"Close call, that!" added Dick.
"Doggone!" voiced Snake, as he reached his hand to the inside pocket of his vest. "They spilled half of it!"
"What?" asked Bud, relief showing itself in his voice.
"My tobacco!" answered Snake. "I had some packed away there to keep it moist—some new kind of plug chewin' I got last week. Doggoned if they ain't put a bullet clean through it!"
"And lucky for you they did," grunted Tar Soap Mullin, who had earned this name from the kind of lather he used in shampooing himself every Saturday night. "If that bullet hadn't happened to hit your plug it would have plugged you."
And this was evident when Snake took out the tobacco in question. The lead missile had struck the hard and pressed cake of tobacco, striking a tin tag fastened to it, and thus the force of the bullet had been neutralized, giving Snake no more than a severe shock and bruise.
"Well, it might have been worse," the cowboy grimly said, as he tucked back his shirt, and put the tobacco in another pocket. "Now we got to get busy! This is getting serious!" Bud and his chums thought he might have said it was serious from the start, as indeed it was.
"What I picked you fellows out for," went on Snake, "is to take a sort of scurry out there and see who's doin' all this shootin'." He clipped letters off his words in his haste. "We're goin' out there an' see if we can take 'em in the rear, while Yellin' Kid holds their attention in front."
"Do you reckon they're Yaquis?" asked Tar Soap.
"Might be, then ag'in might not. If they aren't I don't see why in the name of all the rattlers of Forked Rover [Transcriber's note: River?] they're pickin' on us."