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Updated: May 22, 2025
From her laconic remarks to Elsie, Lennon gathered that she had spent the night waiting upon her father. After forcing herself to eat a hasty meal, she came around the table and laid an old short-barreled revolver beside Lennon's bowl-plate. "It's Dad's," she said. "He's too sick to use it, anyhow.
They wheeled their ponies and scattered out in fanlike formation. Lennon's fourth shot caught one of the ponies broadside. The beast tumbled over and lay motionless. Its rider dashed behind a cactus. The rest of the Apaches wrenched their ponies about and raced to get back beyond range. They had not bargained on a rifle that could shoot so far. A renegade prefers to kill without risk to himself.
Regardless of a hiss from the half-strangled snake, he laid his other cheek over on the cooling sand. After a time Slade came with a blazing stick for torch to wish him a mocking good night. Lennon smiled back at him with a show of confidence. The trader cursed but soon went off to roll in his blankets. This proved Lennon's surmise that the real test would not come before morning.
With a startled snort, the ewe-necked pony plunged and backed around, clear of his motionless mistress. Lennon's first glance showed him that she was young and more than pretty. He was already leaping over the dead burro and brought up close before the girl to shield her with his body. "Down!" he cried. "Down, before he fires!"
We'll see about it soon's I've fed. Here's my Cookie Gal dishing up." He thumped down at the table and voraciously fell to upon the food that Elsie hastened to serve him and Cochise. While he plied knife and spoon he chaffed the blushing girl with a familiarity that made Lennon's blood boil. Elsie's forced smile and murmured responses did not conceal the painfulness of her embarrassment.
At Lennon's movement it stirred sluggishly. The dull eyes began to brighten with the glare of returning life and anger. Lennon dropped his head forward. Enraged by the feigned attack, the snake struck. The long fangs came so near their mark that Lennon felt them or the snout pass through his hair. Spurts of venom from the overcharged poison glands sprayed in against his scalp.
He realized what the man had been before sickness had pulled him down and drink degraded him. At times Farley's whiskey-shattered mind tended to wander. But Lennon good-humouredly helped Carmena to bridge the gaps. When her father's face became gray and drawn, the girl said he was sleepy and took him off to bed. She returned, to find Elsie perched on the arm of Lennon's chair.
Ain't had nothing but bacon and flapjacks since I left." Elsie fluttered across to light her charcoal brazier. But Carmena lingered beside Lennon. "Huh," muttered Slade. "Where'd sonny boy git hit? Ain't plunked bad, is he?" "Oh, no. "No, not fatal," Carmena broke in on Lennon's disclaimer of serious injury. She gave Slade a significant side glance.
The other Indians were already unsaddling the dead burro. Slade muttered a command to them in the thick indistinct intonations of their language. They at once started to flay the pony. Slade led Lennon's mount down where the snake holder had halted beside a sangre de dragon tree. One of the Indians followed and began to cut stakes from the tree.
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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