BILLY STEELE CHAPTER FIVE: MENACE OF THE MOLE PEOPLE

Tim coming towards him. The Warrior ran deep into the underbrush to revert back to the 12-year old Billy Steele.

The blond, blue-eyed kid ranger ran to greet his adopted father, but he was shocked to see the Col. was not alone. Sheriff Whipjaw set his hateful sights on White Eagle.

"Ain't you gonna arrest him, soldier boy," Whipjaw screamed. The Col., carrying a pair of handcuffs, walked towards the elderly Indian when Billy stood firmly in the military man's path. Billy shielded his sage's body as the Col. came closer with his handcuffs directed at the elderly Indian. Soon Billy and the Col. were again locked in standoff. Each one looked deeply into the others' eyes, as neither would budge. "Please let White Eagle alone. He saved all of our lives, Dad," Billy pleaded to Col. Tim. Just as White Eagle prepared himself to surrender to the white man, the Col. turned to Whipjaw.

"I am going to make an arrest," the Col. announced, "But I am not arresting White Eagle."

"I am placing you in custody for attempted murder, Whipjaw, for trying to kill White Eagle earlier, " Col. Tim continued.

As Col. Tim slapped the handcuffs on a sniveling Whipjaw, Billy and White Eagle hugged each other in relief and then the Indian wizard quickly mounted his horse and rode home in safety.

Col. Tim saw White Eagle ride away from the corner of his eye and as he hauled the squirming sheriff to a federal jail, the Col. thought to himself that he would never live to see the day that he would take the word of a savage over a white man's and that his son would be so devoted to a red heathen.

Relieved to be reunited with his home, friends and family, Billy once again held his shimmering black coin in his hand. He was anxious to find his parents' lost mine and use this key to unlock the mine's fabulous power source. Billy had learned how a magnificent power could be both a blessing and a curse, and that the fate of the West, if not the world was in his hands. Billy then placed his magical black arrowhead in his other hand and held it next to the shimmering black coin. He knew that the Lightning Warrior power in the arrowhead could be used to save the West, but if he betrayed it, he would be unleashing an unimaginable curse on all he loved. And when he compared the arrowhead to the coin, he began to think that perhaps the power the coin would lead him to, held both the ultimate force for salvation and destruction as well. Both the magical black arrowhead and the shimmering black coin radiated in his young hands-and Billy felt the surge of how turbulent, volatile and incendiary the dual powers he controlled.

But the hopeful kid ranger still remained in an ignorant bliss, not wanting to realize that the same power he so hungered for, the same power he devoted his life to find, could destroy the land and people he loved as well as lead them to paradise.

Meanwhile, in her hellish saloon, Lucy Fur screamed in fiendish frustration upon seeing Billy and his Lightning Warrior alter ego triumph over her doom deck disciple. She cackled angrily to her demonic minions as she vowed to possess the power in Billy's lost mine and use it to rule the universe. She then drew another card from her doom deck and swore this follower would serve her well and destroy Billy Steele!