"Make all the fun you wish. I know now what I can do, and you know what I have done, only you folks are too stubborn to admit it." Emma elevated her chin and stamped around behind the barn out of sight. After Hippy had embraced Nora and greeted the other girls he shook hands with the doctor, who had come to the cabin door to wave a hand at Hippy. "They didn't get you after all, I see," chuckled the doctor. Hippy grinned. "Now you-all is back, Ah wants t' talk t' ye," said Jed. "Just a minute, Jed. What's that, Doc?" "I say, what happened after I left you?" "We took a few pot shots at each other from the bushes. The bullets got rather thick, so I decided upon a retreat. Came near having another set-to with Jed. We both were stalking each other down the trail a piece, but Jed got the drop on me and, when he found out who I was, he told me that he had come after me and why." The doctor chuckled and returned to his patients, whereupon Hippy nodded to the mountaineer, and the latter led the way to the rear of the barn where they found Emma sunning herself and "con-centrating" on something. Hippy waved her away and turned to Thompson. "What's the big idea, Jed?" he asked jovially. "That's what Ah wants t' know, Jim Townsend." "Eh? Townsend! I don't get you." "We uns up here ain't no fools even if we hain't got edication. We uns knowed you-all was comin'. If I'd seen ye before ye did this fer Liz an' Sue, I'd a plugged ye shore." "Just a moment, please. Let me get this straight. Who is it you think I am?" "Yer Jim Townsend. Ah knows you-all, cause you-all was pinted out t' me one time down t' Henderson, 'cept ye didn't have on them togs you-all is wearin' now." "Who is Townsend?" questioned Hippy. "If he looks like me, he is a very fortunate man." "You be he. What Ah wants t' know is what--jest what's yer game up here? As Ah've said, you-all, and the wimmen, has done me a favor an' no man kin say Jed Thompson ever fergits a favor. But it kain't last. You-all got ter git out. What Ah ain't goin' t' do now, an' what some other folks might do, is two different things. Ah tell ye it ain't safe fer ye t' stay up here in these hills at all." "Listen to me, Thompson. I don't know who this man is that looks like me, but I have every reason to believe that my name is Wingate. The record in the family Bible at home says I am, and what I read in that book I believe. You're wrong, Buddy. I am Wingate. I was a lieutenant in the flying corps during the war with Germany. These young women were over there too, as nurses, ambulance drivers and in other wartime occupations. When we returned to the United States, we decided to take a vacation in the saddle each season until we tired of it. The first season we rode over the Apache Trail in Arizona. Last year we crossed the Great American Desert in the west. This season we decided to come up here and combine business with pleasure." Thompson's under jaw, Hippy observed, was sagging a little.