Lennon was already drinking from a refilled canteen. He found the cliff-shaded water of the spring pure and deliciously cool. The watering of the pony took no little time and patience. Though the beast was too thirsty to show any of his former skittishness, Lennon's sombrero was leaky from the bullet holes. When at last he drove the pony on along Carmena's trail, he noticed tiny cloudlets of dark smoke, like the puffs of a giant's pipe, rising straight up in the still air from behind the point of rocks. By the time he rounded the corner the smoke had thinned and lightened to an almost invisible haze. A bright little fire of dry sticks was blazing in a sandy hollow. Carmena knelt beside it, leaning on the muzzle of her rifle. Her dark eyes were gazing off across 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----"