Lanky, who took keen delight in teasing the youngster, frowned severely. "Yo're just a fool kid, just a happy idiot!" he snorted, and Johnny looked at him, surprised but grinning. "Yes, you are! I never seen such a bloody-minded animal in all my born days as you! After all th' fighting you've gone an' got mixed up in, you still yap for more! You makes me plumb disgusted, you do!"
"He is awful gory," remarked Hopalong soberly. "Just a animated massacre in pants."
"Regular Comanche," amended Red, frowning. "What do you think about him, Frenchy?"
"I'd ruther not say it," Frenchy replied. "You ask Pie—he ain't scared of nothing, massacre or Comanche."
Johnny looked around the room and blurted out, "You all think th' same as me, every one of you, even if you are a lot of pussy-cats, an' you know it, too!"
"Crazy as a locoed cow," Red whispered across the room to Buck, who nodded sorrowfully and went into the cook shack.
"You wait till I sees Antonio an' you'll find out how crazy I am!" promised Johnny.
"I shore hopes he spanks you an' sends you home a-bawling," Lanky snorted. "You needs a good licking, you young cub!"
"Yah, yah!" jibed Johnny. "Needing an' getting are two different tunes, grand-pop!"
"You wasn't down here, was you, Frenchy, when Johnny managed to rope a sleepy gray wolf that was two years old, an' tried to make a pet out of him?" asked Hopalong, grinning at his recollection of the affair.