"Well, I guess yuh got us! Go ahead and shoot, yuh killer!"
Kid Wolf looked at the speaker in surprise. He was a little younger, perhaps, than the Texan himself—a slim, red-headed youth with a wide, determined mouth. The blue eyes, snapping angrily now, seemed frank and open. Then the Texan's eyes traveled to the youth's two companions. Both were older men, typical cow-punchers, rough and ready, and yet hardly of the same type of the men The Kid had noticed in the Longhorn Saloon in Skull.
"I'm not sure that I even want to shoot." The Kid smiled slowly.
"Maybe yo'd like to explain why yo' were tryin' to shoot me."
"I guess we won't need to explain that," snapped the redhead. "Yuh know as well as we do that yo're one o' Blacksnake's thievin' gunmen!"
"What makes yo' think so?" the Texan laughed.
The other opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. He was looking The
Kid up and down.
"Come to think about it," he muttered, "we've never seen you before.
And yuh don't look like one o' that rustler gang."
"Take my word fo' it," said the Texan earnestly, "I'm not. I thought yo' were Blacksnake and his gang myself." He reholstered his guns. "Put yo' hands down," he said, as he came toward them, "and we'll talk this thing ovah."
Reassured, the trio did so with sighs of relief. A few questions by each helped to clear things up. The Kid told them who he was, and in return he was told that the three were members of the Diamond D outfit.
"It's just half an outfit now," said the red-haired youth bitterly.
"They've run off our north herd. Yuh see, Mr. Wolf——"