When he entered the door he had another idea, and fell to
work scooping out a shallow cellar, deep enough to shelter him when
lying at full length. Then he stuck his head out of the window and
grinned at the false covers with their prominent bull's-eyes.
"When that prize-winnin' gang of ossified idiots runs up agin'
these fortifications they shore will be disgusted. I'll bet four dollars
an' seven cents they'll think their medicine-man's no good. I
hopes that puff-eyed marshal will pick out that hump with th' chip on
it," and he hugged himself in anticipation.
He then cut down a sapling and fastened it to the roof and on it he
tied his neckerchief, which fluttered valiantly and with defiance in
the light breeze. "I shore hopes they appreciates that," he remarked
whimsically, as he went inside the hut and closed the door.
The early part of the evening passed in peace, and Hopalong, tired
of watching in vain, wished for action. Midnight came, and it was not
until half an hour before dawn that he was attacked. Then a noise sent
him to a loophole, where he fired two shots at skulking figures some
distance off. A fusillade of bullets replied; one of them ripped
through the door at a weak spot and drilled a hole in a can of the
everlasting peaches. Hopalong set the can in the frying pan and then
flitted from loophole to loophole, shooting quick and straight.
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