up the side of an enormous natural pothole,
which the ancient builders had converted into a storage reservoir by
means of an earthen dam.

Carmena jumped her pony across the intake canal and loped ahead toward
the cliff house. Lennon was too intent upon overtaking her to more than
glance at the stand of rough-made beehives, the kitchen garden, and the
goat and chicken sheds, past which his pony galloped.

Carmena reined in to jerk her thumb at a tumbledown brush hut.

"Our home, till Slade got up the cliff."

"How?"

"Piecing ladders together, one a-top the other. There are our callers;
and it's pie, thank goodness. Keep your gun down. Shake hands, if they
offer; but let me do the talking."

"If you wish."

"I do. The one all in white man's clothes is Cochise. Next him, with the
Mex sombrero, is Pete. He's one of Slade's Navahos. He stands in with
Cochise, and I stand in with him. Sabe?"

"You mean he's your man--tips you off--all that?"

"Yes. I think we'll be able to count on him later, when it comes to the
show-down. Don't forget now: That run 'cross the Basin never happened.
We're all heap good friends and pards."

Lennon nodded. He did not fancy the situation, but he was willing for
the time being to trust to his companion's lead. Side by side they rode
up and stopped before the seven Indians. Lennon looked them over with
the cool direct gaze of the dominant white man.

Five of them were replicas of the herdsmen down the valley. Pete the
Navaho--he of the Mexican sombrero--also wore Mexican leg-buttoned
breeches and a red cotton shirt, the tails of which hung outside. He
looked to be the youngest of the group. He and Cochise were the only
ones who did not avoid Lennon's eye.

Cochise the Apache leader proved a surprise to Lennon. He was as young
as the white man and far from ugly. Though his head, under his old
cowboy hat, was as square and massive as the cloth-bound heads of the
other Apaches, and his shoulders were still broader, his face might have
belonged to a Sicilian or Andalusian aristocrat--swarthy, bold-featured,
and handsome.

Carmena raised her voice in cheerful greeting: "How, boys!--_Bueno
amigo_, Pete. Howdy, Cochise. Fine day. Hope the pie was good. Shake
with Jack, our new partner."

The Apache leader wiped the pie juice from his short, small hands upon
his leather chaps, and replied with a show of geniality:

"Howdy. Fine day. Glad to meet new pard. Shake."

Lennon offered his