ill you get back the use of your hand. But it won't
hurt to show those bronchos the range of your rifle. They're coming a
bit too fast to suit us."

Lennon stared out across the open plain. Rather more than a mile away a
dozen or more riders were loping along the trail of the fugitives.

The sights slid up on Lennon's rifle. He put the butt to his left
shoulder and rested the barrel across a rock. The first bullet raised a
puff of dust a little to the left of the Indians. The second must have
shrieked close over their heads. They wheeled their ponies and scattered
out in fanlike formation.

Lennon's fourth shot caught one of the ponies broadside. The beast
tumbled over and lay motionless. Its rider dashed behind a cactus. The
rest of the Apaches wrenched their ponies about and raced to get back
beyond range. They had not bargained on a rifle that could shoot so far.
A renegade prefers to kill without risk to himself.

"That's enough," chuckled Carmena. "There's no cover for 'em unless they
crawl up afoot. Some will ride around and climb the mesa. Time we were
moving. Come on. We'll beat 'em into the Hole."

Lennon elevated his rifle and sent a parting shot over the heads of the
fleeing riders. When he came running back into the canon mouth Carmena
had the canteen swung to the saddlehorn and was lacing on her boots, in
place of the torn moccasins.

After a last deep drink from the pool and another sombreroful for the
pony, the little dam was carefully scraped off the ledge and the clay
covered with a loose boulder. The Apaches would be able to lap the wet
stone but not to drink. They were not engineers or dam builders.

CHAPTER V

DEAD HOLE

The race up the canon was far different from the terrible flight of the
previous day and the misery of the night. The cool spring water had been
very refreshing, lofty cliffs shadowed the canon bed from the hot
morning sunrays, and the pain of Lennon's lacerated hand had eased to a
dull ache. He took turn about with Carmena, riding and running.

The canon bottom was fairly smooth. For more than an hour the fugitives
raced up the great cleft between the towering precipices and past narrow
side canons. At last they came to a break in the sheer walls. The cliff
on the right leaned back in a series of terraces that formed a broken
giant stairway to the top of the mesa.

Carmena led the pony up a sloping shelf ledge. The line of ascent picked
out by her practised eye