Red laughed derisively: "Oh, no! Why, you could n’t sit still nohow with a fight going on, an’ you know it. An’ if it’s a stick-up! Wow!" "Who gave you any say in this?" demanded his friend. "Anyhow, you ain’t no angel o’ peace, not nohow!" "Mebby they ’ll plug yore new sombrero," laughed Red. Hopalong felt of the article in question: "If any two-laigged wolf plugs my war-bonnet he ’ll be some sorry, an’ so ’ll his folks," he asserted, rising and going down the aisle for a drink. Red turned to the brakeman, who had just returned: "Say," he whispered, "get off at th’ next stop, shoot off a gun, an’ yell, just for fun. Go ahead, it ’ll be better ’n a circus." "Nix on the circus, says I," hastily replied the other. "I ain’t looking for no excitement, an’ I ain’t paid to amuse th’ passengers. I hope we don’t even run over a track-torpedo this side of Sandy Creek." Hopalong returned, and as he came even with them the train slowed. "What are we stopping for?" he asked, his hand going to his holster. "To take on water; the tank ’s right ahead." "What have you got?" asked Billy, ruffling his cards. "None of yore business," replied Lanky. "You call when you gets any curious." "Oh, th’ devil!" yawned Hopalong, leaning back lazily. "I shore wish I was on my cayuse pounding leather on th’ home trail." "Me, too," grumbled Red, staring out of the window. "Well, we ’re moving again. It won’t be long now before we gets out of this." The card-game continued, the low-spoken terms being interspersed with casual comment; Hopalong exchanged infrequent remarks with Red, while the brakeman and conductor stared out of the same window. There was noticeable an air of anxiety, and the fat man tried to read his magazine with his thoughts far from the printed page. He read and re-read a single paragraph several times without gaining the slightest knowledge of what it meant, while the dyspeptic passenger fidgeted more and more in his seat, like one sitting on hot coals, anxious and alert. "We ’re there now," suddenly remarked the conductor, as the bank of a cut blanked out the view. "It was right here where it happened; the turn’s farther on." "How many cards did you draw, Skinny?" asked Lanky. "Three; drawin’ to a straight flush," laughed the dealer. "Here ’s the turn! We ’re through all right," exclaimed the brakeman. Suddenly there was a rumbling bump, a screeching of air-brakes and the grinding and rattle of couplings and pins as the train slowed down and stopped with a suddenness that snapped the passengers forward and back. The conductor and brakeman leaped to their feet, where the latter stood quietly during a moment of indecision.