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Updated: June 13, 2025
Lennon had sprung forward beside her. His curious eyes at once perceived the hideous, thickset lizard that lay flattened upon the shadowed sand as if in a torpor. The reptile's dirty orange-mottled black body was as loathsome as its venomous blunt-nosed head. "Big specimen almost two feet long," remarked Carmena. "Hold on. Don't shoot. That sure would tell the bronchos where we are."
A voice shrilled in Lennon's ear: "Hold still! Hold still!" Carmena stooped over the writhing monster to thrust the muzzle of a small revolver against the side of its lower jaw. The bullet shattered the jaw and blew it half off. A vigorous kick hurled the now harmless reptile aside. Lennon had started to raise himself to a sitting position.
At the far end of the scattered mesquite growth Carmena edged off to the left, down a shallow wash that brought them around to the west side of a ridge. Under cover of the gaunt earth-rib of worn rock she headed north, straight for the distant towers of Triple Butte. The deceptive green of occasional palo-verde bushes now gave place to the columns of the giant sahuaro.
Carmena swung in the crane and freed the rope the moment Lennon eased off. Slade was wheezing as if almost suffocated. At Carmena's urging, Lennon helped her drag the stupefied man back into the living room. The girl ran to fetch a bowl of water. "Loosen your clothes," she whispered in Lennon's ear. "Hide your moccasins look as if you'd just jumped out of bed get your arm back in the sling.
Carmena smiled radiantly. Lennon hastened to add an urgent appeal. "She is hurt, Elsie, and more bad Indians are coming. Won't you help me get her safe away from here?" The request diverted the girl's thoughts before she could yield again to panic. Instead of going frantic and becoming a drag upon Lennon's efforts, she helped support Carmena through to the hoist room.
Lennon smiled at her ignorance of explosives. "The stones will double the destruction. After that charge detonates, there will be a hole in the floor, a good deal of shattered stone, and some splinters and shreds of metal. Everything in the room will be smashed. Is that satisfactory?" Carmena shuddered as if seized with a fever chill, but pulled herself together. "All right. We'll go now."
Lennon dashed straight at the dark opening where he had seen the gray face of Farley on his first coming to the cliff house. He thrust in the muzzle of his rifle and then his head. Though shadowed, the inner room was light enough for him to see that it was empty. He went back to Carmena. "No one there," he said. "Just your fancy, dear. You're nervous overwrought. But no wonder.
Carmena met his proposal with a chuckle that brought a flush into Lennon's lean face. But her troubled eyes had cleared and there was a note of relief underlying her mirth. "What's the matter with you, too, keeping under cover?" she rallied. "Besides, we don't go to the head of the valley. We slant up to the left through that notch in the ridge."
I lowered a whole basketful of pies to them. Carmena is getting ready to give him a big talking to. She she won't let them get us." "That's good news," rallied Lennon. For the first time he was able to look away from his food long enough to notice that Elsie was wearing a fresh pretty frock of blue-dotted calico. He smiled at her amusedly.
At the suggestion of Elsie, he hung his rifle under his bed. Carmena half carried her father into the living-room and seated him in one of the big chairs. He was very white and shaky but rational. He had been bathed and dressed, and his eyes showed proof of soothing treatment.
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