h wide-spread wings. At
sight of the big gray-white bird and of the mummies even Cochise
advanced less than a step inside the entrance.

Carmena went in with the candle and methodically peered among and behind
all the heaps of rubbish. When she came back to the entrance her dark
brows were drawn together in a frown, as if she were puzzled and trying
to think of another hiding place. She looked at Lennon with a level
glance.

"Hereafter you will recall that the quick and the dead are associated,"
she murmured.

She faced about to the superstitious Apaches.

"You see, Cochise. Your woman doesn't like these old dried spirits any
more than you do. Come on."

Cochise and his men drew back before her advancing candle. They had no
fancy to be left in the darkness with the bird of night and the "dried
spirits" of the ancient cliff dwellers. They were not so backward,
however, in the other inner rooms to which Carmena led them. Where there
was a ceiling hole, one or more readily mounted with the candle to
search the space above.

But nowhere was trace found of Elsie, though the candle had burned to a
stub when the searchers reached the last inner room. They came from it
into a front room, one exit of which was closed with a padlocked door of
heavy planks. Lennon recognized the entrance to the still-room.

Carmena handed a key to Cochise and stood shielding the flickering flame
of the candle.

"Maybe we'll find both together," she said. "It would have been just
like Slade to lock your woman in with the tizwin."

She added a guttural murmur in Apache. The Indians pushed forward as
their leader snapped open the padlock. The heavy door swung open. All
surged into the still-room except one of Lennon's guards, and he craned
his neck to gape at the still. Into Lennon's ear breathed a faint
whisper: "Keep back."

A moment later Carmena was darting in after the Apaches. She took her
shielding hand away from the candle to point at a pile of jugs behind
the still. With the gesture she called out in Apache. Cochise and all
the others rushed to dig into the pile of jugs. Carmena glided to the
still and bent down. She thrust the candle into the opening of the
firebox.

For the first time Lennon grasped what the girl was about. And with that
he realized in a flash all the cool courage and cleverness and
self-sacrifice of the plan that she had schemed out against the brute
force of Slade and the cruel cunning of Cochise. Elsie wa