The judge was speechless. Tom Powers ran through the swirling smoke and threw his arm around Ransom's shoulders. Slowly the dense, blue-white fog melted away and revealed the wreckage. The Yuma Kid lay dead, almost at the judge's feet. Cupid Dart was sprawled on the table, and even as the judge watched, his body fell in a heap to the floor. Baldy was dead against the wall. Three others lay sprawled on the floor. The Toad was dying, breathing curses through the bloody froth on his lips. The rest of the outlaws were prisoners, their faces full of terror and their hands upraised. The judge saw Jim-twin Allen leaning weakly against the farther wall. Each hand still held a Colt; smoke gently curled from the barrels. Tom Powers sprang toward Allen, but before he reached him Snippets dodged through the door and was by his side. "Jim!" "I done it!" he said, grinning at her. One side of his face was burned black; a little trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth to stain his chin. He stood on one leg; the other hung limp and twisted. "Ace Cutts--cover him--so the judge--won't--know," he whispered. His guns slipped from his hands and fell to the floor. He smiled at Snippets. Tom Powers caught him as he swayed forward. Sam Hogg pushed the sheriff away, almost fiercely. "Let me tend to him!" he cried. After an examination he arose to his feet, and there were tears in his eyes. "He was hit six times--once through the chest, twice in the leg--and got a rib smashed. The others don't count. But the little runt is going to live!" Two riders were sent to town for a doctor. With the first streak of dawn Allen was carried in a litter across the border, where, five hours later, the doctor confirmed Sam Hogg's opinion. Allen had a chance. Later that day, when the Mexican soldiers arrived, they found six men dangling from beams in the adobe house, and seven others laid in a row and covered with blankets. Anderson had been one of the unlucky ones to die at the end of a rope. Tom Powers started a collection to pay a famous bonesetter to come from San Francisco and set Allen's leg, but Sam Hogg insisted on bearing the expense himself. "The little cuss aggravates yuh, 'cause he won't tell what he's doin', but I'm tellin' yuh he's a seven-eyed wonder for guts, so I'm payin' to have his leg fixed," he explained. Anderson's power being broken, the judge's dreams appeared destined to come true. * * * * * One night, six weeks after the battle, when the nurse entered Allen's room, she found him gone. He and his grays had started on their return trip home--home to that valley of his in the Painted Desert. CHAPTER XII THE WAMPUS ON STILTS