"Takin' him along would shore hurt my feelin's worse than it would his, fer I'd be in worse comp'ny than he would. What say we ride on in and see what's goin' on, and if the rest of these birds is there? If so, we can clean up on what's in town and come back out here later on. Mebbe Palmer'll foller us in. Be jest like him to have the law on us, don't you know it? I'm goin' to rip off another shingle and go about my business, I'm dry as a bleached bone." They proceeded to rip off several shingles. But Palmer did not choose to retaliate, so they rode on, yelling derisively until they were out of hearing. Within a mile they had settled down and were tardily making plans calculated to stir Smoky Ford out of its lethargy and give it something to talk about. The idea was Tony's, and he was so proud of it that he could afford to give some credit to Bob as a true prophet when they topped a rise and had a glimpse of a horseman just riding out of Palmer's gate. Palmer, following them in, no doubt meant to stir up trouble for them before he was through. Well, let him. Trouble was what the Meadowlark boys were looking for to-day. "I can see now how he come to take a quirtin' from Lark," Mark Hanley said contemptuously. "He's yeller as mustard, without the bite. Jest the kind that would cave in a man's head when he wasn't lookin'. 'Twouldn't a took much nerve to shoot up the bunch of us, him in the house like that and us in the open. We got to git that old coot in a corner, somehow. Now, Tony, that idee of yourn--" "It's a darn good idee," Tony defended hastily. "They could guess everything else and lay plans to block it, but they couldn't guess we'd pull off anything like that. First off, we better ride to Delkin's stable and put him wise. Our horses is our excuse for going there." Stirrups tangled, they rode so close together. Often a man would break into laughter and glance back at the trail to see if Palmer was still following them. They trotted up to the very door of Delkin's stable, ducked heads and rode inside, where they dismounted and unsaddled without help or interference from the stableman, who knew them of old. When their horses were turned into the corral behind the barn, where they speedily found hay and water and a place to roll, the quartet went trooping back down the long floor, spurs jingling pleasant accompaniment to their low-voiced laughter. Slightly bowed in the legs, they were--or it may have been the permanent kink in their chaps. Twitching hats and neckerchiefs into becoming angles, lest the eye of some young woman catch them in disarray, they made for the screened door of the office, where Tony peered in, saw Delkin sitting gloomily before his desk, and pushed open the door, entering with a slight swagger. "Oh, hello!" Delkin's eyes went from one to the other in apathetic greeting. "You boys in for a good time, eh?"