“Yes, dear,” was the reply, followed by gun-shots.

“Hey!  Move over!” snapped Tim, working towards the edge furthest from the cheerful Red, whose bullets were not as accurate in the dark as they promised to become in a few minutes when the moon should come up.

“Want to shove me off?” snarled Charley, angrily.  “For heaven’s sake, Duke, do you want the whole earth?” he demanded of his second companion.

“You just bet yore shirt I do!  An’ I want a hole in it, too!”

“Ain’t you got no sense?”

“Would I be up here if I had?”

“It’s going to be hot as blazes up here when the sun gets high,” cheerfully prophesied Tim:  “an’ dry, too,” he added for a finishing touch.

“We’ll be lucky if we’re live enough to worry about the sun’s heat—­say, that was a close one!” exclaimed Duke, frantically trying to flatten a little more.  “Ah, thought so—­there’s that blamed moon!”

“Wish I’d gone out the window instead,” growled Charley, worming behind Duke, to the latter’s prompt displeasure.

“You fellers better come down, one at a time,” came from below.  “Send yore guns down first, too.  Red’s a blamed good shot.”

“Hope he croaks,” muttered Duke. “That’s closer yet!”

Tim’s hand raised and a flash of fire singed Charley’s hair.  “Got to do something, anyhow,” he explained, lowering the Colt and peering across the plain.

“You damned near succeeded!” shouted Charley, grabbing at his head.  “Why, they’re three hundred, an’ you trying for ’em with a—­oh!” he moaned, writhing.

“Locoed fool!” swore Duke, “showing ’em where we are!  They’re doing good enough as it is!  You ought—­got you, too!”

“I’m going down—­that blamed fool out there ain’t caring what he hits,” mumbled Charley, clenching his hands from pain.  He slid over the edge and Pete grabbed him.

“Next,” suggested Pete, expectantly.

Tim tossed his Colt over the edge.  “Here’s another,” he swore, following the weapon.  He was grabbed and bound in a trice.

“When may we expect you, Mr. Duke?” asked Johnny, looking up.

“Presently, friend, presently.  I want to—­wow!” he finished, and lost no time in his descent, which was meteoric.  “That feller’ll kill somebody if he ain’t careful!” he complained as Pete tied his hands behind his back.

“You wait till daylight an’ see,” cheerily replied Pete as the three were led off to join their friends in the corral.

There was no further action until the sun arose and then Hopalong hailed the house and demanded a parley, and soon he and Boggs met midway between the shack and the line.

“What d’you want?” asked Boggs, sullenly.

“Want you to stop this farce so I can go on with my drive.”

“Well, I ain’t holding you!” exploded the 4X foreman.

“Oh, yes; but you are.  I can’t let you an’ yore men out to hang on our flanks an’ worry us; an’ I don’t want to hold you in that shack till you all die of thirst, or come out to be all shot up.  Besides, I can’t fool around here for a week; I got business to look after.”