"You mean, why did she do it?"
"Yes. Why ruin a twelve-dollar sombrero and a ten-dollar burro?"
"So's you'd get mad and fight Cochise, of course. She was desp'rit, so she told him she'd get another man into the Basin to be caught and made to pay. But she planned, when she signalled them, to warn you and slip away while you fought them."
"Ripping!" praised Lennon. "Wonderful flight of fancy. And after the fight?"
"Oh, that depends. You'd prob'ly been dead. But if you'd killed all that part of the bunch, Mena would have brought you into the Hole to shoot up the rest and make Slade quit."
"I see. Quite in keeping with the burro. But why, then, did she help me run away?"
Elsie's playful tone sobered.
"Why, 'cause you couldn't fight, of course. After she signalled Cochise you went and got bit by the Gila monster and saved her life. Course she had to save you then."
"Saved!" bantered Lennon. "A fact—a solid fact at last, in this sea of fiction. What a slip! I was beginning to fancy you quite a consistent fairy-tale tinker, Blossom. Take that last touch about her signalling Cochise. She sent a message by wireless, I presume."
"Wireless? Is that what you call smoke signalling?"