to kill all the bronchos or be killed. In the first case,
according to Elsie, she would have had him help her attack the rest of
the Apaches in the Hole. But if he had been killed she undoubtedly had
planned to put all the blame on him.

He was no coward. As he mulled over the situation his eyes sparkled at
the thought of how, with his long-range rifle, he might have out-fought
Cochise and his followers. But that was not the rub. Carmena had treated
him as a blind dupe--had thrown dust in his eyes and beguiled him into
the double snare that she had set for him and Cochise.

He would have been only too glad to take the venture with her if she had
told him beforehand. But she had not trusted him. The accident of the
Gila monster's bite alone had blocked her scheme to make him chance the
sacrifice of his life in complete ignorance of her real purpose.

With his hand disabled, he of course had become valueless at the time as
a tool to rid her of Cochise. Yet there was the chance that he could be
used in the Hole. That would account for the seeming devotion and
self-sacrifice by which she had saved him from the Gila monster poison,
from death by thirst, and from Apache torture.

The prejudice that had been first implanted in Lennon's mind by the
repulsiveness of the girl's drunken father now prevented him from making
any allowances for her difficult position. Had it not been for her
relationship to that weak-faced besotted moonshiner, Lennon might have
stopped to consider how love for her foster-sister had driven her
desperate, and how desperation might have kept her from telling the
truth of the situation to the stranger on the trail.

The average stranger would have referred her to the sheriff--and she
loved her father. But Lennon could see only her lack of trust in him and
her deceit.

CHAPTER XI

CROSS CURRENTS

Elsie's childlike eyes had been watching the evening shadow of the
cliffs creep along the valley after the retreating sunlight. Drawn at
last by Lennon's tense silence, she looked up and saw his frown.

"Oh! oh, Jack!" she cried. "What is it? You look so cross! Is it--is it
'cause what I told about Mena? Oh, it is! I know it is, the way you
look! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I'm 'fraid! It's a secret, and I promised not
to tell. Mena was 'splaining all about you to Dad, and I heard--and now
she'll be so cross at me if she knows I told! Please, please Jack,
promise you won't tell her I told you!"

Lenno