Part 37 (2/2)

”No slaughter, men,” he said. ”Save yo' bullets till yo' need them.

Let's take a look at the stage.”

Wheeling their mounts, the posse, who had lost not a man in the encounter, raced back to the overturned coach. The vehicle, riddled with bullets and arrows, resembled a butcher's shop. On the ground near it was the body of the driver, while the guard, hit in a dozen places, lay half in and half out of the coach, dead.

Young Robbins had left four men alive when he made his escape toward Lost Springs. There now remained only two. And one of these, it could be seen, was dying.

”Dad!” Robbins cried. ”Are yuh hurt?”

”Got a bullet in the shoulder and one in the knee,” replied his father, crawling out with difficulty. ”Good thing yuh got here when yuh did!

See to Claymore. He's. .h.i.t bad. I'm all right.”

Kid Wolf drew out the still breathing form of the other survivor. He was quick to note that the man was beyond any human aid. The frontiersman, his six-gun still emitting a curl of blue smoke, was placed in the shade of the coach, and water was given to him.

”I'm all shot to pieces, boys,” he gasped. ”I'm goin' fast--but I'm glad the Apaches won't have me to--chop up afterward. Take my word for it--there's some white man--behind this. There's twenty thousand dollars in the express box----”

His words trailed off, and with a moan, he breathed his last. Kid Wolf gently drew a blanket over his face and then turned to the others.

”I think he's right,” he mused, as he took off his wide-brimmed hat.

”When Indians murdah, theah's usually a white man's brains behind them.”

Garvey, when Kid Wolf had left with his quickly gathered posse, went to the bar and took several drinks of his own liquor. It was a fiery red whisky distilled from wheat, and of the type known to the Indians as ”fire water.” It did not put Garvey in any better humor. Wiping his lips, he left his saloon and crossed the road to a tiny one-room adobe.

A young Indian was sleeping in the shade, and Garvey awakened him with a few well-directed kicks. The Indian's eyes widened with fear at the sight of the white man's rage-distorted face, and when he had heard his orders, delivered in the hoa.r.s.e Apache tongue, he raced for his pony, tethered in the bushes near him, and drummed away.

”Tell 'em to meet me in the saloon p.r.o.nto!” Garvey shouted after him.

The saloon keeper pa.s.sed an impatient half hour. A quartet of Mexicans entered his place demanding liquor, but Garvey waved them away.

Something important was evidently on foot.

Soon the dull _clip-clop_ of horses' hoofs was heard, and he went to the door to see five riders approaching Lost Springs from the north.

He waved his hand to them before they had left the cover of the cottonwoods.

The group of sunburned, booted men who hastily entered Garvey's Place were individuals of the Lost Springs ruler's own stamp. All were gunmen, and some wore two revolvers. Most of them were wanted by the law for dark deeds done elsewhere. Sheriffs from the Texas Panhandle would have recognized two of them as Al and Andy Arnold--brother murderers. Another was a killer chased out of Dodge City, Kansas--a slender, quick-fingered youth known as ”Pick” Stephenson. Henry Shank--a gunman from Lincoln, New Mexico--strode in their lead.

The fifth member of the quintet was the most terrible of them all. He was a half-breed Apache, dressed partly in the Indian way and partly like a white. He wore a battered felt hat with a feather in the crown.

He wore no s.h.i.+rt, but over his naked chest was b.u.t.toned a dirty vest, around which two cap-and-ball Colt revolvers swung.

His stride, m.u.f.fled by his beaded moccasins, was as noiseless as a cat's. This man--Garvey's go-between--was Charley Hood. He grinned continually, but his smile was like the snarl of a snapping dog.

”What's up, Garvey?” Shank demanded. ”We was just ready to start out fer a cattle clean-up.”

”Plenty's up,” snarled Garvey. ”Help yoreselves to liquor while I tell yuh. First o' all, do any of yuh know Kid Wolf?”

It was evident that most of them had heard of him. None had seen him, however, and Garvey went on to tell what had happened.

”How many men did he take with him?” Stephenson wanted to know.

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