The Living Dead

: Kid Wolf Of Texas

"Oh, I want to go back to the Rio Grande!

The Rio!

That's where I long to be!"





The words, sung in a soft and musical tenor, died away and changed to a

plaintive whistle, leaving the scene more lonely than ever. For a few

moments nothing was to be seen except the endless expanse of

wilderness, and nothing was to be heard save the mournful warble of the

singer. Then a orse and rider were suddenly framed where the sparse

timber opened out upon the plain.



Together, man and mount made a striking picture; yet it would have been

hard to say which was the more picturesque--the rider or the horse.

The latter was a splendid beast, and its spotless hide of snowy white

glowed in the rays of the afternoon sun. With bit chains jingling, it

gracefully leaped a gully, landing with all the agility of a mountain

lion, in spite of its enormous size.



The rider, still whistling his Texas tune, swung in the

concha-decorated California stock saddle as if he were a part of his

horse. He was a lithe young figure, dressed in fringed buckskin,

touched here and there with the gay colors of the Southwest and of

Mexico.



Two six-guns, wooden-handled, were suspended from a cartridge belt of

carved leather, and hung low on each hip. His even teeth showed white

against the deep sunburn of his face.



"Reckon we-all bettah cut south, Blizzahd," he murmured to his horse.

"We haven't got any business on the Llano."



He spoke in the soft accents of the old South, and yet his speech was

colored with just a trace of Spanish--a musical drawl seldom heard far

from that portion of Texas bordering the Rio Bravo del Norte.



Wheeling his mount, he searched the landscape with his keen blue eyes.

Behind him was broken country; ahead of him was the terrible land that

men have called the Llano Estacado. The land rose to it in a long

series of steppes with sharp ridges.



Queerly shaped and oddly colored buttes ascended toward it in a

puzzling tangle. Dim in the distance was the Llano itself--a mesa with

a floor as even as a table; a treeless plain without even a weed or

shrub for a landmark; a plateau of peril without end.



The rider was doing well to avoid the Llano Estacado. Outlaw Indian

bands roamed over its desolate expanse--the only human beings who could

live there. In the winter, snowstorms raced screaming across it, from

Texas to New Mexico, for half a thousand miles. It was a country of

extremes. In the summer it was a scorching griddle of heat dried out

by dry desert winds. Water was hard to find there, and food still

harder to obtain. And it was now late summer--the season of mocking

mirages and deadly sun.



The horseman was just about to turn his steed's head directly to the

southward when a sound came to his ears--a cry that made his eyes widen

with horror.



Few sounds are so thrillingly terrible as the dying scream of a mangled

horse, and yet this was far more awful. Only the throat of a human

being could emit that chilling cry. It rose in shrill crescendo, to

die away in a sobbing wail that lifted the hair on the listener's head.

Again and again it came--a moan born of the frightful torture of mortal

agony.



Giving his mount a touch of spur, the horseman turned the animal

westward toward the Llano Estacado. So horrible were the sounds that

he had paled under his tan. But he headed directly toward the

direction of the cries. He knew that some human being was suffering

frightful pain.



Crossing a sun-baked gully, he climbed upward and onto a flat-topped,

miniature butte. Here he saw a spectacle that literally froze him with

horror.



Although accustomed to a hundred gruesome sights in that savage land,

he had never seen one like this. Staked on the ground, feet and arms

wide-stretched, and securely bound, was a man. Or rather, it was a

thing that had once been a man. It was a torture that even the

diabolical mind of an Indian could not have invented. It was the

insane creation of another race--the work of a madman.



For the suffering wretch had been left on his back, face up to the sun,

with his eyelids removed!



Ants crawled over the sufferer, apparently believing him dead. Flies

buzzed, and a raven flapped away, beating the air with its startled

wings. The horseman dismounted, took his water bag from his horse, and

approached the tortured man.



The moaning man on the ground did not see him, for his eyes were

shriveled. He was blind.



The youth with the water bag tried to speak, but at first words failed

to come. The sight was too ghastly.



"Heah's watah," he muttered finally. "Just--just try and stand the

pain fo' a little longah. I'll do all I can fo' yo'."



He held the water bag at the swollen, blackened lips. Then he poured a

generous portion of the contents over the shriveled eyes and

skeletonlike face.



For a while the tortured man could not speak. But while his rescuer

slashed loose the rawhide ropes that bound him, he began to stammer a

few words:



"Heaven bless yuh! I thought I was dead, or mad! Oh, how I wanted

water! Give me more--more!"



"In a little while," said the other gently.



In spite of the fact that he was now free, the sufferer could not move

his limbs. Groans came from his lips.



"Shoot me!" he cried. "Put a bullet through me! End this, if yuh've

got any pity for me! I'm blind--dying. I can't stand the pain. Yuh

must have a gun. Why don't yuh kill me and finish me?"



It was the living dead! The buckskin-clad youth gave him more water,

his face drawn with compassion.



"Yo'll feel bettah afta while," he murmured. "Just sit steady."



"Too late!" the tortured man almost screamed, "I'm dyin', I tell yuh!"



"How long have yo' been like this?"



"Three-four days. Maybe five. I lost count."



"Who did this thing?" was the fierce question.



"'The Terror'!" the reply came in a sobbing wail. "'The Masked Terror'

and his murderin' band. I was a prospector. A wagon train was

startin' across the Llano, and I tried to warn 'em. I never reached

'em. The Terror cut me off and left me like this! Say, I don't know

yore name, pard, but----"



"Call me 'Kid Wolf,'" answered the youth, "from Texas." His eyes had

narrowed at the mention of the name "The Terror."



"Somethin' on my mind, Kid Wolf. It's that wagon train. The Terror

will wipe it out. Promise me yuh'll try and warn 'em."



"I promise, old-timah," murmured the Texan. "Only yo' needn't to have

asked that. When yo' first mentioned it, I intended to do it. Where

is this wagon train, sah?"



In gasps--for his strength was rapidly failing him--the prospector gave

what directions he could. Kid Wolf listened intently, his eyes

blazing-blue coals.



"I'm passin' in my checks," sighed the sufferer weakly, when he had

given what information he could. "I'll go easier now."



"Yo' can be sure that I'll do all I can," the Texan assured him. "Fo'

yo' see, that's always been mah business. I'm just a soldier of

misfohtune, goin' through life tryin' to do all I can fo' the weak and

oppressed. I'll risk mah life fo' these people, and heah's mah hand on

that!"



The prospector groped for his hand, took it, and tried to smile. In a

few moments he had breathed his last, released from his pain. Kid Wolf

removed the bandanna from his own throat and placed it over the dead

man's face. Then he weighted it down with small rocks and turned to go.



"Just about the time I get to thinkin' the world is good, Blizzahd," he

sighed, addressing his white horse, "I find somethin' like this. Well,

seems like we hit out across the Llano, aftah all. Let's get a move

on, amigo! We've got work to do."



The Texan's face, as he swung himself into the saddle, was set and hard.



"Oh, I'm goin' back to the Rio Grande!

The Rio!

For most a yeah, I've been away,

And I'm lonesome now fo' me Old Lone Stah!

The Rio!

Wheah the gila monsters play!"





It was Kid Wolf's second day on the Llano Estacado, and his usual good

spirits had returned. His voice rose tunefully and cheerily above the

steady drumming of Blizzard's hoofs.



Surely the scene that lay before his eyes could not have aroused his

enthusiasm. It was lonely and desolate enough, with its endless sweeps

dim against each horizon. The sky, blue, hot and pitiless, came down

to meet the land on every hand, making a great circle unbroken by hill

or mountain.



So clean-swept was the floor of the vast table-land that each mile

looked exactly like another mile. There was not a tree, not a shrub,

not a rock to break the weary monotony. It was no wonder that the

Spanish padres, who had crossed this enormous plateau long before, had

named it the Llano Estacado--the Staked Plains. They had had a good

reason of their own. In order to keep the trail marked, they had been

compelled to drive stakes in the ground as they went along. Although

the stakes had gone long since, the name still stuck.



The day before, the Texan had climbed the natural rock steps that led

upward and westward toward the terrible mesa itself, each flat-topped

table bringing him nearer the Staked Plains. And soon after reaching

the plateau he had found the trail left by a wagon train.



From the ruts left in the soil, Kid Wolf estimated that the outfit must

consist of a large number of prairie schooners, at least twenty. The

Texan puzzled his mind over why this wagon train was taking such a

dangerous route. Where were they bound for? Surely for the Spanish

settlements of New Mexico--a perilous venture, at best.



Even on the level plain, a wagon outfit moves slowly, and the Texan

gained rapidly. Hourly the signs he had been following grew fresher.

Late in the afternoon he made out a blot on the western horizon--a blot

with a hazy smudge above it. It was the wagon train. The smudge was

dust, dug up by the feet of many oxen.



"They must be loco," Kid Wolf muttered, "to try and cut across The

Terror's territory."



The Texan had heard much of The Terror. And what plainsman of that day

hadn't? He was the scourge of the table-lands, with his band of a

hundred cutthroats, desperadoes recruited from the worst scum of the

border. More than half of his hired killers, it was said, were Mexican

outlaws from Sonora and Chihuahua. Some were half-breed Indians, and a

few were white gunmen who killed for the very joy of killing.



And The Terror himself? That was the mystery. Nobody knew his

identity. Some rumors held that he was a white man; others maintained

that he was a full-blooded Comanche Indian. Nobody had ever seen his

face, for he always was masked. His deeds were enough. No torture was

too cruel for his insane mind. No risk was too great, if he could

obtain loot. With his band behind him, no man was safe on the Staked

Plains. Many a smoldering pile of human bones testified to that.



As the Texan approached the outfit, he could hear the sharp crack of

the bull whips and the hoarse shouts of the drivers. Twenty-two

wagons, and in single file! Against the blue of the horizon, they made

a pretty sight, with their white coverings. Kid Wolf, however, was not

concerned with the beauty of the picture. Great danger threatened

them, and it was his duty to be of what assistance he could. Touching

his big white horse with the spur, he came upon the long train's flank.



Ahead of the train were the scouts, or pathfinders. In the rear was

the beef herd, on which the outfit depended for food. Behind that was

the rear guard, armed with Winchesters.



The Texan neared the horseman at the head of the train, raising his arm

in the peace signal. To his surprise, one of the scouts threw up his

rifle! There was a puff of white smoke, and a bullet whistled over Kid

Wolf's head.



"The fools!" muttered the Texan. "Can't they see I'm a friend?"



Setting his teeth, he rode ahead boldly, risking his life as he did so,

for by this time several others had lifted their guns.



The six men who made up the advance party, eyed him sullenly as he drew

up in front of them. The Texan found himself covered by half a dozen

Winchesters.



"Who are yuh, and what do yuh want?" one of them demanded.



"I'm Kid Wolf, from Texas, sah. I have impo'tant news fo' the leader

of this outfit."



One of the sextet separated himself from the others and came so close

to the Texan that their horses almost touched.



"I'm in command!" he barked. "My name's Modoc. I'm in charge o' this

train, and takin' it to Sante Fe."



The man, Modoc, was an impressive individual, bulky and stern. His

face was thinner than the rest of his body, and Kid Wolf was rather

puzzled to read the surly eyes that gleamed at him from under the bushy

black brows. He was more startled still, however, when Modoc whispered

in a voice just loud enough for him to hear:



"What color will the moon be to-night?"



Kid Wolf stared in astonishment. Was the man insane?