their surrender by
throwing up their hands. While the sullen renegades were being
searched and disarmed, the leader of the posse came over to where the
Texan and the others were watching.

"Who in blazes are you?" he shot out.

"That's the question I was goin' to ask yo', sheriff," returned The Kid
politely.

"Humph! How d'ye know I'm a sheriff?" grunted the leader.

"Yo're wearin' yore stah in plain sight."

"Oh!" The officer grinned. "Well, I'm Sheriff Dawson, o' Limpin
Buffalo County. I've brought my posse over two hundred miles to get my
hands on one o' the worst gangs o' rustlers in the Injun Nations. I
don't know who you are, but the fact that yuh were fightin' 'em is
enough fer me. I know yo're all right."

"Thanks, sheriff," said the Texan. "I'm leavin' Mr. Tip McCay heah to
tell yo' ouah story, if yo'll excuse me fo' a while."

"Where yuh goin', Kid?" demanded young McCay, astonished.

"To Midway," drawled the Texan, swinging himself into Blizzard's
saddle. "Looks like a clean sweep has been made of the Hahdy
gang--except Hahdy himself. I reckon I'll ride in and get him, so's to
make the pahty complete."

"Hardy!" the officer ejaculated. "I want that _malo hombre_--and
mighty bad, dead or alive!"

"Let us go along!" burst out Tip.

"No," laughed the Texan quietly. "Yo' boys have had enough dangah and
excitement fo' one day, not includin' yestahday. I'd rathah settle
this little business with Jack Hahdy alone. Yo' drive the cattle on
and meet me latah."

And lifting his hand in farewell, The Kid touched his white charger
with the spur. In a few minutes he was a tiny spot on the horizon,
bound for the lair of Jack Hardy, the rustler king.

There was one thing, however, that Kid Wolf was not aware of, and that
was a pair of beady black eyes watching him from behind a prairie-dog
hill! One of the renegade half-breeds had managed to slip away from
the posse unseen. It was Tucumcari Pete, and in a draw a few yards
away was his pony.

CHAPTER X

TUCUMCARI'S HAND

Jack Hardy was annoyed. He had planned carefully, expecting to have no
difficulty in wiping out the hated McCays and those who sympathized
with them.

His plans had only partially succeeded. The elder McCay was dead, but
Tip and some of the others had slipped through his clutches. To have
the McCay faction wiped out of Midway forever meant money and power to
him. And now his job was only half finished.

"T