"Oh, go ahead! I 've got a hull box of 'em in th' bunk-house," was the swift reply. "Could n't stay away, eh? Did n't like th' East, nohow, did you? Gosh, th' boys 'll be some tickled to see you, Tex. Goin' to stay? How you feelin'?"
"You bet I 'm a-stayin'," responded Tex. "Is that Lanky comin'?"
"Hey, Lanky!" yelled Johnny, standing up and waving the approaching horseman towards them. "Pronto! Tex 's come back!"
Lanky's pony's legs fanned a haze under him and he rammed up against Tex so hard that they had to grab each other. Everybody was talking at once and so they rode towards the bunk-house, picking up Billy on the way.
"Where's Hopalong?" demanded Tex. "Married! H—l he is!" A strange look flitted across his face. "Well, I 'm d—d! An' where 's Red?"
Johnny glanced ahead just in time to see Lee Hop sail around a corner of the corral, and he replied with assurance, "Red 's th' other side of th' corral."
"Huh!'" snorted Lanky, "You 've got remarkable eyes, Kid, if you can see through—well, I 'm hanged if he ain't!"
After Red came Pete, waving a water-soaked boot. They disappeared and when Tex and his friends had almost reached the corral, Lee Hop rounded the same corner again, too frightened even to squeal. As he started around the next corner he jumped away at an angle, Pete, still waving the boot, missing him by inches. Pete checked his flow of language as he noticed the laughing group and started for it with a yell. A moment later Red came into sight, panting heavily, and also forgot the cook. Lee Hop stopped and watched the crowd, taking advantage of the opportunity to gain the cook shack and bar the door. "Dlam shirt no good—sclatchee like helle," he muttered. White men were strange—they loved each other like brothers and fought one another's battles. "Led head! Led head!" he cried, derisively. "My hop you cloke! Hop you cloke chop-chop! No fliend my, savee?"
Skinny Thompson, changing his trousers in the bunkroom, heard Lee's remarks and laughed. Then he listened—somebody was doing a lot of talking. "They 're loco, plumb loco, or else somethin's wrong," and he hopped to the door. A bunched crowd of friends were tearing toward him, yelling and shooting and waving sombreros, and a second look made him again miss the trousers' leg and hop through the door to save himself. The blood swept into his face as he saw the ranch house and he very promptly hopped back again, muttering angrily.
The crowd dismounted at the door and tried to enter en masse; becoming sane it squirmed into separate units and entered as it should. Lee Hop hastily unbarred his door and again fled for his life. When he returned he walked boldly behind his foreman, and very close to him, gesticulating wildly and trying to teach Hopalong Cantonese. The foreman hated to chide his friends, but he and his wife were tired of turning the ranch house into a haven for Chinese cooks.