Bloom of Cactus

by Robert Ames Bennet

  CHAPTER XII

  A BARGAIN

  During the meal prepared by Elsie a solemn avowal by Slade that the cookmust go home with him brought the knife of Cochise half out of itssheath.

  Slade either did not see the movement, or, if he did, he contemptuouslydisregarded its menace. He had turned to Farley, his big red face andpale blue eyes suddenly sober.

  "Well, Dad," he boomed, "guess we'd better hold a seance and git BrotherCochise back into a proper spiritual frame of mind. I got someconverting work for him to go out and do."

  Cochise shot a side glance at Elsie.

  "You leave my woman--I go. Sabe?"

  The trader burst into his hoarse laugh.

  "Go to hell! Can't you take a joke? We're pards, ain't we? Can't I joshthe gal without you gitting rattlesnakey? Don't suppose I meant it, doyou? Come on, Dad. Git a hustle on you. We got to hold that seance."

  He looked at Lennon with a hard smile.

  "We run a lodge here---- Spirits Order Secret Scotch Rites. We'll gointo a seance and find out whether to initiate you."

  "Dad is too sick," interposed Carmena. "He can't help any. I'll take hisplace."

  "No. He's going to come, and you'll stick here," ordered Slade.

  Farley rose and tottered out into the anteroom with him and Cochise.Lennon sprang up beside the coolly smiling girl.

  "You've permitted them to go--knowing what will happen!"

  "Nothing will happen. I changed keys on Dad. He'll come back. Then Iwill go in his place."

  "You shall not," forbade Lennon. "I told you it would be murder."

  "How about Blossom?" queried the girl. "Slade isn't joking and you knownow what he is like."

  Lennon looked at the prospective victim, hesitated, and tightened hisjaw.

  "I must hold you to your promise. Set them upon each other, if youwish---- But it shall not be that other way."

  "If you hold me to my promise," said Carmena, her eyes hot with scorn.

  She started to help Elsie clear the food-splattered table.

  Before many minutes Farley reeled in, speechless from terror. Hecollapsed into the first chair and held out a key in his wavering hand.Carmena looked at it, nodded understandingly, and hastened out, with asignificant glance for Lennon.

  He was not altogether reassured. After a few moments he followed heralong the front row of the cliff house rooms. He was close enough tohear the talk that followed when she joined Cochise and Slade at thepadlocked door. The trader gruffly accepted her excuses for her father,but swore violently when the two keys that she had brought failed toopen the lock.

  She explained how she had changed her father's clothes, and took uponherself all the blame with regard to the misplacing of the key. Aftermuch soothing talk, she at last quieted Slade by promising to have agiven quantity of whiskey distilled before his next visit.

  "That'll do," he conceded. "Look out you don't forgit it, though, orI'll take it out of Dad's hide. Now, Cochise, you hit the high placesfor them hosses. Don't do no shooting this time. Just natchelly have 'emdrift off. Git a move on you."

  Had not Lennon been wearing moccasins, he must have been caught. As itwas, he glided back through the many rooms, undetected.

  Farley had crept into his own room. His absence gave Lennon opportunityto calm Elsie's fears and comfort her with the promise that he wouldsave her from both Slade and Cochise. The tread of heavy boots sent herscurrying out of the living room.

  Slade strode in after Carmena and jerked a chair around to where hecould look close into Lennon's face.

  "Now, young man, what's this bunk about you and Carmena being pards?" hedemanded. "What business you got in Dead Hole, anyhow? Cochise says youshot a hoss of hisn."

  "I told you how that started," interposed Carmena. "It wasn't our faultthat Cochise flew off the handle. Jack had to shoot to save me as wellas himself."

  Slade stared hard at the girl and then at Lennon.

  "Well, supposing the young devil did break loose. What of it? How aboutthis pard bunk? That's what I want to know."

  "I fear that Miss Farley has found me rather a disappointment," put inLennon, and he looked at his trussed arm.

  "Not at all--just the other way 'round," Carmena glowingly asserted."Figure it out for yourself, Mr. Slade. A man who could follow up a Gilamonster bite by outrunning Cochise and his bunch across the Basin, andthen make them back up. Can you wonder I think he's a man for us to tieto?"

  "If we needed a new pard," qualified Slade. "Fact is, we don't, and youknow it. We got enough a'ready to do the work and split up our profits."

  Carmena cast a significant glance toward Elsie, who had ventured back torenew the fire in her oven.

  "How about Cochise getting out of hand? All the time it's harder to holdhim. He's beginning to bristle up even to you."

  Slade's tobacco-stained teeth showed in a grin of contemptuousindifference.

  "Bah. I'll pull his head off if he gits sassy, and he knows it."

  "Of course. He'd have no show--unless a pot-shot or a knife in yourback---- If only he was white!"

  "Surely you do not mean to say, Miss Farley, that Cochise would attackhis own partner," Lennon backed up the girl's play. "I saw him pull outthat long knife of his under the table, but imagined it was merely theIndian way of easing his feelings against Mr. Slade."

  "Pulled his knife on me, did he?" bellowed the trader, in a sudden burstof anger.

  "And just because you dared speak kindly to Elsie," sympathized Carmena.

  Strange enough, the barbed sting appeared to quiet rather than enrageSlade. He laughed.

  "No four-flushing, Mena. Needn't try to pull the wool over my eyes. Ican't run my business without Cochise, and you know it. You got to showme a deal with more in it, before you talk about a shift of pards. I'mrunning this shebang. There ain't no place for Lennon 'round Dead Hole.He best hit out back the way he come."

  Carmena's look told Lennon that he must make the next play. He thoughtquickly. If the girl was not mistaken, Slade would take Elsie away withhim and chance the revenge of Cochise. The Apache might be appeased bypermission to follow his intended victim back into the Basin.

  Had Lennon considered only himself he would have been willing to chancea fight with the renegade. But the mere thought of abandoning Elsie toeither the Apache or this brutal trader was altogether unbearable.

  "Indeed, yes--to be sure, Mr. Slade," he blandly made reply. "If you donot desire me as a partner, I have no wish to remain here. Doubtless Ishall not require your aid to find the mine for which I am looking."

  "Mine?" queried Slade, his pale eyes narrowing. "What mine?"

  "It's the lost lode," cut in Carmena, her rich voice quivering witheagerness. "I couldn't say anything until Jack spoke. He was headed forthe mine when his burro was shot and we had to leave his outfit--thanksto Cochise. But he knows where to find the lost lode. Got it fromCripple Sim--back East. It's somewhere over near Triple Butte. You seenow why I thought you'd be glad to have me bring Jack in as a partner?"

  The red face of the trader fairly glowed with geniality. He held out hisbeefy hand to Lennon.

  "Shake, pard. Why didn't you speak up sooner? I might have knowed youwas O.K. But Carmena is only a gal, and we got to be careful ofstrangers in these parts. Bad place for hoss thieves and brand-blotters.That's why I put up with a mean Injun like Cochise. He and his bunch seeto it we don't lose no stock."

  "Yes, they're great on rounding up, and so far they have never committedany murders--that can be proved against them," put in Carmena, with anironical smile. "Just the same, it wasn't their fault they didn't getJack. Do you wonder he won't have them in on this lost-lode deal? Eitherhe plays a lone hand, or we run Cochise out of the country."

  "My offer is ten thousand in cash," said Lennon. "The copper companypays me twice that and----"

  "Copper, huh? What's a copper company got to do with a gold lode?"demanded Slade.

  "But Jack says the lost lode is copper, not gold," said
Carmena. "Maybewe've been mistaken all these years. Sim told Jack it was a copper mine,and Sim ought to know."

  Lennon caught the significant glance that the girl covertly gave toSlade. He was seized with black doubt whether her scheming was againstSlade or with Slade against himself. Yet he continued to play to herlead----

  "Yes, the discoverer of the mine should know whether it was gold orcopper."

  After some argument, Slade finally admitted that the old rumour aboutCripple Sim's fabulously rich lost gold mine might be an "exaggeration."With much hemming and hawing, he then agreed that if the lost mine wererediscovered he would accept ten thousand dollars and rid Dead Hole ofCochise.

  "We might git up a company our own selves, Lennon, but we couldn't bringin any railroad to develop a _copper_ mine," he repeated what Carmenahad already remarked. "Take what you can git and be thankful, is mymotto. Soon's we find that mine, you can count on me to run Cochiseclean out of the country."

  Carmena drew in a deep quavering breath.

  "That's such a relief, Mr. Slade! I've been so afraid for Elsie. I knowthat Cochise figures on making off with her at the first chance."

  "He does, does he?" growled the trader. "Well, then, you're going tostick here and see he don't git no chance, while I go with our new pard.How's that, Lennon?"

  "Good enough," agreed Lennon.

  "Elsie and I will hunt up some tools," said Carmena and she hurried herfoster-sister out into the store-rooms before Slade could voice anobjection.

  He at once began to give Lennon a pessimistic account of the smallprofits and many risks and hardships of a trader's life in this aridland of mesas and canons. As for the cattle business, there was morework than money in it, what with mountain lions, wolves, andbrand-blotters.

  Lennon checked himself on the point of asking the meaning of the strangeterm. He recalled that Elsie had said something about mavericking andbrand-blotting by the Apaches. Unless Farley and the girls wereconniving with Cochise, the Indian could not be carrying on any work inthe Hole unknown to Slade, and he had just intimated that brand-blottingwas some kind of harmful or criminal action.