e's a man without a heart."

"Then some day," Kid Wolf said softly, "he's liable to find a bullet in
the spot wheah his heart ought to be. I don't regret comin' to yo'
aid, not fo' a minute. And I guess Blizzahd and I are ready to see
this thing through to the end."

Kid Wolf was riding on his white horse alongside the rumbling stage.
The only member of the drafted posse who had stayed was driving the
vehicle, and beside him on the box rode the two Robbinses, father and
son.

The road to Lost Springs was not the direct route the Indian messenger
had taken. It led around steep side hills and high-banked washes in
which nothing grew but tough, stunted clumps of thirsty paloverde.
Near the tiny settlement, the trail climbed a long slope to swing
around a cactus-cluttered mound which served as Lost Springs' Boot
Hill. The stage trail cut the barren little graveyard in two, and on
both sides of it were headboards, some rotting with age, and others
quite new, marking the last resting places of men who had died with
smoke in their eyes.

It was nearly sundown when Kid Wolf and the party with the
bullet-riddled coach reached this point. They found a group of
hard-eyed men waiting for them. With Garvey were his five gunmen,
mounted, armed to the teeth, and blocking the road! Kid Wolf caught
the driver's eyes and nodded for him to go on. The stage rumbled up to
the spot where Garvey waited.

"Stop!" the Lost Springs ruler snarled. "I reckon we want some words
with yuh!"

"Is it words yo' want," drawled the Texan, drawing up his snowy mount,
"or bullets?"

"That depends on you!" Garvey snapped. "We mean business. Hand over
that express money."

"And the next thing?" the Texan asked softly.

"Next thing, we got business with that man!" Garvey pointed to Dave
Robbins' father.

"With me?" Robbins demanded in astonishment.

"The same. We want yuh to sign this paper, turnin' over yore claim in
the San Simon to me. Now both of yuh have heard!"

"But why should yuh want my claim in San Simon?"

"Yuh might as well know," Garvey sneered in reply, "there's silver on
it. And I want it. Hand over that express box now and sign the paper.
If yuh don't----"

"And if we don't?" Kid Wolf asked mildly. His eyebrows had risen the
merest trifle.

"Here's the answer!" Garvey rasped. He pointed at two mounds of
freshly disturbed earth a few feet from the road. "Read what's written
over 'em, and take yore choice.