Hopalong Cassidy Sees Red

Johnny's appearance and growled command put an end to his efforts. He put the rope back on the kicking feet and arose as Hopalong limped up.

'Phew!' exclaimed Johnny. 'This has been a reg'lar night! Here, you stay with Corwin while I tote this coyote to th' hut.' He got Roberts onto his back and staggered away, soon returning for the sheriff.

Dawn found six bound men in varying physical condition sitting with their backs to the hut, their wounds crudely dressed and their bounds readjusted and calculated to stay fixed. Kane was vindictive, his eyes snapping, and he seethed with futile energy, notwithstanding the mauling he had received. His lean face, puffed, discolored and wolfishly cruel, worked with a steadily mounting rage, which found vent at intervals in scathing vituperative comments about Trask, whom he still blamed for the predicament in which he found himself. Corwin, sullen and fearful, kept silent, his fingers picking nervously at the buckle and strap on the back of his vest. Roberts was angry and defiant and sneered at his erstwhile boss, sending occasional verbal shafts into him in justification of Trask. The two Mexicans had sunk into the black depths of despair and acted as though they were stunned. Trask, a bitter sneer on his face, glared unflinchingly at the storming boss and showed his teeth in grim, ironical smiles.

'Th' crossbreed shows th' cur dog when th' wolf is licked,' he sneered in reply to a particularly vicious attack of Kane's. 'What you blamin' me for? You took yore share of Nelson's money, an' took it eager. You heard me!' he snarled 'I don't care who knows it—I got it, an' you took yore part of it. It was all right then, wasn't it? An' you didn't know it was his—you let him make a fool of you an' wouldn't listen to me. But as long as you got yourn you didn't care a whole lot who lost it. Serves you right.'

'Shut up!' muttered Roberts.

'Shut up nothin',' jeered Trask. 'Think I'm goin' to swing to save a mad dog like him? Look at him! Look at th' dog breakin' through th' wolf! Wolf? Huh! Coyote would be more like it. Don't talk to me!' He looked at the camp fire and at the man busy over it. 'I can eat some of that, Nelson,' he said.

Johnny nodded and went on with the cooking.

Sounds of horses clattering down the steep trail suddenly were heard and not much later Red rode up on a horse he had captured from the rustlers' caviya and dismounted near the fire. His face was a sight, but the grin which tried to struggle through the bruises was sincere. He dropped two saddles to the ground, the saddles belonging to the Mexicans, which he had stopped to strip from the dead horses on the trail up the wall.

'Our cayuses went loco near th' crick,' he said. 'I left Hoppy to take off th' saddles an' let 'em soak themselves,' referring to the three animals they had left up on the desert the evening before. 'I'm all ready to eat, Kid. How's it shapin' up?'

'Grab yore holt,' grunted Johnny. He stood up to rest his back. 'Mebby it would be more polite to feed our guests first,' he grinned.

Red looked at the line-up. 'We'll have to feed 'em, I reckon. I ain't aimin' to untie no hands. Who's first?'

'Don't play no favorites,' answered Johnny. 'Go up an' down th' line an' give 'em all a chance.' He faced the prisoners. 'You fellers like yore coffee smokin'?' Only two men answered, Roberts and Trask, and they did not like it smoking hot. 'Let it cool a little, Red; no use scaldin' anybody.'

The prisoners had all been fed when Hopalong appeared on another horse from the rustlers' caviya and swung down. 'Smells good, Kid! an' looks good,' he said. 'I got all th' saddles on fresh cayuses, waitin'—all but these here. We'll lead our own cayuses. That Pepper-hoss of yourn acts lonesome. She ain't lookin' at th' grass, at all.' He sat down, arose part way and felt in his hip pocket, bringing out the cylinder of a six-gun. Glancing at Kane, to whom it belonged, he tossed it into the brush and resumed his seat.

Johnny's face broke into a smile and he whistled shrilly. Quick hoofbeats replied and Pepper, her neck arched, stepped daintily across the little level patch of ground and nosed her master.

'Ha!' grunted Trask. 'That's a hoss!' A malignant grin spread over his face and he turned his head to look at Kane. 'Kane, how much money, that money you got on you now, would you give to be on that black back, up on th' edge of th' valley? All of it, I bet!'

'Shut up!' snapped Roberts, angrily.

'Go to blazes,' sneered Trask, and he laughed nastily. 'You wait till I speak my little piece before you tell me to shut up! No dog is goin' to ride me to a frazzle, blamin' me for this wind-up, without me havin' somethin' to say about it!' He looked at Red. 'What was them two shots I heard, up there on top? They was th' first fired last night.'

'That was me droppin' th' Mexicans' cayuses from under 'em on th' ledge,' Red answered. 'They was pullin' stakes for th' desert.'

'Leavin' us to do th' dancin', huh?' snapped Trask. 'All right; I know another little piece to speak. Where you fellers takin' us?'

Red shrugged his shoulders and went off to get horses for the crowd.

A straggling line of mounted men climbed the cliff trail, the horses of the inner six fastened by lariats to each other, and three saddleless animals brought up the rear. They pushed up against the sky line in successive bumps and started westward across the desert.

CHAPTER XXIV

SQUARED UP ALL AROUND

MESQUITE, still humming from the tension of the past week felt its excitement grow as Bill Trask, bound securely and guarded by Hopalong, rode down the street and stopped in front of Quayle's, where the noise made by the gathering crowd brought Idaho to the door.

'Hey!' he shouted over his shoulder. 'Look at this!' Then he ran out and helped Hopalong with the prisoner.

Quayle, Lukins, Waffles, McCullough, and Ed Doane fell back from the door and let the newcomers enter, Idaho slamming it shut in the face of the crowd. Then Ed Doane had his hands full as the crowd surged into the bar-room.

'Upstairs!' said Hopalong, steering the prisoner ahead of him. In a few minutes they all were in Johnny's old room, where Trask, his ropes eased, began a talk which held the interest of his auditors. At its conclusion McCullough nodded and turned to Hopalong.

'All this may be true,' he said; 'but what does it all amount to without th' fellers he names? If you'd kept out of th' fight an' hadn't set fire to that buildin' we would 'a' got every one of them he names. Gimme Kane an' th' others an' better proof than his story an' you got a claim to that reward that's double sewed.'

Hopalong seemed contrite and downcast. He looked around the group and let his eyes return to those of the trail-boss. 'I reckon so,' he growled. 'But have you got th' numbers of th' missin' bills?' he asked, skeptically.

'Yes, I have; an' a lot of good it'll do me, now!' snapped McCullough. 'We was countin' on them for th' real proof, but that fool play of yourn threw 'em into th' discard! What'n blazes made you set that place afire?'

Hopalong shrugged his shoulders. 'I dunno,' he muttered.' Was you aimin' to find th' missin' bills on them fellers?' he asked. 'Would that 'a' satisfied you?'

'Of course!' snorted the trail-boss. 'An' with Trask, here, turnin' agin' 'em like he has it would be more than enough. Any fool knows that!'

Hopalong arose. 'I'm glad to hear you come right out an' say that, for that's what I wanted to know. I've been bothered a heap about what you might ask in th' line of proof. You shore relieve my mind, Mac. If you fellers will straddle leather we'll ride out where Kane an' th' others Trask named are waitin' for visitors. I don't reckon they none of them got away from Johnny an' Red.'

'What are you talkin' about?' demanded McCullough, his mouth open from surprise.

'I mean we've got Kane, Roberts, Corwin, Miguel, an' another Mexican all tied up, waitin' to turn 'em over to you an' collect them rewards. As long as we know just what you want, an' can give it to you, I don't see no use of waitin'. I'm invitin' Lukins an' th' rest along to see th' finish. What you goin' to do with Trask?'

McCullough was looking at him through squinting eyes, his face a more ruddy color. Glancing around the