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Behind the gun, framed deep by the thick stone of the window casing, he saw the leering gray face that he had first caught a glimpse of in another opening at the opposite end of the room. A thin dry voice that was shrill with fear snarled at him: "Hands up! Drop that gun!" Carmena flung herself between Lennon and the threatening muzzle. "Don't shoot, Dad! He's a friend!" she cried.
"But about your foster-sister," said Lennon. "Isn't she just too sweet for anything!" broke in Carmena. "I've tried to be the cactus fence to guard her against the trampling beasts." "Such as this Cochise. You say he claims her?" "For the last three years. Indian girls marry young. He'd have kicked a way through the cactus fence before this, if it hadn't been for Slade.
Lennon sprang up, certain that the Apache who had been wounded in the kiva was pursuing her. In her flurry she appeared to heed nothing until almost upon the body of Cochise. But one glance at the ghostly whites of the Apache's upturned eyes sent her shrinking backward, stricken to horrified silence. Her wild stare fixed first upon Carmena and then shifted to Lennon.
Over her shoulder Lennon saw the reddened eyes blink and the muscles of the gray face twitch. The muzzle of the shotgun wavered. "Put your gun down, Dad," Carmena ordered. "Mr. Lennon and I are partners. Come out here and meet him." Both face and gun disappeared.
An hour after sunrise found him still staggering forward almost at a dog trot. The northern border mesas of the Basin were now only a short distance ahead. But already his swollen tongue was beginning to blacken in his mouth. When at last he came to the foot of the lower mesa he could barely totter. Carmena rode up alongside.
Cochise and Pete must have ridden over around and come down Hell Cañon. Ours was Devil's Chute." Lennon frowned at the pair of riders who were racing swiftly down aslant from the head of the valley. "We'll be ready to pick them off," he said. "There's no cover under here." "Too late for that," sighed Carmena. "Dad won't let us. Besides Pete " "But when the murderers have tried to kill you!
You know, Slade has his own bunch of Navaho punchers. So, you see, Cochise has to " Carmena stopped to point across the upper end of the valley. "Talk of the devil " she exclaimed. Over below the cliff house Lennon saw a small group of mounted men waiting for the basket that was being lowered to them on the hoist rope.
It was Carmena, every nerve of her loyal nature on the alert to baffle this pursuer of Alessandro and Ramona. Again Felipe reflected. "Ask her if she saw him for any length of time; how long she saw him." "All night," he answered. "He spent the night where she did." Felipe despaired. "Does she know where he is now?" he asked. "He was going to San Luis Obispo, to go in a ship to Monterey."
"Sim told me that nine years ago he gave maps of his mine and the Triple Butte region to a doctor named Lane." Carmena was gazing yearningly at the unresponsive Elsie. "All these years!" she sighed. "First her childhood all a blank to her, and now all the years with me lost! I'm a stranger to her to my little Blossom! Oh, Jack!" "Give her time. She will remember.
But as the wreck that once had been a man listened to Lennon's talk, his bent shoulders began to straighten and his drink-bleared eyes cleared. By evening he was talking as one man of culture to another. He even showed occasional flashes of a once brilliant mind. Carmena took care to keep her father stimulated with frequent cups of coffee. The whiskey flask appeared to be quite forgotten.
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