it to me," was the quiet reply. "We've got a slim chance,
if mah idea works."

Fanned by the wind, the flames soon were eating at the stable. And
once caught, it burned like tinder. The horses screamed as the fire
licked at them, and all was confusion. To make matters worse, bullets
ripped through continually.

The Hardy band had gathered about the burning buildings in a close
ring, ready to shoot down any one the instant he showed himself. The
situation looked hopeless.

"Stay in there if yuh want to!" a voice shouted outside. "Burn up, or
take lead! It's all the same to us!"

The heat-tortured Scotty staggered to his feet and groped toward one of
the plunging, screaming horses.

"Lead is the easiest way," he choked. "They'll get me, but I'm goin'
to try and ride this hoss out o' here!"

"Wait a minute!" Kid Wolf cried. "All get yo' hosses ready and make
the break when I say the word. But not until!"

Gritting their teeth, they prepared to endure the baking heat for a few
minutes more. They did not know what Kid Wolf was going to do, but
they had faith that he would do something. And they knew, as things
stood, that they could not hope for anything but death if they tried to
escape now.

The stable was a mass of flames. The walls were crumbling and falling
in. The Texan gave his final orders.

"If any of us get through," he gasped, "we'll meet on the Chisholm
Trail--below heah. Ride hard, with heads low--when I say the word!"

Then Kid Wolf played his trump card. Upon leaving the store itself, he
had taken a small keg with him--a powder keg. Until now, none of the
others had noticed it. Holding it in his two hands, he darted through
the door into the open! Bits of burning wood were all about him;
flames licked at his boots as he stood upright, the keg over his head.

"Scattah!" he shouted at the astonished Hardy gang. "I'm blowin' us
all to kingdom come!"

The Texan made a glorious picture as he stood there, framed in red and
yellow. Fire was under his feet and on every side. The glow of it
illuminated his face, which was stained with powder smoke and blackened
by the flames. His eyes shone joyously, and a laugh of defiance and
recklessness was on his lips as he swung the poised keg aloft.

The Hardy gang, frozen with terror for an instant, scattered. They ran
like frightened jack rabbits. To shoot Kid Wolf would have been easy,
but none of them dared to attempt it. For if the