"If I can get sight of one of them Greasers I'll find out where they are," Red growled. "I'll put green rawhide around his face if I have to, an' when he savvys what th' sun is going to do to that hide an' him, he'll talk, all right, an' be glad of th' chance."
"To hear you, anybody would think you'd do a thing like that," Hopalong laughed. "I reckon he'd drop at eight hundred, clean an' at th' first shot. But, say, green rawhide wouldn't do a thing to a man's face, would it! When it shrunk he'd know it, all right."
"Crush it to a pulp," Skinny remarked. "But who is going to cook th' supper? I'm starved."
Hopalong awakened suddenly and listened and found Red also awake. Hoofbeats were coming towards the house and Hopalong peered out into the darkness to see who it was, his Colt ready.
"Who's that?" he challenged, sharply, the clicks of his gun ringing clear in the night air.
"Why, me," replied a well-known voice. "Who'd you think it was?"
"Why didn't you stay up in Number Two, like I told you? What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Johnny replied, stripping off his saddle and bridle.
"An' you came all th' way down here in th' dark, just to wake us up?" Hopalong asked, incredulously. "Twenty miles just for that!"