nd--and innocent! Oh,
won't you--won't you please take me instead?"

"You?" sneered the trader. "Jealous, are you? Well, you're too late now.
Wouldn't take me when you had the chance. Now I wouldn't have you even
if I couldn't git her."

"But she--little Blossom! Oh, you can't--you can't be so heartless! You
promised to wait----"

"Wait?" Slade jerked the half-fainting Elsie around the corner of the
table.

"Ain't I waited all this time? This is same as Injun country, and squaws
mate-up young. I'm going to take my Cookie Gal now. Sabe? Injun marriage
is good enough 'round these parts for any woman, white or red."

"You--beast!" cried Carmena, and she flung herself at him in a fury of
despair.

A few seconds before he would have shot her down. Now, instead of
firing, he released his hold on Elsie's arm and thrust out to meet the
frantic rush of her foster-sister. The big red hand clutched fast on
Carmena's throat and held her off at arm's length. Contemptuously
heedless of her frenzied struggles, he fixed a hard stare on Pete.

"You," he ordered, "git a hustle on. Rope this hellcat, pronto."

Though Pete's hesitancy was almost imperceptible, Slade's revolver swung
up toward him. The young Navaho sprang forward, jabbering to his fellow
tribesman. As the two seized and started to bind Carmena, Slade grinned
at her, derisively.

"Guess you wish you hadn't," he jeered. "I'll learn you who's boss. How'll
you like being let down to Cochise, huh?"

The danger to Elsie had horrified and enraged Lennon no less than
Carmena. He had been writhing in his rawhide bonds, in a furious
struggle to break loose. Now he lay exhausted and hopeless, his wrists
and ankles cut and bleeding from the cruelly tight thongs. Even the
hideous threat against Carmena could not goad his flaccid muscles to
renewed efforts.

Behind him he heard a peculiar wheezing. He twisted his head about to
look. Farley was creeping along the floor. As Lennon caught sight of
him, the desperately wounded man clutched his rifle and straightened up
on his knees. His ghastly face was blotched with angry purple. His
sunken eyes flamed with vengeful fire. He raised the muzzle of the rifle
toward Slade with the last flare of his failing strength.

"You scoundrel!" he shrilled. "Harm my daughter, would you?"

Slade's savage bellow was drowned in the crash of the rifle. The
bull-like roar of the trader sharpened to a yell of pain. An instant
later two answerin