Across the wide street from the saloon, there was but one building. Was it here that he was to go? Was it a trap of some kind? He dismissed the latter possibility and decided to go at once to the big frame general store, using all the caution possible.
Approaching the place from behind, he looked it over carefully before dismounting. As Blizzard was conspicuous in the moonlight, he left him in a thick clump of bushes and slipped through the shadows on foot. As he neared the building, he discovered that it was not merely of frame, as he had at first thought. The boards in front masked a fortress of logs. It was so planned that a handful of defenders might hold it against great odds.
As Kid Wolf knocked softly on the rear door, he wondered if it had been built merely as a security against the renegade Indians, or for some other and deeper purpose. For a few minutes after he knocked, there was silence, then the door slowly opened. The Texan found himself looking into the barrel of a .45!
"What do yuh want here?"
Framed in the doorway, the Kid saw a grim young face glaring at him over the sights of the six-gun.
"Speak quick!" said the voice again.
"I will," the Texan said, "if yo'll kindly take that .45 out of my eye.
I can talk bettah when I'm not usin' yo' gun barrel fo' a telescope."
"That gun," said the other sharply, "is goin' to stay just where I've got it!"
But it didn't. Kid Wolf's left hand snapped up under the gun and rapped smartly at just the right spot the wrist that held it. It was a trick blow—one that paralyzed the nerves for a second. The Colt dropped from the boy's quickly extended fingers and fell neatly into Kid Wolf's right hand! All had happened so quickly that the youth hadn't time to squeeze the trigger. Before the amazed young man could recover himself, the Texan handed over the gun, butt first.
"Here yo' are," he drawled humorously. "To show yo' I mean well, I'm givin' it back. I do wish, though, that yo'd kindly point it some other way while I'm talkin'."