"Fine," said young Morton, now sole owner of the Diamond D.
The Texan was glad to see that he had braced himself. Like his brother, Red was a man.
"We'll soon overtake 'em," old Mike Train muttered, savagely twirling the cylinder of his ancient .45. "Blacksnake's gang can't make fast time with those steers. He's probably drivin' 'em to Gentleman John's headquarters at Agua Frio."
"Why," asked Kid Wolf slowly, "do they call that hombre 'Blacksnake'?"
"Because he carries one with him—that's how he got his name," spoke up Lefty Warren. "He's a whipper. He's beaten more'n one Mex to death with it, and they say a white man or two. He can handle a blacksnake like a demon."
Kid Wolf smiled grimly. To have Blacksnake McCoy for an enemy was by no means a pleasant thing to think about, especially when the desperado was backed by all the power that his employer—Gentleman John—possessed. And yet The Kid was afraid of neither of them.
"It's shore great of yuh to help us this way," Red told him. "But I'm afraid we haven't a chance. If Gentleman John is behind all this, we're buckin' mighty big odds."
"I like a game like that," said The Kid. "Unlike pokah, it's perfectly legitimate to scratch the aces with yo' fingah nail."
They were soon off the limits of the Diamond D and on the Casas Amarillas—a ranch owned by Gentleman John and taking its Spanish name from two yellow houses of adobe several miles distant. They saw scattered cattle branded with a Lazy J—one of Gentleman John's many brands—but discovered no stragglers from the stolen Morton herds.
Following the trail was easy, and they struck a hot pace down through and out of the grassy valley, climbing through a pass and up on a rolling mesa dotted with thirsty-looking sage. For two full hours they rode, while the sun crept toward the west. Their horses were beginning to tire. A line of cedar-sprinkled hills loomed up ahead of them, but by keeping to the plateau they could circle them.