least some of his bullets had found human
lodging places.

Garvey had evidently succeeded in adding men to his gang, for more than
a dozen gun flashes burst out at once. The attackers soon learned,
however, that it wasn't healthy to attempt to rush the adobe.
Surrounding it was impossible, and for a while they contented
themselves with sending lead humming through the small window on the
exposed side of the hut.

"We're in fo' a siege," Kid Wolf told the elder Robbins.

"Maybe we'd better give in to 'em," said the other.

Kid Wolf smiled and shook his head.

"That wouldn't save us. They'd butchah us, anyway. Nevah yuh worry.
Before they get us, they'll find that The Wolf, from Texas, has teeth!"

"Then we'll play out the hand," agreed Robbins.

"To the last cahd," Kid Wolf drawled. "I have two hands heah that can
turn up twelve lead aces fo' a show-down. And I have anothah ace--a
steel one, that's always in the deck."

The Texan saw as well as the others how desperate the situation had
become. He knew that death would be the probable outcome for all of
them.

Kid Wolf, however, was not a type of man who gave up. If they must go
out, he decided, they would go out fighting.

The sun climbed the sky and disappeared over the distant blue range to
the west, leaving the desert behind bathed in warm reds and soft
purples. Then the shadows deepened, and night fell.

With it came a full moon, riding high out of the southeast--a
pumpkin-colored, gigantic Arizona moon that changed to shining silver.
Its light illuminated the scene and turned the landscape nearly as
bright as day. This was a fact in favor of the three men cornered in
the adobe. The attackers dared not show themselves in a rush. All
night long their guns cracked, and they continued to do so when the
east was beginning to lighten with the dawn.

Another day, and it proved to be one of torment. There was no water.
Before the hour of noon, the three besieged men were suffering from
intense thirst. The little adobe was like an oven. The sun burned
down pitilessly, distorting the air with waves of heat, and drawing
mocking mirages in the sky. Bullets still hummed and buzzed about
them. Every hissing slug seemed to whistle the mournful tune of
"Death--death--death!" Late in the afternoon, the elder Robbins could
endure the torture no longer.

"I'm goin' after water!" he cried.

Neither his son nor Kid Wolf could reason with him. He woul