"How about your safety? Wouldn't you have a better chance if mounted?" "Want to back out, do you?" "By no means. My idea is to dump the pack from your pony. Then, if we are attacked, I may be able to hold the renegades while you gallop off." The girl's rich colour deepened into a flush. The thick fringe of her lashes swept down to hide the glow in her eyes. Without a word she swung ahead, on up the canon. Though not a little puzzled over her abruptness, Lennon felt certain that she had been far from displeased by his matter-of-fact suggestion. He had no chance to urge the desirability of his plan. At his first rather loud-spoken remonstrance Carmena flung back at him a curt gesture for silence and led on at a quickened pace. Her swift ascent slackened only at the twists of the narrowing canon; at these she would swing in close to the inner side of the bends and creep around, with her rifle half raised. By mid-morning the bed of the canon had become much rougher and steeper. The pony, for all his goat-like agility and sure-footedness, found difficulty in scrambling up some of the ledges. Neither the rapid pace nor the climbing bothered Lennon. But between the burning heat and his very natural excitement over Carmena's stealthy bearing at the turns, he became keyed to rather a high pitch. After a last sharp turn, the canon broadened and flared out in a trough-like valley at the top of a high, cedar-clad, ridge-rimmed mesa. "Wait!" Lennon exclaimed. "Look ahead, Miss Farley--all bare and open! Not a bit of shelter until we cross to the trees!" The girl faced about, her red lips twisted in a smile of contempt, but her eyes clouded with disappointment. "I told you, down at the lower end, it was your last chance to quit." "Quite true. I've burnt my bridges. The question now is one of advance, not retreat. What if there are Indian watchers on those ridges? Would it not be best for me to hold their attention by going straight up the open valley, while you take the horse around through the cedars?" Carmena met his proposal with a chuckle that brought a flush into Lennon's lean face. But her troubled eyes had cleared and there was a note of relief underlying her mirth. "What's the matter with you, too, keeping under cover?" she rallied. "Besides, we don't go to the head of the valley. We slant up to the left through that notch in the ridge." This banter, coupled with the assurance that the girl knew exactly what she was about, cooled Lennon's excitement. His high strung nerves relaxed. "No need to remind you I'm a tenderfoot," he jibed at himself. "Coming up the canon I've been shooting Apaches at every bend." The mirth left Carmena's face. Her lips straightened in hard lines and her eyes flashed. "It's no joke," she said. "I'm right glad you're steadying down. If we meet that bunch of bronchos, there's just one thing to do--shoot first. It'll be time enough to ask questions afterward. Is that clear?"