"Hullo, Red! Workin'?"
Asked Hopalong of his rival.
"Some, yu little cuss," answered Red with all the good nature in the
world. Hopalong was his particular "side partner," and he could lose
to him with the best of feelings.
"Yu looks so nice an' cool, an' clean, I didn't know," responded
Hopalong, eyeing a streak of sweat and dust which ran from Red's eyes
to his chin and then on down his neck.
"What yu been doin'? Plowin' with yore nose?" Returned Red, smiling
blandly at his friend's appearance.
"Yah!" snorted Hopalong, wheeling toward the corral. "Come on, yu
pie-eatin' doodle-bug; I'll beat yu to th' gate!"
The two ponies sent showers of sand all over Billy, who eyed them in
pugnacious disgust. "Of all th' locoed imps that ever made life
miserable fer a man, them's th' worst! Is there any piece of fool
nonsense they hain't harnessed me with?" He beseeched of Buck. "Is
there anything they hain't done to me? They hides my liquor; they
stuffs th' sweat band of my hat with rope; they ties up my pants; they
puts water in. My boots an' toads in my bunk-ain't they never goin' to
get sane?"
"Oh, they're only kids-they can't help it," offered Buck. "Didn't
they hobble my cayuse when I was on him an' near bust my neck?"
Hopalong interrupted the conversation by driving up another calf,
and Buck, glancing at his watch, declared the contest at an end.
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