ng room.

Slade strode in after Carmena and jerked a chair around to where he
could look close into Lennon's face.

"Now, young man, what's this bunk about you and Carmena being pards?" he
demanded. "What business you got in Dead Hole, anyhow? Cochise says you
shot a hoss of hisn."

"I told you how that started," interposed Carmena. "It wasn't our fault
that Cochise flew off the handle. Jack had to shoot to save me as well
as himself."

Slade stared hard at the girl and then at Lennon.

"Well, supposing the young devil did break loose. What of it? How about
this pard bunk? That's what I want to know."

"I fear that Miss Farley has found me rather a disappointment," put in
Lennon, and he looked at his trussed arm.

"Not at all--just the other way 'round," Carmena glowingly asserted.
"Figure it out for yourself, Mr. Slade. A man who could follow up a Gila
monster bite by outrunning Cochise and his bunch across the Basin, and
then make them back up. Can you wonder I think he's a man for us to tie
to?"

"If we needed a new pard," qualified Slade. "Fact is, we don't, and you
know it. We got enough a'ready to do the work and split up our profits."

Carmena cast a significant glance toward Elsie, who had ventured back to
renew the fire in her oven.

"How about Cochise getting out of hand? All the time it's harder to hold
him. He's beginning to bristle up even to you."

Slade's tobacco-stained teeth showed in a grin of contemptuous
indifference.

"Bah. I'll pull his head off if he gits sassy, and he knows it."

"Of course. He'd have no show--unless a pot-shot or a knife in your
back---- If only he was white!"

"Surely you do not mean to say, Miss Farley, that Cochise would attack
his own partner," Lennon backed up the girl's play. "I saw him pull out
that long knife of his under the table, but imagined it was merely the
Indian way of easing his feelings against Mr. Slade."

"Pulled his knife on me, did he?" bellowed the trader, in a sudden burst
of anger.

"And just because you dared speak kindly to Elsie," sympathized Carmena.

Strange enough, the barbed sting appeared to quiet rather than enrage
Slade. He laughed.

"No four-flushing, Mena. Needn't try to pull the wool over my eyes. I
can't run my business without Cochise, and you know it. You got to show
me a deal with more in it, before you talk about a shift of pards. I'm
running this shebang. There ain't no place for Lennon 'round Dead Hole.
He best