I certainly felt proud to be standing with those two rangers, and for the
moment Buell and all his crew could not have daunted me.

"Hello! what's this?" inquired Dick, throwing back my coat; and, catching
sight of my revolver, he ejaculated: "Ken Ward!"

"Wal, Ken, if you-all ain't packin' a gun!" said Jim, in his slow, careless
drawl. "Dick, he shore is!"

It was now my turn to blush.

"Yes, I've got a gun," I replied, "and I ought to have had it the other
night."

"How so?" inquired Dick, quickly.

It did not take me long to relate the incident of the Mexican.

Dick looked like a thunder-cloud, but Jim swayed and shook with laughter.

"You knocked him off the roof? Wal, thet shore is dee-lightful. It shore
is!"

"Yes; and, Dick," I went on, breathlessly, "the Greaser followed me, and if
I hadn't missed the trail, I don't know what would have happened. Anyway,
he got here first."

"The Greaser trailed you?" interrupted Dick, sharply.