Kid Wolf of Texas Read online

  His mind, however, was wide awake. When was he to be shot? In the morning? Or would his execution be delayed, perhaps for days?

  The Texan never gave up hope, and he was doing more than hoping now—he was planning carefully. Kid Wolf had a hole card. Had the Spanish soldiers known him better, they would have used more care in disarming him. But then, enemies of Kid Wolf had made that mistake before, to their sorrow.

  Clearly enough, he could not help the wagon train where he was. He must get out. But the only way to get out, it seemed, was to go out with the firing squad—a rather unpleasant thing to do, to say the least.

  The tiny grated square in the jail door began to lighten. It grew brighter. Day was breaking.

  "It will soon be time for the beans," muttered the American youth.

  "Will they give us breakfast?" asked the Texan.

  The other laughed bitterly. "We'll have beans," he said shortly, "but we won't eat them."

  Not long afterward the iron door opened, and two soldiers entered, carrying a red earthenware olla. "Fifteen men," said one of them in Spanish, "counting the new one."

  "Fifteen men," chanted the other in singsong voice. "Fifteen beans."

  Kid Wolf's brows began to knit. At first he had thought that the beans meant breakfast. Now he saw that something sinister was intended. Some sort of lottery was about to be played with beans.

  "There are fourteen white beans," the young American whispered, "and one black one. We all draw. The man who gets the black bean dies this morning."

  The hair prickled on the Texan's head. Every morning these unfortunates were compelled to play a grim game with death.

  The prisoners were all quaking with terror, as they came up to the ugly red jug to take their chance for life. As much as these miserable men suffered in this terrible place, existence was still dear to them.

  One soldier shook the beans in the olla; the other stood back against the wall with leveled gun to prevent any outbreak. Then the lottery began.

  Kid Wolf viewed the situation calmly, and decided that to try to wrest the weapon from the soldier would be folly. Other soldiers were watching through the grated door.

  One by one, the prisoners drew. The opening in the olla was just large enough for a hand to be admitted. All was blind chance, and no one could see what he had drawn until his bean was out of the jug. Some of the peons screamed with joy after drawing their white beans. The black one was still in the jar.

  The two white men were the last to draw. Both took their beans and stepped to one side to look at them. It was an even break. Kid Wolf was smiling; the other was trembling.

  The eyes of Kid Wolf met the fear-stricken eyes of the other. They stood close together. Each had looked at his bean. The sick man's face had gone even whiter.

  "I'll trade yo' beans," offered the Texan.

  "Mine's—black!" gasped the other.

  "I know," The Kid whispered in reply. "Trade with me!"

  "It means that yuh give yore life for mine," was the agonized answer.

  "I can't let yuh do that."

  "Believe me or not, but I have a plan," urged the Texan in a low tone.

  "And it might work. Hurry."

  The color returned to the sick youth's face as the beans were cautiously exchanged. Then Kid Wolf turned to the soldiers and displayed a black bean.

  "Guess I'm the unlucky one." He smiled whimsically. He turned to the sick boy for a final handshake. "Good luck," he whispered, "and if my plans fail, adios forever."

  "Come!" ordered a Spanish soldier.

  Waving his hand in farewell, Kid Wolf stepped out to meet the doom that had been prepared for him.

  CHAPTER IV

  SURPRISES

  At the prison door, Kid Wolf was met by a squad of ten soldiers. It was the firing squad. The Texan fell in step with them and was marched around the building to the bullet-scarred wall. Kid Wolf faced the rising sun. Was he now seeing it for the last time?

  If he was afraid, he made no sign. His expression was unruffled and calm. He was smiling a little, and his arms, as he folded them on his breast, did not tremble in the slightest.

  The officer who was to have charge of the execution had not yet appeared on the scene, and the soldiers waited with their rifle stocks trailing in the sand.

  Then there was a quick bustle. The officer sauntered around the corner of the building, his bright uniform making a gay sight in the early sun. He was a captain—the captain whom Kid Wolf had humiliated the afternoon before! The eyes of the Spanish officer, when they fell upon his victim, widened with surprise which at once gave way to exultation.

  "Ah, it is my amigo—the señor of the two guns!" he cried.

  It was his day of revenge! The captain could not conceal his joy at this chance to square things with his enemy for good and all. He did not try to. His laugh was sneering and amused.

  "And to think it will be me—Captain Hermosillo—who will say the word to fire!" He turned to his soldiers in high good humor and waved his sword. "At twenty paces," he ordered. "We shall soon see how bravely the señor dies. Ready!"

  The rifle mechanisms clattered sharply.

  Then the captain turned to his victim, an insolent smile on his cruel features. "Will the señor have his eyes bandaged? Blindfolded, yes?"

  Kid Wolf returned the smile. "Yes," he replied quietly. "Maybe yo' better blindfold me."

  Hermosillo laughed tauntingly and turned to wink at his men. "He is brave, yes!" he mocked. "He cannot endure seeing the carabinas aimed at his heart. He wants his eyes bandaged—the muchos grande Americano! Ah, the coward!" He spat contemptuously on the sand. "He does not know how to face the guns. Well, we will humor him!"

  The captain whipped a silk handkerchief from his pocket and stepped forward. Kid Wolf's eyes were gleaming with icy-blue lights. This was the moment he had been waiting for! That handkerchief was a necessary cog in his carefully laid plans. Captain Hermosillo was soon to learn just how cowardly this young Texan was. And the surprise was not going to be pleasant.

  Kid Wolf's hole card was a big bowie knife—the same weapon that had played such havoc at the Alamo. He carried it in a strange hiding place—tucked into a leather sheath sewn to the inside of his shirt collar, between his shoulder blades. That knife had rescued Kid Wolf from many a tight situation, and he had practiced until he could draw it with all the speed of heat lightning.

  When the captain placed the handkerchief over his eyes, Kid Wolf reached back, as if pretending to assist him. Like a flash, his fingers closed over the bone handle of the knife instead. Hermosillo found himself with the cold point of the gleaming bowie pressed against his throat!

  At the same time, Kid Wolf whirled his body about so that the officer was between him and the firing squad. His left hand held the captain in a grip of steel; his right held the glittering blade against Hermosillo's Adam's apple!

  "Throw down yo' rifles and back away from 'em!" Kid Wolfe called to the soldiers. "Pronto! Or I'll kill yo' captain!"

  Hermosillo gave an agonized yell of fear. In a voice of quaking terror, he ordered his men to do what Kid Wolf had commanded them. His breath was coming in wheezing gasps.

  The firing squad, taken aback by this sudden development—for only a few seconds had passed since The Kid had drawn the knife—hesitated, and then obeyed. At best, they were none too quick-thinking, and they saw that their leader was in a perilous plight. Their carabinas thudded to the sand.

  "Bueno!" laughed the Texan boyishly.

  He pushed the captain just far enough away for him to be in good hitting range. Then he lashed out at him with his hard fist, catching the fear-crazed officer directly on the point of the jaw. Many pounds of lean muscle were behind the blow, and Hermosillo landed ten feet away in a cloud of dust.

  The Texan lost no time in whirling on his feet and sprinting for the corner of the building. He reached it just in time to bump into another officer, who was just then arriving on the scene. Kid Wolf snatched the pi
stol from his belt and sent him up against the wall with a jar. Before the disarmed Spaniard knew what had happened, he was sitting on the ground, nursing a bruised jaw, and Kid Wolf was gone!

  The Texan found the streets deserted at that early hour. Racing across the plaza, he raised his voice in a coyote yell:

  "Yip, yip, yipee-e-e!"

  It was answered by an eager whinny. It was Blizzard! The horse, waiting patiently in the vicinity, knew that signal. It came running down another street like a white snowstorm.

  Kid Wolf ran to meet the horse. A sharp rattle of rifle fire rang out behind him. The soldiers had given chase! A bullet zipped the stone flags under his feet; another smacked solidly into the corner of an adobe house.

  The alarm had been given. Two gayly uniformed officers ran into the street from the direction of the presidio. They were trying to head the Texan off, attempting to get between him and his horse.

  But Blizzard was coming at too hot a pace. The two Spaniards cut in just as Kid Wolf leaped to the saddle. He fired the pistol's single barrel at one of the officers, and hurled the useless weapon into the other's face.

  "Come on, Blizzahd!" Kid Wolf sang out. "Let's go from heah!"

  The powerful animal's hoofs thundered against the flagstones, leaped a stone wall, and charged down the street. Behind them, already organized, came the pursuit. To Kid Wolf's ears came the whine of bullets.

  "From now on," he cried to his plunging horse, "it all depends on yo'-all! Burn that wind!"

  Once Blizzard had hit his stride, Kid Wolf knew that no horse in Santa Fe could catch him. Striking off to the eastward in the direction of the Staked Plains, the Texan gave his animal free rein.

  The pursuit was dropping behind, a few yards at a time. Instead of buzzing around his ears now, the bullets were falling short, kicking up spurts of dust. The cries in angry Spanish grew fainter until they died into a confused hubbub. Kid Wolf had left the town behind him and was racing out over the level plain. Looking back, he could see a score or more of brown clouds—dirt stirred by the horsemen who were now almost lost from view. These dwindled. In an hour only half a dozen riders remained on his trail. Blizzard was still going strong.

  Out on the great Llano Estacado, The Kid managed, by superior horsemanship, to give the balance of his pursuers the slip. When he had succeeded in confusing them, he slowed his faithful mount down for a needed rest. And now where was the wagon train? Where was he to find it? A chill raced down his spine. Had The Terror already struck? The thought of the women and children in the hapless outfit filled him with a feeling akin to panic. He must find the wagon train. It might not yet be too late.

  Kid Wolf was a plainsman. He could locate water where none appeared to exist; he could discover game when older men failed; and he could follow a course on the limitless prairie as surely as a sailor could navigate the seas by means of his compass. By day or by night, he was "trailwise."

  Carefully Kid Wolf estimated the route the wagon train had been taking. Then he figured out the progress it had probably made since he had left it. In this way he fixed a point in his mind—an imaginary dot that he must reach if he meant to find the prairie schooners. If Modoc—the leader of the outfit—had kept to his original course, The Kid could not fail to meet them.

  Accordingly, Kid Wolf traveled all the rest of that day in a straight line, marking his course by the sun. He stopped only once at noon for water and a short rest, going on again until dusk.

  At nightfall, he made camp and lay awake, looking at the stars overhead. His thoughts were of The Terror and of his intended victims. Strangely enough, the face of Modoc came into his reflections, also. He could not dismiss him. Was he really insane, or was it just obstinacy? If the latter, what had he meant by his strange expression: "What color will the moon be to-night?" Kid Wolf thought for a long time and then gave it up.

  He did not fear any further pursuit by the Spanish soldiers. The trail he had left behind was too puzzling; he had taken care of that. Besides, he knew that the average Spaniard feared the Apache and the other Indian tribes that infested portions of the Staked Plains. If there were any danger during the night, Blizzard would give him warning.

  He was up with the dawn. At its first faint, pinkish glow, he was in the saddle again. The day promised to be hot. The midsummer sun had burned the grass to a crisp brown. By midday, mirages began to show in hollows. Heat flickered. Both horse and rider drank at a pool of yellow-brown water and pressed on.

  Late in the afternoon, Kid Wolf made out a faint white line on the far horizon. It was the wagon train! He sighed with relief. The Terror, then, had not yet raided it. For The Terror left only destruction in his wake. Had he already plundered it, he would have burned the wagons to the ground.

  Increasing his speed, Kid Wolf rapidly approached it. As he came nearer, he saw that the outfit was in the center of a field of alkali and making slow and painful progress. He did not see the beef herd. Plainly, something had happened during his absence.

  Kid Wolf rode in, waving his hat. Would he get a bullet for his pains?

  He kept his eyes open as he drummed in over the alkali flat.

  Modoc and three others were at the head of the outfit. They recognized him at once. Modoc started to raise his rifle. One of the others struck the weapon down. Obviously the train commander had lost some of his influence. Another of the pathfinders shouted for Kid Wolf to come on. A dozen of the travelers left their wagons and came forward. This time they seemed glad to see Kid Wolf.

  "Yuh was right, after all!" one of them cried. "Modoc led us out of the way. We're lost!"

  "I meant all right," Modoc grumbled. "I did my best—must have made a mistake somewhere. I'll find the trail, never worry. And if yuh take my advice, yuh'll drive this four-flusher away from here! He don't mean us any good. What business is it of his?"

  Kid Wolf sternly pointed back to the wagons.

  "Those women and children theah," he snapped, "is mah business."

  "Shut up, Modoc!" ordered one of the men. "We trust this man, and we believe he's our friend." He turned to the Texan. "Yuh can consider yoreself in command here now," he added.

  Modoc trembled with ungovernable anger, but, outnumbered as he was, he could say nothing. Sulkily he returned to his own wagon.

  From the drivers, Kid Wolf learned a story of hardship and semi starvation. Indians had driven away their beef herd, leaving them without food. All day they had had nothing to eat, and were at the point of killing and devouring prairie dogs. The water, too, was bad—so full of alkali as nearly to be undrinkable, and as bitter as gall.

  Kid Wolf lost no time in taking the situation in hand. His own provisions he turned over to the women and children of the outfit. Then he changed the course of the train so that it led toward civilization. At nightfall they made camp by a pool of fair drinking water. The outfit told him that as yet they had seen no sign of The Terror.

  "Probably we won't," said one.

  Kid Wolf was not so optimistic. That night he borrowed two .45 Colt revolvers from the wagon-train supplies. He selected them with extreme care, testing them by shooting at marks. So accurate was his shooting that the men of the outfit could not conceal their admiration. The first weapon he tried threw the shots an inch or two to one side, but he finally obtained a pair that worked perfectly. Then he sanded the wooden handles of the guns to roughen them slightly.

  "It nevah pays to have yo' hand slip when makin' a draw," he explained.

  The outfit's camp fire was shielded with canvas that night, at Kid's suggestion. On that wide plain a light showed for many miles, and it was poor policy to advertise one's position.

  Tired as he was, Kid Wolf rose at midnight, after sleeping a few hours. He wanted to be sure that everything was well. Making a tour of the wagon train, he suddenly stopped in his tracks and sniffed. There was no mistaking the delicious odor. It made Kid Wolf hungry. It was frying meat. The Texan quietly aroused some of the men and led them to one of the wagons.<
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  "I want yo'-all to see fo' yo'selves," he explained.

  The wagon was Modoc's own, and they entered it. The ex-wagon-train commander had a shielded lantern burning inside, and he was in the act of eating a big supper! When he saw that he had visitors, he tried to reach the gun belt he had hung up at one end of the wagon. Kid Wolf was too quick for him.

  "Yo' call yo'self a man!" he murmured in a voice filled with contempt.

  "Why, a low-down coyote is a gentleman alongside of yo'. I wondered

  why yo' looked so well fed, while the rest of the camp was starvin'.

  Men, search this wagon!"

  While Modoc swore, the search was made. It disclosed many pounds of dried beef and other provisions. It was Modoc's little private supply.

  "We'll divide it up with everybody in the mohnin'," suggested the

  Texan, "with a double allowance fo' the children and the women."

  The wagon men were so furious at Modoc's selfishness that they could have torn him to pieces. Kid Wolf, however, prevented the trouble that was brewing.

  "Every one to their blankets, men," he said. "We can't affohd to fight among ouahselves just now."

  When the camp was asleep again, he took up his lonely vigil. The night was pitch black, without moon or stars. A wind whispered softly across the great Llano.

  Suddenly The Kid's attention was attracted by something on the western horizon. It seemed to be in the sky—a faint red glow, across which shadows appeared to move like phantoms. Like a picture from the ghost world, it flickered for a few minutes like heat lightning, then disappeared, leaving the night as dark as before. It was a night mirage, and something more than an optical illusion. It was a rare thing on the plain. The Kid knew that it meant something. That glow was the reflection in the sky of a camp fire! Those shadows were men! The Texan quickly told his sentinels.

  "I'm ridin' out to see what it is," he said. "Keep a close watch while