Bloom of Cactus

  CHAPTER VI

  HER FOLKS

  The fair-haired girl was cowering behind the massive front wall of thecliff house. At every shot from the rifles of the infuriated Apaches shecrouched lower. Carmena held out reassuring arms to her.

  "There, there, Blossom," she soothed. "You've no need to be scared."

  The trembler sprang to clasp the neck of the older girl.

  "Oh, Mena, Mena!" she sobbed. "I'm so glad you're back! It's been awful!Dad had one of his spells; and now, with Cochise angry----"

  "We'll manage him--never fear. He's stopped shooting already. Quit yourshaking. I don't want Jack to think you a silly little rabbit."

  For the first time the panic-stricken girl appeared to realize thatLennon was a stranger. She lifted her head from Carmena's bosom to stareat him with innocent childish wonderment. Her piquant little face wasflowerlike in its delicate contours and apricot tinting; her big blueeyes were the pure intense blue of alpine forget-me-nots. No line of herpretty face bore the slightest resemblance to Carmena's comely butstrong features.

  "O-o-oh!" she voiced her amazement. "He's new--and he's white!"

  "Yes, but he and I are pards," Carmena reassured her. "Shake hands. Hehas come to help us."

  "To help us?" The young girl held out a timid hand. "You--you won't sidewith Cochise? You won't let him take me?"

  "'Course he won't," put in Carmena. "Didn't I tell you we're pards? Hisname is Jack Lennon, and he's a real man."

  Lennon was pressing the soft little hand of the younger girl.

  "So you are Sister Elsie," he said. "Carmena is right. I will not sidewith Cochise--if that's our hot friend down below."

  The girl's rosebud lips parted in a smile of wondering delight.

  "You called me sister! Then you'll be my brother--my Brother Jack!"

  Lennon was astonished that any girl more than fourteen could be sonaive. Yet the effect was more than charming.

  "I'll be only too happy, if Carmena has no objection."

  He glanced up into the face of the older girl and surprised a look notmeant for him to see. As the down-drooping lashes veiled her dark eyes adeep blush glowed under the tan of her dust-grimed, haggard face. Therealization of the meaning of that blush and glance sobered Lennon.

  The girl had known him a scant seven-and-twenty hours. But in that fullday had been packed more intense peril and emotion than many couplesshare in a lifetime. He had saved her and she him. Together they hadsuffered agonies of thirst and exhaustion, and together they had cheatedthe murderous Apaches. Even now, down beneath them at the foot of thisancient cliff refuge, the leader of the renegades was futilely cursing.

  Lennon was a white man, and he had proved himself not a quitter. Thegirl had been overwrought by their terrible flight. That she shouldfancy herself beginning to fall in love with him was quiteunderstandable. The discovery of the fact set his jaded nerves totingling with a pleasant thrill even as he realized the awkwardness ofthe situation.

  By way of diversion, he stepped around to take his rifle from thesaddle. As he straightened up with it the muzzle of a double-barreledshotgun thrust out at him from a small slit window in the end wall ofthe room. Behind the gun, framed deep by the thick stone of the windowcasing, he saw the leering gray face that he had first caught a glimpseof in another opening at the opposite end of the room.

  A thin dry voice that was shrill with fear snarled at him:

  "Hands up! Drop that gun!"

  Carmena flung herself between Lennon and the threatening muzzle.

  "Don't shoot, Dad! He's a friend!" she cried.

  Over her shoulder Lennon saw the reddened eyes blink and the muscles ofthe gray face twitch. The muzzle of the shotgun wavered.

  "Put your gun down, Dad," Carmena ordered. "Mr. Lennon and I arepartners. Come out here and meet him."

  Both face and gun disappeared. After several moments a smallishgray-haired man shuffled out through the doorway on the right of thewindow and scurried across the opening into which the crane had swungits load. As he unbent his emaciated body to face the visitor his breathwas heavy with the fumes of whiskey.

  Lennon knew without looking that Carmena's eyes were fixed upon him inmute appeal. He had given her his promise to help her father. There wasno betrayal of repugnance in the friendly offer of his hand.

  "My name is Lennon, Mr. Farley. Your daughter tells me you were alawyer. I'm a professional man myself--engineer."

  Farley stiffened to a show of dignity.

  "I am still a lawyer," he rasped. "I must stipulate that you arereceived here with reservations. Your presence is a trespass. This ranchis private property and----"

  "All right, Dad. That lets you out with Slade and Cochise," interruptedCarmena. "We'll all bear witness. Come in now. We're both half dead forwant of food and sleep. Those devils ran us clear across the Basin."

  Lennon glanced at his rifle.

  "How about the two below?"

  "We might send down a pie to them," suggested the timid Elsie. "Thatwould make Cochise feel better."

  To the vast surprise of Lennon Carmena took this preposterous proposalseriously.

  "All right, Blossom. But not a drop of tizwin, mind. This way, Jack."

  The doorway opened into a large living-room, homelike with bright-huedNavaho rugs, a quantity of cliff-dweller pottery, and a sufficiency ofheavy, comfortable furniture hewn out of cedar. The chairs were seatedand backed with tightly stretched rawhide. Several artistic picturesfrom periodicals were pasted on the stone walls. In one corner a pot wasboiling over a charcoal brazier.

  As the fair-haired Elsie thrust a big pie into a loop-handled basket andhurried out, Carmena fetched two large bowls brimming with soup. Whileher back was turned Farley winked leeringly at the visitor and offeredhim a half-emptied whiskey flask. Carmena was in time to see Lennonrefuse the drink. Her fatigue-bent shoulders straightened to adeep-drawn breath, and her sunken eyes glowed softly.

  Cool water from a sweating jar and rich meat broth thickened with beansand corn were, at last, equal to the task of satisfying even so ravenousa hunger and thirst as Lennon's. Elsie had come back with her basketempty. She set to waiting upon Carmena and "Brother Jack" with shydelight.

  The other visitors, down below, evidently had not been displeased by thegift of the pie. There was no resumption of the firing. Lennon felt thathe understood the reason, when the girl divided another pie between himand Carmena. It was made of dewberries, sweetened with honey.

  Lennon found his eyelids beginning to droop. At a word from Carmena,Farley led him to a cool dark inner room. He curtly pointed out a rudebed-frame across which had been stretched a rawhide. Lennon fell asleepthe moment he lay down upon the elastic bed.