Kid Wolf of Texas Part 3

The Spanish captain, after his first gasp of surprise, had nothing to say. Chagrin and disgust were written over his face. If ever a man was crestfallen, the captain was. He hated to be made a fool of, and this quiet man from Texas had certainly accomplished it.

He was about to slink off when Kid Wolf drawled after him:

"Oh, captain! Pahdon, but haven't yo' forgotten somethin'?"

"What do you mean?" snapped the other.

"Yo' were goin' to pay for this man's sombrero, I believe," said Kid Wolf softly, "in gold."

"Bah!" snarled the officer. "That I refuse to do!"

The Texan's hand snapped down to his right Colt. A blaze of flame leaped from the region of his hip. Along with the crashing roar of the explosion came a sharp, metallic tw.a.n.g.

The bullet had neatly clipped away the captain's belt buckle! A yell of laughter rang out on all sides. For the captain's trousers, suddenly unsupported, slipped down nearly to his knees. With a cry of dismay, the disgruntled officer seized them frantically and held them up.

"Reach down in those," drawled the Texan, "and see if yo' can't find that piece of gold!"

The officer, white with rage in which hearty fear was mingled, obeyed with alacrity, pulling out a gold coin and handing it, with an oath, to the peon whose hat he had ruined.

"_Muchas gracias_," murmured Kid Wolf, reholstering his gun. "And now, if the fun's ovah, I must bid yo' _buenas tardes_. Adios!"

And doffing his big hat, the Texan took his departure with a sweeping bow, leaving the captain glaring furiously after him.

CHAPTER III

THE GOVERNOR'S ANSWER

Judging that it was almost time for his interview with the governor, Kid Wolf saddled Blizzard in the public _establo_, or stable, and rode at once to the governor's palace.

Although it did not occur to him that Quiroz would reject his plea for aid, he was filled with foreboding. He had a premonition that made him uneasy, although there seemed nothing at which to be alarmed.

Dismounting, he walked up the stone flags toward the presidio entrance--a huge, grated door guarded by two flashily dressed but barefooted soldiers. They nodded for him to pa.s.s, and the Texan found himself in a long, half-lighted pa.s.sage. Another guard directed him into the office of Governor Quiroz, and Kid Wolf stepped through another carved door, hat in hand.

He found that he had entered a large, cool room, lighted softly by windows of brightly colored gla.s.s and barred with wrought iron. The tiles of the floor were in black-and-white design, and the place was bare of furniture, except at one end, where a large desk stood.

Behind it, in a chair of rich mahogany, sat an impressive figure. It was the governor.

While bowing politely, the Texan searched the pale face of the man of whom he had heard so much. By looking at him, he thought he discovered why Quiroz was so feared by the oppressed people of the district. Iron strength showed itself in the official's aristocratic features.

There was something there besides power. Quiroz had eyes that were mysterious and deep. Not even the Texan could read the secrets they masked. Cruelty might lurk there, perhaps, or friendliness--who could say? At the governor's soft-spoken invitation, Kid Wolf took a chair near the huge desk.

"Your business with me, senor?" asked the official in smoothly spoken English.

Kid Wolf spoke respectfully, although he did not fawn over the dignitary or lose his own quiet self-a.s.sertion. He was an American.

He told of finding the tortured prospector and of the plight of the approaching wagon train.

"If they continue on the course they are followin', guv'nor," he concluded, "they'll nevah reach Santa Fe. And I have every reason to believe that The Terror plans to raid them."

"And what," asked the governor pleasantly, "do you expect me to do?"

"I thought, sah," Kid Wolf replied, "that yo' would let me return to them with a company of yo' soldiers."

"My dear senor," the governor said with suave courtesy, "the people you wish to rescue are not subjects of mine."

Kid Wolf tried not to show the irritation he felt. "Surely, sah, yo'

are humane enough to do this thing. I thought I told yo' theah's women and children in the wagon train."

Quiroz rubbed his chin as if in thought. His eyes, however, seemed to smolder with an emotion of which Kid Wolf could only guess the nature.

The Spaniard's face was that of a hypnotist, with its thin, high-bridged nose and its chilling, penetrating gaze.

"Your name, senor?"

"Kid Wolf, from Texas, sah."

Spanish governors of that day had no reason to like gunmen from the Lone Star State. From the time of Santa Anna, Texas fighters had been thorns in their sides. But if Quiroz was thinking of this, he made no sign. He smiled with pleasure, either real or a.s.sumed.

"That is good," he said. "Senor Wolf, to show your good faith, will you be kind enough to lay your weapons on my desk? It is a custom here not to come armed in the presence of the governor."

Suspicion began to burn strongly in the back of the Texan's brain. Was Quiroz playing a crafty game? He was supposed to be friendly toward those from the States, but once before, in California, Kid Wolf had had dealings with a Spanish governor. Instantly he was on his guard, although he did not allow his face to show it.

"I am an American, sah," he replied. "Some have called me a soldier of misfohtune. Anyway, I try and do good. What good I have done fo' the weak and oppressed, sah, I've done with these." The Kid tapped his twin Colts and went on: "I've twelve lead aces heah, sah, and I'm not in the habit of layin' 'em down."

"We're not playing cards, senor." Quiroz smiled pleasantly.

"No." Kid Wolf's quick smile flashed. "But if a game is stahted, I want a hand to play with."

His eyes were fixed on the carved front of the governor's desk. There seemed something strange about the carved design. He was seated directly in front of it, in the chair Quiroz had pointed out to him, and for the last few minutes he had wondered what it was that had attracted his attention.

The desk was carved with a series of squares chiseled deep into the dark wood. In one of the squares was a black circle about the size of a small silver piece. Somehow Kid Wolf did not like the looks of it.

What it could be, he could hardly guess. The Texan had learned not to take chances. Slowly, and with his eyes still on the official's smiling face, he edged his chair away from it, an inch at a time. His progress was slow enough not to attract Quiroz's attention.

"Then," asked the governor slowly, "you refuse, senor?"

"Yo'-all are a fine guessah, sah!" snapped the Texan, alert as a steel spring.

The governor moved his knee. There was a sharp report, and a streak of flame leaped from the desk front, followed by a puff of blue smoke.

The bullet, however, knocked a slab of plaster from the opposite wall.

Just in time, Kid Wolf had moved his chair from the range of the trap gun.

Quiroz's death-dealing apparatus had failed. The Texan's cleverness had matched his own. Concealed in the desk had been a pistol, the trigger of which had been pressed by the weight of the official's knee on a secret panel. Quick as a flash, Kid Wolf was on his feet, hands flashing down toward his two .45s!

The governor, however, was not in the habit of playing a lone hand against any antagonist. Behind Kid Wolf rang out a command in curt Spanish:

"Hands up!"

Kid Wolf's sixth sense warned him that he was covered with a dead drop.