d not
listen. He reasoned that although it was death to venture to the
spring, it was also death to remain. He was nearly crazed with thirst.

"Let me go, then," said the Texan.

"No!" gasped Robbins. "Yuh stay with Dave. I'm old, anyway. Promise
yuh'll stick with him, no matter what happens to me!"

"I promise," said The Kid, and the two men shook hands.

Getting to the water hole and back again was a forlorn hope, but
Robbins was past reasoning. Lurching through the door, he ran outside
the hut and toward the tulles. Young Robbins cried after his father,
and then covered his eyes.

There was a sudden crackling of revolver fire. Spurts of bluish smoke
blossomed out from the high grass--half a score of them! Bill Robbins
staggered on his feet, reeled on a few steps, and then fell. His body
had been riddled.

Kid Wolf's touch was tender as he took the orphaned youth's hand in his
own. But his voice, when he spoke, was like his eyes--hard as steel:

"Garvey will join him, Dave, or we will! And if we do, let's hope
we'll meet it as bravely. I have a plan. If we escape, we must do it
to-night. Can yo' stick it out till then?"

Young Robbins nodded. The death of his father had been a great shock
to him, but he did not flinch. In that desperate hour, Kid Wolf knew
that he no longer had a boy at his side, but a man!

How the day wore its way through to a close was ever afterward a
mystery to them. Their throats were parched, and their eyes bloodshot.
To make matters worse, their horses, too, were suffering. Blizzard
nickered softly from time to time, but quieted when Kid Wolf called to
him through the wall.

Night brought some relief. Again the moon rose upon the tragic scene,
and it grew cooler. Before the twilight had quite faded, Kid Wolf and
Dave Robbins saw something that made them boil inwardly--the burial of
Bill Robbins on Boot Hill!

Out of revolver range, a group of the bandits was filling up the grave.
Garvey had made half of his threat good. And he was biding his time to
complete his boast. The Texan's grave still waited!

A thin bank of clouds rolled up to obscure somewhat the light of the
moon. This was what Kid Wolf had been waiting for. It was their only
chance.

"I'm goin' to try and get through on foot," he whispered. "Befo' I go,
I'll unloose Blizzahd. He's trained to follow, and he'll find me
latah, if I make it. I don't dare ride him, because he's white and too