right hand there glistened an exceedingly business-like looking revolver.
CHAPTER II.
THE BOYS FIND TROUBLE
"No shootee! No shootee!"
The blue-overalled Chinaman plumped down on his knees in the thick dust, with his hands clasped in entreaty. Above him, threatening the cowering wretch with his pistol, stood the figure of the man who had emerged so suddenly from the restaurant door. The crowd doing nothing stood stoically looking on.
The tormentor of the Mongolian was a tall, swarthy figure of a man, crowned with a high-peaked, silver-braided sombrero, the huge brim of which almost obscured the repulsive details of his swarthy face. The remainder of his garb was a short jacket, beneath which a broad red sash upheld the most peculiar nether garments Ralph had ever seen. They were tight about their wearer's thin legs as far as the knees, when the black velvet of which they were made suddenly became as full and baggy as the trousers of a sailor. High-heeled boots and a pair of jingling silver spurs completed his fantastic costume – the typical holiday garb of a Mexican, including the revolver.
"By Sam Hooker, I know that chink!" cried Jack, as the boys ran up and joined the crowd. "It's Hop Lee. He used to cook on my father's ranch. I remember hearing now that he had started some kind of a restaurant in town. Here, Hop Lee, what's the matter?"
"Oh, Misser Mellill, you helpee me! No let Misser De Ballios shootee me! I do no halm. Me catch um – "
"What are you boys interfering here for?" demanded the Mexican suddenly, wheeling angrily. He spoke in good English, but with a trace of accent. Jack, despite his brown face and the keen, resourceful look which comes from a plainsman's life, wore Eastern-cut clothes. The Mexican had promptly sized him up for a tenderfoot. "You just run along, or you'll get hurt," he continued menacingly.
He leveled his gun, and brusquely ordered the Chinaman, who had by this time arisen, to kneel once more in the dust.
"Don't do it, Hop Lee. Get back to your cook stove," cried Jack.
"He will kneel!" declared the Mexican, facing about, "or – "
"Well, or what?" demanded Jack, looking the silver-braided bravado straight in the eyes.
"Or you will!"
Question and answer came sharp as pistol shots.
The Mexican raised his pistol menacingly. But at the same instant a foot suddenly projected between the Spanish-American's slender legs and twisted about one limb. The next instant the gaudily garbed bully lay prostrate in the dust, the pungent stuff filling his eyes, mouth and nose.
It was Ralph Stetson's foot which had tripped the man. The boy had acted in a sudden excess of fear that the Mexican was about to shoot his chum. As a matter of fact, the fellow had had no such intention. But now he had shared the fate of many another man who has made a bluff, only to have it promptly taken at its full value.
A sort of murmur of alarm went through the crowd as the Mexican measured his length in the dust.
"Say, pard," said a short, chunky little cowboy behind Ralph, "you've done it now; that's Black Ramon De Barrios."
"Well, he's white now!" laughed the boy, as the Mexican rose to his feet with his features smothered with white dust.
"Looks as if he'd been taking a dive in the flour barrel!" laughed Jack. He turned to Ralph with a quick, "Thanks, old fellow. I see that you're as much on the job here as on the football field. But I don't think he meant to shoot – "
"No, he did not, but he does now!"
De Barrios approached the boys, his pistol leveled and his black, serpent-like eyes glinting wickedly. "I'll show you what Black Ramon can do! He never forgets an insult nor forgives an injury!"
Aghast at the threatened tragedy, the crowd did nothing, and the boys stood rooted to one spot. Closer and closer, like a snake, the Mexican crept, determined, it seemed, to get the full measure of anticipation out of his revenge for his tumble. Jack never flinched, but his heart beat unpleasantly fast.
The Mexican's brown, cigarette-stained forefinger trembled on the trigger. He was quite close now.
The fat little cowboy gave a yell of alarm, and sprang suddenly forward.
"Look out! The varmint's going to shoot!"
But at the same instant a strange thing happened A snaky loop whizzed through the air and settled about the bully's neck. The vengeful Mexican was suddenly jerked off his feet as it tightened, his long legs threshing the air like those of a swimming frog.
"Roped, by ginger!" yelled some one in the crowd, as De Barrios, at the end of a lariat, went ploughing through the dust on his face for the second time.
And roped, Ramon De Barrios was. So absorbed had the crowd been in watching the tense scene before them that few of them had noticed a cowboy mounted on a small calico pony who had ridden slowly up from a point behind the boys. This cow-puncher, a long-legged, rangy, sun-burned fellow, in typical stockman's garb, had watched everything attentively till the critical moment. Then, with a quick twist, he had roped the Mexican as neatly as he would have tied a calf on branding day.
"Well done, and thank you, Bud!" shouted Jack, running up and shaking the cowboy's hand.
The latter had halted his pony a short distance from them. But the distance had been quite far enough for De Barrios, whose method of traveling had been far from comfortable.
"Where did you spring from, old fellow?" Jack went on.
"From the corral up the street," said Bud, displaying no more emotion than if he and the boys had had an appointment to meet at that spot under quite ordinary circumstances. "Just wait till I get this here sidewinder of a greaser cut loose, and I'll talk to you."
All this time De Barrios had lain prone in the dust, with the rope stretched tight, just as the trained cow pony had kept it. Bud now cast loose the end which he had wound about his saddle horn, and the Mexican, with a sulky look, rose to his feet and threw off the rawhide loop.
"Here's your gun," said Bud Wilson, leaning from his saddle and picking up the fallen weapon from the dust.
"Hold on, though," he said suddenly. Breaking the weapon open, he "sprung" the shells out of it. This done, he handed it to the Mexican, who took it with a sinister look.
"To our next meeting!" he grated, as he turned away.
"Well, stay on your feet next time!" rejoined Bud composedly, amid a roar from the crowd.
"Now, Hop Lee," demanded Jack Merrill of the Chinaman, as De Barrios strode off without a word, but with a black look on his swarthy face, "what was the trouble in there?"
"Why, the Chink spilled a spot of grease on the brim of the Mexican's sombrero," volunteered somebody, "and when he wouldn't wipe it off again, De Barrios got mad."
"Well, I don't know as I blame the greaser so very much, those being the circumstances," remarked Bud dryly. "These Chinks has got to be kep' in order some way. Now get back to your chuck wagon, Hop, and don't give no more dissatisfaction to your customers."
Ralph now learned who Bud Wilson was – a cow-puncher who had worked for Jack's father for many years, and had practically brought Jack up on the range. Bud had two strong
