ss the desert basin in a look that betrayed
both eagerness and dread.

"Hello. Ready for the frying pan?" sang out Lennon. Then he perceived
the tenseness of the girl's attitude and hastened to swing up his rifle.
"What is it? Sighted another Apache?"

"No. But I put greasewood on the fire. You saw the smoke?"

"A few puffs--yes."

The girl rose and eyed him somberly.

"Few puffs, you say.... If that bunch of bronchos is anywhere within
fifteen miles--with a clear view this way--we can expect a visit."

"Should we not cut and run?"

"Why? We couldn't hide our tracks. Even if the devils aren't mounted,
they'd soon overtake us. An Indian can lope along all day, like a
coyote."

Lennon looked deliberately around at the ridge and sat down to clean and
reload his rifle. Carmena's eyes flashed.

"You've got the idea," she said. "We'll eat and back up to the spring.
The cave is an easy place to hold. You said you can shoot?"

"Rather well. Very long range rifle, too. I've knocked over a caribou
with it at nearly a mile, up on Hudson Bay."

Carmena glanced at the high-power weapon and then raised her flashing
eyes to gaze over the bent head of its owner. Midway out across the
desolate Basin, from the top of a craggy hill to the right of the line
of Triple Butte, puffs of smoke were rising into the cloudless
steel-blue sky.

The girl hastened to loosen her pony's pack and take from her saddlebags
a frying pan, several slices of bacon, and a big chunk of corn pone.

CHAPTER III

THE GILA MONSTER

The bacon was ready almost as soon as Lennon's rifle. Carmena rose from
beside the embers of the fire with the pan and corn bread.

"Fetch the canteens," she directed. "We'll eat over here under that
overhanging rock."

But at the edge of the shade, below the outjutting cliff ledge, she
stopped short with her gaze fixed upon an object close to the
sand-sculptured wall of rock.

"Ever see a Gila monster?" she queried.

"No. You don't mean to say--really----"

Lennon had sprung forward beside her. His curious eyes at once perceived
the hideous, thickset lizard that lay flattened upon the shadowed sand
as if in a torpor. The reptile's dirty orange-mottled black body was as
loathsome as its venomous blunt-nosed head.

"Big specimen--almost two feet long," remarked Carmena. "Hold on. Don't
shoot. That sure would tell the bronchos where we are."

"But if we are to eat here?" questioned Lennon. "I don't fanc