Bloom of Cactus

by Robert Ames Bennet

The old Navaho was drinking from the second spring, less than two paces away from the first. Lennon pointed at him.

"Sure," said Slade. "It's not the only case I know of finding good water 'longside arsenic, in a copper district."

The actions of the Indians bore out the truth of their master's assertion, or at least proved that they believed the first spring poisonous. The horses were picketed well away from it and from the joint rill of the two springs, which trickled down slope a few yards before seeping away among the stones.

The camp supper of bacon and flapjacks was soon followed by the spreading of blankets on the nearest stretches of sand. The Navahos went off to one side. Slade ordered Lennon to keep near him and carefully encircled their bedding-down place with the coils of a horsehair lariat.

The purpose of the lariat became apparent to Lennon when he was roused by the chill of dawn. He saw one of the Navahos rake out of the embers of the evening's fire a torpid tarantula as big as his hand.

Lennon thought of Elsie's daintiness and soft ways. The girl was utterly out of keeping with this fierce land of desolation and thirst, of thorns and poison springs, of venomous reptiles and insects, of ferocious beasts and men. She did not belong and never would. She was a garden flower.

Carmena was different. Her rich bloom was more like the flowers of the desert growths—the thorn-guarded yucca and needled cactus. There was nothing soft and cuddly about her.

At the realization of where his thoughts were drifting, Lennon wrenched his mental focus back to Elsie. What concern could the fate of Carmena be to him? She belonged with her drunken, criminal father in Dead Hole. All thought and effort must be centred on the rescue of Elsie.

After a hasty meal of flapjacks, bacon, and coffee, the party started out to work north around Triple Butte. The country was now unknown ground even to the old Navaho guide. But he showed great craft in puzzling out the directions given to him.

An inner pocket hid the map that Lennon had brought from the East. He took care that Slade and the Navahos thought he was going by memory. Had he told of the map at any time after reaching Dead Hole he now felt certain that he never would have lived to get this near the mine. Slade would have taken the map and killed him out of hand. So at least Lennon believed.