Part 37 (1/2)
The stranger's crisp words had their effect, since ”Kid Wolf” was a name well known west of the Chisholm Trail. His reputation had been pa.s.sed by word of mouth along the border until there were few who had not heard of his deeds. His very name seemed to fill the riffraff of the barroom with courage. Some of them cheered, and all prepared to obey the young Texan's orders. Every one was soon busy loading and examining six-guns.
Garvey was the one exception. He was infuriated, and his malignant eyes gleamed with hate. Kid Wolf had made an enemy. He was, however, accustomed to that. Smiling ironically, he faced Garvey, who was quivering all over with helpless rage.
”Yo' won't need to come along,” he drawled. ”I'd rathah have Apaches in front of me than yo' behind me.”
Kid Wolf lost no time in rounding up his hastily drafted posse. A horse was procured for Robbins and The Kid prepared to ride by his side. Kid Wolf's horse was ”tied to the ground” outside, and a shout of genuine admiration went up as the men caught sight of the magnificent creature, beautiful with muscular grace. Swinging into his California saddle, the Texan, with Robbins at his side and the posse, numbering eleven men, swept down toward the mountain pa.s.s.
Some of the men carried Winchesters, but for the most part they were armed with six-guns. Now that they were actually on the way, the men seemed eager for the battle. Perhaps Kid Wolf's cool and determined leaders.h.i.+p had something to do with it.
Young Robbins reached over and clasped the Texan's hand.
”I'll never forget this, Mr. Kid Wolf,” he said, tears in his eyes.
”If it wasn't for you----”
”Call me 'Kid,'” said the Texan, flas.h.i.+ng him a smile. ”We'll save yo'
fathah and the men in the stage if we can. Anyway, we'll make it hot fo' those Apaches.”
After a few minutes of fast going, they could hear the faint crackling of gunfire ahead of them, carried on the torrid wind. Robbins brightened, for this meant that some survivors still remained on their feet. Kid Wolf, experienced in Indian warfare, understood the situation at once, and ordered his men to scatter and come in on the Indians from all sides.
”Robbins,” he said, ”I want yo' with me. Yo' two,” he went on, singling out a couple of the posse, ”ride in from the east. The rest of yo' come in from the west and south. Make every shot count, fo' if we don't scattah the Apaches at the first chahge, we will be at a big disadvantage!”
It was a desperate situation, with the odds nearly five to one against them. Reaching the pa.s.s, they could look down on the battle from the cover of the mesquites. From the overturned stage, thin jets of fire streaked steadily, and a pall of white smoke hung over it like a cloud.
From the brush, other gun flashes answered the fire. Occasionally a writhing brown body could be seen, crawling from point to point. The thicket seemed to be alive with them.
Kid Wolf listened for a moment to the faint popping of the guns. Then he raised his hand in a signal.
”Let's go!” he sang out.
A second later, Blizzard was pounding down the pa.s.s like a snowstorm before the wind.
The leader of this band of murderous Apaches was a youthful warrior named Bear Claw, the son of the tribal chief. Peering at the coach from his post behind a clump of paloverde, his cruel face was lighted by a grin of satisfaction. From time to time he gave a hoa.r.s.e order, and at his bidding, his braves would creep up or fall back as the occasion demanded.
Bear Claw was in high good humor, for he saw that the ambushed victims in the stage could not hope to hold out much longer. Only three remained alive in the coach, and some of these were wounded. The white men's fire was becoming less accurate.
The young leader of the Apaches was horrible to look at. He was naked save for a breechcloth and boot moccasins and his face was daubed with ocher and vermilion. Across his lean chest, too, was a smear of paint just under the necklace of bear claws that gave him his name. He was armed with a .50-caliber Sharps single-shot rifle and with the only revolver in the tribe--an old-fas.h.i.+oned cap-and-ball six-shooter, taken from some murdered prospector.
Bear Claw was about to raise his left hand--a signal for the final rush that would wipe out the white men in the overturned coach--when a terrific volley burst out like rattling thunder from all sides.
Bullets raked the brush in a deadly hail. An Indian a few paces from Bear Claw jumped up with a weird yell and fell back again, pierced through the body.
The young chief saw whirlwinds of dust swooping down on the scene from every direction. In those whirlwinds, he knew, were horses. Bear Claw had courage only when the odds were with him. How many men were in the attacking force, he did not know. But there were too many to suit him, and he took no chances. He gave the order for retreat, and the startled Apaches made a rush for their ponies, hidden in an arroyo.
Bear Claw scrambled after them, with lead kicking up dust all about him.
But it did not take Bear Claw long to see that his band outnumbered the white posse, more than four to one. Throwing himself on his horse, he decided to set his renegade warriors an example. Giving the Apache war whoop, he kicked his heels in his pony's flanks and led the charge.
Picking out the foremost of the posse--a bronzed rider on a snow-white horse--he went at him with leveled revolver.
What happened then unnerved the Apaches at Bear Claw's back. The man Bear Claw had charged was Kid Wolf! The Texan did not return the Indian's blaze of revolver fire. He merely ducked low in his saddle and swung his big white horse into Bear Claw's pony! At the same time, he swung out his left hand sharply. It caught Bear Claw's jaw with a terrific jolt. The weight of both speeding horses was behind the impact. Something snapped. Bear Claw went off his pony's back like a bag of meal and landed on the sand, his head at a queer angle. His neck was broken!
Then Kid Wolf's guns began to talk. Fire burst from the level of both his hips as he put spurs to Blizzard and charged with head low directly into the amazed Apaches. The others, too, followed the Texan's example, but it was Kid Wolf who turned the trick. It was the deciding card, and without their chief, the redskins were panic-stricken. The only thing they thought of now was escape. The little hoofs of their ponies began to drum madly. But instead of rus.h.i.+ng in the direction of the whites, they drummed away from them. Kid Wolf ordered his men not to follow. Nor would he allow any more firing.