"Get up," The Kid drawled. "And get out!"
Kid Wolf had not bothered to draw his guns, but Anton, Wise, and Lathum had reached for theirs, and they had the angry pair covered. Stacy changed his mind about whirling his gun on his forefinger as he recovered it, and sullenly shoved it into its holster.
"We'll get yuh!" snarled Stacy, his furious eyes boring into The Kid's cool gray ones. "San Felipe is too small to hold both of us!"
"Bueno," said The Kid calmly. "I wish yo' luck—yo'll need it. But in the meantime—vamose pronto!"
Swearing angrily, the two men obeyed. It seemed the healthiest thing to do just then. They slunk out like whipped curs, but The Kid knew their breed.
He would see them again.
"Oh, the wintah's sun is shinin' on the Rio,
I'm ridin' in mah homeland and I find it mighty nice;
Life is big and fine and splendid on the Rio,
With just enough o' trouble fo' the spice!"
If Kid Wolf's improvised song was wanting from a poetical standpoint, the swinging, lilting manner in which he crooned it made up for its defects. His tenor rose to the canyon walls, rich and musical.
"Our cake's plumb liable to be overspiced with trouble," Frank Lathum said with a laugh.
Kid Wolf, with his three newly hired riders, were well on their way to the S Bar. His companions knew of a short route that would take them directly to the Thomas hacienda, and they were following a steep-walled canyon out of the mesa lands to the westward.