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“It’s him, all right,” Jack Bates admitted reluctantly.

“Yip! Cowboys in town!” rang the slogan of the range land. “Come on and–wake ’em up! OO-oop-ee!” He pulled up so suddenly that his horse almost sat down in the dust, and reined in beside Pink.

They eyed him in amaze, and avoided meeting one another’s eyes. Truly, he was a strange-looking Weary. His head was bare and disheveled, his eyes bloodshot and glaring, his cheeks flushed hotly. His neck-kerchief covered his chest like a bib and he wore no coat; one shirtsleeve was rent from shoulder to cuff, telling eloquently that violent hands had sought to lay hold on him. His long legs, clad in Angora chaps, swung limp to the stirrup. By all these signs and tokens, they knew that he was drunk—joyously, unequivocally, vociferously drunk!

Joe Meeker peered cautiously out of the window of Rusty Brown’s place when they rode up, and Cal Emmett swore aloud at sight of him. Joe Meeker was the most indefatigable male gossip for fifty miles around, and the story of Weary’s spree would spread far and fast. Worse, it would reach first of all the ears of Weary’s School-ma’am, who lived at Meeker’s.

Cal started to get down; he wanted to go in and reason with Joe Meeker. At all events, Ruby Satterlee must not hear of Weary’s defection. It was all right, maybe, for some men to make fools of themselves in this fashion; some women would look upon it with lenience. But this was different; Weary was different, and so was Ruby Satterlee. Cal meditated upon just what would the most effectually close the mouth of Joe Meeker.

But Weary spied him as his foot touched the ground. “Oh, yuh can’t sneak off like that, old-timer. Yuh stay right outside and help wake ’em up!” he shouted hoarsely.

Cal turned and looked at him keenly; looked also at the erratic movements of the gun, and reconsidered his decision. Joe Meeker could wait.

“Better come on out to camp, Weary,” he said persuasively. “We’re all of us going, right away. Yuh can ride out with us.”

Weary had not yet extracted all the joy there was in the situation. He did not want to ride out to camp; more, he had no intention of doing so. He stood up in the stirrups and declaimed loudly his views upon the subject, and his opinion of any man who proposed such a move, and punctuated his remarks freely with profanity and bullets.

Under cover of Weary’s elocution Pink did a bit of jockeying and got his horse sidling up against Cal. He leaned carelessly upon the saddle-horn and fixed his big, innocent eyes upon Weary’s flushed face.

“He’s pretty cute, if he is full,” he murmured discreetly to Cal. “He won’t let his gun get empty–see? Loads after every third shot, regular. We’ve got to get him so excited he forgets that little ceremony. Once his gun’s empty, he’s all to the bad–we can take him into camp. We’ll try and rush him out uh town anyway, and shoot as we go. It’s our only show–unless we can get him inside and lay him out.”

“Yeah, that’s what we’ll have to do,” Cal assented guardedly. “He’s sure tearing it off in large chunks, ain’t he? I never knew–“

“Here! What you two gazabos making medicine about?” cried Weary suspiciously. “Break away, there. I won’t stand for no side-talks–“

“We’re just wondering if we hadn’t all better adjourn and have something to drink,” said Pink musically, straightening up in the saddle. “Come on–I’m almighty dry.”

“Same here,” said Jack Bates promptly taking the cue, and threw one leg over the cantle. He got no further than that.

“You stay right up on your old bench!” Weary commanded threateningly. “We’re the kings uh the prairie, and we’ll drink on our thrones. That so-many-kinds-of-bar-slave can pack out the dope to us. It’s what he’s there for.”