Ace Cutts jeered and slapped his holstered gun. The little cattleman looked meaningly toward Tom Powers, who nodded, crossed to Ace Cutts, and slipped the gun from its holster. Snippets smiled gratefully at the grizzled ex-Ranger. Ace Cutts lapsed into sulky silence. Then a noise at the rear of the room made them turn. The door that led to the kitchen swung open. Just outside the doorway stood a shadowy figure. It moved forward into the lamplight. "You bum, what you doing here?" Jim Hogg rasped. The newcomer was the hobo they knew as Jim Anson. "Howdy, gents," he said. "Yuh sent for me?" He removed the blue glasses and tilted back his battered hat. As he advanced farther into the room they saw the two big Colts strapped at his thighs. His loose mouth split in a broad grin, and his big, uneven teeth flashed white. The clock on the wall ticked loudly in the silence. The assembled men stared wonderingly at the undersized boy. It was Snippets who broke the silence. "Uncle, this is Jim-twin Allen." The judge coughed and said foolishly: "I thought you were Jim Anson." Jim Allen grinned again. That contagious grin made the two Hogg brothers chuckle aloud, and even the judge and the sheriff smiled in return. "No, I ain't Jim Anson. I knows there was gents in this town longin' for my scalp, so I sorta disguises myself. And as there was gents sneakin' around in the bushes out there, I had to pretend to still be Jim Anson. I reckon some one of yuh gents talked, 'cause the Toad's got all of his killers out there waitin' for me. I told the Yuma Kid I had a message for the judge, so he let me pass," Allen explained. The men were amazed. It seemed unbelievable. Jim Anson, the cowardly, whining little bum! Jim-twin Allen! Their glances traveled from his shapeless moccasins to his boyish, freckled face. But from his strange, animallike eyes, there could be no doubt he was the man for whom they were waiting. They also understood how he had come by the name of the Wolf. Ace Cutts' face was ghastly white. With an effort he switched his eyes from Allen to Bill Anderson. The latter was licking his dry lips and staring at the famous outlaw, hypnotized. The realization that Jim Anson was Jim Allen had stunned the politician. Desperately he tried to figure what this would mean. At all costs Allen must not leave that room. He shot a glance to Ace Cutts. The latter began to slide unobtrusively toward the front door. "I'm right glad to meet yuh, Jim Allen," Sam Hogg cried heartily. His brother, Jim, chuckled. "An' you tole me yuh chased this feller ragged when yuh was in the Texas Rangers." "I sure did," the cattleman said ruefully. "I bet the Rangers winded a hundred horses chasin' yuh when yuh was hangin' around lower Texas. An' we never got close enough to throw lead at yuh. Yuh still got them grays yuh had then?" Allen's face clouded as he glanced quickly at Snippets. "I got one of 'em--but Queen is dead. I got her son, though."