Bloom of Cactus Part 17

"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 hit out back the way he come."

Carmena's look told Lennon that he must make the next play. He thought quickly. If the girl was not mistaken, Slade would take Elsie away with him and chance the revenge of Cochise. The Apache might be appeased by permission to follow his intended victim back into the Basin.

Had Lennon considered only himself he would have been willing to chance a fight with the renegade. But the mere thought of abandoning Elsie to either the Apache or this brutal trader was altogether unbearable.

"Indeed, yes--to be sure, Mr. Slade," he blandly made reply. "If you do not desire me as a partner, I have no wish to remain here. Doubtless I shall not require your aid to find the mine for which I am looking."

"Mine?" queried Slade, his pale eyes narrowing. "What mine?"

"It's the lost lode," cut in Carmena, her rich voice quivering with eagerness. "I couldn't say anything until Jack spoke. He was headed for the mine when his burro was shot and we had to leave his outfit--thanks to Cochise. But he knows where to find the lost lode. Got it from Cripple Sim--back East. It's somewhere over near Triple b.u.t.te. You see now why I thought you'd be glad to have me bring Jack in as a partner?"

The red face of the trader fairly glowed with geniality. He held out his beefy hand to Lennon.

"Shake, pard. Why didn't you speak up sooner? I might have knowed you was O.K. But Carmena is only a gal, and we got to be careful of strangers in these parts. Bad place for hoss thieves and brand-blotters.

That's why I put up with a mean Injun like Cochise. He and his bunch see to it we don't lose no stock."

"Yes, they're great on rounding up, and so far they have never committed any murders--that can be proved against them," put in Carmena, with an ironical smile. "Just the same, it wasn't their fault they didn't get Jack. Do you wonder he won't have them in on this lost-lode deal? Either he plays a lone hand, or we run Cochise out of the country."

"My offer is ten thousand in cash," said Lennon. "The copper company pays me twice that and----"

"Copper, huh? What's a copper company got to do with a gold lode?"

demanded Slade.

"But Jack says the lost lode is copper, not gold," said Carmena. "Maybe we've been mistaken all these years. Sim told Jack it was a copper mine, and Sim ought to know."

Lennon caught the significant glance that the girl covertly gave to Slade. He was seized with black doubt whether her scheming was against Slade or with Slade against himself. Yet he continued to play to her lead----

"Yes, the discoverer of the mine should know whether it was gold or copper."

After some argument, Slade finally admitted that the old rumour about Cripple Sim's fabulously rich lost gold mine might be an "exaggeration."

With much hemming and hawing, he then agreed that if the lost mine were rediscovered he would accept ten thousand dollars and rid Dead Hole of Cochise.

"We might git up a company our own selves, Lennon, but we couldn't bring in any railroad to develop a _copper_ mine," he repeated what Carmena had already remarked. "Take what you can git and be thankful, is my motto. Soon's we find that mine, you can count on me to run Cochise clean out of the country."

Carmena drew in a deep quavering breath.

"That's such a relief, Mr. Slade! I've been so afraid for Elsie. I know that Cochise figures on making off with her at the first chance."

"He does, does he?" growled the trader. "Well, then, you're going to stick here and see he don't git no chance, while I go with our new pard.

How's that, Lennon?"

"Good enough," agreed Lennon.

"Elsie and I will hunt up some tools," said Carmena and she hurried her foster-sister out into the store-rooms before Slade could voice an objection.

He at once began to give Lennon a pessimistic account of the small profits and many risks and hardships of a trader's life in this arid land of mesas and canons. As for the cattle business, there was more work than money in it, what with mountain lions, wolves, and brand-blotters.

Lennon checked himself on the point of asking the meaning of the strange term. He recalled that Elsie had said something about mavericking and brand-blotting by the Apaches. Unless Farley and the girls were conniving with Cochise, the Indian could not be carrying on any work in the Hole unknown to Slade, and he had just intimated that brand-blotting was some kind of harmful or criminal action.

CHAPTER XIII

THE BLOSSOMING

At the supper table Slade returned to his jovial praises of Elsie as a cook. Under his bold admiring gaze the girl blushed much and ate little.

Lennon kept his head with difficulty. To sit quiet and feign indifference required all his self-control.

Farley had been brought in by Carmena. Toward the end of the meal Slade began to browbeat the abject, liquor-poisoned man. Lennon had no pity to spare for his broken-spirited host, but his compa.s.sion for Elsie and his growing anger against Slade soon received fresh stimulation.

The trader made blunt demand that Farley should agree to give Elsie to him in marriage--Indian marriage. After considerable bullyragging, Farley weakly gave way. Carmena continued strongly to protest, but her plea was only for a legal marriage.

Slade contended that one kind of marriage was as good as another. But he finally said he would wait and take Elsie out to where they could get a license and a minister. This would be immediately after the relocation of the mine and the driving off of Cochise.

Lennon was more than satisfied over the final agreement. Once rid of Cochise and out of the Hole with Slade and Elsie, he felt certain of his ability to save the girl from a forced marriage. In keeping with his a.s.sumed indifference to the affair he changed the subject by inquiring when the start for Triple b.u.t.te would be made.

"Daybreak," muttered Slade, and he fixed an intent gaze upon Elsie.

"I'll be ready by then. I'll bunk with you to-night, Dad. Come in and we'll check up on business accounts."

The moment the two older men left the living room Elsie burst into tears and began piteously imploring Lennon and Carmena to save her. Carmena clapped a hand over the quivering lips of the terrified girl and rushed her out of hearing of Slade.

At the same time Lennon stepped out after the trader to keep him from turning back. The ma.s.sive bulk of Slade shadowed the light of the candle that Farley was carrying into a second of the inner rooms.

The trader looked back, but failed to see Lennon, who had stepped to one side of the living-room doorway. The bull voice rumbled in what was evidently intended for a murmur:

"Well, Dad, I guess Carmena ain't such a fool as you might expect from her being your gal. She sure got that tenderfoot roped mighty slick.

Just wait and watch me hogtie the cripple. All I got to do is let him lead me to that there gold mine. Then I figger he's apt to git lost.

Mebbe he believes that bunk about the lode being copper, and mebbe he don't. The point is, I git the mine, and he----"

The rest of the prediction was lost to Lennon. He went back into the living room and pulled his arm out of the sling to test his grip on Farley's short-barrelled revolver. His wounded hand had almost regained its full strength. As he replaced the arm in the sling Elsie peeped timidly into the room. She saw that he was alone and darted out to clasp his arm.

"Oh, Jack, dear Jack!" she panted. "You--you won't let Slade take me either, will you? You promised about Cochise. But Carmena--she says Slade--that maybe I'll have to marry him--unless you have heaps of grit.

He's no better than Cochise. But at least he's not an Indian, Mena says."

Lennon patted the yellow locks of the girl's back-flung head.

"Never fear, Blossom. We will take care of you. Where is Carmena?"

"She's still looking for Dad's old pick for you. We found the pan and spade. Mena says Dad stumbled into Dead Hole 'cause he was looking for that lost gold mine of Cripple Sim's you're after. Then he went into stock."

"Was he--did he--er--brand-blot before Slade came?"