zement. "He's new--and he's white!"

"Yes, but he and I are pards," Carmena reassured her. "Shake hands. He
has come to help us."

"To help us?" The young girl held out a timid hand. "You--you won't side
with Cochise? You won't let him take me?"

"'Course he won't," put in Carmena. "Didn't I tell you we're pards? His
name is Jack Lennon, and he's a real man."

Lennon was pressing the soft little hand of the younger girl.

"So you are Sister Elsie," he said. "Carmena is right. I will not side
with Cochise--if that's our hot friend down below."

The girl's rosebud lips parted in a smile of wondering delight.

"You called me sister! Then you'll be my brother--my Brother Jack!"

Lennon was astonished that any girl more than fourteen could be so
naive. Yet the effect was more than charming.

"I'll be only too happy, if Carmena has no objection."

He glanced up into the face of the older girl and surprised a look not
meant for him to see. As the down-drooping lashes veiled her dark eyes a
deep blush glowed under the tan of her dust-grimed, haggard face. The
realization of the meaning of that blush and glance sobered Lennon.

The girl had known him a scant seven-and-twenty hours. But in that full
day had been packed more intense peril and emotion than many couples
share in a lifetime. He had saved her and she him. Together they had
suffered agonies of thirst and exhaustion, and together they had cheated
the murderous Apaches. Even now, down beneath them at the foot of this
ancient cliff refuge, the leader of the renegades was futilely cursing.

Lennon was a white man, and he had proved himself not a quitter. The
girl had been overwrought by their terrible flight. That she should
fancy herself beginning to fall in love with him was quite
understandable. The discovery of the fact set his jaded nerves to
tingling with a pleasant thrill even as he realized the awkwardness of
the situation.

By way of diversion, he stepped around to take his rifle from the
saddle. As he straightened up with it the muzzle of a double-barreled
shotgun thrust out at him from a small slit window in the end wall of
the room. Behind the gun, framed deep by the thick stone of the window
casing, he saw the leering gray face that he had first caught a glimpse
of in another opening at the opposite end of the room.

A thin dry voice that was shrill with fear snarled at him:

"Hands up! Drop that gun!"

Carmena flung herself between Lennon an