"Hippy! Oh, Hippy darlin'! What have you done?" wailed Nora.
"Hit him! Hit him again before he can get up!" cried Emma excitedly.
"Be quiet, you little savage," admonished Anne.
"You surely have done it this time, Hippy Wingate. Now we are in for trouble," rebuked Grace Harlowe.
"Brown Eyes, this fellow is a rank fraud. He isn't a constable, and I will wager that, were he to think there were such an animal within a mile of him, he would hit out for the bushes right smart."
"I agree with you. But, Hippy, you shouldn't have done that. The man was only bluffing. I saw that, or thought I did."
"So was I bluffing. The difference is that he and I do not bluff in the same way. Wait!" Hippy snatched the mountaineer's revolver from its holster, removed the cartridges and tossed them away, after which he returned the weapon to its holster. He then unbuckled the man's ammunition belt, shook all the cartridges out of that and rebuckled the belt about the fellow's waist.
"Laundry!" called Lieutenant Wingate.
"Yassuh! Yassuh!"
"Fetch me a pail of water. On the run!"