At the mention of Midway, the half-breed's expression had changed to one of snakelike cunning. But if The Kid noted his half-concealed smile, he paid no attention to it. They were soon on their way.
Always, even in the savage lands beyond civilization, Kid Wolf tried to take sides with the weak against the strong, with the right against the wrong. And on more than one occasion he had found himself in hot water because of it.
The average man of the plains, upon seeing the murder committed, would have considered it none of his business, and would have let well enough alone. Another type would have killed the half-breed on general principles. Kid Wolf however, determined that the murderer would be given a fair trial and then punished.
Again striking the Chisholm Trail—a well-beaten road several hundred yards wide—he veered north. Thousands upon thousands of longhorns from Texas and New Mexico had beaten that trail. This was the halfway point. Kid Wolf had heard of a new settlement in the vicinity, and, judging from the landmarks, he estimated it to be only a few miles distant.
In the meantime, the sun went down, creeping over the level horizon to leave the world in shadows which gradually deepened into dusk. All the while, the half-breed maintained a stoical silence. Kid Wolf, keeping a careful eye on him, but ignoring him otherwise, hummed a fragment of song:
"Oh, theah's hombres poison mean, on the Rio!
And theah's deadly men at Dodge, no'th o' Rio!
And to-day, from what I've seen,
Theah's some bad ones in between,
And I aim to keep it clean, beyond the Rio!"
Stars began to twinkle cheerily in the black vault overhead. Then The
Kid made out a few points of yellow light on the plain ahead of them.
"That must be Midway," he mused to himself. "Those aren't stahs, or camp fiahs. Oil lamps mean a settlement."
Camps of any size were few and far between on the old Chisholm Trail. The moon was creeping up as Kid Wolf and his prisoner arrived, and by its light, as well as the few lights of the town, he could see that the word "town" flattered the place known as "Midway."
There were a few scattered sod houses, and on the one street were two large buildings, facing each other on opposite sides of the road. The first was a saloon, brilliantly lighted in comparison to the semidarkness of the other, which seemed to be a general store. A sign above it read: