United States or Panama ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Both them lines and the rattler'll git busy soon's the sun hets up a bit. Excuse me while I feed. I'll git back in time for the fun." The breakfast fire was beside a patch of thorn scrub several yards away. Lennon watched until his enemy had sat down on the sand opposite the Navahos. He then lifted his head. The first rays of the sun had begun to warm the snake.
The Navahos, on the other hand, are of Athabascan stock, coming from the north, and are blood brothers of the Tinnehs of Alaska, and the fierce and warlike Apaches of Southern Arizona. They are natural horsemen, raising great herds of their wiry, active, hardy ponies, as well as herds of sheep and goats.
Slade rode on without a word of acknowledgment. The presence of the Navahos made his contemptuous silence doubly galling. Lennon took it as a foretaste of what was to come and masked his chagrin. For Elsie's sake, he could not afford to quarrel with Slade at this stage of the dangerous game that must be played. At sunset the reason for the guide's choice of route disclosed itself.
"Good enough," said Lennon. "That solves all our difficulties. We can go out the cañon to-night and have a long start for the railway. There we will report how Slade and your father have been killed in a fight with a band of Apache stock thieves." "Oh, Jack! And Slade's Navahos will scatter when they hear he is dead, and they'll never talk. They're Indians.
He fell asleep with his hand upon the butt of his revolver and the revolver under his body. He awoke at dawn to find his wrists lashed together. One of the Navahos stood on guard beside him. The revolver was gone. Slade and the others were already eating. No food was brought to Lennon.
Guess I can count on you till Cochise is made a good Indian." With the white men and Pete mounted and the unmounted Navahos each gripping the mane of a horse, the party rushed up the valley at redoubled speed. Midway Slade angled down into the bed of an arroyo that curved around on the right of the corral and up to the mouth of Hell Cañon.
"You would have given your life and more. You failed to save your father's life, but we shall save his name. Did Slade's Navahos share in the stock stealing?" "Only Pete. Of the others, Slade's four bodyguards alone knew about the Hole. But, once in, any of the punchers can trail us." "No," declared Lennon. "To be sure, there is one of the four left. But what if he does bring the punchers?
He took care that Slade and the Navahos thought he was going by memory. Had he told of the map at any time after reaching Dead Hole he now felt certain that he never would have lived to get this near the mine. Slade would have taken the map and killed him out of hand. So at least Lennon believed.
Yet he had at least made the attempt to rise above his weakness and degeneracy. He had died like a man. Slade stood at the end of the table, mopping the base of his neck with his dirty neckerchief. The rifle had missed his jugular vein by little more than an inch. He cauterized the wound with sangre de dragon sap, cursing blasphemously and barking commands at the Navahos.
Slade ripped out an astounded oath. "He's beaten the game!" he cried. The head of the reptile had been crushed. The trader possibly may have been overcome with admiration for his victim's courage. More probably he was moved by the need to keep him alive for further torture. He signed one of the Navahos to use his canteen. Lennon had feigned unconsciousness in the hope of this result.
Word Of The Day