Part 42 (1/2)

”Fine! Now throw some rope around 'em!” they heard Garvey say.

A shower of blows fell upon the Texan's head. He dropped, with a half dozen red warriors clinging to him. It was the end!

CHAPTER XXV

BLIZZARD'S CHARGE

Kid Wolf was so dazed for a time that he but dimly realized what was happening to him. Half stunned, he was carried, along with Dave Robbins, out of the arroyo. He was light-headed from the blows he had received.

That torture was in store for them, he well knew. He heard Gil Garvey's voice calling for Yellow Skull. Red faces, smeared with war paint, glared at him. He was being taken on a pony's back through a thicket of brush.

They were up on the mesa again, for he felt the sun burn out and a hot wind sweep the desert. What were they waiting for?

Yellow Skull! Kid Wolf had heard of that terrible, insane Apache chief. He could expect about as much mercy from him as he could from Garvey.

Some one was shaking his shoulder. It was the Lost Springs bandit leader.

Kid Wolf looked about him. A score or more of warriors, naked save for breechcloths, stood around in a hostile circle. Garvey was chuckling and in high good humor. With him was Shank, sneering and cold-eyed.

”We want to know where that money is!” Garvey shouted.

Kid Wolf's brain was clearing. On the ground, a few feet away, lay Dave Robbins, still stunned.

”I'm not sayin',” the Texan returned calmly.

Garvey's blotched face was convulsed with rage.

”Yuh'll wish yuh had, blast yuh!” he snarled. ”I'm turnin' yuh both over to Yellow Skull! He's got somethin' in store for yuh that'll make yuh wish yuh'd never been born! Yo're west o' the Pecos now, Mr.

Wolf--and there's no law here but me!”

The Kid eyed him steadily. ”Theah's no law,” he said, ”but justice.

And some of these times, sah, yo' will meet up with it!”

”I suppose yuh think yuh can hand it to me yoreself,” leered the bandit leader.

”I may,” said Kid Wolf quietly.

Garvey laughed loudly and contemptuously.

”Yellow Skull!” he called. ”Come here!”

The man who strode forward with snakelike, noiseless steps was horrible, if ever a man was horrible. He was the chief of the renegade Apache band, and as insane as a horse that has eaten of the loco weed.

Sixty years or more in age, his face was wrinkled in yellow folds over his gaunt visage. Above his beaked nose, his beady black eyes glittered wickedly, and his jagged fangs protruded through his animal lips. He wore a breechcloth of dirty white, and his chest was naked, save for two objects--objects terrible enough to send a thrill of horror through the beholder. Suspended on a long cord around his neck were two shriveled human hands. Above this was a necklace made of dried human fingers.

”Yellow Skull,” said Garvey, pointing to Kid Wolf, ”meet the man who slew yore son, Bear Claw!”

The expression of the chief's face became ghastly. His eyes widened until they showed rings of white; his nostrils expanded. With a fierce yell, he thumped his scrawny chest until it boomed like an Indian drum.

Then he gave a series of guttural orders to his followers.