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“I reckon you won’t blot no more brands!” he cried, triumphantly, watching both Jerry and Harlan.

The card-players had leaped to their feet and at a signal from Harlan they surged forward to the bar and formed a barrier between Johnny and his friends; and as they did so that puncher jerked at his gun, twisting to half face the crowd. At that instant fire and smoke spurted from Jerry’s side coat pocket and the odor of burning cloth arose. As Johnny fell, the rustler ducked low and sprang for the door. A gun roared twice in the front of the room and Jerry staggered a little and cursed as he gained the opening, but he plunged into the darkness and threw himself into the saddle on the first horse he found in the small corral.

When the crowd massed, Hopalong leaped at it and strove to tear his way to the opening at the end of the bar, while the marshal covered Harlan and the others. Finding that he could not get through, Hopalong sprang on the shoulder of the nearest man and succeeded in winging the fugitive at the first shot, the other going wild. Then, frantic with rage and anxiety, he beat his way through the crowd, hammering mercilessly at heads with the butt of his Colt, and knelt at his friend’s side.

Edwards, angered almost to the point of killing, ordered the crowd to stand against the wall, and laughed viciously when he saw two men senseless on the floor. “Hope he beat in yore heads!” he gritted, savagely. “Harlan, put yore paws up in sight or I’ll drill you clean! Now climb over an’ get in line–quick!”

Johnny moaned and opened his eyes. “Did–did I–get him?”

“No; but he gimleted you, all right,” Hopalong replied. “You’ll come ’round if you keep quiet.” He arose, his face hard with the desire to kill. “I’m coming back for you, Harlan, after I get yore friend! An’ all th’ rest of you pups, too!”

“Get me out of here,” whispered Johnny.

“Shore enough, Kid; but keep quiet,” replied Hopalong, picking him up in his arms and moving carefully towards the door. “We’ll get him, Johnny; an’ all th’ rest, too, when”–the voice died out in the direction of Jackson’s and the marshal, backing to the front door, slipped out and to one side, running backward, his eyes on the saloon.

“Yore day’s about over, Harlan,” he muttered.

“There’s going to be some few funerals around here before many hours pass.”

When he reached the store he found the owner and two Double-Arrow punchers taking care of Johnny. “Where’s Hopalong?” he asked.

“Gone to tell his foreman,” replied Jackson. “Hey, youngster, you let them bandages alone! Hear me?”

“Hullo, Kansas,” remarked John Bartlett, foreman of the Double-Arrow. “I come nigh getting yore man; somebody rode past me like a streak in th’ dark, so I just ups an’ lets drive for luck, an’ so did he. I heard him cuss an’ I emptied my gun after him.”

* * * * *

The rain slanted down in sheets and the broken plain, thoroughly saturated, held the water in pools or sent it down the steep side of the cliff to feed the turbulent flood which swept along the bottom, foam-flecked and covered with swiftly moving driftwood. Around a bend where the angry water flung itself against the ragged bulwark of rock and flashed away in a gleaming line of foam, a horseman appeared, bending low in the saddle for better protection against the storm. He rode along the edge of the stream on the farther bank, opposite the steep bluff on the northern side, forcing his wounded and jaded horse to keep fetlock deep in the water which swirled and sucked about its legs. He was trying his hardest to hide his trail. Lower down the hard, rocky ground extended to the water’s edge, and if he could delay his pursuers for an hour or so, he felt that, even with his tired horse, he would have more than an even chance.