“How many, Buck?” Asked Red. “One-eighty.” “How does she stand?” “Yore eighteen to th' bad,” replied the foreman. “Th' son-of-a-gun!” marveled Red, riding off. Another whoop interrupted them, and Billy quit watching out of the corner eye for pugnacious calves as he prepared for Hopalong. “Hey, Buck, this here cuss was with a Barred-Horseshoe cow,” he announced as he turned it over to the branding man. Buck made a tally in a separate column and released the animal. “Hullo, Red! Workin'?” Asked Hopalong of his rival. “Some, yu little cuss,” answered Red with all the good nature in the world. Hopalong was his particular “side partner,” and he could lose to him with the best of feelings. “Yu looks so nice an' cool, an' clean, I didn't know,” responded Hopalong, eyeing a streak of sweat and dust which ran from Red's eyes to his chin and then on down his neck. “What yu been doin'? Plowin' with yore nose?” Returned Red, smiling blandly at his friend's appearance. “Yah!” snorted Hopalong, wheeling toward the corral. “Come on, yu pie-eatin' doodle-bug; I'll beat yu to th' gate!” The two ponies sent showers of sand all over Billy, who eyed them in pugnacious disgust. “Of all th' locoed imps that ever made life miserable fer a man, them's th' worst! Is there any piece of fool nonsense they hain't harnessed me with?” He beseeched of Buck. “Is there anything they hain't done to me? They hides my liquor; they stuffs th' sweat band of my hat with rope; they ties up my pants; they puts water in. My boots an' toads in my bunk--ain't they never goin' to get sane?” “Oh, they're only kids--they can't help it,” offered Buck. “Didn't they hobble my cayuse when I was on him an' near bust my neck?” Hopalong interrupted the conversation by driving up another calf, and Buck, glancing at his watch, declared the contest at an end. “Yu wins,” he remarked to the newcomer. “An' now yu get scarce or Billy will shore straddle yore nerves. He said as how he was goin' to get square on yu to-night.” “I didn't, neither, Hoppy!” earnestly contradicted Billy, who bad visions of a night spent in torment as a reprisal for such a threat. “Honest I didn't, did I, Johnny?” He asked appealingly. “Yu shore did,” lied Johnny, winking at Red, who had just ridden up. “I don't know what yore talkin' about, but yu shore did,” replied Red. “If yu did,” grinned Hopalong, “I'll shore make yu hard to find. Come on, fellows,” he said; “grub's ready. Where's Frenchy?” “Over chewin' th' rag with Waffles about his hat--he's lost it again,” answered Red. “He needs a guardian fer that bonnet. Th' Kid an' Salvation has jammed it in th' corral fence an' Waffles has to stand fer it.” “Let's put it in th' grub wagon an see him cuss cookie,” suggested Hopalong. “Shore,” indorsed Johnny; Cookie'll feed him bum grub for a week to get square.