It was just when Ship had reached this conclusion that a very unpleasant bunch of rags was thrust into his mouth and he was lifted and thrown face down across the back of his horse. Hopalong got into the saddle and they rode away from the herd. They had not gone far before another horseman joined them and Ship could hear the singing Cracker as he circled the herd. "There’s three of ’em anyway," was his thought, wherein he was wrong. Cracker, with his hands trussed high behind his back and his feet hobbled, was stumbling slowly along with the threat in his memory that if he stopped singing until he was told, his head stood a good chance of being separated from the rest of his carcass, when he would never be able to sing again; and the further information that, if the herd should stampede, he was in a fair way to be crushed to a pulp. The latter he knew to be true and he was equally convinced that the other would be quite likely to take place. Fifty yards from the herd, Ship was quietly dumped to the ground. Far enough away from him the horses were picketed and two forms crept carefully upon the three men in camp. Dark as it was, there was no difficulty in finding two of the three. Spence and Bennett, the latter agreeably surprised to find that Shanghai had depleted the general treasury to the extent of one cow, had both eaten a large and satisfying meal; their hunger appeased, weariness had asserted itself in double force and nothing less than a determined kick would have awakened either of them. But Hopalong and Tex prowled around looking for Shanghai without success. Shanghai was living up to his reputation. Having made his plans and given orders to insure their carrying out, he then stayed around and saw it done. Argue Bennett might grumble to the others but he knew the futility, as also the danger, of grumbling to Shanghai. When his two subordinates had eaten their fill and gone to sleep, Shanghai still sat hunched before the dying embers of the fire, smoking a meditative pipe. When the smoke ceased to float lazily from his nostrils he knocked the warm ashes onto the palm of his hand, got to his feet and slipped quietly away from the camp.