noon
Laramie was his next stopping place , and shortly after his arrival he was requested to sing and dance by a local terror , who informed all present that he was the only seventeen-buttoned rattlesnake in the cow country . Hopalong , hurt and indignant at being treated like a common tenderfoot , promptly knocked the terror down . After he had irrigated several square feet of parched throats belonging to the audience he again took up his journey and spent a day at Denver , where he managed to avoid any further trouble . Santa Fe loomed up before him several days later and he entered it shortly before noon . At this time the old Spanish city was a bundle of high-strung nerves , and certain parts of it were calculated to furnish any and all kinds of excitement except revival meetings and church fairs . Hopalong straddled a lively nerve before he had been in the city an hour . Two local bad men , Slim Travennes and Tex Ewalt , desiring to establish the fact that they were roaring prairie fires , attempted to consume the placid and innocent stranger as he limped across the plaza in search of a game of draw poker at the Black Hills Emporium , with the result that they needed repairs , to the chagrin and disgust of their immediate acquaintances , who endeavored to drown their mortification and sorrow in rapid but somewhat wild gun play , and soon remembered that they had pressing engagements elsewhere .