Part 40 (1/2)
”Let me go, then,” said the Texan.
”No!” gasped Robbins. ”Yuh stay with Dave. I'm old, anyway. Promise yuh'll stick with him, no matter what happens to me!”
”I promise,” said The Kid, and the two men shook hands.
Getting to the water hole and back again was a forlorn hope, but Robbins was past reasoning. Lurching through the door, he ran outside the hut and toward the tulles. Young Robbins cried after his father, and then covered his eyes.
There was a sudden crackling of revolver fire. Spurts of bluish smoke blossomed out from the high gra.s.s--half a score of them! Bill Robbins staggered on his feet, reeled on a few steps, and then fell. His body had been riddled.
Kid Wolf's touch was tender as he took the orphaned youth's hand in his own. But his voice, when he spoke, was like his eyes--hard as steel:
”Garvey will join him, Dave, or we will! And if we do, let's hope we'll meet it as bravely. I have a plan. If we escape, we must do it to-night. Can yo' stick it out till then?”
Young Robbins nodded. The death of his father had been a great shock to him, but he did not flinch. In that desperate hour, Kid Wolf knew that he no longer had a boy at his side, but a man!
How the day wore its way through to a close was ever afterward a mystery to them. Their throats were parched, and their eyes bloodshot.
To make matters worse, their horses, too, were suffering. Blizzard nickered softly from time to time, but quieted when Kid Wolf called to him through the wall.
Night brought some relief. Again the moon rose upon the tragic scene, and it grew cooler. Before the twilight had quite faded, Kid Wolf and Dave Robbins saw something that made them boil inwardly--the burial of Bill Robbins on Boot Hill!
Out of revolver range, a group of the bandits was filling up the grave.
Garvey had made half of his threat good. And he was biding his time to complete his boast. The Texan's grave still waited!
A thin bank of clouds rolled up to obscure somewhat the light of the moon. This was what Kid Wolf had been waiting for. It was their only chance.
”I'm goin' to try and get through on foot,” he whispered. ”Befo' I go, I'll unloose Blizzahd. He's trained to follow, and he'll find me latah, if I make it. I don't dare ride him, because he's white and too good a tahget in the moon. I'll have to crawl toward Boot Hill. It's the only way out. In half an houah, yo' follow. Savvy?”
Dave nodded. Then The Kid added a few terse directions:
”I'll show yo' the way and meet yo' on the hill. Be as quiet and careful as an Indian, and take yo' time. If anything should happen to me, strike fo' yo' place on the San Simon. The reason I'm goin' first is so that yo' can escape in the excitement if they spot me. Heah's luck! I'll turn my hoss loose now.”
They shook hands. Then, like a lithe moving shadow, the Texan crept out into the night.
CHAPTER XXIV
PURSUIT
Fire flames darted occasionally from the high tulles, licking the darkness like the tongues of venomous serpents. Rifles cracked, and bullets, fired at random, buzzed across the sand flats. Kid Wolf had an uncomfortable few minutes ahead of him.
Whenever the moon peeped out of its flying blanket of cloud, he was forced to lie flat and motionless on the ground. Lead often spattered uncomfortably close, but foot by foot he made his way toward Boot Hill.
This rise in ground, he believed, would be free from his enemies.
After once reaching this, Dave Robbins and he would be on the road to safety. Blizzard, well trained, would follow him if he managed to elude the bullets of the Garvey gang.
The Texan was on Boot Hill now, and for the first time in many minutes, he breathed freely. The firing behind had become faint, and it was hardly likely that any watchers remained on the hill.
But Kid Wolf received a thrill of horror and surprise. The moon drifted free of its cloud curtain for a moment. He was standing not a dozen feet from the two freshly made graves. One, with Bill Robbins'