bad, "Hopalong informed the unerring marksman.

"Why didn't he say suthin' about it? Anyhow, Jimmy was my bunkie."

Hopalong's cigarette disintegrated and the board at his left
received a hole. He promptly disappeared and Buck laughed. He sat up
in the loft and angrily spat the soaked paper out from between his
lips.

"All that trouble fer nothin', th' white-eyed coyote," he muttered.
Then he crawled around to one side and fired at the center of his "C."
Another shot hurtled at him and his left arm fell to his side. "That's
funny-wonder where th' damn pirut is? "He looked out cautiously and
saw a cloud of smoke over a knothole which was situated close up under
the eaves of the barroom; and it was being agitated. Some one was
blowing at it to make it disappear. He aimed very carefully at the
knot and fired. He heard a sound between a curse and a squawk and was
not molested any further from that point.

"I knowed he'd git hurt," he explained to the bandage, torn from the
edge of his kerchief, which he carefully bound around his last wound.

Down in the arroyo Johnny was complaining.

"This yer's a no good bunk," he plaintively remarked.

"It shore ain't-but it's th' best we kin find," apologized Billy.

"That's th' sixth that feller sent up there. He's a damn poor shot,"
observed Johnny; "must be Shorty."