When he reached the smoker he turned and went towards the rear, where he found Lanky and Billy lying under the platform. Billy was looking back and guarding their rear, while his companion watched the clump of trees where the second herd of horses was known to be. Just as they were joined by their foreman, they saw two men run across the track, fifty yards distant, and into the grove, both going so rapidly as to give no chance for a shot at them. "There they are!" shouted Skinny, opening fire on the grove. At that instant Hopalong turned the rear platform and saw the brakeman leap out of the door with a Winchester in his hands. The puncher sprang up the steps, wrenched the rifle from its owner, and, tossing it to Skinny, cried: "Here, this is better!" "Too late," grunted the puncher, looking up, but Hopalong had become lost to sight among the rocks along the right of way. "If I only had this a minute ago!" he grumbled. The men in the grove, now in the saddle, turned and opened fire on the group by the train, driving them back to shelter. Skinny, taking advantage of the cover afforded, ran towards the grove, ordering his friends to spread out and surround it; but it was too late, for at that minute galloping was heard and it grew rapidly fainter. Red appeared at the end of the train: "Where’s th’ rest of the coyotes?" "Two of ’em got away," Lanky replied. "Ya-ho!" shouted Hopalong from the grove. "Don’t none of you fools shoot! I’m coming out. They plumb got away!" "They near got _you_, Red," Skinny cried. "Nears don’t count," Red laughed. "Did you ever notice Hopalong when he ’s fighting mad?" asked Lanky, grinning at the man who was leaving the woods. "He allus wears his sombrero hanging on one ear. Look at it now!" "Who touched off that cannon some time back?" asked Billy. "I did. It was an anti-gravity cartridge what I found sizzling on a rod under th’ floor of th’ express car," replied Red. "Why did n’t you pinch out th’ fuse ’stead of blowing everything up, you half-breed?" Lanky asked. "I reckon I was some hasty," grinned Red. "It blowed me under th’ car an’ my lid through a windy," cried Billy. "An’ Skinny, he went up in th’ air like a shore-’nough grasshopper." Hopalong joined them, grinning broadly: "Hey, reckon ridin’ in th’ cars ain’t so bad after all, is it?" "Holy smoke!" cried Skinny. "What’s that a-popping?" Hopalong, Colt in hand, leaped to the side of the train and looked along it, the others close behind him, and saw the fat man with his head and arm out of the window, blazing away into the air, which increased the panic in the coaches. Hopalong grinned and fired into the ground, and the fat man nearly dislocated parts of his anatomy by his hasty disappearance. "Reckon he plumb forgot all about his fine, six-dollar gun till just now," Skinny laughed.