"You eat ever so much nicer than Cochise."
"I should hope so—a wild Indian!"
"But he isn't. He's educated—he went to the Reservation school. He knows a whole lot. That's why he's never been sent up. They caught him only once. But Dad got him off. Dad's a lawyer, you know. He didn't want to go out and leave us, but he's so scarey he does everything Slade tells him."
Lennon recalled Carmena's plea for him to help her father and sister. He thought he understood the situation.
"So this Slade and the Indians are keeping all of you prisoners, here in the Hole, are they? Yet Carmena got out. Why hasn't she taken you and your Dad?"
Elsie's big blue eyes rounded.
"But they won't let us out—only one at a time, and I'm 'fraid to go alone, 'cause of Cochise. Besides, the Hole is Dad's ranch. He won't give it up and Slade keeps promising him his share of the profits, and it's a mighty flourishing business."
"What, farming in a place like this?"
"Course not. That's just for fodder. We're stockholders, Dad says. We con—conduct a stock exchange. Slade sells what the bunch maverick and brand-blot."
The terms brought no enlightenment to Lennon. He was from the Atlantic coast.