Hopalong scratched his head and then laughed. Taking up a pick and
shovel, he went out behind the cabin and dug a trench parallel with
and about twenty paces away from the rear wall. Heaping the excavated
dirt up on the near side of the cut, he stepped back and surveyed his
labor with open satisfaction. "Roll yore fire barrel an' be dogged,"
he muttered. "Mebby she won't make a bully light for pot shots,
though," he added, grinning at the execution he would do.
Taking up his tools, he went up to the place from where the gang
would roll the barrel, and made half a dozen mounds of twigs, being
careful to make them very flimsy. Then he covered them with earth and
packed them gently. The mounds looked very tempting from the view-
point of a marksman in search of earth-works, and appeared capable of
stopping any rifle ball that could be fired against them. Hopalong
looked them over critically and stepped back.
"I'd like to see th' look on th' face of th' son-of-a-gun that uses
them for cover-won't he be surprised" and he grinned gleefully as he
pictured his shots boring through them. Then he placed in the center
of each a chip or a pebble or something that he thought would show up
well in the firelight.
Returning to the cabin, he banked it up well with dirt and gravel,
and tossed a few shovelfuls up on the roof as a safety valve to his
exuberance.
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