"
Like a flash Waffles sprang before him, his hand held up, palm out.
"He don't mean nothin'-he's only a ignorant kid!" he cried.
Buck smiled and wrested the Colt from Johnny's ever-ready hand.
"Here's another," he said. Red laughed softly and rolled Johnny on the
floor. "Yu jackass," he whispered, "don't yu know better'n to make a
gun-play when we needs them all ?"
"What are we goin' to do?" Asked Tex, glancing at the bulging
pockets of Hopalong's chaps.
"We're goin' to punch cows again, that's what we're to do," answered
Bigfoot dismally.
"An' whose are we goin' to punch? We can't go back to the old man,"
grumbled Tex.
Salvation looked askance at Buck and then at the others. "Mebby," he
began, "Mebby we kin git a job on th' Bar-20." Then turning to Buck
again he bluntly asked, "Are yu short of punchers?"
"Well, I might use some," answered the
foreman, hesitating. "But I
ain't got only one cook, an'-"
"We'll git yu th' cook all O.K.," interrupted Charley Lane
vehemently. "Hi, yu cook!" he shouted, "amble in here an' git a rustle
on!"
There was no reply, and after waiting for a minute he and Waffles
went into the rear room, from which there immediately issued great
chunks of profanity and noise. They returned looking pugnacious and
disgusted, with a wildly fighting man who was more full of liquor than
was the bottle which he belligerently waved.
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