shot," Hopalong remarked sadly, leading the way out of the saloon and
towards the hardware store.

"You better get out!" shouted the man with the mallet, waving the weapon
defiantly. "An' don't you never come back again, neither," he warned.

"Hey, it leaked," Hopalong said pleasantly as he closed the door of the
hardware store behind him, whereupon the clerk jumped and reached for
the sawed-off shotgun behind the counter. Sawed-off shotguns are great
institutions for arguing at short range, almost as effective as dynamite
in clearing away obstacles.

"Don't you come no nearer!" he cried, white of face. "You git out, or
I'll let _this_ leak, an' give you _all_ shot, an' more than you can
carry!"

"Easy! Easy there, pardner; we want them wedges," Hopalong replied,
somewhat hurriedly. "The others ain't no good; I choked on the very
first screw. Why, I wouldn't hurt you for the world," Hopalong assured
him, gazing interestedly down the twin tunnels.

Johnny leaned over a nail keg and loosed the shot and screws into it,
smiling with childlike simplicity as he listened to the tintinnabulation
of the metal shower among the nails. "It _does_ drop when you let go of
it," he observed.

"Didn't I tell you it would? I allus said so," replied Hopalong, looking
back to the clerk and the shotgun. "Didn't I, stranger?"

The clerk's reply was a guttural rumbling, ninety per cent profanity,