he largest doorway. Lennon, still affecting
cool indifference, stepped out after her into the long, bare anteroom
whose rear wall Cochise and his mate had so angrily splashed with
bullets.

Farley was crouched at the far side of the rope-ladder doorway. Carmena
had bent her head to pass under the massive lintel. Lennon followed
Elsie to the side of the doorway opposite Farley. The lawyer-ranchman
appeared to cringe, yet he held to his position and even attempted an
ingratiating smile as he rasped out a half-whispered, "G'day."

Lennon gave him a curt nod and bent down to peer into the deep entrance.
Carmena did not glance around. If she heard him, she gave no heed. She
had seated herself upon a Navaho rug and was leaning forward to look
over the cliff, with her hands on the sillstone at the brink. Down below
Lennon could see only a single swarthy face, bound about the forehead
with a wide cloth band. The other Indians were in nearer the base of the
cliff.

Instead of crouching in tense readiness to dodge back out of danger,
Carmena gazed over at her late pursuers with serene fearlessness. Her
rich contralto voice, no longer harsh from thirst, rang mockingly down
the cliff:

"Howdy, boys. Glad you've begun to cool off. Quite a warm run, wasn't
it?"

From below came an explosion of thick gutturals and hissings. Carmena
flung out a hand in a gesture of refusal.

"No, I won't, Cochise. I'll talk American, and so will you---- And
you'll speak decently, or we chop off. Sabe?"

There followed a silence of several moments. Carmena's patience soon
reached its snapping point. She frowned and started to draw back. The
voice below called up, still thick and guttural, but speaking clear-cut
English:

"You lied. You said you catch another sucker."

"I said I would fetch another man to the Hole, and I have done it. Any
lie about that?" countered the girl.

"Dam' plenty," came back an angry shout. "You knew what we want him
for."

"How about Slade? What'll he want him for? Haven't you any sense any
more, Cochise? Have you forgotten how Dad had to get you loose? Don't
you see you've got to keep on playing the game our way? Yours is out of
date. Even in the days of your Uncle Cochise and Geronimo it didn't
work."

"They got a heap of fun."

"Well, let me tell you one thing--the new man is my game, not yours. You
had your chance and missed it. He stood up full of Gila monster poison
and got away from you--threw you off