"They figure that one or all of Palmer's gang will get so uneasy there will be a general stampede to where the money's hidden to see if the Meadowlark boys have any of them found out where it's cached. Either that, or they'll give themselves away by wanting to fight or something. Of course," he added, glancing down with a grin at the bundle tied at the fork of his saddle, "they didn't know we'd have the stuff safely put away long before they could trail any one to the spot where it was hid." "And they expect to stay sober long enough to put that over?" Bud's lips tilted upwards with amusement. "You bet they did! Just before you showed up, they'd poured whisky all over themselves, by the smell. On the outside," he added meaningly. "I don't see how they'd dare light a cigarette--they were sure saturated." Bud touched his borrowed horse with the spurs. "We'd better be riding," he called over his shoulder. "If I know anything about that bunch, something's about due to pop!" CHAPTER FIFTEEN "JELLY" GETS IN ACTION Nothing is more disconcerting than to make elaborate plans which provide for every mishap save the one which afterwards looks absolutely inevitable. Tony had been deeply concerned over the integrity of his actors, and concentrated all his energies upon keeping himself and his fellow-actors sober, quite overlooking the obvious result of a meeting between Palmer's men and the Meadowlark boys. Tony should have remembered that a feud had existed since early spring; better still, he should have taken it for granted that the Palmer gang had circulated enough falsehoods just lately to render them self-conscious and a bit too ready to defend themselves if a Meadowlark man but looked their way. Tony, absorbed in playing his part, was forced to take a drink or two at the bar--along with the three other members of his amateur comedy company--before he could plausibly detach himself from his fellows and wabble over to the pool table where he stood grinning a silly grin and applauding Bat Johnson's mediocre game. Tony did not know it, but his eyes held an unfriendly, calculating gleam and they clung rather tenaciously to Bat; which was not exactly reassuring to a man with as much on his conscience as made Bat's slumbers uneasy and troubled with bad dreams. A man with that silly grin stretching his lips, while above the grin his eyes stare with a malevolent intentness, need wear no other sign to warn a sober man. Bat Johnson was not drunk. "Y're a good man, Bat," Tony burbled, when Bat had reached up his cue and slid the last set of buttons toward the center. "W' played out y'r string, Bat--played out y'r string, ain't yuh?" "What's that?" Bat whirled upon him. "What do you mean by that, you drunken four-flush?" "Y'r a good--what'd you say? Four-flush? Me a four-flush--me?" Tony remembered to shake his head in drunken grief. "Bat, I--I never thought you'd shpeak t' me like that, I--"