water," rejoined Slade.

"Poison?"

The old Navaho was drinking from the second spring, less than two paces
away from the first. Lennon pointed at him.

"Sure," said Slade. "It's not the only case I know of finding good water
'longside arsenic, in a copper district."

The actions of the Indians bore out the truth of their master's
assertion, or at least proved that they believed the first spring
poisonous. The horses were picketed well away from it and from the joint
rill of the two springs, which trickled down slope a few yards before
seeping away among the stones.

The camp supper of bacon and flapjacks was soon followed by the
spreading of blankets on the nearest stretches of sand. The Navahos went
off to one side. Slade ordered Lennon to keep near him and carefully
encircled their bedding-down place with the coils of a horsehair lariat.

The purpose of the lariat became apparent to Lennon when he was roused
by the chill of dawn. He saw one of the Navahos rake out of the embers
of the evening's fire a torpid tarantula as big as his hand.

Lennon thought of Elsie's daintiness and soft ways. The girl was utterly
out of keeping with this fierce land of desolation and thirst, of thorns
and poison springs, of venomous reptiles and insects, of ferocious
beasts and men. She did not belong and never would. She was a garden
flower.

Carmena was different. Her rich bloom was more like the flowers of the
desert growths--the thorn-guarded yucca and needled cactus. There was
nothing soft and cuddly about _her_.

At the realization of where his thoughts were drifting, Lennon wrenched
his mental focus back to Elsie. What concern could the fate of Carmena
be to him? She belonged with her drunken, criminal father in Dead Hole.
All thought and effort must be centred on the rescue of Elsie.

After a hasty meal of flapjacks, bacon, and coffee, the party started
out to work north around Triple Butte. The country was now unknown
ground even to the old Navaho guide. But he showed great craft in
puzzling out the directions given to him.

An inner pocket hid the map that Lennon had brought from the East. He
took care that Slade and the Navahos thought he was going by memory. Had
he told of the map at any time after reaching Dead Hole he now felt
certain that he never would have lived to get this near the mine. Slade
would have taken the map and killed him out of hand. So at least Lennon
believed.

Once the party rounded upon t