LITMIR.BIZ

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soldiers. They nodded for him to pass, and the Texan found himself in a long, half-lighted passage. Another guard directed him into the office of Governor Quiroz, and Kid Wolf stepped through another carved door, hat in hand.

      He found that he had entered a large, cool room, lighted softly by windows of brightly colored glass and barred with wrought iron. The tiles of the floor were in black-and-white design, and the place was bare of furniture, except at one end, where a large desk stood.

      Behind it, in a chair of rich mahogany, sat an impressive figure. It was the governor.

      While bowing politely, the Texan searched the pale face of the man of whom he had heard so much. By looking at him, he thought he discovered why Quiroz was so feared by the oppressed people of the district. Iron strength showed itself in the official's aristocratic features.

      There was something there besides power. Quiroz had eyes that were mysterious and deep. Not even the Texan could read the secrets they masked. Cruelty might lurk there, perhaps, or friendliness—who could say? At the governor's soft-spoken invitation, Kid Wolf took a chair near the huge desk.

      "Your business with me, señor?" asked the official in smoothly spoken

       English.

      Kid Wolf spoke respectfully, although he did not fawn over the dignitary or lose his own quiet self-assertion. He was an American. He told of finding the tortured prospector and of the plight of the approaching wagon train.

      "If they continue on the course they are followin', guv'nor," he concluded, "they'll nevah reach Santa Fe. And I have every reason to believe that The Terror plans to raid them."

      "And what," asked the governor pleasantly, "do you expect me to do?"

      "I thought, sah," Kid Wolf replied, "that yo' would let me return to them with a company of yo' soldiers."

      "My dear señor," the governor said with suave courtesy, "the people you wish to rescue are not subjects of mine."

      Kid Wolf tried not to show the irritation he felt. "Surely, sah, yo' are humane enough to do this thing. I thought I told yo' theah's women and children in the wagon train."

      Quiroz rubbed his chin as if in thought. His eyes, however, seemed to smolder with an emotion of which Kid Wolf could only guess the nature. The Spaniard's face was that of a hypnotist, with its thin, high-bridged nose and its chilling, penetrating gaze.

      "Your name, señor?"

      "Kid Wolf, from Texas, sah."

      Spanish governors of that day had no reason to like gunmen from the Lone Star State. From the time of Santa Anna, Texas fighters had been thorns in their sides. But if Quiroz was thinking of this, he made no sign. He smiled with pleasure, either real or assumed.

      "That is good," he said. "Señor Wolf, to show your good faith, will you be kind enough to lay your weapons on my desk? It is a custom here not to come armed in the presence of the governor."

      Suspicion began to burn strongly in the back of the Texan's brain. Was Quiroz playing a crafty game? He was supposed to be friendly toward those from the States, but once before, in California, Kid Wolf had had dealings with a Spanish governor. Instantly he was on his guard, although he did not allow his face to show it.

      "I am an American, sah," he replied. "Some have called me a soldier of misfohtune. Anyway, I try and do good. What good I have done fo' the weak and oppressed, sah, I've done with these." The Kid tapped his twin Colts and went on: "I've twelve lead aces heah, sah, and I'm not in the habit of layin' 'em down."

      "We're not playing cards, señor." Quiroz smiled pleasantly.

      "No." Kid Wolf's quick smile flashed. "But if a game is stahted, I want a hand to play with."

      His eyes were fixed on the carved front of the governor's desk. There seemed something strange about the carved design. He was seated directly in front of it, in the chair Quiroz had pointed out to him, and for the last few minutes he had wondered what it was that had attracted his attention.

      The desk was carved with a series of squares chiseled deep into the dark wood. In one of the squares was a black circle about the size of a small silver piece. Somehow Kid Wolf did not like the looks of it. What it could be, he could hardly guess. The Texan had learned not to take chances. Slowly, and with his eyes still on the official's smiling face, he edged his chair away from it, an inch at a time. His progress was slow enough not to attract Quiroz's attention.

      "Then," asked the governor slowly, "you refuse, señor?"

      "Yo'-all are a fine guessah, sah!" snapped the Texan, alert as a steel spring.

      The governor moved his knee. There was a sharp report, and a streak of flame leaped from the desk front, followed by a puff of blue smoke. The bullet, however, knocked a slab of plaster from the opposite wall. Just in time, Kid Wolf had moved his chair from the range of the trap gun.

      Quiroz's death-dealing apparatus had failed. The Texan's cleverness had matched his own. Concealed in the desk had been a pistol, the trigger of which had been pressed by the weight of the official's knee on a secret panel. Quick as a flash, Kid Wolf was on his feet, hands flashing down toward his two .45s!

      The governor, however, was not in the habit of playing a lone hand against any antagonist. Behind Kid Wolf rang out a command in curt Spanish:

      "Hands up!"

      Kid Wolf's sixth sense warned him that he was covered with a dead drop. His mind worked rapidly. He could have drawn and taken the governor of Santa Fe with him to death, perhaps cutting down some of the men behind him, as well. But in that case, what would become of the wagon train, with no one to save them from The Terror? A vision of the little golden-haired child crossed his mind. No, while there was life, there was hope. Slowly he took his hands away from his gun handles and raised them aloft.

      Turning, he saw six soldiers, each with a rifle aimed at his breast. In all probability they had had their eyes on him during his audience with the governor. Quiroz snarled an order to them.

      "Take away his guns!" he cried. Then, while the Texan was being disarmed, he took a long black cigarette from a drawer and lighted it with trembling fingers.

      "You are clever, señor," said the governor, recovering his composure. "I am exceedingly sorry, but I will have to deal with you in a way you will not like—the adobe wall." Quiroz bowed. "I bid you adios." He turned to his soldiers. "Take him to the calabozo!" he ordered sharply.

      The building that was then being used as Santa Fe's prison was constructed of adobe with tremendously thick walls and no windows. The only place light and air could enter the sinister building was through a grating the size of a man's hand in the huge, rusty iron door.

      Kid Wolf was marched to the prison by his sextet of guards. While the door was being opened, he glanced around him, taking what might prove to be his last look at the sky. His eyes fell upon one of the walls of the jail. It was pitted with hundreds of little holes. The Texan smiled grimly. He knew what had made them—bullets. It was the execution place!

      The door clanged behind him, and a scene met The Kid's eyes that caused him to shudder. In the big, dank room were huddled fourteen prisoners. Most of them were miserable, half-naked peons. It was intolerably hot, and the air was so bad as almost to be unbreathable.

      The prisoners kept up a wailing chant—a hopeless prayer for mercy and deliverance. A guttering candle shed a ghastly light over their thin bodies.

      So this was what his audience with the governor had come to! What a tyrant Quiroz had proved to be! Strangely enough, The Kid's thoughts were not of his own terrible plight, but of the peril that awaited the wagon train. If he could only escape this place, he might at least help them. What a mistake he had made in going to the governor for aid!

      His next thought was of his horse, Blizzard. What would become of him, if he, Kid Wolf, died? The Texan knew one thing for certain, that Blizzard was free. Nobody could touch him save his master. He was also sure that the faithful animal awaited

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