"Me? Why, I don't want no rifle!"

"Huh! Neither do I," remarked Skinny. "Here, Frenchy, give me a boost up this wall,--take my foot!"

"Well, don't wiggle so, you piece of string!"

"That's right! Walk backwards! I ain't no folding step-ladder! How do you think I'm going to grab that edge if you takes me ten feet away from it?"

_Spang! Spang! Zing-ing-ing!_

"Here, you! Lemme down! Want me to get plugged!" yelled Skinny, executing ungraceful and rapid contortions. "Lower me, you fool!"

"Let go that ridge, then!" retorted Frenchy.

During the comedy Hopalong had been crawling up a rough part of the wall and he fired before he lost his balance. As he landed on Meeker a yell rang out and the sound of a rifle clattering on rock came to them. "I got him, Skinny--go ahead now," he grunted, picking himself up.

It was not long until they were out of the fissure and crawling down a bowlder-strewn slope. As they came to the bottom they saw a rustler trying to drag himself to cover and Meeker fired instantly, stopping the other short.

"Why, I thought _I_ stopped him!" exclaimed Hopalong.

"Reckon you won't rustle no more cows, you thief," growled Meeker, rising to his knees.

Hopalong pulled him down again as a bullet whizzed through the s.p.a.ce just occupied by his head. "Don't you get so curious," he warned.

"Come on--I see Red. He's got his rifle, lucky cuss."

"Good for him! Wish I had mine," replied Meeker, grinning at Red, who wriggled an elbow as a salutation. In his position Red could hardly be expected to do much more, since two men were waiting for a shot at him.

"Well, you can get that gun down there an' have a rifle," Hopalong suggested, pointing to the Winchester lying close to its former owner.

"You can do it, all right."

"Good idea--shoot 'em with their own lead," and the H2 foreman departed on his hands and knees for the weapon.

"I hit one--he's trying to put his shoulder together," cried Red, grinning. "What makes you so late--I was th' last one up, an' I've been here a couple of hours."

"Yo're a sinful liar!" retorted Hopalong. "We stopped to pick blackberries back at that farm house," he finished with withering sarcasm.

"You fellers had time to get married an' raise a family," Red replied.

He ducked and looked around. "Ah, you coyote--hit him, but not very hard, I reckon."

It was daylight when Pete, on the other end of the line, turned and scourged Johnny. "Ain't you got no sense in yore fool head? How can I see to shoot when you kick around like that an' fill my eyes with dirt! Come down from up there or I'll lick you!"

"Ah, shut up!" retorted Johnny with a curse. "You'd kick around if somebody nicked _yore_ ear!"

"Well, it serves you right for being so unholy curious!" Pete replied.

"You come down before he nicks yore eye!"

"Not before I get square--_Wow!_" and Johnny came down rapidly.

"Where'd he get you that time?"

"None of yore business!" growled Johnny.

"I told you to come--"

"Shut up!" roared Johnny, glaring at him. "Wish I had that new Sharps of mine!"

"Go an' get it, Kid. Yo're nimble," Pete responded. "An' bring up some of th' others, too, while yo're about it."

"But how long will this fight last, do you reckon?" the other asked, with an air of weighing something.

"All day with rifles--a week without 'em."

"Sh.o.r.e yo're right?"

"Yes; go ahead. There'll be some of th' sc.r.a.p left for you when you get back."

"All right,--but don't you get that feller. I want him for what he did to me," and Johnny hastened away. He returned in fifteen minutes with two rifles and gave one of them to his companion.

"They're .45-70's--an' full, too," he remarked. "But I ain't got no more cartridges for 'em."

"How'd you get 'em so quick?"

"Found 'em by th' rope where we come up--didn't have to stop; just picked 'em up an' came right back," Johnny laughed. "But I wonder how they got there?"

"Bet four dollars an' a tooth-pick they means that two thieves got away down them ropes. Where's Doc?"

"Don't know--but I don't think anybody pulled him up here."

"Then he might 'a stopped them two what owned th' rifles--he would be mad enough to stay there a month if Red forgot him."

"Yes; waiting to lick Red when he came down," and Johnny crawled up again to his former position. "Now, you cow-stealing coyote, watch out!" As he settled down he caught sight of his foreman. "Hullo, Buck!

What you doing?"

"Stringing beads for my night shirt," retorted Buck. "You get down from up there, you fool!"

"Can't. I got to pay for--" he ducked, and then fired twice. "Just missed th' other ear, Pete. But I made him jump a foot--plugged him where he sits down. He was moving away. An' blamed if he ain't a Greaser!"

"Yes; an' you took two shots to do it, when cartridges are so scarce,"

Pete grumbled.

At first several of the rustlers had defended the hut but the concentrated fire of the attacking force had poured through its north window from so many angles that evacuation became necessary. This was accomplished through the south window, which opened behind the natural breastwork, and at a great cost, for Con Irwin and Sam Austin were killed in the move.

The high, steep ridge which formed the rear wall of the hut and overlooked the roof of the building ran at right angles to the low breastwork and extended from the north end of the hut to the edge of the mesa, a distance of perhaps fifty feet. On the side farthest from the breastwork it sloped to the stream made by the spring and its surface was covered with bowlders. The rustlers, if they attempted to scale its steep face, would be picked off at short range, but they realized that once the enemy gained its top their position would be untenable except around the turn in the breastwork at the other side of the mesa. In order to keep the punchers from gaining this position they covered the wide cut which separated the ridge from the enemy's line, and so long as they could command this they were safe.

After wandering from point to point Hopalong finally came to the edge of the cut and found Red Connors ensconced in a narrow, shallow depression on a comparatively high hummock. While they talked his eyes rested on the ridge across the cut and took in the possibilities that holding it would give.

"Say, Red, if we could get up on that hill behind th' shack we'd have this fight over in no time--see how it overlooks everything?"

"Yes," slowly replied Red. "But we can't cross this barranca--they sweep it from end to end. I tried to get over there, an' I know."