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"So yo' have her where yo' want her, have yo'?" he cried, giving the major a powerful shake. He passed his other hand over the land agent's flabby body, poking the folds of fat here and there over Major Stover's ribs. At each thump the major flinched. "Why, yo're as soft as an ovahripe pumpkin," Kid Wolf drawled, deliberately insulting. "And yo' dare to tell me that! No, don't try that!"
His eyes rolled wildly. "Don't kill me," he wheezed in an agony of fright. "It wasn't my fault. I I Goliday made me do it. He's the man behind me. D-don't kill me." Suddenly his head rolled to one side and his bulky body wilted. He sagged to the floor with a hiccupping sound. "Get up!" snapped the Texan. There was no response. The Kid felt of Stover's heart and straightened up with a low whistle.
But rough hands seized him, and he found himself astride of Stover's shoulders and gyrating about the Echo Phonograph in the midst of a war-dance. He kicked violently with his spiked shoes, whereat the foreman bucked like a wild horse under the spur and dropped him, and he staggered out of the crowd, where a girl flew to him. "Oh, Wally," she cried, "I knew you could!"
"I wanted to shoot long before," said Harry, "but I remembered and waited until yuh said the word. Yuh shore stopped that derringer o' Stover's." "Wheah's the guard?" "Tied up outside." "Bueno. I rode down heah slow, so yo'd have plenty o' time to get posted. I suspected treachery of some kind to-night. But it was a surprise to see the majah heah. What time is it?" "After two.
"This is some secret passage put in by the friars, years ago," was Stover's comment, after several hundred feet had been passed. "Like as not they built it to escape in case the Injuns attacked 'em." "Well, if they did, it must lead to some place of safety," answered Dan. "I sincerely hope it does." Stover was still suffering great pain, and he had lost so much blood that he could scarcely walk.
Stover's captive ground his teeth and struggled briefly, then turned and made for the open prairie without a word. "It's his first love," said Stover, simply. The other foreman exploded into hoarse laughter, saying: "I didn't reckon I was treadin' on the toes of no bereafed relatif's, but them church tunes ain't my style. However, we're wastin' time, gents. Where's that bunk-house?
In place of the revolver at his belt, it seemed as if Willie should have carried a geologist's pick, a butterfly-net, or a magnifying-glass: one was prepared to hear him speak learnedly of microscopy, or even, perhaps, of settlement work. As a cowboy he was utterly out of place, and it was quite impossible to take Stover's words seriously.
Don Floristo, however, had also raised his gun. A report shook the adobe walls and sent a puff of blue fumes ceilingward. But Harry Thomas had fired first. Floristo collapsed with a moan, rolled over and stiffened. Kid Wolf sent Major Stover's derringer flying with a contemptuous kick, just as the fear-crazed fat man pulled the trigger. "Good work, Harry," The Kid approved.
Miss Blake puckered her brows trying to think. "Joseph," she said. "No, I don't think I have seen him." Stover's lips met grimly. "I don't reckon you have, miss. Since that race he has been hard to descry. He passed from view hurriedly, so to speak, headed toward the foot-hills, and leaping from crag to crag like the hardy shamrock of the Swiss Yelps." Miss Blake giggled. "What made him hurry so?"
I always have a bottle with me and . . . Still, I wouldn't prescribe, not knowing the disease." Mrs. Stover's eyes sparkled. Patent medicines were her hobby. "Hum!" she said. "'Stomach Balm' sounds good. And he says his trouble is principally stomach. Some of them Indian medicines are mighty powerful. Have you did you say you had a bottle with you, Mr. Brown?"
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