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Updated: June 13, 2025
But, as Carmena remarked, the steeper the grade the sooner it was ended. They came down into the bottom of the lower cañon, bruised and exhausted but with no bones broken. "Almost there," panted Carmena, and she reeled ahead along the boulder-strewn bed of the chasm. At the second turn the cliff ended in a vertical slit-glare of sunlight. The pony whinnied.
His roving gaze fixed upon a bank a little way out from the cañon mouth. He staggered down to it and came back with a handful of dry clay. This he spread out upon the least tilted of the wet ledges. By patting and scraping he soon had a little ball that kneaded like putty in his eager fingers. Carmena already had perceived his purpose and was hurrying to fetch a heaping hatful of the dry clay.
Most of the beautiful old pottery had been smashed, but among the fragments Lennon found several ceremonial stones and tablets, a bone awl, many obsidian arrowheads, and a few broken turquoise ornaments. His search was cut short by the return of Carmena. She carried a modern Indian basket-vase that would have been very convenient for holding Lennon's collection.
"If you do not desire me as a partner, I have no wish to remain here. Doubtless I shall not require your aid to find the mine for which I am looking." "Mine?" queried Slade, his pale eyes narrowing. "What mine?" "It's the lost lode," cut in Carmena, her rich voice quivering with eagerness. "I couldn't say anything until Jack spoke.
"Slade swear you hide my woman," he said. "How could I?" replied Carmena. "He had me tied up and lowered to you. He was up here with her all that time." The face of the young Apache became impassive. He turned about and spoke softly to Slade. The trader, half dead from his wounds, raised his big head to mumble a denial.
Lennon, still affecting cool indifference, stepped out after her into the long, bare anteroom whose rear wall Cochise and his mate had so angrily splashed with bullets. Farley was crouched at the far side of the rope-ladder doorway. Carmena had bent her head to pass under the massive lintel. Lennon followed Elsie to the side of the doorway opposite Farley.
As each drank from the canteen at every stop and Carmena twice wet the nostrils of the pony, none was yet exhausted when, at the end of five or six miles, the girl headed down into a quickly narrowing valley. The funnel-shaped trough pinched to a steep chute between precipices that leaned closer together overhead the deeper the fugitives descended.
Come in and we'll check up on business accounts." The moment the two older men left the living room Elsie burst into tears and began piteously imploring Lennon and Carmena to save her. Carmena clapped a hand over the quivering lips of the terrified girl and rushed her out of hearing of Slade. At the same time Lennon stepped out after the trader to keep him from turning back.
Yet he was not quick enough to dodge Lennon's uppercut. He sprawled backward and struck his shock head upon the stone floor. Carmena had straightened and faced about. At sight of Lennon bounding toward her she thrust out her hands in a repellant gesture. He clutched her outflung hands and dragged her toward the door. From behind the still came an answering yell.
All surged into the still-room except one of Lennon's guards, and he craned his neck to gape at the still. Into Lennon's ear breathed a faint whisper: "Keep back." A moment later Carmena was darting in after the Apaches. She took her shielding hand away from the candle to point at a pile of jugs behind the still. With the gesture she called out in Apache.
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