic mix-up,--and gave
Johnny plenty of room. The latter paused, triumphant, looked around to
see if he had missed any, and then advanced upon his friends and shoved
his jaw up close to Hopalong's face. "Tried to lose me, didn't you!
Wouldn't wait for me! For seven cents an' a toothbrush I'd give you
what's left!"

Red grabbed him by trousers and collar and heaved him into the
passageway. "Go out an' play with yore souveneer or we'll step on you!"

Johnny sat up, rubbed certain portions of his anatomy, and grinned. "Oh,
I've got it, all right! I'm shore going to take that ghost home an' make
some of them fools _eat_ it!"

Martin smiled as he finished tying the l