Kid Wolf of Texas Part 30

"Just call me 'Kid,'" smiled the Texan, "fo' I think we'll be friends."

"I hope so," said the other, flas.h.i.+ng him a grateful look. "Well, I'm 'Red' Morton. My brother and me own the Diamond D, and we've sh.o.r.e been havin' one hot time. Guess we're plumb beat."

"Wheah's yo' brother now?"

"He's at the sod house with our south herd. These two men are the only punchers left me--'Lefty' Warren and Mike Train. There was one more.

The rustlers shot him." Red Morton's eyes gleamed fiercely.

"Yo' know who the rustlers were?"

"Blacksnake McCoy's gang. He's been causin' us a lot o' trouble.

Until now, that bunch have just been runnin' a smooth iron and swingin'

their loops wide. But yesterday they drove off every steer. Half of all the longhorns on the Diamond D!" Red's lips tightened grimly.

"Excuse us," spoke up one of the cowboys, Lefty Warren, "for takin' yuh fer one o' them cutthroats, but we was b'ilin' mad. It's a good thing fer us yuh wasn't. Yuh sh.o.r.e slipped in on us slick as a whistle."

"I'm hopin' my bud, Joe, don't think it was my fault that Blacksnake got away with the herd," groaned the red-haired youth. "Reckon we'll have to sell out now."

"That's it," agreed the eldest of the trio--the man called Mike Train.

"The Diamond D would be on Easy Street now, if we had the cattle back.

The mortgage----"

"Who would yo' sell to?" asked The Kid quietly.

"Gentleman John, the cattle king," explained Red Morton. "He told my brother some time ago that he'd like to buy it, if the price was low.

Joe refused then, but reckon it'll be different now."

Kid Wolf raised his brows slightly.

"Is this--ah--Gentleman John the right sort of hombre?" he drawled.

"Why, I guess so," said Red in surprise. "He's one o' the biggest cattlemen in three States."

The Texan was silent for a moment, then he smiled.

"Wheah are yo' headed fo' now?" he asked.

"Why, we're on the trail of the stolen herd," Red replied, "and we intend to stop at the sod house and tell my brother, Joe, what's happened--that is, if he don't already know. Maybe he's had trouble, himself."

"If we find any of that Blacksnake gang, we'll fight," Lefty Warren spoke up. "The odds are mighty bad against us, but they got one o' the best punchers in the valley when they drilled Sam Whiteman."

"I'm interested," Kid Wolf told them. "Do yo' mind if I throw in with yo'?"

"Do we mind?" repeated Red joyously. "Say, it would sh.o.r.e be great!

And--well, Joe and I will try and make it right with yuh."

"Nevah mind that," the Texan murmured. "Just considah yo' troubles mine, too. And I'm downright curious to know what's happened to yo'

steers. Let's go!" He whistled for Blizzard.

For several hours the quartet of hors.e.m.e.n pressed southward, following the trail left by the stolen beef herd. The four quickly became friends. Kid Wolf liked them all from the first, and the Diamond D men were overjoyed to have him enlisted in their cause. He learned that Red Morton and his older brother, Joe, had worked hard to make the Diamond D a success. The ranch had been left them by their father a few years before, heavily burdened with debt. Now, until the catastrophe of the day before, they were at the point of clearing it.

Evidently the brothers did not know of Gentleman John's criminal methods, and the Texan said nothing. He was waiting for better proof.

"The ranch is in Joe's name," said Red proudly, "but we're partners.

He could sell it to Gentleman John, all right, without my consent, but he wouldn't. I'm not quite twenty-one, but I'm a man, and Joe knows it."

"Will yo' have to sell the Diamond D now?" the Texan asked.

"I hope not. Joe and two riders still have the south herd--at least, they have if nothin's happened. It might pull us through. Eight hundred head."

After a time, they swung off the trail they had been following, in order to reach the sod house. Here Red expected to find his brother and the other two Diamond D riders.

"With them, that'll make seven of us," young Morton said. "Then we can show that Blacksnake gang a fight that is a fight! There's over a dozen of 'em, though I think Lefty here wounded one, just after Whiteman was killed. We saw red stains on the sagebrush for a hundred yards along the cattle trail."

Mounting a long rise, they began to descend again. A fertile valley stretched out beneath them, green with gra.s.s and watered by the bluest little stream that Kid Wolf had ever seen. It was a lovely spot; it was small wonder that Gentleman John wished to add the Diamond D to his holdings.

"That's Blue-bottle Creek," announced Red Morton. "Queer that we don't see any cattle. There's not a steer in sight. They ought to be feedin' through here."

There was no sign of anything moving throughout all the basin, either human or cattle. The silence was unbroken, save for the steady drumming of the little party's pony hoofs.

"There's the sod house--over there in those trees," said Red, after another mile.

He was worried. The two other Diamond D men, too, were showing signs of nervousness. Had the south herd gone the way of the other?

They neared the sod house--a structure crudely built of layers of earth. It had one door and one window, and near it was a corral--empty. There was no sign of any one about, and there was no reply to Red's eager shout.

"Oh, Joe!" he hailed.

His face was a shade paler, as he quickly swung himself out of his saddle. He entered the sod house at a half run.

"Is anything wrong?" Train shouted.

Then they heard Red Morton cry out in grief and horror. Without waiting for anything more, The Kid and the two Diamond D riders dismounted and raced toward the sod hut. None of them was prepared for the terrible thing they found there.

CHAPTER XVIII

ON BLACKSNAKE'S TRAIL

At first, they could see little, for not much light filtered through the small door and window. Then details of the interior began to grow more distinct in the hut's one room. A tarp had been tacked over the dirt ceiling to keep scorpions and centipedes from dropping down on the bunks below. There was only a little furniture, and that of a crude sort. Some of it was smashed, as if in a scuffle.

These things, however, were not noticed until later. What the visitors saw was the form of a man with legs and arms outstretched at queer angles.

Kid Wolf was accustomed to horrible sights, but he remembered this one ever afterward. The scene was stamped on his mind like a fragment of some wild nightmare.

The body was that of a man a few years older than Red Morton, and the features, though set and twisted, were the same. A rope had been tied to one wrist and fastened to one wall; another rope had been knotted about his other wrist and secured to the opposite side of the hut. The legs had been served the same way at the ankles. On the body of the suspended figure rocks had been piled. They were of many sizes, varying from a few pounds to several hundred. It was easy to see how the unhappy man had met his end--by slow torture. One by one, the rocks had been placed on his chest and middle, the combined weight of them first slowly pulling his limbs from their sockets and then crus.h.i.+ng out the life that remained.

Red, after his first outcry of agony, took it bravely. The Kid threw his arm sympathetically around the youth's shoulders and drew him away, while the others cut the ropes that held the victim of the rustler gang's cruelty. In a few minutes, Red got a grip on himself and could talk in a steady voice.