s safe hidden
in the mummy room, Slade was dying or dead, and now she had lured
Cochise and his murderous followers into the death trap!

He saw the flare of the lighted tinder in the firebox. The fuse must
already be burning. Yet the girl remained stooped before the still. She
would be blown to pieces no less certainly than the Apaches.

Lennon glanced desperately at his guard, who stood beside him in the
doorway. The almost naked Apache was a mass of sinewy muscle, and his
beady eyes were fixed upon the prisoner in alert watchfulness. Yet he
was not quick enough to dodge Lennon's uppercut. He sprawled backward
and struck his shock head upon the stone floor.

Carmena had straightened and faced about. At sight of Lennon bounding
toward her she thrust out her hands in a repellant gesture.

He clutched her outflung hands and dragged her toward the door. From
behind the still came an answering yell. Cochise and another Apache
rushed around at the couple. Carmena lunged forward, to thrust Lennon at
the doorway. Unbalanced by the shove, he stumbled over the Apache whom
he had knocked senseless.

Carmena fell, rolled to one side, and struggled to her knees as Cochise
leaped to the doorway after Lennon. Behind them roared a deafening
detonation.

Though Lennon was out in the anteroom, he was hurled down by the force
of the explosion. He staggered to his feet and faced about. In the thick
of the smoke that spumed from the still-room Cochise bounded from the
floor and came at him with upraised knife. Lennon barely saved himself
by the quickest of side-stepping.

Cochise shot past, whirled, and closed in with the fury of a wildcat.
Lennon's parry of the knife stab was sheer luck, but not the blow that
he drove to the solar plexus. Superb as was the physical condition of
the young Apache, that solid jolt sent him reeling back, gasping for
breath.

Lennon closed and sought to wrest away the knife. He twisted down on the
Apache's wrist. The knife fell to the floor. He bent to grasp it.
Cochise dropped upon him and seized his throat. The slender sinewy hands
tightened with frightful force. A few seconds of that throttling
pressure would have brought unconsciousness to Lennon. In vain he sought
to tear loose the strangle hold.

He was on the verge of frantic flurry when his failing reason fixed upon
the fact that there was a lump under his down-pressed back. By great
effort he wrenched his body around. His groping hand gras