"They are goin' to roll a fire barrel down agin yu from behind," indicating by an outstretched arm the point from where it would start.
"If it burns yu out I'm goin' to take a band from up there," pointing to a cluster of rocks well to the rear of where the crowd would work from, "an' I don't care whether yu likes it or not," he added to himself.
Hopalong scratched his head and then laughed.

Taking up a pick and shovel, he went out behind the cabin and dug a trench parallel with and about twenty paces away from the rear wall.

Heaping the excavated dirt up on the near side of the cut, he stepped back and surveyed his labor with open satisfaction.

"Roll yore fire barrel an' be dogged," he muttered.

"Mebby she won't make a bully light for pot shots, though," he added, grinning at the execution he would do.
Taking up his tools, he went up to the place from where the gang would roll the barrel, and made half a dozen mounds of twigs, being careful to make them very flimsy.