"You're devilish funny!" retorted Meeker, riding slowly forward, followed by his companion, who began to edge away from his foreman. "Since you are so exact, did you chase him off yore range an' push him over th' line at th' point of yore gun?" "You've got me. Better not come too close--my cayuse don't like gettin' crowded." "That's all right," Meeker retorted, not heeding the warning. "Do you mean to tell me you don't know? Yore name's Cassidy, ain't it?" he asked, angrily, his determination to avoid fighting rapidly becoming lost. "That's my own, shore 'nuf name," Hopalong answered, and then: "Do you mean that cross-eyed, bone-yard of a yellow-faced Greaser I caught stealing our range?" "Yes!" snapped Meeker, stopping again. "Why didn't you say so, then, 'stead of calling him yore broncho-buster?" Hopalong demanded. "How do I know who yore broncho-buster is? I don't know what every land pirate does in this country." "Then you shot Doc--do you know who I mean this time?" sarcastically asked the H2 foreman. "Oh, shore. He didn't get his gun out quick enough when he went after it, did he? Any more I can tell you before I begins to say things, too?" Meeker, angered greatly by Hopalong's contemptuous inflection and the reckless assertiveness of his every word and look, began to ride to describe a circle around the Bar-20 puncher, Curley going the other way. "You said you'd kill me when you saw me, didn't you, you--" Hopalong was backing away so as to keep both men in front of him, alert, eager, and waiting for the signal to begin his two-handed shooting. "I ain't a whole lot deaf--I can hear you from where you are. You better stop, for I've ridden out of tighter holes than this, an' you'll shore get a pass to h--l if you crowd me too much!" Adown th' road, an' gun in hand, Comes Whiskey Bill, mad Whiskey Bill-- This fragment of song floated out of a chaparral about twenty yards behind Hopalong, who grinned pleasantly when he heard it. Now he knew where Johnny was, and now he had the whip hand without touching his guns; while the youngster was not in sight he was all the more dangerous, since he presented no target. Johnny knew this and was greatly pleased thereby, and he was more than pleased by the way Hopalong had been talking. The effect of the singing was instant and marked on Meeker and his companion, for they not only stopped suddenly and swore, but began to back away, glancing around in an endeavor to locate the joker in the deck. This they failed to do because Johnny was far too wise to advertise his exact whereabouts. Meeker looked at Curley and Curley looked at Meeker, both uneasy and angry.