ight, Mr. Lennon," she said. "You've shown your hand. Here's mine:
You'll give your pledge to leave the sheriff out of this deal, or you'll
never reach the trail."

"Very kind of you, indeed, to warn me, Miss Farley. I presume you will
tell Slade and Cochise to be ready if I attempt to escape."

Though the girl's lips remained firm, her eyes again dilated with
anguish. She turned about and groped her way into the inner room. Lennon
felt an odd mingling of shame and regret, of anger and an emotion that
went far beyond sympathy.

Elsie soon came with a bowl of coffee, which Carmena had sent for Lennon
to give to Slade. There was no need of words to make clear her wish to
be rid of the visitors. Lennon found Slade lying as torpid as Farley.
But the hot coffee roused him to morose alertness.

Breakfast was served by Carmena, though her excuse for the absence of
Elsie failed to satisfy the surly-tempered trader. The younger girl did
not appear until Slade dropped the rope ladder and went scrambling down
the cliff face. Carmena was already lowering Lennon's outfit to the
trader's Navaho followers, who had come at dawn.

With a last word to Elsie to be brave but careful until his return,
Lennon gently freed himself from her clinging embrace, put his arm back
in the sling, and stepped into the loop of the hoist rope. The girls
lowered him to the cliff foot.

The Navahos, who were dressed as Mexicans, already had the prospecting
outfit lashed on a pack horse. At Lennon's request, Slade derisively
ordered one of them to hold the tenderfoot's pony. Lennon nursed his arm
and climbed into his saddle with a show of difficulty. The more awkward
and disabled he could make himself appear to his travelling companions
the better would be his chances later.

Slade put spurs to his big horse and galloped off down the valley,
leaving Lennon to trail behind with the Navahos. The pace did not
slacken until the party raced down into the lower canon and around a
double turn to the drop in the bed.

On the brink of the cliff was set a crane similar in design to the one
at the cliff house but much larger. Hauled back, it was hidden from
below by a corner of rock. Swung out, its block and tackle, operated by
a one-pony windlass, could hoist or lower a two-pony load in the light
basket cage woven of wire and withes. One of the three Apache guards
hitched his pony to the windlass.

Slade went down first, with his horse and Lennon and one of