"Isn't she just too sweet for anything!" broke in Carmena. "I've tried to be the cactus fence to guard her against the trampling beasts."
"Such as this Cochise. You say he claims her?"
"For the last three years. Indian girls marry young. He'd have kicked a way through the cactus fence before this, if it hadn't been for Slade. You know, Slade has his own bunch of Navaho punchers. So, you see, Cochise has to——"
Carmena stopped to point across the upper end of the valley.
"Talk of the devil——" she exclaimed.
Over below the cliff house Lennon saw a small group of mounted men waiting for the basket that was being lowered to them on the hoist rope.
"If it's only Elsie's pies; if only they haven't bluffed Dad into sending down a jug of tizwin!" murmured Carmena.
"We've been outplayed. We can't get back," said Lennon. "Shall I drive them off again with my rifle?"
"No. Cochise agreed to wait for Slade. I'm going to make him stick to it. We'll ride on around. Maybe they'll not wait."
The two had loped along under the precipices on the northwest side of the valley and were already near Hell Cañon, at the upper end. The mouth of the cañon belied its name. The bed, though rocky, was neither steep nor broken. Along the ledges of the cliff foot a canal had been chiseled in the solid rock by the cliff-dwellers. A small stream was flowing through it, down around the left corner of the cañon mouth.