lling over and over toward the shelter of a split rock,
where he lay quiet. A leering red face peered over the rocks on the
knoll, but the whoop of exultation was cut short, for Red's rifle
cracked and the warrior rolled down the steep bank, where another shot
from the same gun settled him beyond question.

Hopalong choked and, turning his face away, angrily dashed his knuckles
into his eyes. "Blast 'em! Blast 'em! They've got Buck! They've got
Buck, blast 'em! They've got Buck, Skinny! Good old Buck! They've got
him! Jimmy's gone, Johnny's plugged, and now Buck's gone! Come on!"
he sobbed in a frenzy of vengeance. "Come on, Skinny! We'll tear their
cussed hides into a deeper red than they are now! Oh, blast it, I can't
see--where's my gun?" He groped for the rifle and fought Skinny when the
latter, red-eyed but cool, endeavored to restrain him. "Lemme go, curse
yu! Don't yu know they got Buck? Lemme go!"

"Down! Red's got di' skunk. Yu can't do nothin'--they'd drop yu afore
yu took five steps. Red's got him, I tell yu! Do yu want me to lick yu?
We'll pay 'em back with interest if yu'll keep yore head!" exclaimed
Skinny, throwing the crazed man heavily.

Musical tones, rising and falling in weird octaves, whining pityingly,
diabolically, sobbing in a fascinating monotone and slobbering in
ragged chords, calling as they swept over the plain, always calling and
exhorting, they mingled in barbaric discord with the defiant barks of
the six-shooters and the inquiring cracks of the Winchesters. High up in
the air several specks sailed and drifted, more coming up rapidly from
all directions. Buzzards know well where food can be found.

As Hopalong leaned back against a rock he was hit in the thigh by a
ricochet that tore its way out, whirling like a circular saw, a span
above where it entered. The wound was very nasty, being ripped twice
the size made by an ordinary shot, and it bled profusely. Skinny crawled
over and attended to it, making a tourniquet of his neckerchief and
clumsily bandaging it with a strip torn from his shirt.

"Yore shore lucky, yu are," he grumbled as he made his way back to his
post, where he vented his rancor by emptying the semi-depleted magazine
of his Winchester at the knoll.

Hopalong began to sing and shout and he talked of Jimmy and his
childhood, interspersing the broken narrative with choice selections
as sung in the music halls of Leavenworth and Abilene. He wound up by
yelling and strug