bed the long ladder made an upward rush. He was within half
a dozen rungs of the top when a large round object rolled out of the
doorway. With the quickness of a puma he swung off to one side.

The big missile grazed past the dodger. Three or four yards farther down
it crashed upon the ladder. All the mid section of the wobbly structure
was shattered to flinders. The lower part slithered sideways along the
cliff face, the upper part and the two climbers plunged downward.

The cliffs rang with the yells of the ladder holders as they leaped
away. They bounded like startled deer. But one was struck in the back by
the splintered end of a falling ladder pole. He pitched on his face,
rolled over, and lay as still as the fallen climbers.

"Four!" exultantly exclaimed Slade. "Four--done up by a keg of water.
And the three first"--Lennon had thought them sacks of corn at the foot
of the ladder--"seven, and Pete with us--leaves less 'n twenty of 'em,
counting Cochise. And mebbe Carmena has potted one or two more out in
the scrub."

"You'll attack?" asked Lennon.

"Sure. No chance of holding Cochise after him losing them men. The
others would turn on him like mad coyotes if he backed up. Just hold
your hosses a bit, though, till I tell you."

Lennon impatiently glanced away from his rifle sights. For the first
time he saw that the Navahos were no longer alongside him. Pete was
creeping aslant the dam toward the cliffs. The three others had circled
to the left and were disappearing into the irrigation canal where it
curved down valley below the reservoir.

"Got to flush them snakes in the grass," explained Slade. "Pick your
mark and wait. I'll start off with this here devil across the tank."

The scattered ladder raisers were bunching again close under the cliff,
to one side of the cliff house openings. One of them made signs to the
outlying riflemen. The others began to work on the broken ladders. The
firing had almost ceased.

Slade moved a few yards along the dam. Lennon drew back his rifle,
looked carefully at the lock and magazine, and took up a position from
which he could fire with the greatest rapidity. He had been ready only
a few minutes when from the irrigation canal, down the valley behind the
Apache riflemen, came the reports of three shots, fired in rapid
succession.

A fourth shot roared from Slade's rifle. Lennon began to fire as fast as
he could take aim. His mark was the group of Apaches on the cliff fo