Better come down an' have something," invited the miner.
"I'd shore like to, but I can't let no gang get in that door," replied the puncher.
"Oh, that's all right; I'll call my pardner down to keep house till yu gits back.

He can hold her all right.

Hey, Jake!" he called to a man who was some hundred paces distant; "Come down here an' keep house till we gits back, will yu ?" The man lumbered down to them and took possession as Hopalong and his newly found friend started for the town.
They entered the "Miner's Rest" and Hopalong fixed the room in his mind with one swift glance.

Three men--and they looked like the crowd he had stopped before--were playing poker at a table near the window.

Hopalong leaned with his back to the bar and talked, with the players always in sight.
Soon the door opened and a bewhiskered, heavy-set man tramped in, and walking up to Hopalong, looked him over.
"Huh," he sneered, "Yu are th' gent with th' festive guns that plugged Dan, ain't yu ?" Hopalong looked at him in the eyes and quietly replied: "An' who th' deuce are yu ?" The stranger's eyes blazed and his face wrinkled with rage as he aggressively shoved his jaw close to Hopalong's face.
"Yu runt, I'm a better man than yu even if yu do wear hair pants," referring to Hopalong's chaps.