eried.

"Why, of course," replied the girl. She drew close to him and lowered
her voice.

"Dad refuses to give up everything and leave the Hole. So I've allowed
him to think you'll come in with the bunch. My idea is to bring about a
split between Slade and Cochise. We'll then have a fighting chance. All
we can do now is take things easy and get your hand in shape."

"My rifle was taken by your father. I would rather like to----"

"Dad, hand over Jack's rifle," called the girl.

Elsie glided across to the dark doorway through which Farley was
disappearing. Within a few moments the missing rifle was thrust out to
her. She brought it to Carmena, who handed it over to Lennon. A
seemingly casual examination showed him that it had not been tampered
with.

His last flicker of suspicion died away.

CHAPTER VIII

CACTUS CARMENA

Immediately after the armistice Carmena and Elsie went down to attend
the goats and chickens that were penned in small enclosures a short
distance up-valley from the cliff house. The girls also gathered a
supply of fresh vegetables from a nearby kitchen garden. At dusk the
rope ladder was hauled up.

In the morning Carmena took Lennon to see the valley. She had roped a
pair of ponies near the garden enclosure. Though the rifles were
carried, no occasion arose that called for use of the weapons. The
Apaches in charge of the stock merely grunted in response to Carmena's
friendly greeting and stared stolidly as she and Lennon rode by.

All the other Indians seemed to have left the valley. But Carmena said
that guards were always posted in the two main exits. Escape up Devil's
Chute with a horse was impossible.

Beyond the narrow mouth of the Chute canon the two skirted along the
edge of the flourishing cornfields and the hay pastures of the lower
valley. All the way they followed an irrigation canal of the ancient
cliff dwellers that had been restored to use. It curved and twisted
along the higher ground under the towering cliff walls.

At the foot of the Hole the valley narrowed, funnel-like, into a rather
wide box canon. The canon bed offered a broad level runway down which a
horse could have sprinted at top speed.

Carmena caught the glance of pleased surprise that Lennon fixed upon a
heavy farm wagon that stood inside the mouth of the canon.

"It's not so easy as you think," she said. "There's a thirty-foot cliff
about a mile down. Nothing has ever come in or gone out that way