"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 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 Butte. 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."