This rise in ground, he believed, would be free from his enemies. After once reaching this, Dave Robbins and he would be on the road to safety. Blizzard, well trained, would follow him if he managed to elude the bullets of the Garvey gang.
The Texan was on Boot Hill now, and for the first time in many minutes, he breathed freely. The firing behind had become faint, and it was hardly likely that any watchers remained on the hill.
But Kid Wolf received a thrill of horror and surprise. The moon drifted free of its cloud curtain for a moment. He was standing not a dozen feet from the two freshly made graves. One, with Bill Robbins' headboard over it, was covered with a mound of earth.
Standing near the other, with a cocked revolver in his hand, was the half-breed, Charley Hood! His cruel lips were parted in a terrible smile as he slowly raised the weapon to a level with his eyes!
While Kid Wolf had been creeping toward Boot Hill, Dave Robbins was in the adobe hut, counting the dragging minutes. The suspense, now that the time for action was at hand, was nerve-racking. Would the Texan make it? Robbins strained his ears for the triumphant yells that would announce The Kid's death or capture.
As the seconds grew to minutes, he began to breathe easier. When it seemed to him that a half hour had passed, he prepared to follow. The moon, however, was now too bright, and he had to wait fully a quarter of an hour more before the light faded to shadow again. When the moment arrived, he squirmed through the doorway and across the sands on his hands and knees.
Dave Robbins was frontier bred, and although his progress was slower than the Texan's had been, he crept along as silently as one of the redskins themselves. Not a mesquite twig snapped under his body; not a pebble rattled. It seemed to take him hours to reach the hill which Kid Wolf had pointed out to him. As he did so, the moonlight again became so bright that it made the landscape nearly as white as day. For a time, he lay flat against the ground; then he wriggled on.
Where was he? Would he find his friend, the Texan? He waited a while, and then whistled, soft and low. There was no answer. He looked around him, trying to decide where he was and what to do. His eyes fell upon the two recently dug graves. Headboards stood at each of them. Both were covered. Near the mounds lay a spade. The earth clinging to it was moist.
With his heart in his throat, Dave Robbins again looked at the grave markers. One read: "Bill Robbins." It was the grave of his father! The other mound was marked "Kid Wolf"!
For a few minutes, Dave Robbins stood numbed. Something terrible had happened; just what, he did not know. It seemed the end. Could his friend, the gallant Texan, have met death? It didn't seem possible, and yet the evidence was before his eyes. Anger against Garvey and his hired killers suddenly overcame him. A hot wave seemed to sweep over him. He turned about and faced, not the distant San Simon, but in the direction of his enemies.