“Come on! Come on!” shouted the mounted crowd outside, angry, and impatient for a start, the prancing of horses and the clinking of metal adding to the noise. “Get a move on! Will you hurry up!”
“Listen, Hoppy!” pleaded Buck, in a furore. “Shut up, you outside!” he yelled. “You say they know that you got away, Hoppy?” he asked. “All right—Lanky!” he shouted. “Lanky!”
“All right, Buck!” and Lanky Smith roughly pushed his way through the crowd to his foreman's side. “Here I am.”
“Take Skinny and Pete with you, an' a lead horse apiece. Strike straight for Powers' old ranch house. Them Injuns'll have pickets out looking for Hoppy's friends. You three get the pickets nearest the old trail through that arroyo to the southeast, an' then wait for us. We'll come along the high bank on the left. Don't make no noise doing it, neither, if you can help it. Understand? Good! Now ride like the devil!”
Lanky grabbed Pete and Skinny on his way out and disappeared into the corral; and very soon thereafter hoof-beats thudded softly in the sandy street and pounded into the darkness of the north, soon lost to the ear. An uproar of advice and good wishes crashed after them, for the game had begun.
“It's Powers' old shack, boys!” shouted a man in the door to the restless force outside, which immediately became more restless. “Hey! Don't go yet!” he begged. “Wait for me an' the rest. Don't be a lot of idiots!”
Excited and impatient voices replied from the darkness, vexed, grouchy, and querulous. “Then get a move on—whoa!—it'll be light before we get there if you don't hustle!” roared one voice above the confusion. “You know what that means!”
“Come on! Come on! For God's sake, are you tied to the bar?”
“Yo're a lot of old grandmothers! Come on!”
Hopalong appeared in the door. “I'll show you the way, boys!” he shouted. “Cowan, put my saddle on yore cayuse—pronto!”