"I want yo' to understand me," he said in a voice he tried to make patient. "This hombre—Tucumcari Pete, yo've called him—shot and killed a man from ambush. Isn't there any law heah?"
With long, tapered fingers, Jack Hardy rolled a cigarette, placed it between his lips and leered insultingly.
"There's only one law in Midway," he laughed evilly, "and that law is that all strangers must attend to their own business. Now I don't know who yuh are, but——"
"I'm Kid Wolf," came the soft-spoken drawl, "from Texas. My enemies usually call me by mah last name."
A man brushed near the Kid; his eye caught the Texan's significantly. But instead of speaking, he merely thrust a wadded cigarette paper in the Kid's hand as he passed by. So quickly was it done that nobody, it seemed just then, had seen the movement. Kid Wolf's heart gave a little leap. There was some mystery here! If he had made a friend, was that friend afraid to speak to him? Was there a note in that paper ball?
Hardy's eyes met the Texan's. They were insect eyes, beady and glittering black.
"All right," he snarled. "Mr. Wolf, you clear out!"
The Texan's fiery Southern temper had reached its breaking point. It snapped. In a twinkling, things were happening. Using quick, almost superhuman strength, he picked up the half-breed by the neck and one leg and hurled him, like a thunderbolt, into the group at the faro table!
Tucumcari Pete's wild yell was drowned out by the tremendous crash of splintering wood and thudding flesh, as the half-breed's body hurtled through the air to smash Jack Hardy down to the floor with the impact.
The table went into kindling wood; chips and markers flew! A chair banged against the lookout's high perch, just as he was bringing his sawed-off shotgun to his shoulder.