"Yo're surely not goin' to leave us so soon!" they all cried.

The Kid nodded.

"Mah work seems to be done heah," he said, smiling. "And I'm just naturally a rollin' stone, always rollin' toward new adventures. I'm sho' yo'-all are goin' to be very happy."

"We owe it all to you!" Ma Thomas cried. "All of our good fortune. I have the ranch and the cattle, and more wonderful than everything else--my boy, Harry!"

Kid Wolf looked embarra.s.sed. "Please don't try and thank me," he murmured. "It's just mah job--to keep an eye out fo' those in need of help."

"Won't yuh take a half interest in the S Bar, Kid?" Harry begged.

Kid Wolf shook his head.

"But, say," blurted Harry. He leaned across the table to whisper:

"How about all that money in that poker game down in Mariposa? It's yores, not mine!"

"I did that," said The Kid, as he whispered back, "so yo' could buy Ma a little present. Don't forget! A nice one!"

"What did I ever--ever do to deserve this happiness?" Ma Thomas sighed, and she interrupted the furtive conversation of the two young men by placing a big dish of shortcake between them.

"By gettin' aftah me with a shotgun," said Kid Wolf with a laugh.

CHAPTER XVI

A GAME OF POKER

A whitened human skull, fastened to a post by a rusty tenpenny nail, served as a signboard and notified the pa.s.sing traveler that he was about to enter the limits of Skull, New Mexico.

"Oh, we're ridin' 'way from Texas, and the Rio, Comin' to a town with a mighty scary name, Shall we turn and vamos p.r.o.nto for the Rio, Or show some hombres how to make a wild town tame?"

Kid Wolf, who appeared to be asking Blizzard the rather poetical question, eyed the gruesome monument with a half smile. Bullet holes marked it here and there, testifying that many a pa.s.ser-by with more marksmanship than respect had used it for a casual target. The empty sockets seemed to glare spitefully, and the shattered upper jaw grinned in mockery at the singer. It was as if the grisly relic had heard the song and laughed. Kid Wolf's smile flashed white against the copper of his face. Then his smile disappeared and his eyes, blue-gray, took on frosty little glints.

The Kid, after straightening out the troubled affairs of the Thomas family, was heading northwest again. It was the age-old wanderl.u.s.t that led him out of the Rio country once more.

"What do yo' say, Blizzahd?" he drawled.

His tones held just a trace of sarcasm. It was as if he had weighed the veiled threat in the town's sign and found it grimly humorous instead of sinister.

The big white horse threw up its shapely head in a gesture of impatience that was almost human.

"All right, Blizzahd," approved its rider. "Into Skull, New Mexico, we go!"

Kid Wolf had heard something of Skull's reputation, and although it was just accident that had turned him this way, he was filled with a mild curiosity. The Texan never made trouble, but he was hardly the man to avoid it if it crossed his path.

As he neared the town, he was rather surprised at its size. The budding cattle industry had boomed the surrounding country, and Skull had grown like a mushroom. Lights were twinkling in the twilight from a hundred windows, and as the newcomer pa.s.sed the scattered adobes at the edge of it, he could hear the _clip-clop_ of many horses, the sound of men's voices, and mingled strains of music. The little city was evidently very much alive.

There were two princ.i.p.al streets, cutting each other at right angles, each more than a hundred yards long and jammed with buildings of frame and sod. Kid Wolf read the signs on them as the horse trotted southward:

"Bar. Tony's Place. Saloon. General merchandise. Saddle shop. Bar.

Saloon. Hotel and bar. Well, well, seems as if we have mo' than ouah share o' saloons heah. This seems to be the biggest one. Shall we stop heah, Blizzahd?"

There seemed to be no choice in the matter. One could take his pick of saloons, for nothing else was open at this hour. The sign over the largest read, "The Longhorn Palace."

Kid Wolf left Blizzard at the hitch rack and sauntered through the open doors. A lively scene met his eyes. It interested and at the same time disgusted The Kid. A long bar stretched from the front door to the end of the building, and a dozen or more men leaned against it in various stages of intoxication. In spite of the fact that the saloon interior was well lighted by suspended oil lamps, the air was thick and foul with liquor fumes and cigarette smoke. A half dozen gambling tables, all busy, stood at the far end of the room.

The mirror behind the bar was chipped here and there with bullet marks, and over it were three enormous steer heads with wide-spreading horns.

It was evident that drunken marksmen had taken pot shots at these ornaments, also, for they were pitted here and there with .45 holes.

Kid Wolf was by no means impressed. He had been in bad towns aplenty, and he usually found that the evil of them was pure bluff and bravado.

Smiling, he strolled over to the gambling tables.

The stud-poker table attracted his attention, first by the size of the stakes and then by the men gathered there. It was a stiff game, opening bets sometimes being as much as fifty dollars. Apparently the lid was off.

The hangers-on in the Longhorn seemed to be of one type and resembled professional gunmen more than they did cattlemen. The men at the poker table looked like desperadoes, and one of them especially took The Kid's observing eye.

A huge-chested man in a checkered shirt was at the head of the table and seemed to have the game well in hand, for his chip stacks were high, and a pile of gold pieces lay behind them. His closely cropped black beard could not conceal the cruelty of his flaring nostrils and sensual mouth. He was overbearing and loud of speech, and his menacing, insolent stare seemed to have every one cowed.

Kid Wolf was a keen student of men. He had learned to read human nature, and this gambler interested him as a thoroughly brutal specimen.

"It'll cost yuh-all another hundred to stay and see this out," the bearded man announced with a sneer.

"I'm out," grunted one of the players.

Another, with "more in sight" than the bearded gambler, turned over his cards in disgust, and with a chuckle of joy, the first speaker dragged in the pot and added the chips to his mounting stacks. He seemed to have the others buffaloed.

The card players had been absorbed in their game until now. But as the new deal was begun, the bearded gambler saw the Texan's eyes upon him.

"Are yuh starin' at me?" he rasped. "Walk away, or get in--one o' the two. Yuh'll kill my luck."

"Pahdon me, sah. I don't think I could kill such luck as yo's."

The Kid's voice was full of soothing politeness. The gambler made the mistake of thinking the stranger in awe of him. Many a man before him had taken the Texan's soft, drawling speech the wrong way.

"Well, are yuh gettin' in the game?"

"I'm not a gamblin' man, sah." The Texan smiled.

The bearded man exposed his teeth in a contemptuous leer.

"From yore talk, yo're nothin' but a cheap cotton picker. Guess this game's too stiff fer yuh," he said.

The expression of the Texan's face did not change, but curious little flecks of light appeared in his steellike eyes. He laughed quietly.

"I'd get in," he said, "but I'd hate to take yo' money."