"Huh!" snorted Hopalong, warily arising. "Was that all?" he asked,
nodding at Red, who also arose and began to move cautiously toward their
erring friend. "Didn't you see no more'n one ghost? Anybody that can see
one ghost, an' no more, is wrong somewhere. Now, stop, an' think; didn't
you see _two_?" He was advancing carefully while he talked, and Red was
now behind the man who saw one ghost.
"Why, you--" there was a sudden flurry and Johnny's words were cut short
in the melee.
"Good, Red! Ouch!" shouted Hopalong. "Look out! Got any rope, Dent?
Well, hurry up: there ain't no telling what he'll do if he's loose. The
mescal they sells down in this country ain't liquor--it's poison," he
panted. "An' he can't even stand whiskey!"
Finding the rope was easier than finding a place to put it, and the
unequal battle raged across the room and into the next, where it sounded
as if the house were falling down. Johnny's voice was shrill and full of
vexation and his words were extremely impolite and lacked censoring.
His feet appeared to be numerous and growing rapidly, judging from the
amount of territory they covered and defended, and Red joyfully kicked
Hopalong in the melee, which in this instance also stands for stomach;
Red always took great pains to do more than his share in a scrimmage.
Dent hovered on the flanks, his hands full of rope, and begged with
great earnestness to be allowed to apply it to parts of Johnny's
thrashing anatomy.
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