y one-room adobe.

A young Indian was sleeping in the shade, and Garvey awakened him with
a few well-directed kicks. The Indian's eyes widened with fear at the
sight of the white man's rage-distorted face, and when he had heard his
orders, delivered in the hoarse Apache tongue, he raced for his pony,
tethered in the bushes near him, and drummed away.

"Tell 'em to meet me in the saloon pronto!" Garvey shouted after him.

The saloon keeper passed an impatient half hour. A quartet of Mexicans
entered his place demanding liquor, but Garvey waved them away.
Something important was evidently on foot.

Soon the dull _clip-clop_ of horses' hoofs was heard, and he went to
the door to see five riders approaching Lost Springs from the north.
He waved his hand to them before they had left the cover of the
cottonwoods.

The group of sunburned, booted men who hastily entered Garvey's Place
were individuals of the Lost Springs ruler's own stamp. All were
gunmen, and some wore two revolvers. Most of them were wanted by the
law for dark deeds done elsewhere. Sheriffs from the Texas Panhandle
would have recognized two of them as Al and Andy Arnold--brother
murderers. Another was a killer chased out of Dodge City, Kansas--a
slender, quick-fingered youth known as "Pick" Stephenson. Henry
Shank--a gunman from Lincoln, New Mexico--strode in their lead.

The fifth member of the quintet was the most terrible of them all. He
was a half-breed Apache, dressed partly in the Indian way and partly
like a white. He wore a battered felt hat with a feather in the crown.
He wore no shirt, but over his naked chest was buttoned a dirty vest,
around which two cap-and-ball Colt revolvers swung.

His stride, muffled by his beaded moccasins, was as noiseless as a
cat's. This man--Garvey's go-between--was Charley Hood. He grinned
continually, but his smile was like the snarl of a snapping dog.

"What's up, Garvey?" Shank demanded. "We was just ready to start out
fer a cattle clean-up."

"Plenty's up," snarled Garvey. "Help yoreselves to liquor while I tell
yuh. First o' all, do any of yuh know Kid Wolf?"

It was evident that most of them had heard of him. None had seen him,
however, and Garvey went on to tell what had happened.

"How many men did he take with him?" Stephenson wanted to know.

"About a dozen."

"Bear Claw will wipe him out, then," grinned Al Arnold.

"Somehow I don't think so," said Garvey. "And if that stage de