o you? Well,
just let me tell you, sonny boy--when I want a squaw I take her. As for
that she-wildcat, she's going down to Cochise right now. What's more,
you're going with her if you don't agree to write that mine report and
shell out the whole twenty thousand."

"You devil!" cried Lennon. "I'll give you all--everything I possess--to
save the girls from you. But if you harm either one of them--if you
refuse to set them both free--you shall not have a dollar of my money."

"Huh--I sha'n't, sha'n't I?"

"Not a cent! You are a thief, a murderer, a liar--and you know it. Your
word is not to be trusted. Take your choice. Kill me, or accept my
pledge to pay you the money when you have brought me and the girls safe
to the nearest town."

The corner of Slade's coarse lip drew up in a wolfish snarl.

"Kill you? Just wait and see. Killing's a heap too easy. Wait till
Cochise has had a little fun with you. Mebbe you won't agree to be
reasonable then, huh?"

The pale eyes of the trader glittered with cold malevolence as he swung
around to the window from which Pete was signalling. He boldly thrust
his head out and shouted to the Apaches in their own tongue. From below
came an answering shout. Slade called down to them for several moments
in hissing thick-tongued gutturals.

When at last he drew back and faced about, his mouth was twisted in a
grin of evil satisfaction. He stared across the room, blinked, and
stared again, with his grin distorted into an angry grimace.

Carmena lay where he had last seen her. But Elsie was nowhere in sight.

CHAPTER XXI

TREACHERY

The inaction of the trader was brief. At his harsh question the wounded
Navaho thrust out a slim finger toward one of the rear exits from the
living room. Slade spoke a fierce command to Pete in the Navaho tongue
and rushed out through the opening to which the Indian had pointed.

Carmena uttered a horrified cry and sought to struggle up on her bound
feet. As she fell, Pete and the other Navaho caught hold of her. They
carried her out into the anteroom, without paying the slightest heed to
Lennon's threats and pleadings. He writhed and twisted himself toward
the doorway. Before he had reached the opening, the wounded Navaho
bounded back into the room. He seized Lennon and dragged him out.

Pete had squatted down to fasten a loop of the hoist rope about Carmena,
who lay behind the sacks of corn that barricaded the crane-hoist
entrance. She was spea