Part 5 (1/2)

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 senor 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 senor dies. Ready!”

The rifle mechanisms clattered sharply.

Then the captain turned to his victim, an insolent smile on his cruel features. ”Will the senor 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 s.h.i.+rt 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 a.s.sist 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. ”p.r.o.nto! 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 pa.s.sed 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 b.u.mp into another officer, who was just then arriving on the scene. Kid Wolf s.n.a.t.c.hed the pistol 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!”