"If they continue on the course they are followin', guv'nor," he concluded, "they'll nevah reach Santa Fe. And I have every reason to believe that The Terror plans to raid them."
"And what," asked the governor pleasantly, "do you expect me to do?"
"I thought, sah," Kid Wolf replied, "that yo' would let me return to them with a company of yo' soldiers."
"My dear señor," the governor said with suave courtesy, "the people you wish to rescue are not subjects of mine."
Kid Wolf tried not to show the irritation he felt. "Surely, sah, yo' are humane enough to do this thing. I thought I told yo' theah's women and children in the wagon train."
Quiroz rubbed his chin as if in thought. His eyes, however, seemed to smolder with an emotion of which Kid Wolf could only guess the nature. The Spaniard's face was that of a hypnotist, with its thin, high-bridged nose and its chilling, penetrating gaze.
"Your name, señor?"
"Kid Wolf, from Texas, sah."
Spanish governors of that day had no reason to like gunmen from the Lone Star State. From the time of Santa Anna, Texas fighters had been thorns in their sides. But if Quiroz was thinking of this, he made no sign. He smiled with pleasure, either real or assumed.
"That is good," he said. "Señor Wolf, to show your good faith, will you be kind enough to lay your weapons on my desk? It is a custom here not to come armed in the presence of the governor."