"That's my own, shore 'nuf name," Hopalong answered, and then: "Do you mean that cross-eyed, bone-yard of a yellow-faced Greaser I caught stealing our range?"
"Yes!" snapped Meeker, stopping again.
"Why didn't you say so, then, 'stead of calling him yore broncho-buster?" Hopalong demanded. "How do I know who yore broncho-buster is? I don't know what every land pirate does in this country."
"Then you shot Doc—do you know who I mean this time?" sarcastically asked the H2 foreman.
"Oh, shore. He didn't get his gun out quick enough when he went after it, did he? Any more I can tell you before I begins to say things, too?"
Meeker, angered greatly by Hopalong's contemptuous inflection and the reckless assertiveness of his every word and look, began to ride to describe a circle around the Bar-20 puncher, Curley going the other way.
"You said you'd kill me when you saw me, didn't you, you—"
Hopalong was backing away so as to keep both men in front of him, alert, eager, and waiting for the signal to begin his two-handed shooting. "I ain't a whole lot deaf—I can hear you from where you are. You better stop, for I've ridden out of tighter holes than this, an' you'll shore get a pass to h—l if you crowd me too much!"
Adown th' road, an' gun in hand,
Comes Whiskey Bill, mad Whiskey Bill—
This fragment of song floated out of a chaparral about twenty yards behind Hopalong, who grinned pleasantly when he heard it. Now he knew where Johnny was, and now he had the whip hand without touching his guns; while the youngster was not in sight he was all the more dangerous, since he presented no target. Johnny knew this and was greatly pleased thereby, and he was more than pleased by the way Hopalong had been talking.