At daybreak three quarrelling punchers rode homeward and after amonotonous journey arrived at the bunk house and reported. It tookthem two nights adequately to describe their experiences to an enviousaudience. The morning after the telling of the ghost story things beganto happen. Red starting it by erecting a sign.
NOTISE--NO GHOSTS ALOWED
An exuberant handful of the outfit watched him drive the last nail andstep back to admire his work, and the running fire of comment coveredall degrees of humor, and promised much hilarity in the future at theexpense of the only man on the Bar-20 who had seen a ghost.
In a week Johnny and his acute vision had become a bye-word in that partof the country and his friends had made it a practice to stop him andgravely discuss spirit manifestations of all kinds. He had thrashed WoodWright and been thrashed by Sandy Lucas in two beautiful and memorablefights and was only waiting to recover from the last affair beforehaving the matter out with Rich Finn. These facts were beginning to havethe effect he strove for; though Cowan still sold a new concoction ofgin, brandy, and whiskey which he called "Flying Ghost," and which heproudly guaranteed would show more ghosts per drink than any liquorsouth of the Rio Grande--and some of his patrons were eager to back uphis claims with real money.
This was the condition of affairs when Hopalong Cassidy strolled intoCowan's and forgot his thirst in the story being told by a strangeMexican. It was Johnny's ghost, without a doubt, and when he hadcarelessly asked a few questions he was convinced that Johnny had reallyseen something. On the way home he cogitated upon it and two pointschallenged his intelligence with renewed insistence: the ghost showeditself only on Friday, and then only to "Greasers." His suspicious mindwould not rest until he had reviewed the question from all sides, andhis opinion was that there was something more than spiritual about theghost of the San Miguel--and a cold, practical reason for it.
When he rode into the corral at the ranch he saw that another sign hadbeen put on the corral wall. He had destroyed the first, speaking hismind in full at the time. He swept his gloved hand upward with a rush,tore the flimsy board from its fastenings, broke it to pieces acrosshis saddle, and tossed the fragments from him. He was angry, for he hadwarned the outfit that they were carrying the joke too far, that Johnnywas giving way to hysterical rage more frequently, and might easily dosomething that they all would regret. And he felt sorry for the Kid; heknew what Johnny's feelings were and he made up his mind to start a fewfights himself if the persecution did not cease. When he stepped intothe bunk house and faced his friends they listened to a three-minutespeech that made them squirm, and as he finished talking the deep voiceof the foreman endorsed the promises he had just heard made, for Buckhad entered the gallery without being noticed. The joke had come to anend.
When Johnny rode in that evening he was surprised to find Hopalongwaiting for him a short distance from the corral and he replied to hisfriend's gesture by riding over to him. "What's up now?" he asked.
"Come along with me. I want to talk to you for a few minutes," andHopalong led the way toward the open, followed by Johnny, who was moreor less suspicious. Finally Hopalong stopped, turned, and looked hiscompanion squarely in the eyes. "Kid, I'm in dead earnest. This ain'tno fool joke--now you tell me what that ghost looked like, how he acted,an' all about it. I mean what I say, because now I know that you saw_something_. If it wasn't a ghost it was made to look like one, anyhow.Now go ahead."
"I've told you a dozen times already," retorted Johnny, his faceflushing. "I've begged you to believe me an' told you that I wasn'tfooling. How do I know you ain't now? I'm not going to tell--"
"Hold on; yes, you are. Yo're going to tell it slow, an' just like yousaw it," Hopalong interrupted hastily. "I know I've doubted it, but whowouldn't! Wait a minute--I've done a heap of thinking in the past fewdays an' I know that you saw a ghost. Now, everybody knows that thereain't no such thing as ghosts; then what was it you saw? There's a gameon, Kid, an' it's a dandy; an' you an' me are going to bust it up an'get the laugh on the whole blasted crowd, from Buck to Cowan."
Johnny's suspicions left him with a rush, for his old Hoppy was one manin a thousand, and when he spoke like that, with such sharp decision,Johnny knew what it meant. Hopalong listened intently and when the shortaccount was finished he put out his hand and smiled.
"We're the fools, Kid; not you. There's something crooked going on inthat canyon, an' I know it! But keep mum about what we think."
Johnny lost his grouch so suddenly and beamed upon his friends with sucha superior air that they began to worry about what was in the wind.The suspense wore on them, for with Hopalong's assistance, Johnny mightspring some game on them all that would more than pay up for the funthey had enjoyed at his expense; and the longer the suspense lasted theworse it became. They never lost sight of him while he was around andHopalong had to endure the same surveillance; and it was no uncommonthing to see small groups of the anxious men engaged in deep discussion.When they found that Buck must have been told and noticed his smile wasas fixed as Hopalong's or Johnny's, they were certain that trouble ofsome nature was in store for them.
Several weeks later Buck Peters drew rein and waited for a stranger tojoin him.
"Howdy. Is yore name Peters?" asked the newcomer, sizing him up in onetrained glance.
"Well, who are you, an' what do you want?"
"I want to see Peters, Buck Peters. That yore name?"
"Yes; what of it?"
"My name's Fox. Old Jim Lane gave me a message for you," and thestranger spoke earnestly to some length. "There; that's the situation.We've got to have shrewd men that they don't know an' won't suspect.Lane wants to pay a couple of yore men their wages for a month or two.He said he was shore he could count on you to help him out."
"He's right; he can. I don't forget favors. I've got a couple of menthat--there's one of 'em now. Hey, Hoppy! Whoop-e, Hoppy!"
Mr. Cassidy arrived quickly, listened eagerly, named Red and Johnnyto accompany him, overruled his companions by insisting that if Johnnydidn't go the whole thing was off, carried his point, and galloped offto find the lucky two, his eyes gleaming with anticipation and joy. Foxlaughed, thanked the foreman, and rode on his way north; and that nightthree cow-punchers rode south, all strangely elated. And the friends whowatched them go heaved signs of relief, for the reprisals evidently wereto be postponed for a while.