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“By golly, yes!” broke out Slim. “Weary’s been layin’ for Happy for a long while to pay off making the tent leak on him, that night; he’s sure played a good one, this time!”

Happy carefully balanced his plate on the wagon-tongue near the doubletrees, and stood glaring down upon his tormentors.

“Aw, look here!” he began, with his voice very near to tears. Then he gulped and took a more warlike tone. “I don’t set m’self up t’ be a know-it-all–but I guess I can tell when a man’s full uh booze. And I ain’t claimin’ t’ be no Jiujitsu sharp” (with a meaning glance at Pink) “and I know the chances I’m takin’ when I stand up agin the bunch–but I’m ready, here and now, t’ fight any damn man that says I’m a liar, er that Weary was jest throwin’ a load into me. Two or three uh yuh have licked me mor’n once–but that’s all right. I’m willing t’ back up anything I’ve said, and yuh can wade right in a soon as you’re a mind to.

“I don’t back down a darn inch. Weary’s in Dry Lake. He is drunk. And he is shootin’ up the town. If yuh don’t want t’ believe it, I guess they’s no law t’ make yuh–but if yuh got any sense, and are any friends uh Weary’s, yuh’ll mosey in and fetch him out here if yuh have t’ bring him the way he brung ole Dock that time Patsy took cramps. Go on in and see fer yourselves, darn yuh! But don’t go shootin’ off your faces to me till yuh got a license to.”

This, if unassuring, was convincing. The Happy Family stopped smiling, and looked at one another uncertainly.

“I guess two or three of you better ride in and see what there is to it,” announced Chip, dryly. “If Happy is romancing–” His look was eloquent.

But Happy Jack, though he stood a good deal in awe of Chip and his sarcasm, never flinched. He looked him straight in the eye and maintained the calm of conscious innocence.

“I’ll go,” said Pink, getting up and throwing his plate and cup into the dishpan. “Mind yuh, I don’t believe a word of it; Happy, if this is just a sell, so help me Josephine, you’ll learn some brand new Jiujitsu right away quick.”

“I’ll go along too,” Happy boldly retorted, “so if yuh want anything uh me, after you’ve saw Weary, yuh won’t need t’ wait till yuh strike camp t’ git it. Weary loadin’ me, was he? Yuh’ll find out, all uh yuh, that it’s him that’s loaded.”

They caught fresh horses and started–Cal, Pink, Jack Bates and Happy Jack. And Happy stood their jeers throughout the ten-mile ride with an equanimity that was new to them. For the most part he rode in silence, and grinned knowingly when they laughed too loudly at the joke Weary was playing.

“All right–maybe he is,” he flung back, once. “But he sure looks the part well enough t’ keep all Dry Lake indoors–and I never knowed Weary t’ terrorize a hull town before. And where’d he git that horse? and where’s Glory at? and why ain’t he comin’ on t’ camp t’ help you chumps giggle? Ain’t he had plenty uh time t’ foller me out and enjoy his little joke? And another thing, he was hard at it when I struck town. Now, where’d yuh get off at?”

To this argument they offered several explanations–at all of which Happy grunted in great disdain.

They clattered nonchalantly into Dry Lake, still unconvinced and still jeering at Happy Jack. The town was very quiet, even for Dry Lake. As they rounded the blacksmith shop, from where they could see the whole length of the one street which the place boasted, a yell, shrill, exultant, familiar, greeted them. A long-legged figure they knew well dashed down the street to them, a waving six-shooter in one hand, the reins held aloft in the other. His horse gave evidence of hard usage, and it was a horse none of them had ever seen before.