f," placidly replied the unruffled Johnny. "Billy wants some
.45-70's."

Hopalong gasped. "Don't he want my gun, too?"

"Nope. Got a better one. Hurry up, he'll git mad." Hopalong was a very
methodical person. He was the only one of his crowd to carry a second
cartridge strap. It hung over his right shoulder and rested on his
left hip. His waist belt held thirty cartridges for the revolvers. He
extracted twenty from that part of the shoulder strap hardest to get at,
the back, by simply pulling it over his shoulder and plucking out the
bullets as they came into reach.

"That's all yu kin have. I'm Buck's ammernition jackass," he explained.
"Bet yu ten we gits 'em afore dark"--he was hedging.

"Any fool knows that. I'll take yu if yu bets th' other way," responded
Johnny, grinning. He knew Hopalong's weak spot.

"Yore on," promptly responded Hopalong, who would bet on anything.

"Well, so long," said Johnny as he crawled away.

"Hey, yu, Johnny!" called out Hopalong, "don't yu go an' tell anybody I
got any pills left. I ain't no ars'nal."

Johnny replied by elevating one foot and waving it. Then he disappeared.

Behind the store, the most precarious position among the besiegers,
Red Connors and Lanky Smith were ensconced and commanded a view of the
entire length of the barroom. They could see the dark mass they knew to
be the rear door and derived a great amount of amusement from the spots
of light which were appearing in it.

They watched the "C" (reversed to them) appear and be completed. When
the wobbly "H" grew to completion they laughed heartily. Then the
hardwood bar had been dragged across the field of vision and up to the
front windows, and they could only see the indiscriminate holes which
appeared in the upper panels at frequent intervals.

Every time they fired they had to expose a part of themselves to a
return shot, with the result that Lanky's forearm was seared its entire
length. Red had been more fortunate and only had a bruised ear.

They laboriously rolled several large rocks out in the open, pushing
them beyond the shelter of the store with their rifles. When they had
crawled behind them they each had another wound. From their new position
they could see Hopalong sitting in his window. He promptly waved his
sombrero and grinned.

They were the most experienced fighters of all except Buck, and were
saving their shots. When they did shoot they always had some portion of
a man's body to ai