n. "I give you my word."

Slade continued to scowl with surly suspicion.

"Guess we'll take a look first. Git a move on you. Pile in. No time to
hoist the hosses."

He swung from his saddle, with Lennon's rifle in one hand and his own in
the other. Both cartridge belts were buckled about his massive body. He
sprang into the wicker cage of the lift as it bumped upon the ledge.
Lennon and the three Navahos crowded in after him.

The Indian above peered over the cliff brink. At a signal from the
Navaho he again vanished. The hoist rope tautened. With a creak, the
cage scraped on the ledge and began to swing up the cliff face above
the abandoned horses.

To Lennon the ascent seemed maddeningly slow. The Navahos leaned against
the wicker sides of the cage in stolid silence, their faces more than
ever like bronze images. None cast a glance upward. But Slade could not
hide his mingled uneasiness and anger.

"Didn't think the young devil had the gall," he muttered. "Acting like
he'd been bit by a hydrophoby skunk. Nothing meaner 'n a mad wolf. I'd
'a' give him Carmena quick enough.... Learn her not to pass up a white
man agin when she had her chance. But the young gal---- Blast Cochise.
When I told him flat----"

The cage crept up over the brink of the cliff. One of the Navahos leaped
high to grasp the guy rope of the crane. His pull swung crane and cage
around toward the horse windlass. The moment the occupants jumped from
the cage the Navaho allowed the crane to swing out again over the cliff
edge. The pony that was hitched to the bar of the windlass started to
lower the cage by reversing at a jog trot.

Though the Indian with the pony wore an Apache head cloth, Lennon
recognized his ugly young face at the first clear view. He was Pete, the
Navaho who had been with the Apaches under the cliff house on the day
that Cochise had trapped Lennon and Carmena. Slade's manner toward him
was that of a half-distrustful master. He questioned him hastily in
English.

Pete answered haltingly, with frequent lapses into the gutturals and
hissings of his native tongue. His eyes glittered with fierce
excitement. Lennon gathered that Cochise and his men were in the midst
of an attack on the cliff house. This would seem to prove that the girls
were still safe--and would remain safe. How could the Apaches hope to
scale the sheer cliff without aid from above?

But Slade's scowl showed that the situation by no means pleased him. He
mo