Kid Wolf of Texas

Paul S. (Paul Sylvester) Powers

Informations

• Publié par: ansui
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 28
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kid Wolf of
Texas, by Ward M. Stevens
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at
no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the
terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Kid Wolf of Texas A Western Story
Author: Ward M. Stevens
Release Date: August 26, 2008 [EBook #22057]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK KID WOLF OF TEXAS ***
Produced by Al Haines[Transcriber's note: Extensive research found no
evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed.]
Kid Wolf Of Texas
A Western Story
By
WARD M. STEVENS
CHELSEA HOUSE
79 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y.
PUBLISHERS
Kid Wolf Of Texas
Copyright, 1930, by CHELSEA HOUSE
Printed in the U. S. A.All rights reserved, including that of translation into
foreign languages, including the Scandinavian.CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE LIVING DEAD II. A THANKLESS TASK III.
THE GOVERNOR'S ANSWER IV. SURPRISES V.
THE CAMP OF THE TERROR VI. ON THE
CHISHOLM TRAIL VII. MCCAY'S RECRUIT VIII.
ONE GAME HOMBRE IX. THE NIGHT HERD X.
TUCUMCARI'S HAND XI. A BUCKSHOT
GREETING XII. THE S BAR SPREAD XIII.
DESPERATE MEASURES XIV. AT DON
FLORISTO'S XV. GOLIDAY'S CHOICE XVI. A
GAME OF POKER XVII. POT SHOTS XVIII. ON
BLACKSNAKE'S TRAIL XIX. THE FANG OF THE
WOLF XX. BATTLE ON THE MESA XXI.
APACHES XXII. THE RESCUE XXIII. TWO OPEN
GRAVES XXIV. PURSUIT XXV. BLIZZARD'S
CHARGEKID WOLF OF TEXAS
CHAPTER I
THE LIVING DEAD
"Oh, I want to go back to the Rio Grande!
The Rio!
That's where I long to be!"
The words, sung in a soft and musical tenor, died
away and changed to a plaintive whistle, leaving
the scene more lonely than ever. For a few
moments nothing was to be seen except the
endless expanse of wilderness, and nothing was to
be heard save the mournful warble of the singer.
Then a horse and rider were suddenly framed
where the sparse timber opened out upon the
plain.
Together, man and mount made a striking picture;
yet it would have been hard to say which was the
more picturesque—the rider or the horse. The
latter was a splendid beast, and its spotless hide of
snowy white glowed in the rays of the afternoon
sun. With bit chains jingling, it gracefully leaped a
gully, landing with all the agility of a mountain lion,
in spite of its enormous size.
The rider, still whistling his Texas tune, swung inthe concha-decorated California stock saddle as if
he were a part of his horse. He was a lithe young
figure, dressed in fringed buckskin, touched here
and there with the gay colors of the Southwest and
of Mexico.
Two six-guns, wooden-handled, were suspended
from a cartridge belt of carved leather, and hung
low on each hip. His even teeth showed white
against the deep sunburn of his face.
"Reckon we-all bettah cut south, Blizzahd," he
murmured to his horse.
"We haven't got any business on the Llano."
He spoke in the soft accents of the old South, and
yet his speech was colored with just a trace of
Spanish—a musical drawl seldom heard far from
that portion of Texas bordering the Rio Bravo del
Norte.
Wheeling his mount, he searched the landscape
with his keen blue eyes. Behind him was broken
country; ahead of him was the terrible land that
men have called the Llano Estacado. The land rose
to it in a long series of steppes with sharp ridges.
Queerly shaped and oddly colored buttes
ascended toward it in a puzzling tangle. Dim in the
distance was the Llano itself—a mesa with a floor
as even as a table; a treeless plain without even a
weed or shrub for a landmark; a plateau of peril
without end.
The rider was doing well to avoid the LlanoEstacado. Outlaw Indian bands roamed over its
desolate expanse—the only human beings who
could live there. In the winter, snowstorms raced
screaming across it, from Texas to New Mexico,
for half a thousand miles. It was a country of
extremes. In the summer it was a scorching griddle
of heat dried out by dry desert winds. Water was
hard to find there, and food still harder to obtain.
And it was now late summer—the season of
mocking mirages and deadly sun.
The horseman was just about to turn his steed's
head directly to the southward when a sound came
to his ears—a cry that made his eyes widen with
horror.
Few sounds are so thrillingly terrible as the dying
scream of a mangled horse, and yet this was far
more awful. Only the throat of a human being
could emit that chilling cry. It rose in shrill
crescendo, to die away in a sobbing wail that lifted
the hair on the listener's head. Again and again it
came—a moan born of the frightful torture of
mortal agony.
Giving his mount a touch of spur, the horseman
turned the animal westward toward the Llano
Estacado. So horrible were the sounds that he had
paled under his tan. But he headed directly toward
the direction of the cries. He knew that some
human being was suffering frightful pain.
Crossing a sun-baked gully, he climbed upward
and onto a flat-topped, miniature butte. Here hesaw a spectacle that literally froze him with horror.
Although accustomed to a hundred gruesome
sights in that savage land, he had never seen one
like this. Staked on the ground, feet and arms
wide-stretched, and securely bound, was a man.
Or rather, it was a thing that had once been a
man. It was a torture that even the diabolical mind
of an Indian could not have invented. It was the
insane creation of another race—the work of a
madman.
For the suffering wretch had been left on his back,
face up to the sun, with his eyelids removed!
Ants crawled over the sufferer, apparently believing
him dead. Flies buzzed, and a raven flapped away,
beating the air with its startled wings. The
horseman dismounted, took his water bag from his
horse, and approached the tortured man.
The moaning man on the ground did not see him,
for his eyes were shriveled. He was blind.
The youth with the water bag tried to speak, but at
first words failed to come. The sight was too
ghastly.
"Heah's watah," he muttered finally. "Just—just try
and stand the pain fo' a little longah. I'll do all I can
fo' yo'."
He held the water bag at the swollen, blackened
lips. Then he poured a generous portion of the
contents over the shriveled eyes and skeletonlikeface.
For a while the tortured man could not speak. But
while his rescuer slashed loose the rawhide ropes
that bound him, he began to stammer a few words:
"Heaven bless yuh! I thought I was dead, or mad!
Oh, how I wanted water! Give me more—more!"
"In a little while," said the other gently.
In spite of the fact that he was now free, the
sufferer could not move his limbs. Groans came
from his lips.
"Shoot me!" he cried. "Put a bullet through me!
End this, if yuh've got any pity for me! I'm blind—
dying. I can't stand the pain. Yuh must have a gun.
Why don't yuh kill me and finish me?"
It was the living dead! The buckskin-clad youth
gave him more water, his face drawn with
compassion.
"Yo'll feel bettah afta while," he murmured. "Just sit
steady."
"Too late!" the tortured man almost screamed, "I'm
dyin', I tell yuh!"
"How long have yo' been like this?"
"Three-four days. Maybe five. I lost count."
"Who did this thing?" was the fierce question.