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Action and adventure there are a-plenty in thistale of the "Flying U" boys in New Mexico, in which a fake bankrobbery for film purposes precedes a real one for lust of gold; andthe Happy Family, sworn in as deputy sheriffs, follow a trailthrough miles and miles of arid desert in quest of the robbers,only to encounter instead a band of frightened Navajo Indians whomight have annihilated them if Luck Lindsay hadn't understoodsign-talk. Finally, when their search succeeded, Annie-Many-Ponies,daughter of a chief, showed her Sioux heritage and Ramon Chavezreceived his just desserts. It is a strong, emotional story thatwill appeal to this favorite author's many readers.

Chapter I. When Green Grass Comes
Chapter II. The Daughter of a Chief
Chapter III. To the Victors the Spoils
Chapter IV. Love Words for Annie
Chapter V. For the Good of the Company
Chapter VI. "I Go Where Wagalexa ConkaSay"
Chapter VII. Adventure Comes Smiling
Chapter VIII. The Song of the Omaha
Chapter IX. Riders in the Background
Chapter X. Deputies All
Chapter XI. All This War-Talk AboutInjuns
Chapter XII. The Wild-Goose Chase
Chapter XIII. Set Afoot
Chapter XIV. One Put Over on the Bunch
Chapter XV. "Now, Dang It, Ride!"
Chapter XVI. Annie-Many-Ponies Waits
Chapter XVII. Applehead Shows the Stuff HeIs Made Of
Chapter XVIII. In the Devil'sFrying-Pan
Chapter XIX. Peace Talk
Chapter XX. Luis Rojas Talks
Chapter XXI. "WagalexaConka—Cola!"

I. —WHEN GREEN GRASS COMES

OLD APPLEHEAD FURRMAN, jogging home across themesa from Albuquerque, sniffed the soft breeze that came fromopal-tinted distances and felt poignantly that spring was indeedhere. The grass, thick and green in the sheltered places, was fastpainting all the higher ridges and foot-hill slopes, and with thegreen grass came the lank-bodied, big-kneed calves; which meantthat roundup time was at hand. Applehead did not own more than athousand head of cattle, counting every hoof that walked under hisbrand. And with the incipient lethargy of old age creeping into hishabits of life, roundup time was not with him the important seasonit once had been; for several years he had been content to hire acouple of men to represent him in the roundups of the largeroutfits—men whom he could trust to watch fairly well hisinterests. By that method he avoided much trouble and hurry andhard work—and escaped also the cares which come withwealth.

But this spring was not as other springs had been.Something—whether an awakened ambition or an access ofsentiment regarding range matters, he did not know—wasstirring the blood in Applehead's veins. Never, since the days whenhe had been a cowpuncher, had the wide spaces called to him soalluringly; never had his mind dwelt so insistently upon theapproach of spring roundup. Perhaps it was because he heard so muchrange talk at the ranch, where the boys of the Flying U wereforegathered in uneasy idleness, their fingers itching for the feelof lariat ropes and branding irons while they gazed out over thewide spaces of the mesa.

So much good rangeland unharnessed by wire fencing the Flying Uboys had not seen for many a day. During the winter they had beencontent to ride over it merely for the purpose of helping to make amotion picture of the range, but with the coming of green grass,and with the reaction that followed the completion of the picturethat in the making had filled all their thoughts, they were not socontent. To the inevitable reaction had been added a nerve rackingperiod of idleness and uncertainty while Luck Lindsay, theirdirector, strove with the Great Western Film Company in Los Angelesfor terms and prices that would make for the prosperity of himselfand his company.

In his heart Applehead knew, just as the Happy Family knew, thatLuck had good and sufficient reasons for over-staying thetime-limit he had given himself for the trip. But knowing that Luckwas not to be blamed for his long absence did not lessen theirimpatience, nor did it stifle the call of the wide spaces nor thesubtle influence of the winds that blew softly over theuplands.

By the time he reached the ranch Applehead had persuaded himselfthat the immediate gathering of his cattle was an imperative dutyand that he himself must perform it. He could not, he told himself,afford to wait around any longer for Luck. Maybe when he came Luckwould have nothing but disappointment for them. Maybe—Luckwas so consarned stubborn when he got an idea in hishead—maybe he wouldn't come to any agreement with the GreatWestern. Maybe they wouldn't offer him enough money, or leave himenough freedom in his work; maybe he would "fly back on the rope"at the last minute, and come back with nothing accomplished.Applehead, with the experience gleaned from the stress of seeingLuck produce one feature picture without any financial backingwhatever and without half enough capital, was not looking forwardwith any enthusiasm to another such ordeal. He did not believe,when all was said and done, that the Flying U boys would be soterribly eager to repeat the performance. He did believe—orhe made himself think he believed—that the only sensiblething to do right then was to take the boys and go out and start aroundup of his own. It wouldn't take long—his cattle weren'tso badly scattered this year.

"Where's Andy at?" he asked Pink, who happened to be leaningboredly over the gate when he rode up to the corral. Andy Green,having been left in nominal charge of the outfit when Luck left,must be consulted, Applehead supposed.

"Andy? I dunno. He saddled up and rode off somewhere, a whileago," Pink answered glumly. "That's more than he'll let any of usfellows do; the way he's close-herding us makes me tired! Anynews?"

"Ain't ary word from Luck—no word ofno kind. I'veabout made up my mind to take the chuck-wagon to town and stock itwith grub, and hit out on roundup t'morrer or next day. I don't seeas there's any sense in setting around here waitin' on Luck andlettin' my own work slide. Chavez boys, they started out yest'day,I heard in town. And if I don't git right out close onto theirheels, I'll likely find myself with a purty light crop uh calves,now I'm tellin' yuh!" Applehead, so completely had he come underthe spell of the soft spring air and the lure of the mesa, actuallyforgot that he had long been in the habit of attending to his calfcrop by proxy.

Pink's face brightened briefly. Then he remembered why they werebeing kept so close to the ranch, and he grew bored again.

"What if Luck pulled in before we got back, and wanted us tostart work on another picture?" he asked, discouraging the ideareluctantly. Pink had himself been listening to the call of thewide spaces, and the mere mention of roundup had a thrill forhim.

"Well, now, I calc'late my prope'ty is might' nigh as importantas Luck's pitcher-making," Applehead contended with a selfishnessborn of his newly awakened hunger for the far distances. "And heain't sent ary word that he's coming, or will need you boysimmediate. The chances is we could go and git back agin before Luckshows up. And if we don't," he argued speciously, "he can't blamenobody for not wantin' to set around on their haunches all springwaiting for 'im. I'd do a lot fer Luck; I'vedone a lot fer'im. But it ain't to be expected I'd set around waitin' on him andlet them danged Mexicans rustle my calves. They'll do it if theygit half a show—now I'm tellin' yuh!"

Pink did not say anything at all, either in assent or argument;but old Applehead, now that he had established a plausible reasonfor his sudden impulse, went on arguing the case while he unsaddledhis horse. By the time he turned the animal loose he had thought oftwo or three other reasons why he should take the boys and startout as soon as possible to round up his cattle. He was stilldilating upon these reasons when Andy Green rode slowly down theslope to the corral.

"Annie-Many-Ponies come back yet?" he asked of Pink, as he swungdown off his horse.

"Annie? No; ain't seen anything of her. Shunky's been sittingout there on the hill for the last hour, looking for her."

"Fer half a cent," threatened old Applehead, in a bad humorbecause his arguments had not quite convinced him that he was notmeditating a disloyalty, "I'd kill that danged dawg. And if I wasrunnin' this bunch, I'd send that squaw back where she come from,and I'd send her quick. Take the two of 'em together and they don'tset good with me, now I'm tellin' yuh! If I was to say what Ithink, I'd say yuh can't never trust an Injun—and shiny hairand eyes and slim build don't make 'em no trustier. They'ssomething scaley goin' on around here, and I'd gamble on it. Andthat there squaw's at the bottom of it. What fur's she ridin' offevery day, 'n' nobody knowin' where she goes to? If Luck's got thesense he used to have, he'll git some white girl to act in hispitchers, and send that there squaw home 'fore she double-crosseshim some way or other."

"Oh, hold on, Applehead!" Pink felt constrained to defend thegirl. "You've got it in for her 'cause her dog don't like your cat.Annie's all right; I never saw anything outa the way with heryet."

"Well, now, time you're old as I be, you'll have some sense,mebby," Applehead quelled. "Course you think Annie's all right.She's purty,'n' purtyness in a woman shore does cover up a pile uhcussedness—to a feller under forty. You're boss here, Andy.When she comes back, you ask 'er where she's been, and see if youkin git a straight answer. She'll lie to yuh—I'll bet all Igot, she'll lie to yuh. And when a woman lies about where she'sbeen to and what she's been doin', you can bet there's somethingscaley goin' on. Yuh can't foolme!"

He turned and went up to the small adobe house where he hadlived in solitary contentment with his cat Compadre until LuckLindsay, seeking a cheap headquarters for his free-lance companywhile he produced the big Western picture which filled all hismind, had taken calm and unheralded possession of the ranch.Applehead did not resent the invasion; on the contrary, he welcomedit as a pleasant change in his monotonous existence. What he didresent was the coming, first, of the little black dog that was nomore than a tramp and had no right on the ranch, and that broke allthe laws of decency and gratitude by making the life of the bigblue cat miserable. Also he resented the uninvited arrival ofAnnie-Many-Ponies from the Sioux reservation in North Dakota.

Annie-Many-Ponies had not only come uninvited—she hadremained in defiance of Luck's perturbed insistence that she shouldgo back home. The Flying U boys might overlook that fact because ofher beauty, but Applehead was not so easilybeguiled—especially when she proceeded to form a violentattachment to the little black dog, which she called ShunkaChistala in what Applehead considered a brazen flaunting of herIndian blood and language, Between the mistress of Shunka Chistalaand the master of the cat there could never be anything morecordial than an armed truce. She had championed that ornery cur ina way to make Applehead's blood boil. She had kept the dog in thehouse at night, which forced the cat to seek cold comfortelsewhere. She had pilfered the choicest table scraps for thedog—and Compadre was a cat of fastidious palate and grew thinon what coarse bits were condescendingly left for him.

Applehead had not approved of Luck's final consent thatAnnie-Many-Ponies should stay and play the Indian girl in his bigpicture. In the mind of Applehead there lurked a grudge that foundall the more room to grow because of the natural bigness andgenerosity of his nature. It irked him to see her going her calmway with that proud uptilt to her shapely head and that little,inscrutable smile when she caught the meaning of his grumblinghints.

Applehead was easy-going to a fault in most things, but hisdislike had grown in Luck's absence to the point where heconsidered himself aggrieved whenever Annie-Many-Ponies saddled thehorse which had been tacitly set aside for her use, and rode offinto the mesa without a word of explanation or excuse. Appleheadreminded the boys that she had not acted like that when Luck washome. She had stayed on the ranch where she belonged, except onceor twice, on particularly fine days, when she had meekly asked"Wagalexa Conka," as she persisted in calling Luck, for permissionto go for a ride.

Applehead itched to tell her a few things about the social,moral, intellectual and economic status of an "Injunsquaw"—but there was something in her eye, something in thequiver of her finely shaped nostrils, in the straight black brows,that held his tongue quiet when he met her face to face. Youcouldn't tell about these squaws. Even Luck, who knew Indiansbetter than most—and was, in a heathenish tribal way, theadopted son of Old Chief Big Turkey, and therefore Annie's brotherby adoption—even Luck maintained that Annie-Many-Poniesundoubtedly carried a knife concealed in her clothes and would useit if ever the need arose. Applehead was not afraid of Annie'sknife. It was something else, something he could not put intowords, that held him back from open upbraidings.

He gave Andy's wife, Rosemary, the mail and stopped tosympathize with her because Annie-Many-Ponies had gone away andleft the hardest part of the ironing undone. Luck had told Annie tohelp Rosemary with the work; but Annie's help, when Luck was notaround the place, was, Rosemary asserted, purely theoretical.

"And from all you read about Indians," Rosemary complained witha pretty wrinkling of her brows, "you'd think the women justlive for the sake of working. I've lost all faith inhistory, Mr. Furrman. I don't believe squaws ever do anything ifthey can help it. Before she went off riding today, for instance,that girl spent a wholehour brushing her hair and braidingit. And I do believe shegreases it to make it shine the wayit does! And the powder she piles on her face—just to rideout on the mesa!" Rosemary Green was naturally sweet-tempered andexceedingly charitable in her judgements; but here, too, thecat-and-dog feud had its influence. Rosemary Green was a loyalchampion of the cat Compadre; besides, there was a succession oflittle irritations, in the way of dishes left unwashed andinconspicuous corners left unswept, to warp her opinion ofAnnie-Many-Ponies.

When he left Rosemary he went straight down to where thechuck-wagon stood, and began to tap the tires with a small rock tosee if they would need resetting before he started out. He decidedthat the brake-blocks would have to be replaced with newones—or at least reshod with old boot-soles. The tongue wascracked, too; that had been done last winter when Luck wasproducing The Phantom Herd and had sent old Dave Wiswell down arocky hillside with half-broken bronks harnessed to the wagon, in aparticularly dramatic scene. Applehead went grumblingly in searchof some baling wire to wrap the tongue. He had been terriblyexcited and full of enthusiasm for the picture at the time thetongue was cracked, but now he looked upon it merely as a vitalweakness in his roundup outfit. A new tongue would mean delay; anddelay, in his present mood, was tragedy.

He couldn't find any old baling wire, though he had long beenaccustomed to tangling his feet in snarled bunches of it when hewent forth in the dark after a high wind. Until now he had notobserved its unwonted absence from the yard. For a long while hehad not needed any wire to mend things, because Luck had attendedto everything about the ranch, and if anything needed mending hehad set one of the Happy Family at the task.

His search led him out beyond the corrals in the little dry washthat sometimes caught and held what the high winds brought rollingthat way. The wash was half filled with tumble-weed, so thatApplehead was forced to get down into it and kick the weeds asideto see if there was any wire lodged beneath. His temper did notsweeten over the task, especially since he found nothing that hewanted.

Annie-Many-Ponies, riding surreptitiously up the drywash—meaning to come out in a farther gully and so approachthe corral from the west instead of from the east—came uponApplehead quite unexpectedly. She stopped and eyed him aslant fromunder her level, finely marked brows, and her eyes lightened withrelief when she saw that Applehead looked more startled than shehad felt. Indeed, Applehead had been calling Luck uncomplimentarynames for cleaning the place of everything a man might need in ahurry, and he was ashamed of himself.

"Can't find a foot of danged wire on the danged place!"Applehead kicked a large, tangled bunch of weeds under the verynose of the horse which jumped sidewise. "Never seen such a maniacfor puttin' things where a feller can't find 'em, as what Luck is."He was not actually speaking to Annie-Many-Ponies—or if hewas he did not choose to point his remarks by glancing at her.

"Wagalexa Conka, he heap careful for things belong when theystay," Annie-Many-Ponies observed in her musical contralto voicewhich always irritated Applehead with its very melody. "I thinkplenty wire all fold up neat in prop-room. Wagalexa Conka, he alltime clean this studio from trash lie around everywhere."

"He does, hey?" Applehead's sunburnt mustache bristled like thewhiskers of Compadre when he was snarling defiance at the littleblack dog. The feud was asserting itself. "Well, this here dangedplace ain't no studio! It's a ranch, and it b'longs tome,Nip Furrman. And any balin' wire on this ranch is my balin' wire,and it's got a right to lay around wherever I want it t' lay. And Idon't need no danged squaw givin' me hints about 'how my placeoughta be kept—now I'm tellin' yuh!"

Annie-Many-Ponies did not reply in words. She sat on her horse,straight as any young warchief that ever led her kinsmen to battle,and looked down at Applehead with that maddening half smile ofhers, inscrutable as the Sphinx her features sometimes resembled.Shunka Chistala (which is Sioux for Little Dog) came bounding overthe low ridge that hid the ranch buildings from sight, and waggedhimself dislocatingly up to her. Annie-Many-Ponies frowned at hisapproach until she saw that Applehead was aiming a clod at the dog,whereupon she touched her heels to the horse and sent him betweenApplehead and her pet, and gave Shunka Chistala a sharp command inSioux that sent him back to the house with his tail dropped.

For a full half minute she and old Applehead looked at eachother in open antagonism. For a squaw, Annie-Many-Ponies wasremarkably unsubmissive in her bearing. Her big eyes were franklyhostile; her half smile was, in the opinion of Applehead, almost asfrankly scornful. He could not match her in the subtleties offeminine warfare. He took refuge behind the masculine bulwark ofauthority.

"Where yuh bin with that horse uh mine?" he demanded harshly."Purty note when I don't git no say about my own stock. Got him allhet up and heavin' like he'd been runnin' cattle; I ain't goin' tostand for havin' my horses ran to death, now I'm tellin' yuh! Fer asquaw, I must say you're gittin' too danged uppish in your waysaround here. Next time you want to go traipsin' around the mesa,you kin go afoot. I'm goin' to need my horses fer roundup."

A white girl would have made some angry retort; butAnnie-Many-Ponies, without looking in the least abashed, held herpeace and kept that little inscrutable smile upon her lips. Hereyes, however, narrowed in their gaze.

"Yuh hear me?" Poor old Applehead had never before attempted tobrowbeat a woman, and her unsubmissive silence seemed to hisbachelor mind uncanny.

"I hear what Wagalexa Conka tell me." She turned her horse androde composedly away from him over the ridge.

"You'll hear a danged sight more'n that, now I'm tellin' yuh!"raved Applehead impotently. "I ain't sayin' nothin' agin Luck, butthey's goin' to be some danged plain speakin' done on some subjectswhen he comes back, and givin' squaws a free rein and lettin' 'emride rough-shod over everybody and everything is one of 'em. Thingsis gittin' mighty funny when a danged squaw kin straddle my horsesand ride 'em to death, and sass me when I say a word aginit—now I'm tellin' yuh!"

He went mumbling rebellion that was merely the effervescing of amood which would pass with the words it bred, to the store-roomwhich Annie-Many-Ponies had called the prop-room. He found there,piled upon a crude shelf, many little bundles of wire folded neatlyand with the outer end wound twice around to keep each bundleseparate from the others. Applehead snorted at what he chose toconsider a finicky streak in his secret idol, Luck Lindsay; but hetook two of the little bundles and went and wired the wagon tongue.And in the work he found a salve of anticipatory pleasure, so thathe ended the task to the humming of the tune he had heard a movietheatre playing in town as he rode by on his way home.

II. —THE DAUGHTER OF A CHIEF

IN spite of Andy Green's plea for delay until theyknew what Luck meant to do, Applehead went on with his energeticpreparations for a spring roundup of his own. Some perverse spiritseemed to possess him and drive him out of his easy-goingshiftlessness. He offered to hire the Happy Family by the day,since none of them would promise any permanent service until theyheard from Luck. He put them to work gathering up the saddle-horsesthat had been turned loose when Luck's picture was finished, andrepairing harness and attending to the numberless details ofreorganizing a ranch long left to slipshod make-shifts.

The boys of the Flying U argued while they worked, but in spiteof themselves the lure of the mesa quickened their movements. Theywere supposed to wait for Luck before they did anything; and theyall knew that. But, on the other hand, Luck was supposed to keepthem informed as to his movements; which he had not done. They didnot voice one single doubt of Lucks loyalty to them, but humannature is more prone to suspicion than to faith, as every oneknows. And Luck had the power and the incentive to "double-cross"them if he was the kind to do such a thing. He was manager fortheir little free-lance picture company which did not even have aname to call itself by. They had produced one big feature film, andit was supposed to be a cooperative affair from start to finish. IfLuck failed to make good, they would all be broke together. If Luckcleared up the few thousands that had been their hope,why—they would all profit by the success, if Luck—

I maintain that they showed themselves of pretty good metal, inthat not even Happy Jack, confirmed pessimist that he was, ever putthe least suspicion of Luck's honesty into words. They were not thekind to decry a comrade when his back was turned. And they hadworked with Luck Lindsay and had worked for him. They had sleptunder the same roof with him, had shared his worries, his hopes, andhis fears. They did not believe that Luck had appropriated theproceeds of The Phantom Herd and had deliberately left them thereto cool their heels and feel the emptiness of their pockets in NewMexico, while he disported himself in Los Angeles; they did notbelieve that—they would have resented the implication thatthey harbored any doubt of him. But for all that, as the dayspassed and he neither came nor sent them any word, they yieldedmore and more to the determination of Applehead to start out uponhis own business, and they said less and less about Luck's probableplans for the future.

And then, just when they were making ready for an early startthe next morning; just when Applehead had the corral full of horsesand his chuckwagon of grub; just when the Happy Family had packedtheir war-bags with absolute necessities and were justifyingthemselves in final arguments with Andy Green, who refusedpoint-blank to leave the ranch—then, at the time a dramatistwould have chosen for his entrance for an effective "curtain," herecame Luck, smiling and driving a huge seven-passenger machinecrowded to the last folding seat and with the chauffeur riding onthe running board where Luck had calmly banished him when heskidded on a sharp turn and came near upsetting them.

Applehead, stowing a coil of new rope in the chuck-wagon, tookoff his hat and rubbed his shiny, pink pate in dismay. He was, forthe moment, a culprit caught in the act of committing a gravemisdemeanor if not an actual felony. He dropped the rope and wentforward with dragging feet—ashamed, for the first time in hislife, to face a friend.

Luck gave the wheel a twist, cut a fine curve around thewindmill and stopped before the house with as near a flourish as aseven-passenger automobile loaded from tail-lamp to windshield canpossibly approach.

"There. That's the way I've been used to seeing cars behave,"Luck observed pointedly to the deposed chauffeur as he slammed thedoor open and climbed out. "You don't have to act like you're acaterpillar on a rail fence, to play safe. I believe in keeping allfour wheels on the ground—but I like to see 'em turn once inawhile. You get me?" He peeled a five-dollar banknote off a rollthe size of his wrist, handed it to the impressed chauffeur anddismissed the transaction with a wave of his gloved hand. "You'reall right, brother," he tempered his criticism, "but I'm somenervous about automobiles."

"I noticed that myself," drawled a soft, humorous voice from therear. "This is the nearest I ever came to traveling bytelegraph."

Luck grinned, waved his hand in friendly greeting to the HappyFamily who were taking long steps up from the corral, and turnedhis attention to the unloading of the machine. "Howdy,folks!—guess yuh thought I'd plumb lost the trail back," hecalled to them over his shoulder while he dove after suitcases,packages of various sizes and shapes, a box or two which the HappyFamily recognized as containing "raw stock," and a camera tripodthat looked perfectly new.

From the congested tonneau a tall, slim young woman managed todescend without stepping on anything that could not bear beingstepped upon. She gave her skirts a little shake, pushed back aflying strand of hair and turned her back to the machine that shemight the better inspect her immediate surroundings.

Old Dave Wiswell, the dried little man who never had much tosay, peered at her sharply, hesitated and then came forward withhis bony hand outstretched and trembling with eagerness. "Why, mygorry! If it ain't Jean Douglas, my eyes are lyin' to me," hecried.

"It isn't Jean Douglas—but don't blame your eyes forthat," said the girl, taking his hand and shaking it frankly. "JeanDouglas Avery, thanks to the law that makes a girl trade her namefor a husband. You know Lite, of course—dad, too."

"Well, well—my gorry! I should say I do! Howdy, Aleck?" Heshook the hand of the old man Jean called dad, and his lipstrembled uncertainly, seeking speech that would not hurt a very,very sore spot in the heart of big Aleck Douglas. "I'm shore gladto meet yuh again," he stuttered finally, and let it go at that"And how are yuh, Lite? Just as long and lanky asever—marriage shore ain't fattened you up none. My gorry! Ishore never expected to see you folks away down here!"

"Thought you heard me say when I left that the Great Western hadoffered to get me Jean Douglas for leading lady," Luck put in,looking around distractedly for a place to deposit his armload ofpackages. "That's one thing that kept me—waiting for her toshow up. Of course a man naturally expects a woman to take her owntime about starting—"

"I like that!" Jean drawled. "We broke up housekeeping and woundup a ranch and traveled a couple of thousand miles in just a week'stime. We—wealmost hit the same gait you did from townout here today!"

Rosemary Green came out then, and Luck turned to greet her andto present Jean to her, and was pleased when he saw from their eyesthat they liked each other at first sight. He introduced the HappyFamily and Applehead to her and to her husband, Lite Avery, and herfather. He pulled a skinny individual forward and announced thatthis was Pete Lowry, one of the Great Western's crack cameramen;and another chubby, smooth-cheeked young man he presented as TommyJohnson, scenic artist and stage carpenter. And he added with asmile for the whole bunch, "We're going to produce some real stufffrom now on, believe me, folks!"

In the confusion and the mild clamor of the absence-bridgingquestions and hasty answers, two persons had no part. OldApplehead, hard-ridden by the uneasy consciousness of his treasonto Luck, leaned against a porch post and sucked hard at the stem ofan empty pipe. And just beyond the corner out of sight but wellwithin hearing, Annie-Many-Ponies stood flattened against the walland listened with fast-beating pulse for the sound of her name,spoken in the loved voice of Wagalexa Conka. She, the daughter of achief and Luck's sister by tribal adoption—would he not missher from among those others who welcomed him? Would he notpresently ask: "Where is Annie-Many-Ponies?" She knew just how hewould turn and search for her with his eyes.

She knew just how his voice would sound when he asked for her.Then, after a minute—when he had missed her and had asked forher—she would come and stand before him. And he would takeher hand and say to that white woman; "This is my Indian sister,Annie-Many-Ponies, who played the part of the beautiful Indian girlwho died so grandly in The Phantom Herd. This is the girl who playsmy character leads." Then the white girl, who was to be his leadingwoman, would not feel that she was the only woman in the companywho could do good work for Luck.

Annie-Many-Ponies had worked in pictures since she was fifteenand did only "atmosphere stuff" in the Indian camps of Luck'sarranging. She was wise in the ways of picture jealousies. Alreadyshe was jealous of this slim woman with the dark hair and eyes andthe slow smile that always caught one's attention and held it. Shewaited. She wanted Wagalexa Conka to call her in that kindly,imperious voice of his—the voice of the master. This leadingwoman would see, then, that here was a girl more beautiful for whomLuck Lindsay felt the affection of family ties.

She waited, flattened against the wall, listening to every wordthat was spoken in that buzzing group. She saw the last bundletaken from the machine, and she saw Luck's head and shouldersdisappear within the tonneau, making sure that it was the lastbundle and that nothing had been overlooked. She saw the driverclimb in, slam the fore-door shut after him and bend above thestarter. She saw the machine slide out of the group and away in awide circle to regain the trail. She saw the group break and startoff in various directions as duty or a passing interest led. ButWagalexa Conka never once seemed to remember that she was notthere. Never once did he speak her name.

Instead, just as Rosemary was leading the way into the house,this slim young woman they called Jean glanced around inquiringly."I thought you had a squaw working for you," she said in that soft,humorous voice of hers. "The one who did the Indian girl in ThePhantom Herd. Isn't she here any more?"

"Oh, yes!" Luck stopped with one foot on the porch. "Sure! Whereis Annie? Anybody know?"

"She was around here just before you came," said Rosemarycarelessly. "I don't know where she went."

"Hid out, I reckon," Luck commented. "Injuns are heap shy ofmeeting strangers. She'll show up after a little."

Annie-Many-Ponies stooped and slid safely past the window thatmight betray her, and then slipped away behind the house. Shewaited, and she listened; for though the adobe walls were thick,there were open windows and her hearing was keen. Within wasanimated babble and much laughter. But not once again didAnnie-Many-Ponies hear her name spoken. Not once again did WagalexaConka remember her. Save when she, that slim woman who had come toplay his leads, asked to see her, she had been wholly forgotten.Even then she had been named a squaw. It was as though they hadbeen speaking of a horse. They did not count her worthy of a placein their company, they did not miss her voice and her smile.

"Hid out," Wagalexa Conka had said. Well, she would hide out,then—she, the daughter of a chief of the Sioux; she, whomWagalexa Conka had been glad to have in his picture when he waspoor and had no money to pay white leading women. But now he hadmuch money; now he could come in a big automobile, with a slim,white leading woman and a camera man and scenic artist and muchmoney in his pocket; and she—she was just a squaw who had hidout, and who would show up after a while and be grateful if he tookher by the hand and said, "How!"

With so many persons moving eagerly here and there, none but anIndian could have slipped away from that house and from the ranchwithout being seen. But though the place was bald and open to thefour winds save for a few detached outbuildings, Annie-Many-Ponieswent away upon the mesa and no one saw her go.

She did not dare go to the corral for her horse. The corral wasin plain sight of the house, and the eyes of Wagalexa Conka werekeen as the eye of the Sioux, his foster brothers. He would see herthere. He would call: "Annie, come here!" and she would go, andwould stand submissive before him, and would be glad that henoticed her; for she was born of the tribe where women obey theirmasters, and the heritage of centuries may not be lightly lainaside like an outgrown garment. She felt that this was so; thatalthough her heart might burn with resentment because he hadforgotten and must be reminded by a strange white woman that the"squaw" was not present, still, if he called her she must go,because Wagalexa Conka was master there and the master must beobeyed.

Down the dry wash where Applehead had hunted for baling wire shewent swiftly, with the straight-backed, free stride of theplainswoman who knows not the muscle-bondage of boned girdle. Inmoccasins she walked; for a certain pride of race, a certain senseof the picture-value of beaded buckskin and bright cloth, held herfast to the gala dress of her people, modified and touched here andthere with the gay ornaments of civilization. So much had her workin the silent drama taught her. Bareheaded, her hair in two glossybraids each tied with a big red bow, she strode on and on in theclear sunlight of spring.

Not until she was more than two miles from the ranch did sheshow herself upon one of the numberless small ridges which, blendedtogether in the distance, give that deceptive look of flatness tothe mesa. Even two miles away, in that clear air that dwarfsdistance so amazingly, Wagalexa Conka might recognize her if helooked at her with sufficient attention. But Wagalexa Conka, shetold herself with a flash of her black eyes, would not look.Wagalexa Conka was too busy looking at that slim woman he hadbrought with him.

That ridge she crossed, and two others. On the last one shestopped and stood, straight and still, and stared away towards themountains, shading her eyes with one spread palm. On a distantslope a small herd of cattle fed, scattered and at peace. Nearer, agreat hawk circled slowly on widespread wings, his neck craneddownward as if he were watching his own shadow move ghostlike overthe grass. Annie-Many-Ponies, turning her eyes disappointedly fromthe empty mesa, envied the hawk his swift-winged freedom.

When she looked again toward the far slopes next the mountains,a black speck rolled into view, the nucleus of a little dust cloud.Her face brightened a little; she turned abruptly and sought easyfooting down that ridge, and climbed hurriedly the longer risebeyond. Once or twice, when she was on high ground, she glancedbehind her uneasily, as does one whose mind holds a certainconsciousness of wrongdoing. She did not pause, even then, buthurried on toward the dust cloud.

On the rim of a shallow, saucer-like basin that lay cunninglyconcealed until one stood upon the very edge of it,Annie-Many-Ponies stopped again and stood looking out from underher spread palm. Presently the dust cloud moved over the crest of aridge, and now that it was so much closer she saw clearly thehorseman loping abreast of the dust. Annie-Many-Ponies stood foranother moment watching, with that inscrutable half smile on herlips. She untied the cerise silk kerchief which she wore knottedloosely around her slim neck, waited until the horseman showedplainly in the distance and then, raising her right hand high aboveher head, waved the scarf three times in slow, sweeping halfcircles from right to left. She waited, her eyes fixed expectantlyupon the horseman. Like a startled rabbit he darted to the left,pulled in his horse, turned and rode for three or four jumpssharply to the right; stopped short for ten seconds and then camestraight on, spurring his horse to a swifter pace.

Annie-Many-Ponies smiled and went down into the shallow basinand seated herself upon the wide, adobe curbing of an old well thatmarked, with the nearby ruins of an adobe house, the site of an oldhabitation of tragic history. She waited with the absolute patienceof her race for the horseman had yet a good two miles to cover.While she waited she smiled dreamily to herself and with daintylittle pats and pulls she widened the flaring red bows on her hairand retied the cerise scarf in its picturesque, loose knot abouther throat. As a final tribute to that feminine instinct whichknows no race she drew from some cunningly devised hiding place asmall, cheap "vanity box," and proceeded very gravely to powder hernose.

III. —TO THE VICTORS THESPOILS

"HEY, boys!" Luck Lindsay shouted to Applehead andone or two of the Happy Family who were down at thechuck—wagon engaged in uneasy discussion as to what Luckwould say when he found out about their intention to leave. "Comeon up here—this is going to be a wiping out of old scores andI want to get it over with!"

"Well, now, I calc'late the fur's about to fly," Applehead madedismal prophecy, as they started to obey the summons. "All 'tsu'prises me is 't he's held off this long. Two hours is a danglong time fer Luck to git in action, now I'm tellin' yuh!" He tookoff his hat and polished his shiny pate, as was his habit whenperturbed. "I'm shore glad we had t' wait and set themwagon-tires," he added. "We'd bin started this mornin' only ferthat."

"Aw, we ain't done nothing," Happy Jack protested in prematureself defense. "We ain't left the ranch yet. I guess a feller's gota right tothink!"

"He has, if he's got anything to do it with," Pink could notforbear to remark pointedly.

"Well, if a feller didn't have, he'd have a fat chance borryingfromyou," Happy Jack retorted.

"Well, by cripes, I ain't perpared to bet very high that there'sa teacupful uh brains in this hull outfit," Big Medicine asserted."We might a knowed Luck'd come back loaded fer bear; wewould a knowed it if we had any brains in our heads. I'mplumb sore at myself. By cripes, I need kickin'!"

Luck was in the living room, sitting at a table on which werescattered many papers scribbled with figures. He had a cigarette inhis lips, his hat on the back of his head and a twinkle in hiseyes. He looked up and grinned as they came reluctantly into theroom.

"Time's money from now on, so this is going to be cut short aspossible," he began with his usual dynamic energy showing in histone and in the movements of his hands as he gathered up the papersand evened their edges on the table top. "You fellows know how muchyou put into the game when we started out to come here and produceThe Phantom Herd, don't you? If you don't, I've got the figureshere. I guess the returns are all in on that picture—and sofar she's brought us twenty-three thousand and four hundreddollars. She went big, believe me! I sold thirty states. Well, costof production is what we put in the pool, plus the cost of makingthe prints I got in Los. We pull out the profits according to whatwe put in—sabe? I guess that suits everybody, doesn'tit?"

"Well, I've figured it out that way—and to make sure I hadit right I got Billy Wilders, a pal of mine that works in a bankthere, to figure it himself and check up after me. We all put inour services—one man's work against every other man's work,mine same as any of you. Bill Holmes, here, didn't have any moneyup, and he was an apprentice—but I'm giving him twenty a weekbesides his board. That suit you, Bill?"

Luck, being extremely sensitive to tones, cocked an eye up atBill before he deliberately peeled, from the roll he drew from hispocket, enough twenty dollar notes to equal the number of weeksBill had worked for him. "And that's paying you darned good moneyfor apprentice work," he informed him drily, a little hurt byBill's lack of appreciation. For when you take a man from thestreets because he is broke and hungry and homeless, and feed himand give him work and clothes and three meals a day and a warm bedto sleep in if you are a normal human being, you are going toexpect a little gratitude from that man; Luck had a flash ofdisappointment when he saw how indifferently Bill Holmes took thosetwenties and counted them before shoving them into his pocket. Hisown voice was more crisply businesslike when he spoke again.

"Annie-Many-Ponies back yet? She's not in on the split either.I'm paying her ten a week besides her board. That's good money fora squaw." He counted out the amount in ten dollar bills and snappeda rubber band around them.

"Now here is the profit, boys, on your winter's work. Appleheadcomes in with the use of his ranch and stock and wagons and so on.Here, pard—how does this look to you?" His own pleasure inwhat he was doing warmed from Luck's voice all the chill that BillHolmes had sent into it. He smiled his contagious smile and peeledoff fifty dollar banknotes until Applehead's eyes popped.

"Oh, don't give me so dang much!" he gulped nervously when Luckhad counted out for him the amount he had jotted down opposite hisname. "That there's more'n the hul' dang ranch is worth if I was t'deed it over to yuh, Luck! I ain't goin' to take—"

"You shut up," Luck commanded him affectionately. "That'syours—now, close your face and let me get this thing woundup. Now—will you quit your arguing, or shall I throwyou out the window?"

"Well, now, I calc'late you'd have a right busy time throwin'me out the window," Applehead boasted, and backed into acorner to digest this astonishing turn of events.

One by one, as their names stood upon his list, Luck called theboys forward and with exaggerated deliberation peeled offfifty-dollar notes and one-hundred-dollar notes to take theirbreath and speech from them.

With Billy Wilders, his friend in the bank, to help him, he hadboyishly built that roll for just this heart-warming littleceremony. He might have written checks to square the account ofeach, but he wanted to make their eyes stand out, just as he wasdoing. He had looked forward to this half hour more eagerly thanany of them guessed; he had, with his eyes closed, visualized thisscene over more than one cigarette, his memory picturing vividlyanother scene wherein these same young men had cheerfully emptiedtheir pockets and planned many small personal sacrifices that he,Luck Lindsay, might have money enough to come here to New Mexicoand make his one Big Picture. Luck felt that nothing less than adisplay of the profits in real money could ever quite balance thatother scene when all the Happy Family had in the world went in thepot and they mourned because it was so little.

"Aw, I betche Luck robbed a bank er something!" Happy Jackstuttered with an awkward attempt to conceal his delight when hisname was called, his investment was read and the little sheaf ofcurrency that represented his profit was laid in his outstretchedpalm.

"It's me for the movies if this is the way they pan out," Wearydeclared gleefully. "Mamma! I didn't know there was so much moneyin the world!"

"I'll bet he milked Los Angeles dry of paper money," Andy Greenasserted facetiously, thumbing his small fortune gloatingly."Holding out anything for yourself, Luck? We don't want to behogs."

"I'm taking care of my interests—don't you worry aboutthat a minute," Luck stated complacently. "I held mine out first.That wipes the slate—and cleans up the bank-roll. I maintainThe Phantom Herd was so-o-ome picture, boys. They'll be getting ithere in 'Querque soon—we'll all go in and see it."

"Now we're all set for a fresh start. And while you're all hereI'll just put you up to date on what kind of a deal I made withDewitt. We come in under the wing of Excelsior, and our brand namewill be Flying U Feature Film—how does that hit you? You boysare all on a straight board-and-salary basis—thirty dollars aweek, and it's up to me to make you earn it!" He grinned andbeckoned to Jean Douglas Avery and her companions in the nextroom.

"Mrs. Avery, here, is our leading woman—keeping the nameof Jean Douglas, since she made it valuable in that Lazy A serialshe did a year or so ago. Lite is on the same footing as the restof you boys. Her father will be my assistant in choosing locationsand so on. Tommy Johnson, as I said, is another assistant inanother capacity, that of scenic artist and stage carpenter. PeteLowry, here, is camera man and Bill Holmes will be his assistant.The rest of you work wherever I need you—a good deal the waywe did last winter. Annie-Many-Ponies stays with us as characterlead and is in general stock. Rosemary—" he stopped andsmiled at her understandingly—"Rosemary draws fifteen aweek—oh, don't get scared! I won't give you any foregroundstuff! just atmosphere when I need it, and general comforter andmascot of the company!"

Luck may have stretched a point there, but if he did it wasmerely a technical one. Rosemary Green was hopelessly camera-shy,but he could use her in background atmosphere, and when it came tolooking after the physical and mental welfare of the bunch she wasworth her weight in any precious metal you may choose to name.

"You better put me down as camp cook and dishwasher, LuckLindsay," Rosemary protested, blushing.

"No—thank the Lord you won't have to cook for this hungrybunch any longer. I've got a Mexican hired and headed this way.There'll be no more of that kind of thing for you, lady—notwhile you're with us.

"Now, boys, let's get organized for action. Weather'sperfect—Lowry's been raving over the light, all the way outfrom town. I've got a range picture all blocked out—did itwhile I was waiting in Los for Jean to show up. Done anything aboutroundup yet, Applehead?"

Poor old Applehead, with his guilty conscience and hissoft-hearted affection for Luck so deeply stirred by the money laidin his big-knuckled hand, shuffled his feet and cleared his throatand did not get one intelligible word past his dry tongue.

"If you haven't," Luck hurried on, spurred by his inpatientenergy, "I want to organize and get out right away with a regularroundup outfit—chuck-wagon, remuda and all—see what Imean? While I'm getting the picture of the stuff I want, we cangather and brand your calves. That way, all my range scenes will beof the real thing. I may want to throw the Chavez outfit in withours, too, so as to get bigger stuff. I'll try and locate RamonChavez and see what I can do. But anyway, I want the roundup outfitready to start just as soon as possible—tomorrow, if we couldget it together in time. How about that cracked tongue on thechuck-wagon? Anybody fixed that?"

"We-ell, I wired it up so'st it's as solid as the rest uh therunnin' gear," Applehead confessed shamefacedly, rolling his eyesapprehensively at the flushed faces of his fellow traitors.

"Fine! I might have known you fellows would put things in shapewhile I was gone! How about the horses? I thought I saw a bunch inthe big corral—"

"I rustled enough saddle horses to give us all two apiece,"Applehead admitted, perspiring coldly. "'Tain't much of a string,but—"

"You did? Sounds like you've been reading my mind, Applehead.Now we'll grubstake the outfit—"

"Er—well, I took the chuck-wagon in yest'day and loaded'er up with grub fer two weeks," blurted Applehead heroically. "Iwas figurin'—"

"Good! Couldn't ask better. Applehead, you sure are there whenit comes to backing a man's play. If I haven't said much about howI stand toward you fellows it isn't because I don't appreciateevery durned one of you."

The Happy Family squirmed guiltily and made way for Applehead,who was sidling toward the open door, his face showing alarmingsymptoms of apoplexy. Their confusion Luck set down to a becomingmodesty. He went on planning and perfecting details. Standing as hedid on the threshold of a career to which his one big success hadopened the door, he was wholly absorbed in making good.

There was nothing now to balk his progress, he told himself. Hehad his company, he had the location for his big range stuff, hehad all the financial backing any reasonable man could want. He hada salary that in itself gauged the prestige he had gained amongproducers, and as an added incentive to do the biggest work of hislife he had a contract giving him a royalty on all prints of hispictures in excess of a fixed number. Better than all this, he hadbig ideals and an enthusiasm for the work that knew nolimitations.

Perhaps he was inclined to dream too big; perhaps he assumed toogreat an enthusiasm on the part of those who worked withhim—I don't know just where he did place the boundary line. Ido know that he never once suspected the Happy Family of anymeditated truancy from the ranch and his parting instructions to"sit tight." I also know that the Happy Family was not at alllikely to volunteer information of their lapse. And as forApplehead, the money burned his soul deep with remorse; so deepthat he went around with an abject eagerness to serve Luck thattouched that young man as a rare example of a bone-deep loyaltythat knows no deceit. Which proves once more how fortunate it isthat we cannot always see too deeply into the thoughts and motivesof our friends.

IV. —LOVE WORDS FOR ANNIE

IN Tijeras Arroyo the moon made black shadowswhere stood the tiny knolls here and there, marking frequently thewindings of dry washes where bushes grew in ragged patches andwhere tall weeds of mid-May tangled in the wind. The roundup tentsof the Flying U Feature Film Company stood white as new snow in themoonlight, though daylight showed them an odd, light-blue tint forphotographic purposes. On a farther slope cunningly placed by thescenic artist to catch the full sunlight of midday, the camp of theChavez brothers gleamed softly in the magic light.

So far had spring roundup progressed that Luck was holding thecamp in Tijeras Arroyo for picture-making only. Applehead's calveswere branded, to the youngest pair of knock-kneed twins which HappyJack found curled up together cunningly hidden in a thicket. Theyhad been honored with a "close-up" scene, those two spotted calves,and were destined to further honors which they did not suspect andcould not appreciate.

They slept now, as slept the two camps upon the two slopes thatlay moon-bathed at midnight. Back where the moon was making thebarren mountains a wonderland of deep purple and black and silverygray and brown, a coyote yapped a falsetto message and was answeredby one nearer at hand—his mate, it might be. In a bush underthe bank that made of it a black blot in the unearthly whiteness ofthe sand, a little bird fluttered uneasily and sent a small,inquiring chirp into the stillness. From somewhere farther up thearroyo drifted a faint, aromatic odor of cigarette smoke.

Had you been there by the bush you could not have told whenAnnie-Many-Ponies passed by; you would not have seenher—certainly you could not have heard the soft tread of herslim, moccasined feet. Yet she passed the bush and the bank andwent away up the arroyo, silent as the shadows themselves, swift asthe coyote that trotted over a nearby ridge to meet her mate nearerthe mountains. So, following much the same instinct in much thesame way, Annie-Many-Ponies stole out to meet the man her hearttimidly yearned for a possible mate.

She reached the rock-ledge where the smoke odor was strongest,and she stopped. She saw Ramon Chavez, younger of the Chavezbrothers who were ten-mile-off neighbors of Applehead, and whoowned many cattle and much land by right of an old Spanish grant.He was standing in the shadow of the ledge, leaning against it asthey of sun-saturated New Mexico always lean against anythingperpendicular and solid near which they happen to stand. He waswatching the white-lighted arroyo while he smoked, waiting for her,unconscious of her near presence.

Annie-Many-Ponies stood almost within reach of him, but she didnot make her presence known. With the infinite wariness of her raceshe waited to see what he would do; to read, if she might, whatwere his thoughts—his attitude toward her in his unguardedmoments. That little, inscrutable smile which so exasperatedApplehead was on her lips while she watched him.

Ramon finished that cigarette, threw away the stub and rolledand lighted another. Still Annie-Many-Ponies gave no little sign ofher presence. He watched the arroyo, and once he leaned to one sideand stared back at his own quiet camp on the slope that had thebiggest and the wildest mountain of that locality for itsbackground. He settled himself anew with his other shoulder againstthe rock, and muttered something in Spanish—that strange,musical talk which Annie-Many-Ponies could not understand. Andstill she watched him, and exulted in his impatience for hercoming, and wondered if it would always be lovelight which shewould see in his eyes.

He was not of her race, though in her pride she thought himfavored when she named him akin to the Sioux. He was not of herrace, but he was tall and he was straight, he was dark as she, hewas strong and brave and he had many cattle and much broad acreage.Annie-Many-Ponies smiled upon him in the dark and was glad thatshe, the daughter of a chief of the Sioux, had been found good inhis sight.

Five minutes, ten minutes. The coyote, yap-yap-yapping in thebroken land beyond them, found his mate and was silent. RamonChavez, waiting in the shadow of the ledge, muttered a Mexican oathand stepped out into the moonlight and stood there, tempted toreturn to his camp—for he, also, had pride that would notbear much bruising.

Annie-Many-Ponies waited. When he muttered again and threw hiscigarette from him as though it had been something venomous; whenhe turned his face toward his own tents and took a step forward,she laughed softly, a mere whisper of amusement that might havebeen a sleepy breeze stirring the bushes somewhere near. Ramonstarted and turned his face her way; in the moonlight his eyesshone with a certain love-hunger which Annie-Many-Ponies exulted tosee—because she did not understand.

"You not let moon look on you," she chided in an undertone, hersentences clipped of superfluous words as is the Indian way, hervoice that pure, throaty melody that is a gift which nature giveslavishly to the women of savage people. "Moon see, men see."

Ramon swung back into the shadow, reached out his two arms tofold her close and got nothing more substantial than anotherwhispery laugh.

"Where are yoh, sweetheart?" He peered into the shadow where shehad been, and saw the place empty. He laughed, chagrined by herelusiveness, yet hungering for her the more.

He called her a devil in Spanish, and she thought it a love-wordand laughed and came nearer. He did not attempt to touch her, andso, reassured, she stood close so that he could see the pure,Indian profile of her face when she raised it to the sky in a muteinvocation, it might be, of her gods.

"When yoh come?" he asked swiftly, his race betrayed in tone andaccent. "I look and look—I no see yoh."

"I come," she stated with a quiet meaning. "I not like cow, formake plenty noise. I stand here, you smoke two times, I look."

"You mus' be moonbeam," he told her, reaching out again, only tolay hold upon nothing. "Come back, sweetheart. I be good."

"I not like you touch," she repeated. "I good girl. I mindpriest, I read prayers, I mind Wagalexa Conka—" There shefaltered, for the last boast was no longer the truth.

Ramon was quick to seize upon the one weak point of her armor."So? He send yoh then to talk with Ramon at midnight? Yoh come toplease yoh boss?"

Annie-Many-Ponies turned her troubled face his way. "WagalexaConka sleep plenty. I not ask," she confessed. "You tell me comehere you tell me must talk when no one hear. I come. I no askWagalexa Conka—him say good girl stay by camp. Him say notwalk in night-time, say me not talk you. I no ask; I justcome."

"Yoh lov' him, perhaps? More as yoh lov' me? Always I see yohlook at him—always watch, watch. Always I see yoh jomp whenhe snap the finger; always yoh run like train dog. Yoh lov' him,perhaps? Bah! Yoh dirt onder his feet." Ramon did not seriouslyconsider that any woman whom he favored could sanely love anotherman more than himself, but to his nature jealousy was a necessaryadjunct of lovemaking; not to have displayed jealousy would havebeen to betray indifference, as he interpreted the tenderpassion.

Annie-Many-Ponies, woman-wily though she was by nature, hadlittle learning in the devious ways of lovemaking. Eyes mightspeak, smiles might half reveal, half hide her thoughts; but thetongue, as her tribe had taught her sternly, must speak the truthor keep silent. Now she bent her head, puzzling how best to put herfeelings toward Luck Lindsay into honest words which Ramon wouldunderstand.

"Yoh lov' him, perhaps—since yoh all time afraid he bemad." Ramon persisted, beating against the wall of her Indiantaciturnity which always acted as a spur upon his impetuosity.Besides, it was important to him that he should know just what wasthe tie between these two. He had heard Luck Lindsay speak to thegirl in the Sioux tongue. He had seen her eyes lighten as she madeswift answer. He had seen her always eager to do Luck'sbidding—had seen her anticipate his wants and minister tothem as though it was her duty and her pleasure to do so. It wasvital that he should know, and it was certain that he could notquestion Luck upon the subject—for Ramon Chavez was nofool.

"Long time ago—when I was papoose with no shoes," shebegan with seeming irrelevance, her eyes turning instinctivelytoward the white tents of the Flying U camp gleaming in thedistance, "my people go for work in Buffalo Bill show. My fathergo, my mother go, I go. All time we dance for show, make Indianfight with cowboys—all them act for Buffalo Bill-Pawnee Billshow. That time Wagalexa Conka boss of Indians. He Indian Agent. Hetake care whole bunch. He make peace when fights, he give med'cinewhen somebody sick. He awful good to them Indians. He give mecandy, always stop to talk me. I like him. My father like him. Allthem Indians like him plenty much. My father awful sick one time,he no let doctor come. Leg broke all in pieces. He say die plentyif Wagalexa Conka no make well. I go ticket wagon, tell WagalexaConka, he come quick, fix up leg all right.

"All them Indians like to make him—" She stopped,searching her mind for the elusive, little-used word which she hadlearned in the mission school. "Make him adop'," she finishedtriumphantly. "Indians make much dance, plenty music, lots speechesmake him Indian man. My father big chief, he make Wagalexa Conkahim son. Make him my brother. Give him Indian name Wagalexa Conka.All Indians call that name for him.

"Pretty soon show stop, all them Indians go home by reservation.Long time we don't see Wagalexa Conka no more. I get big girl, goschool little bit. Pretty soon Wagalexa Conka come back, for wantsthem Indians for work in pictures. My father go, my mother go, allus go. We work long time. I," she added with naive pride in hercomeliness, "awful good looking. I do lots of foreground stuff.Pretty soon hard times come. Indians go home by reservation. Igo—I don't like them reservations no more. Too lonesome. Ilike for work all time in pictures. I come, tell Wagalexa Conka Ibe Indian girl for pictures. He write letter for agent, writeletter for my father. They writes letter for say yes, I stay. Istay and do plenty more foreground stuff."

"I don't see you do moch foreground work since that white girlcome," Ramon observed, hitting what he instinctively knew was atender point.

Had he seen her face, he must have been satisfied that thechance shot struck home. But in the shadow hate blazed unseen fromher eyes. She did not speak, and so he went back to his firstcharge.

"All this don't tell me moch," he complained. "Yoh lov' him,maybe? That's what I ask."

"Wagalexa Conka my brother, my father, my friend," she repliedcalmly, and let him interpret it as he would.

"He treats yoh like a dog. He crazee 'bout that Jean. He givesher all smiles, all what yoh call foreground stuff. I know—Igot eyes. Me, it makes me mad for see how he treat yoh—andyoh so trying hard always to please. He got no heart foryoh—me, I see that." He moved a step closer, hesitating,wanting yet not quite daring to touch her. "Me, I lov' yoh, littleAnnie," he murmured. "Yoh lov' me little bit, eh? Jus' little bit!Jus' for say, 'Ramon, I go weeth yoh, I be yoh woman—'"

Annie-Many-Ponies widened the distance between them. "Why younot say wife?" she queried suspiciously.

"Woman, wife, sweetheart—all same," he assured her withhis voice like a caress. "All words mean I lov' yoh jus' same. Nowyoh say yoh lov' me, say yoh go weeth me, I be one happy man. I goback on camp and my heart she's singing lov' song. My girl weetheyes that shine so bright, she lov' me moch as I lov' her. Thatwhat my heart she sing. Yoh not be so cruel like stone—yohsay, 'Ramon, I lov' yoh.' Jus' like that! So easy to say!"

"Not easy," she denied, moved to save her freedom yet a whilelonger. "I say them words, then I—then I not be same girllike now. Maybe much troubles come. Maybe much happy—I dunno.Lots time I see plenty trouble come for girl that say them wordsfor man. Some time plenty happy—I think trouble comes mostmany times. I think Wagalexa Conka he be awful mad. I not like forhims be mad."

"Now you makeme mad—Ramon what loves yoh! Yoh likefor Ramon be mad, perhaps? Always yoh 'fraid Luck Lindsay this,'fraid Luck that other. Me, I gets damn' sick hear that talk alltime. Bimeby he marree som' girl, then what for you? He don' mareeyoh, eh? He don' lov' yoh; he think too good for maree Indian girl.Me, I not think like that. I, Ramon Chavez, I think proud to lov'yoh. Ramon—"

"I not think Wagalexa Conka marry me." The girl was turningstubborn under his importunities. "Wagalexa Conka mybrother—my friend. I tell you plenty time. Now I tell nomore."

"Ramon loves yoh so moch," he pleaded, and smiled to himselfwhen he saw her turn toward him again. The love-talk—that waswhat a woman likes best to hear! "Yoh say yoh lov' Ramon jus'little bit!"

"All right, then I be sad till yoh lov' me. Yoh maybe be happy,yoh know Ramon's got heavy heart for yoh."

"I plenty sorry, you be sad for me," she confessed demurely. "Ilov' yoh so moch! I think nothing but how beautiful my sweetheartis. I not tease yoh no more. Tell me, how long Luck says he stayout here? Maybe yoh hear sometimes he's going for taking picturesin town?"

"Going home, maybe? You mus' hear little bit. Yoh tell me,sweetheart; what's he gone do when roundup's all finish? Me, I knowshe's finish las' week. Looks like he's taking pictures out hereall summer! You hear him say something, maybe?"

"Them vaqueros—bah! They don't hear nothings either.What's matter over there, nobody hear nothing? Luck, he got notongue when camera's shut up, perhaps?"

Ramon looked at her for a minute in mute rage. It was not thefirst time he had found himself hard against the immutablereticence of the Indian in her nature.

"Me? I don' snap my teeth, sweetheart." It cost Ramon someeffort to keep his voice softened to the love key.

He hesitated a moment, evidently weighing a matter of moreimportance to him than he would have Annie-Many-Ponies suspect."Sweetheart, yoh do one thing for Ramon?" His voice might almost becalled wheedling. "Me, I'm awful busy tomorrow. I got long rideaway off to my rancho. I got to see my brother Tomas. I be backhere not before night. Yoh tell Bill Holmes he come here by thisrock—yoh say midnight that's good time—I sure be herethat time. Yoh say I got something I wan' tell him. Yoh do that forRamon, sweetheart?"

"I not like Bill Holmes." Annie-Many-Ponies spoke with an air offinality. "Bill Holmes comes close, I feel snakes. Him not friendto Wagalexa Conka—say nothing—always go around still,like fox watching for rabbit. You not friend to Bill Holmes?"

"Me? No—I not friend, querida mia. I got business. I sellBill Holmes one silver bridle, perhaps. I don' know—mus' talkabout it. Yoh tell him come here by big rock, sweetheart?"

Annie-Many-Ponies took a minute for deliberation—which isthe Indian way. Ramon, having learned patience, said no more butwatched her slant-eyed.

"I tell," she promised at last, and added, "I go now." Then sheslipped away. And Ramon, though he stood for several minutes by therock smiling queerly and staring down the arroyo, caught not theslightest glimpse of her after she left him. He knew that she woulddeliver faithfully his message to Bill Holmes, she had given herword. That was one great advantage, considered Ramon, in dealingwith those direct, uncompromising natures. She might torment himwith her aloofness and her reticence, but once he had won her to afull confidence and submission he need not trouble himself furtherabout her loyalty. She would tell Bill Holmes—and, what wasvastly more important, she would do it secretly; he had not daredto speak of that, but he thought he might safely trust to hernatural wariness. So Ramon, after a little, stole away to his owncamp quite satisfied.

The next night, when he stood in the shadow of the rock ledgeand waited, he was not startled by the unexpected presence of theperson he wanted to see. For although Bill Holmes came ascautiously as he knew how, and avoided the wide, bright-lightedstretches of arroyo where he would have been plainly visible, Ramonboth saw and heard him before he reached the ledge. What Ramon didnot see or hear was Annie-Many-Ponies, who did not quite believethat those two wished merely to talk about a silver bridle, and whomeant to listen and find out why it was that they could not talkopenly before all the boys.

Annie-Many-Ponies had ways of her own. She did not tell Ramonthat she doubted his word, nor did she refuse to deliver themessage. She waited calmly until Bill Holmes left camp stealthilythat night, and she followed him. It was perfectly simple andsensible and the right thing to do; if you wanted to know for surewhether a person lied to you, you had but to watch and listen andlet your own eyes and ears prove guilt or innocence.

So Annie-Many-Ponies stood by the rock and listened and watched.She did not see any silver bridle. She heard many words, but thetwo were speaking in that strange Spanish talk which she did notknow at all, save "Querida mia," which Ramon had told her meantsweetheart.

The two talked, low-voiced and earnest. Bill was telling allthat he knew of Luck Lindsay's plans—and that was notmuch.

"He don't talk," Bill complained. "He just tells the bunch a dayahead—just far enough to get their makeup and costumes on,generally. But he won't stay around here much longer; he's takenenough spring roundup stuff now for half a dozen pictures. He'll bemoving in to the ranch again pretty quick. And I know this picturecalls for a lot of town business that he'll have to take. I saw thescript the other day." This, of course, being a free translation ofthe meaningless jumble of strange words which Annie heard.

"What town business is that? Where will he work?" Ramon wasplainly impatient of so much vagueness.

"Well, there's a bank robbery—I paid particular attention,Ramon, so I know for certain. But when he'll do it, or what bankhe'll use, I don't know any more than you do. And there's a runningfight down the street and through the Mexican quarter. The rest isjust street stuff—that and a fiesta that I think he'llprobably use the old plaza for location. He'll need a lot ofMexicans for that stuff. He'll want you, of course."

"That bank—who will do that?" Ramon's fingers trembled sothat he could scarcely roll a cigarette. "Andy, perhaps?"

"No—that's the Mexican bunch. I—why, I guess thatwill maybe be you, Ramon. I wasn't paying much attention to theparts—I was after locations, and I only had about two minutesat the script. But he's been giving you some good bits right alongwhere he needed a Mexican type; and those scenes in the rocks theother day was bandit stuff with you for lead. It'll be you orMiguel—the Native Son, as they call him—and so far he'scast for another part. That's the worst of Luck. He won't talkabout what he's going to do till he's all ready to do it."

There was a little further discussion. Ramon muttered a fewsentences—rapid instructions, Annie-Many-Ponies believed fromthe tone he used.

"All right, I'll keep you posted," Bill Holmes replied inEnglish. And he added as he started off, "You can send word by thesquaw."

He went carefully back down the arroyo, keeping as much aspossible in the shade. Behind him stole Annie-Many-Ponies,noiseless as the shadow of a cloud. Bill Holmes, she reflectedangrily, had seen the day, not so far in the past, when he washappy if the "squaw" but smiled upon him. It was because she hadrepelled his sly lovemaking that he had come to speak of herslightingly like that; she knew it. She could have named the veryday when his manner toward her had changed. Mingled with her hateand dread of him was a new contempt and a new little anxiety overthis clandestine intimacy between Ramon and him. Why should BillHolmes keep Ramon posted? Surely not about a silver bridle!

Shunka Chistala was whining in her little tent when she cameinto the camp. She heard Bill Holmes stumble over the end of thechuck-wagon tongue and mutter the customary profanity with whichthe average man meets an incident of that kind. She whispered afierce command to the little black dog and stood very still for aminute, listening. She did not hear anything further, either fromBill Holmes or the dog, and finally reassured by the silence, shecrept into her tent and tied the flaps together on the inside, andlay down in her blankets with the little black dog contentedlycurled at her feet with his nose between his front paws.

V. —FOR THE GOOD OF THECOMPANY

ALL through breakfast Applehead seemed to havesomething weighty on his mind. He kept pulling at his streaked,reddish-gray mustache when his fingers should have been whollyoccupied with his food, and he stared abstractedly at the groundafter he had finished his first cup of coffee and before he tookhis second. Once Bill Holmes caught him glaring with an intensitywhich circumstances in no wise justified—and it was BillHolmes who first shifted his gaze in vague uneasiness when he triedto stare Applehead down. Annie-Many-Ponies did not glance at him atall, so far as one could discover; yet she was the first to sensetrouble in the air, and withdrew herself from the company and satapart, wrapped closely in her crimson shawl that matched well thecrimson bows on her two shiny braids.

Luck, keenly alive to the moods of his people, looked at herinquiringly. "Come on up by the fire, Annie," he commanded gently."What you sitting away off there for? Come and eat—I want youto work today."

Annie-Many-Ponies did not reply, but she rose obediently andcame forward in the silent way she had, stepping lightly, straightand slim and darkly beautiful. Applehead glanced at her sourly, andher lashes drooped to hide the venom in her eyes as she passed himto stand before Luck.

"I not hungry," she told Luck tranquilly, yet with a hardness inher voice which did not escape him, who knew her so well. "I go puton makeup."

"Wear that striped blanket you used last Saturday when we workedup there in Tijeras Cañon. Same young squaw makeup you wore then,Annie." He eyed her sharply as she turned away to her own tent, andhe observed that when she passed Applehead she took two steps toone side, widening the distance between them. He watched her untilshe lifted her tent flap, stooped and disappeared within. Then helooked at Applehead.

"What's wrong between you two?" he asked the old manquizzically. "Her dog been licking your cat again, or what?"

"You're danged right he ain't!" Applehead testified boastfully."Compadre's got that there dawg's goat, now I'm tellin' yuh! Hedon't take nothin' off him ner her neither."

"What you been doing to her, then?" Luck set his empty plate onthe ground beside him and began feeling for the makings of acigarette. "Way she side-stepped you, I know there must besomething."

"Well, now, I ain't done a danged thing to that there squaw! Sheain't got any call to go around givin' me the bad eye." He lookedat the breakfasting company and then again at Luck, and gave analmost imperceptible backward jerk of his head as he got awkwardlyto his feet and strolled away toward the milling horses in theremuda.

So when Luck had lighted his fresh-rolled cigarette he followedApplehead unobtrusively. "Well, what's on your mind?" he wanted toknow when he came up with him.

"Well, now, I don't want you to think I'm buttin' in on youraffairs, Luck," Applehead began after a minute, "but seein' as youast me what's wrong, I'm goin' to tell yuh straight out. We got acouple of danged fine women in this here bunch, and I shore do hateto see things goin' on around here that'd shame 'em if they was tofind it out. And fur's I can see they will find it out, sooner orlater. Murder ain't the only kinda wickedness that's hard to coverup. I know you feel about as I do on some subjects; you never didlike dirt around you, no better'n—"

So Applehead, turning a darker shade of red than was his usualhue, cleared his throat and blurted out what he had to say. He hadheard Shunka Chistala whinnying at midnight in the tent ofAnnie-Many-Ponies, and had gone outside to see what was the matter.He didn't know, he explained, but what his cat Compadre was somehowinvolved. He had stood in the shadow of his tent for a few minutes,and had seen Bill Holmes sneak into camp, coming from up the arroyosomewhere.

For some reason he waited a little longer, and he had seen awoman's shadow move stealthily up to the front of Annie's tent, andhad seen Annie slip inside and had heard her whisper a command ofsome sort to the dog, which had immediately hushed its whining. Hehated to be telling tales on anybody, but he knew how keenly Luckfelt his responsibility toward the Indian girl, and he thought heought to know. This night-prowling, he declared, had shore got tobe stopped, or he'd be danged if he didn't run 'em both outa camphimself.

"Bill Holmes might have been out of camp," Luck said calmly,"but you sure must be mistaken about Annie. She's straight."

"You think she is," Applehead corrected him. "But you don't knowa danged thing about it. A girl that's behavin' herself don't gochasin' all over the mesa alone, the way she's been doin' allspring. I never said nothin' 'cause it wa'n't none of my put-in.But that Injun had a heap of business off away from the ranchwhilst you was in Los Angeles, Luck. Sneaked off every day, justabout—and 'd be gone fer hours at a time. You kin ast any ofthe boys, if yuh don't want to take my word. Or you kin ast Mis'Green; she kin tell ye, if she's a mind to."

"As to that I won't say, fer I don't know and I'm tellin' yuhwhat I seen myself. Bill Holmes done a lot uh walkin' in to town,fur as that goes; and he didn't always git back the same dayneither. He never went off with Annie, and he never came back withher, fur as I ever seen. But," he added grimly, "they didn't comeback together las' night, neither. They come about three or fourminutes apart."

Luck thought a minute, scowling off across the arroyo. Not evento Applehead, bound to him by closer ties than anyone there, did heever reveal his thoughts completely.

"All right—I'll attend to them," he said finally. "Don'tsay anything to the bunch; these things aren't helped by talk. Getinto your old cowman costume and use that big gray you rode in thatdrive we made the other day. I'm going to pick up the action wherewe left off when it turned cloudy. Tomorrow or next day I want tomove the outfit back to the ranch. There's quite a lot of townstuff I want to get for this picture."

Applehead looked at him uncertainly, tempted to impress furtherupon him the importance of safeguarding the morals of his company.But he knew Luck pretty well—having lived with him for monthsat a time when Luck was younger and even more peppery than now. Sohe wisely condensed his reply to a nod, and went back to thebreakfast fire polishing his bald bead with the flat of his palm.He met Annie-Many-Ponies coming to ask Luck which of the two pairsof beaded moccasins she carried in her hands he would like to haveher wear. She did not look at Applehead at all as she passed, buthe nevertheless became keenly aware of her animosity and turnedhalf around to glare after her resentfully. You'd think, he toldhimself aggrievedly, that he was the one that had been acting up!Let her go to Luck—she'd danged soon be made to know herplace in camp.

Annie-Many-Ponies went confidently on her way, carrying the twopairs of beaded moccasins in her hands. Her face was moreinscrutable than ever. She was pondering deeply the problem of BillHolmes' business with Ramon, and she was half tempted to tellWagalexa Conka of that secret intimacy which must carry on itsconverse under cover of night. She did not trust Bill Holmes. Whymust he keep Ramon posted? She glanced ahead to where Luck stoodthinking deeply about something, and her eyes softened in a shysympathy with his trouble. Wagalexa Conka worked hard and thoughtmuch and worried more than was good for him. Bill Holmes, shedecided fiercely, should not add to those worries. She would warnRamon when next she talked with him. She would tell Ramon that hemust not be friends with Bill Holmes; in the meantime, she wouldwatch.

Ten feet from Luck she stopped short, sensing trouble in thehardness that was in his eyes. She stood there and waited in meeksubjection.

"Annie, come here!" Luck's voice was no less stern because itwas lowered so that a couple of the boys fussing with the horsesinside the rope corral could not overhear what he had to say.

Annie-Many-Ponies, pulling one of the shiny black braids intothe correct position over her shoulder and breast, steppedsoft-footedly up to him and stopped. She did not ask him what hewanted. She waited until it was his pleasure to speak.

"Annie, I want you to keep away from Bill Holmes." Luck was notone to mince his words when he had occasion to speak ofdisagreeable things. "It isn't right for you to let him make loveto you on the sly. You know that. You know you must not leave campwith him after dark. You make me ashamed of you when you do thosethings. You keep away from Bill Holmes and stay in camp nights. Ifyou're a bad girl, I'll have to send you back to thereservation—and I'll have to tell the agent and Chief BigTurkey why I send you back. I can't have anybody in my company whodoesn't act right. Now remember—don't make me speak to youagain about it."

Annie-Many-Ponies stood there, and the veiled look was in hereyes. Her face was a smooth, brown mask—beautiful to lookupon but as expressionless as the dead. She did not protest herinnocence; she did not explain that she hated and distrusted BillHolmes and that she had, months ago, repelled his surreptitiousadvances. Luck would have believed, for he had knownAnnie-Many-Ponies since she was a barefooted papoose, and he hadnever known her to tell him an untruth.

"You go now and get ready for work. Wear the moccasins with thebirds on the toes." He pointed to them and turned away.

Annie-Many-Ponies also turned and went her way and said nothing.What, indeed, could she say? She did not doubt that Luck had seenher the night before, and had seen also Bill Holmes when he leftcamp or returned—perhaps both. She could not tell him thatBill Holmes had gone out to meet Ramon, for that, she feltinstinctively, was a secret which Ramon trusted her not to betray.She could not tell Wagalexa Conka, either, that she met Ramon oftenwhen the camp was asleep. He would think that as bad as meetingBill Holmes. She knew that he did not like Ramon, but merely usedhim and his men and horses and cattle for a price, to better hispictures. Save in a purely business way she had never seen himtalking with Ramon. Never as he talked with the boys of the FlyingU—his Happy Family, he called them.

She said nothing. She dressed for the part she was to play. Shetwined flowers in her hair and smoothed out the red bows and laidthem carefully away—since Wagalexa Conka did not wish her towear ribbon bows in this picture. She murmured caresses to ShunkaChistala, the little black dog that was always at her heels. Sherode with the company to the rocky gorge which was "location" fortoday. When Wagalexa Conka called to her she went and climbed upona high rock and stood just where he told her to stand, and lookedjust as he told her to look, and stole away through the rocks andout of the scene exactly as he wished her to do.

But when Wagalexa Conka—sorry for the harshness he hadfelt it his duty to show that morning—smiled and told her shehad done fine, and that he was pleased with her, Annie-Many-Poniesdid not smile back with that slow, sweet, heart-twisting smilewhich was at once her sharpest weapon and her most endearingtrait.

Bill Holmes who had also had his sharp word of warning, and hadbeen told very plainly to cut out this flirting with Annie if hewanted to remain on Luck's payroll, eyed her strangely. Once hetried to have a secret word with her, but she moved away and wouldnot look at him. For Annie-Many-Ponies, hurt and bitter as she felttoward her beloved Wagalexa Conka, hated Bill Holmes fourfold forbeing the cause of her humiliation. That she did not also hateRamon Chavez as being equally guilty with Bill Holmes, went fartoward proving how strong a hold he had gained upon her heart.

VI. —"I GO WHERE WAGALEXA CONKASAY"

THAT afternoon Ramon joined them, suave as everand seeming very much at peace with the world and hisfellow-beings. He watched the new leading woman make a perilousride down a steep, rocky point and dash up to camera and on past itwhere she set her horse back upon its haunches with a finedisregard for her bones and a still finer instinct for putting justthe right dash of the spectacular into her work without overdoingit.

"That señora, she's all right, you bet!" he praised the feat tothose who stood near him; "me, I not be stuck on ron my caballodown that place. You bet she's fine rider. My sombrero, he's comeoff to that lady!"

Jean, hearing, glanced at him with that little quirk of the lipswhich was the beginning of a smile, and rode off to join her fatherand Lite Avery. "He made that sound terribly sincere, didn't he?"she commented. "It takes a Mexican to lift flattery up among thefine arts." Then she thought no more about it.

Annie-Many-Ponies was sitting apart, on a rock where her gayblanket made a picturesque splotch of color against the graybarrenness of the hill behind her. She, too, heard what Ramon said,and she, too, thought that he had made the praise sound terriblysincere. He had not spoken to her at all after the first carelessnod of recognition when he rode up. And although her reason hadapproved of his caution, her sore heart ached for a little kindnessfrom him. She turned her eyes toward him now with a certainwistfulness; but though Ramon chanced to be looking toward her shegot no answering light in his eyes, no careful little signal thathis heart was yearning for her. He seemed remote, as indifferent toher as were any of the others dulled by accustomedness to herconstant presence among them. A premonitory chill, as from somegreat sorrow yet before her in the future, shook the heart ofAnnie-Many-Ponies.

"Me, I fine out how moch more yoh want me campa here forpictures," Ramon was saying now to Luck who was standing by PeteLowry, scribbling something on his script. "My brother Tomas, heliking for us at ranch now, s'pose yoh finish poco tiempo."

Luck wrote another line before he gave any sign that he heard.Annie-Many-Ponies, watching from under her drooping lids, saw thatBill Holmes had edged closer to Ramon, while he made pretense ofbeing much occupied with his own affairs.

"I don't need your camp at all after today." Luck shoved thescript into his coat pocket and looked at his watch.

"This afternoon when the sun is just right I want to get one ortwo cut-back scenes and a dissolve out. After that you can breakcamp any time. But I want you, Ramon—you and Estancio Lopezand Luis Rojas. I'll need you for two or three days intown—want you to play the heavy in a bank-robbery and streetfight. The makeup is the same as when you worked up there in therocks the other day. You three fellows come over and go in to theranch tomorrow if you like. Then I'll have you when I want you.You'll get five dollars a day while you work." Having made himselfsufficiently clear, he turned away to set and rehearse the nextscene, and did not see the careful glance which passed betweenRamon and Bill Holmes.

"Annie," Luck said abruptly, swinging toward her, "can you comedown off that point where Jean Douglas came? You'll have to ridehorseback, remember, and I don't want you to do it unless you'resure of yourself. How about it?"

For the first time since breakfast her somber eyes lightenedwith a gleam of interest. She did not look at Ramon—Ramon whohad told her many times how much he loved her, and yet could praiseJean Douglas for her riding. Ramon had declared that he would notcare to come riding down that point as Jean had come; very well,then she would show Ramon something.

"It isn't necessary, exactly," Luck explained further. "I canshow you at the top, looking down at the way Jean came; and then Ican pick you up on an easier trail. But if you want to do it, itwill save some cut-backs and put another little punch in here.Either way it's up to you."

The voice of Annie-Many-Ponies did not rise to a higher key whenshe spoke, but it had in it a clear incisiveness that carried heranswer to Ramon and made him understand that she was speaking forhis ears.

"No matter. I come down jus' same." And she added with a haughtytilt of her chin, "That's easy place for me."

Luck eyed her steadfastly, a smile of approval on his face. "Allright. I know you've got plenty of nerve, Annie. You mount and rideup that draw till you get to the ridge. Come up to where you cansee camp over the brow of the hill—sabe?—and then waittill I whistle. One whistle, get ready to come down. Two whistles,you come. Ride past camera, just the way Jean did. You know you'refollowing the white girl and trying to catch up with her. You're afriend and you have a message for her, but she's scared and isrunning away—sabe? You want to come down slow first and pickyour trail?"

"No." Annie-Many-Ponies started toward the pinto pony which washer mount in this picture. "I come down hill. I make big punch foryou. Pete turn camera."

"You've got more nerve than I have, Annie," Jean told hergood-naturedly as she went by. "I'd hate to run a horse down therebareback."

"I go where Wagalexa Conka say." From the corner of her eye shesaw the quick frown of jealousy upon the face of Ramon, and herpulse gave an extra beat of triumph.

With an easy spring she mounted the pinto pony, took the reinsof her squaw bridle that was her only riding gear, folded her gayblanket snugly around her uncorseted body and touched the pintowith her moccasined heels. She was ready—ready to the leastlittle tensed nerve that tingled with eagerness under the calmsurface.

She rode slowly past Luck, got her few final instructions and awarning to be careful and to take no chances of anaccident—which brought that inscrutable smile to her face;for Wagalexa Conka knew, and she knew also, that in the mere act ofriding down that slope faster than a walk she was taking a chanceof an accident. It was that risk that lightened her heart which hadbeen so heavy all day. The greater the risk, the more eager was sheto take it. She would show Ramon that she, too, could ride.

"Oh, do be careful, Annie!" Jean called anxiously when she wasriding into the mouth of the draw. "Turn to the right, when youcome to that big flat rock, and don't come down where I did. It'stoo steep. Really," she drawled to Rosemary and Lite, "my heart wasin my mouth when I came straight down by that rock. It's a lotsteeper than it looks from here."

"She won't go round it," Rosemary predicted pessimistically."She's in one of her contrary moods today. She'll come down theworst way she can find just to scare the life out of us."

Up the steep draw that led to the top, Annie-Many-Ponies rodeexultantly. She would show Ramon that she could ride wherever thewhite girl dared ride. She would shame Wagalexa Conka, too, for hisinjustice to her. She would put put the big punch in that scenetoo, or—she would ride no more, unless it were upon a whitecloud, drifting across the moon at night and looking, down at thisworld and upon Ramon.

At the top of the ridge she rode out to the edge and made thepeace-sign to Luck as a signal that she was ready to do hisbidding. Incidentally, while she held her hand high over her head,her eyes swept keenly the bowlder-strewn bluff beneath her. Alittle to one side was a narrow backbone of smoother soil than therest, and here were printed deep the marks of Jean's horse. Eventhere it was steep, and there was a bank, down there by the bigflat rock which Jean had mentioned. Annie-Many-Ponies lookeddaringly to the left, where one would say the bluff was impassable.There she would come down, and no other place. She would show Ramonwhat she could do—he who had praised boldly another when shewas by!

"All right, Annie!" Luck called to her through his megaphone."Go back now and wait for whistle. Ride along the edge when youcome, from bushes to where you stand. I want silhouette, youcoming. You sabe?"

Annie-Many-Ponies raised her hand even with her breast, andswept it out and upward in the Indian sign-talk which meant "yes."Luck's eyes flashed appreciation of the gesture; he loved thesign-talk of the old plains tribes.

"Be careful, Annie," he cried impulsively. "I don't want you tobe hurt." He dropped the megaphone as she swung her horse back fromthe edge and disappeared. "I'd cut the whole scene out if I didn'tknow what a rider she is," he added to the others, more uneasy thanhe cared to own. "But it would hurt her a heap more if I wouldn'tlet her ride where Jean rode. She's proud; awfully proud andsensitive."

"I'm glad you're letting her do it," Jean said sympathetically."She'd hate me if you hadn't. But I'm going to watch her with myeyes shut, just the same. It's an awfully mean place in spots."

"She'll make it, all right," Luck declared. But his tone was notso confident as his words, and he was manifestly reluctant to placethe whistle to his lips. He fussed with his script, and he squintedinto the viewfinder, and he made certain for the second time justwhere the side-lines came, and thrust half an inch deeper in thesandy soil the slender stakes which would tell Annie-Many-Ponieswhere she must guide the pinto when she came tearing down toforeground. But he could delay the signal only so long, unless hecut out the scene altogether.

"Get back, over on that side, Bill," he commanded harshly."Leave her plenty of room to pass that side of the camera. Allready, Pete?" Then, as if he wanted to have it over with as soon aspossible, he whistled once, waited while he might have countedtwenty, perhaps, and sent shrilling through the sunshine the signalthat would bring her.

They watched, holding their breaths in fearful expectancy. Thenthey saw her flash into view and come galloping down along the edgeof the ridge where the hill fell away so steeply that it might becalled a cliff. Indian fashion, she was whipping the pinto downboth sides with the end of her reins. Her slim legs hung straight,her moccasined toes pointing downward. One corner of herred-and-green striped blanket flapped out behind her.Haste—the haste of the pursuer—showed in everymovement, every line of her figure.

She came to the descent, and the pinto, having no desire forapplause but a very great hankering for whole bones in his body,planted his forefeet and slid to a stop upon the brink. His snortcame clearly down to those below who watched.

"He won't tackle it," Pete Lowry predicted philosophically whilehe turned the camera crank steadily round and round and heldhimself ready to "panoram" the scene if the pinto bolted.

But the pinto, having Annie-Many-Ponies to reckon with, did notbolt. The braided rein-end of her squaw bridle lashed himstingingly; the moccasined heels dug without mercy into the tenderpart of his flanks. He came lunging down over the first rim of thebluff; then since he must, he gathered himself for the ordeal andcame leaping down and down and down, gaining momentum with everyjump. He could not have stopped then if he had tried—andAnnie-Many-Ponies, still the incarnation of eager pursuit, wouldnot let him try.

At the big flat rock of which Jean had warned her, the pintowould have swerved. But she yanked him into the straighter descent,down over the bank. He leaped, and he fell and slid twice his ownlength, his nose rooting the soil. Annie-Many-Ponies lurched, camehard against a boulder and somehow flung herself into place againon the horse. She lifted his head and called to him in short,harsh, Indian words. The pinto scrambled to his knees, got to hisfeet and felt again the sting of the rein-end in his flanks. Like arabbit he came bounding down, down where the way was steepest andmost treacherous. And at every jump the rein-end fell, first on oneside and then along the other, as a skilled canoeman shifts thepaddle to force his slight craft forward in a treacherouscurrent.

Down the last slope he came thundering. On his backAnnie-Many-Ponies lashed him steadily, straining her eyes in thedirection which Jean had taken past the camera. She knew that theywere watching her—she knew also that the camera crank in PeteLowry's hands was turning, turning, recording every move of hers,every little changing expression. She swept down upon them so closethat Pete grabbed the tripod with one hand, ready to lift it anddodge away from the coming collision. Still leaning, still lashingand straining every nerve in pursuit, she dashed past, pivoted thepinto upon his hind feet, darted back toward the staring group andjumped off while he was yet running.

Now that she had done it; now that she had proven that she alsohad nerve and much skill in riding, black loneliness settled uponher again. She came slowly back, and as she came she heard thempraise the ride she had made. She heard them saying how frightenedthey had been when the pinto fell, and she heard Wagalexa Conkacall to her that she had made a strong scene for him. She did notanswer. She sat down upon a rock, a little apart from them, andlooking as remote as the Sandia Mountains, miles away to the north,folded her blanket around her and spoke no word to anyone.

Soon Ramon mounted his horse to return to his camp. He cameriding down to her—for his trail lay that way—and as herode he called to the others a good natured "Hasta luego!" which isthe Mexican equivalent of "See you later." He did not seem tonotice Annie-Many-Ponies at all as he rode past her. He was gazingoff down the arroyo and riding with all his weight on one stirrupand the other foot swinging free, as is the nonchalant way ofaccustomed riders who would ease their muscles now and then. But ashe passed the rock where she was sitting he murmured, "Tonight bythe rock I wait for you, querida mia." Though she gave no sign thatshe had heard, the heart of Annie-Many-Ponies gave a throb ofgladness that was almost pain.

VII. —ADVENTURE COMES SMILING

LUCK, in the course of his enthusiastic picturemaking, reached the point where he must find a bank that waswilling to be robbed—in broad daylight and for screenpurposes only. If you know anything at all about our financialstorehouses, you know that they are sensitive about being robbed,or even having it appear that they are being subjected to sohumiliating a procedure. What Luck needed was a bank that was notonly willing, but one that faced the sun as well. He was lucky, asusual. The Bernalillo County Bank stands on a corner facing eastand south. It is an unpretentious little bank of the older style ofarchitecture, and might well be located in the centre of any smallrange town and hold the shipping receipts of a cattleman who wasgrowing rich as he grew old.

Luck stopped across the street and looked the bank over, and sawhow the sun would shine in at the door and through the wide windowsduring the greater part of the afternoon, and hoped that thecashier was a human being and would not object to a fake robbery.Not liking suspense, he stepped off the pavement and dodged ajitney, and hurried over to interview the cashier.

You never know what secret ambitions hide behind the impassivecourtesy of the average business man. This cashier, for instance,wore a green eyeshade whenever his hat was not on his head. Hishair was thin and his complexion pasty and his shoulders were toostooped for a man of his age. You never would have suspected, justto look at him through the fancy grating of his window, how hethirsted for that kind of adventure which fiction writers callred-blooded. He had never had an adventure in his life; but atnight, after he had gone to bed and adjusted the electric light athis head, and his green eyeshade, and had put two pillows under theback of his neck, he read—you will scarcely believe it, butit is true—he read about the James boys and Kit Carson andPawnee Bill, and he could tell you—only he wouldn't mentionit, of course—just how many Texans were killed in the Alamo.He loved gun catalogues, and he frequently went out of his way topass a store that displayed real, business-looking stock-saddlesand quirts and spurs and things. He longed to be down in Mexico inthe thick of the scrap there, and he knew every prominent Federalleader and every revolutionist that got into the papers; knew themby spelling at least, even if he couldn't pronounce the namescorrectly.

He had come to Albuquerque for his lungs' sake a few years ago,and he still thrilled at the sight of bright-shawled Pueblo Indianspadding along the pavements in their moccasins and queer leggingsthat looked like joints of whitewashed stove-pipe; while to ride inan automobile out to Isleta, which is a terribly realistic Indianvillage of adobe huts, made the blood beat in his temples and hisfingers tremble upon his knees. Even Martinez Town with its squattyhouses and narrow streets held for him a peculiar fascination.

You can imagine, maybe, how his weak eyes snapped withexcitement under that misleading green shade when Luck Lindsaywalked in and smiled at him through the wicket, and explained whohe was and what was the favor he had come to ask of the bank. Youcan, perhaps, imagine how he stood and made little marks on ablotter with his pencil while Luck explained just what he wouldwant; and how he clung to the noncommittal manner which is acashier's professional shield, while Luck smiled his smile to coverhis own feeling of doubt and stated that he merely wanted twoMexicans to enter, presumably overpower the cashier, and departwith a bag or two of gold.

The cashier made a few more pencil marks and said that it mightbe arranged, if Luck could find it convenient to make the picturejust after the bank's closing time. Obviously the cashier could notpermit the bank's patrons to be disturbed in any way—but whathe really wanted was to have the thrill of the adventure all tohimself.

With the two of them anxious to have the pictured robbery takeplace, of course they arranged it after a polite sparring on thepart of the cashier, whose craving for adventure was carefullyguarded as a guilty secret.

At three o'clock the next day, then—although Luck wouldhave greatly preferred an earlier hour—the cashier had thebank cleared of patrons and superfluous clerks, and was watching,with his nerves all atingle and the sun shining in upon him througha side window, while Pete Lowry and Bill Holmes fussed outside withthe camera, getting ready for the arrival of those realisticbandits, Ramon Chavez and Luis Rojas. On the street corneropposite, the Happy Family foregathered clannishly, waiting untilthey were called into the street-fight scene which Luck meant tomake later.

The cashier's cheeks were quite pink with excitement whenfinally Ramon and the Rojas villain walked past the window andlooked in at him before going on to the door. He was disappointedbecause they were not masked, and because they did not wear brightsashes with fringe and striped serapes draped across theirshoulders, and the hilts of wicked knives showing somewhere. Theydid not look like bandits at all—thanks to Luck's sureknowledge and fine sense of realism. Still, they answered thepurpose, and when they opened the door and came in the cashier gotquite a start from the greedy look in their eyes when they saw thegold he had stacked in profusion on the counter before him.

They made the scene twice—the walking past the window andcoming in at the door; and the second time Luck swore at thembecause they stopped too abruptly at the window and lingered toolong there, looking in at the cashier and his gold, and exchangingmeaning glances before they went to the door.

Later, there was an interior scene with reflectors almostblinding the cashier while he struggled self-consciously andineffectually with Ramon Chavez. The gold that Ramon scraped fromthe cashier's keeping into his own was not, of course, the realgold which the bandits had seen through the window. Luck, carefulof his responsibilities, had waited while the cashier locked thebank's money in the vault, and had replaced it with brass coinsthat looked real—to the camera.

The cashier lived then the biggest moments of his life. He wasforced upon his back across a desk that had been carefully clearedof the bank's papers and as carefully strewn with worthless oneswhich Luck had brought. A realistically uncomfortable gag had beenforced into the mouth of the cashier—where it brought twingesfrom some fresh dental work, by the way—and the bandits hadtaken everything in sight that they fancied.

Ramon and Luis Rojas had proven themselves artists in thisparticular line of work, and the cashier, when it was all over andthe camera and company were busily at work elsewhere, lived it inhis imagination and felt that he was at least tasting the fullflavor of red-blooded adventure without having to pay the usualprice of bitterness and bodily suffering. He was mistaken, ofcourse—as I am going to explain. What the cashier had takenpart in was not the adventure itself but merely a rehearsal andgeneral preparation for the real performance.

This had been on Wednesday, just after three o'clock in theafternoon. On Saturday forenoon the cashier was called upon thephone and asked if a part of that robbery stuff could be retakenthat day. The cashier thrilled instantly at the thought of it.Certainly, they could retake as much as they pleased. Lucksvoice—or a voice very like Luck's—thanked him and saidthat they would not need to retake the interior stuff. What hewanted was to get the approach to the bank, the entrance, and goingback to the cashier. That part of the negative was under-timed,said the voice. And would the cashier make a display of gold behindthe wicket, so that the camera could register it through thewindow? The cashier thought that he could. "Just stack it up goodand high," directed the voice. "The more the better. And clear thebank—have the clerks out, and every thing as near as possibleto what it was the other day. And you take up the same position.The scene ends where Ramon comes back and grabs you."

"And listen! You did so well the other day that I'm going toleave this to you, to see that they get it the same. I can't bethere myself—I've got to catch some atmosphere stuff downhere in Old Town. I'm just sending my assistant camera man and thetwo heavies and my scenic artist for this retake. It won't bemuch—but be sure you have the bank cleared, oldman—because it would ruin the following scenes to have extrapeople registered in this; see? You did such dandy work in thatstruggle that I want it to stand. Boy, your work's sure going tostand out on the screen!"

Can you blame the cashier for drinking in every word of that,and for emptying the vault of gold and stacking it up in beautiful,high piles where the sun shone on it through the window—andwhere it would be within easy reach, by the way!—so that thecamera could "register" it?

At ten minutes past twelve he had gotten rid of patrons andclerks, and he had the gold out and his green eyeshade adjusted asbecomingly as a green eyeshade may be adjusted. He looked out andsaw that the street was practically empty, because of the hour andthe heat that was almost intolerable where the sun shone full. Hesaw a big red machine drive up to the corner and stop, and he saw aman climb out with camera already screwed to the tripod. He saw thebandits throw away their cigarettes and follow the camera man, andthen he hurried back and took up his station beside the stacks ofgold, and waited in a twitter of excitement for this unhoped-forencore of last Wednesday's glorious performance. Through the windowhe watched the camera being set up, and he watched also, from underhis eyeshade, the approach of the two bandits.

Ramon and Luis went into the bank, and in a few minutes theycame out again burdened with bags of specie and pulled the doorshut with the spring lock set and the blinds down that proclaimedthe bank was closed. They climbed into the red automobile, thecamera and its operator followed, and the machine went away downthe street to the post-office, turned and went purring into theMexican quarter which spreads itself out toward the lower bridgethat spans the Rio Grande. This much a dozen persons could tellyou. Beyond that no man seemed to know what became of theoutfit.

In the bank, the cashier lay back across a desk with a gag inhis mouth and his hands and feet tied, and with a welt on the sideof his head that swelled and bled sluggishly for a while and thenstopped and became an angry purple. Where the gold had been stackedhigh in the sunshine the marble glistened whitely, with not so muchas a five-dollar piece to give it a touch of color. The windowblinds were drawn down—the bank was closed. And people passedthe windows and never guessed that within there lay a sickly youngman who had craved adventure and found it, and would presentlyawake to taste its bitter flavor.

Away off across the mesa, sweltering among the rocks in BearCañon, Luck Lindsay panted and sweated and cussed the heat andpainstakingly directed his scenes, and never dreamed that alikeness of his voice had beguiled the cashier of the BernalilloCounty Bank into consenting to be robbed and beaten into oblivionof his betrayal.

And—although some heartless teller of tales might keep youin the dark about this—the red automobile, having dodgedhurriedly into a high-boarded enclosure behind a Mexican saloon,emerged presently and went boldly off across the bridge and upthrough Atrisco to the sand hills which is the beginning of thedesert off that way. But another automobile, bigger and morepowerful and black, slipped out of this same enclosure upon anotherstreet, and turned eastward instead of west. This machine made forthe mesa by a somewhat roundabout course, and emerged, by way of arough trail up a certain draw in the edge of the tableland, to themain road where it turns the corner of the cemetery. From there thedriver drove as fast as he dared until he reached the hill thatborders Tijeras Arroyo. There being no sign of pursuit to thispoint, he crossed the Arroyo at a more leisurely pace. Then he wentspeeding away into the edge of the mountains until they reached oneof those deep, deserted dry washes that cut the foothills here andthere near Coyote Springs. There his passengers left him anddisappeared up the dry wash.

Before the wound on the cashier's head had stopped bleeding, theblack automobile was returning innocently to town and no manguessed what business had called it out upon the mesa.

VIII. —THE SONG OF THE OMAHA

"ME, I theenk yoh not lov' me so moch as a pin,"Ramon complained in soft reproach, down in the dry wash whereApplehead had looked in vain for baling wire. "Sometimes I show yohwhat is like the Spanish lov'. Like stars, likefire—sometimes I seeng the jota for you that tell how moch Ilov' yoh. 'Te quiero, Baturra, te quiero,'" he began humming softlywhile he looked at her with eyes that shone soft in the starlight."Sometimes me, I learn yoh dat song—and moch more I learnyoh—"

Annie-Many-Ponies stood before him, straight and slim and withthat air of aloofness which so fired Ramon's desire for her. Shelifted a hand to check him, and Ramon stopped instantly and waited.So far had her power over him grown.

"All time you tell me you heap love," she said in her crooningsoft voice. "Why you not talk of priest to make us marry? You saywords for love—you say no word for wife. Why you nosay—"

"Esposa!" Ramon's teeth gleamed white as a wolf's in the dusk."When the padre marry us I maybe teach you many ways to say wife!"He laughed under his breath. "How I calls yoh wife when I not getsone kees, me? Now I calls yoh la sweetheart—good enough whenI no gets so moch as touches hand weeth yoh."

"I go way with you, you gets priest for make us marry?"Annie-Many-Ponies edged closer so that she might read what was inhis face.

"Why yoh no trus' Ramon? Sure, I gets padre! W'at yoh theenk forspeak lies, me? Sure, I gets padre, foolish one! Me, I not like foryoh no trus' Ramon. Looks like not moch yoh lov' Ramon."

"I good girl," Annie-Many-Ponies stated simply. "I love myhusband when priest says that's right thing to do. You no getspriest, I no go with you. I think mens not much cares for marry alltime. Womens not care, they go to hell. That's what priest tells.Girls got to care. That's truth." Simple as two-plus-two was therule of life as Annie-Many-Ponies laid it down in words before him.No fine distinctions between virtue and superwomanhood there, ifyou please! No slurring of wrong so that it may look like anexalted right. "Womens got to care," said Annie-Many-Ponies with acalm certainty that would brook no argument.

"Sure theeng," Ramon agreed easily. "Yoh theenk I lov' yoh somoch if yoh not good?"

"You swear, then, all same white mans in picture makes oath."There was a new quality of inflexibility under the soft music ofher voice. "You lift up hand and says, 'Help me by God I makes youfor-sure my wife!'" She had pondered long upon this oath, and shespoke it now with an easy certainty that it was absolutely binding,and that no man would dare break it. "You makes that swear now,"she urged gently.

"Foolish one! Yoh theenk I mus' swear I do what my hearts she'swant? I tell yoh many times we go on one ranch my brother Tomassays she's be mine. We lives there in fine house weeth moochflowers, yoh not so moch as lif' one finger for work, querida mia.Yoh theenk I not be trus', me, Ramon what loves yoh?"

"No hurt for swears what I tells," Annie-Many-Ponies steppedback from him a pace, distrust creeping into her voice.

"All right." Ramon moved nearer. "So I make oath, perhaps youmake oath also! Me, I theenk yoh perhaps not like for leave LuckLeensay—I theenk perhaps yoh loves heem, yoh so all timewatch for ways to please! So I swear, then yoh mus' swear also thatyoh come for-sure. That square deal for both—si?"

Annie-Many-Ponies hesitated, a dull ache in her breast whenRamon spoke of Luck. But if her heart was sore at thought of him,it was because he no longer looked upon her with the smile in hiseyes. It was because he was not so kind; because he believed thatshe had secret meetings with Bill Holmes whom she hated. And inspite of the fact that Bill Holmes had left the company the otherday and was going away, Wagalexa Conka still looked upon her withcold eyes and listened to the things that Applehead said againsther. The heart of Wagalexa Conka, she told herself miserably, waslike a stone for her. And so her own heart must be hard. She wouldswear to Ramon, and she would keep the oath—and WagalexaConka would not even miss her or be sorry that she had gone.

"Muy bueno!" smiled Ramon then. "So I make oath I take you queekto one good friend me, the Padre Dominguez. Then yoh be my wife forsure. That good enough for yoh, perhaps? Queeck yoh make oath yohleave these place mañana—tomorra. Yoh go by ol' rancho wherewe talk so many time. I leave horse for yoh. Yoh ride pas' thatmountain, yoh come for Bernalillo. Yoh wait. I come queeck as canwhen she's dark. Yoh do that, sweetheart?"

Annie-Many-Ponies stilled the ache in her heart with the thoughtof her proud place beside Ramon who had much land and many cattleand who loved her so much. She lifted her hand and swore she wouldgo with him.

She slipped away then and crept into her tent in the littlecluster beside the house—for the company had forsakenApplehead's adobe and slept under canvas as a matter of choice.With Indian cunning she bided her time and gave no sign of what washidden in her heart. She rose with the others and brushed herglossy hair until it shone in the sunlight like the hair of ahigh-caste Chinese woman. She tied upon it the new bows of redribbon which she had bought in the secret hope that they would be apart of her wedding finery. She put on her Indian gala dress ofbeaded buckskin with the colored porcupine quills—and thenshe smiled cunningly and drew a dress of red-and-blue stripedcalico over her head and settled the folds of it about her withlittle, smoothing pats, so that the two white women, Rosemary andJean, should not notice any unusual bulkiness of her figure.

She did not know how she would manage to escape the keen eyes ofWagalexa Conka and to steal away from the ranch, especially if shehad to work in the picture that day. But Luck unconsciously openedwide the trail for her. He announced at breakfast that they wouldwork up in Bear Cañon that day, and that he would not need Jean orAnnie either; and that, as it would be hotter than the hinges ofGehenna up in that cañon, they had better stay at home and enjoythemselves.

Annie-Many-Ponies did not betray by so much as a flicker of thelashes that she heard him much less that it was the best of goodnews to her. She went into her tent and packed all of her clothesinto a bundle which she wrapped in her plaid shawl, and was proudbecause the bundle was so big, and because she had much finebeadwork and so many red ribbons, and a waist of bright blue silkwhich she would wear when she stood before the priest, if Ramon didnot like the dress of beaded buckskin.

A ring with an immense red stone in it which Ramon had givenher, she slipped upon her finger with her little, inscrutablesmile. She was engaged to be married, now, just like white girls;and tomorrow she would have a wide ring of shiny gold for thatfinger, and should be the wife of Ramon.

Just then Shunka Chistala, lying outside her tent, flapped histail on the ground and gave a little, eager whine.Annie-Many-Ponies thrust her head through the opening and lookedout, and then stepped over the little black dog and stood beforeher tent to watch the Happy Family mount and ride away withWagalexa Conka in their midst and with the mountain wagon rattlingafter them loaded with "props" and the camera and the noonday lunchand Pete Lowry and Tommy Johnson, the scenic artist. Applehead wasgoing to drive the wagon, and she scowled when he yanked off thebrake and cracked the whip over the team.

Luck, feeling perchance the intensity of her gaze, turned in thesaddle and looked back. The eyes of Annie-Many-Ponies softened andsaddened, because this was the last time she would see WagalexaConka riding away to make pictures—the last time she wouldsee him. She lifted her hand, and made the Indian sign offarewell—the peace-go-with-you sign that is used for solemnoccasions of parting.

Luck pulled up short and stared. What did she mean by that? Hereined his horse around, half minded to ride back and ask her whyshe gave him that peace-sign. She had never done it before, exceptonce or twice in scenes that he directed. But after all he did notgo. They were late in getting started that morning, which irked hisenergetic soul; and women's whims never did impress Luck Lindsayvery deeply. Besides, just as he was turning to ride back, Anniestooped and went into her tent as though her gesture had carried noespecial meaning.

Then in her tent he heard her singing the high, weird chant ofthe Omaha mourning song and again he was half-minded to go back,though the wailing minor notes, long drawn and mournful, might meanmuch or they might mean merely a fit of the blues. The others rodeon talking and laughing together, and Luck rode with them; but thechant of the Omaha was in his ears and tingling his nerves. And thevision of Annie-Many-Ponies standing straight before her tent andmaking the sign of peace and farewell haunted him that day.

Rosemary and Jean, standing in the porch, waved good-bye totheir men folk until the last bobbing hatcrown had gone down out ofsight in the long, low swale that creased the mesa in thatdirection. Whereupon they went into the house.

"What in the world is the matter with Annie?" Jean exploded,with a little shiver. "I'd rather hear a band of gray wolves tuneup when you're caught out in the breaks and have to ride in thedark. What is that caterwaul? Do you suppose she's on the warpathor anything?"

"Oh, that's just the squaw coming out in her!" Rosemary slammedthe door shut so they could not hear so plainly. "She's gettingmore Injuny every day of her life. I used to try and treat her likea white girl—but you just can't do it, Jean."

Jean stood in the middle of the room and listened. "Br-r-r!" sheshivered—and one could not blame her. "I wonder if she'd bemad," she drawled, "if I went out and told her to shut up. Itsounds as if somebody was dead, or going to die or something. LikeLite says your dog will howl if anything—"

"Oh, for pity sake!" Rosemary pushed her into the living roomwith make-believe savageness. "I've heard her and Luck sing thatlast winter. And there's a kind of a teetery dance that goes withit. It's supposed to be a mourning song, as Luck explains it. Butdon't pay any attention to her at all. She just does it to get onour nerves. It'd tickle her to death if she thought it made usnervous."

"And now the dog is joining in on the chorus! I must say they'rea cheerful pair to have around the house. And I know onething—if they keep that up much longer, I'll either get outthere with a gun, or saddle up and follow the boys."

"It's run or be run," Jean retorted irritatedly. "I wanted towrite poetry today—I thought of an awfully striking sentenceabout the—for heaven's sake, where's a shotgun?"

"Jean, you wouldn't!" Rosemary, I may here explain, was veryfemininely afraid of guns. "She'd—why, there's no tellingwhat she might do! Luck says she carries a knife."

"What if she does? She ought to carry a few bird-shot, too.She's got nothing to mourn about—nobody's died, hasthere?

"Hiu-hiu-hia-a-a-ah! Hia-a-a-a-ah!" wailed Annie-Many-Ponies inher tent, because she would never again look upon the face ofWagalexa Conka—or if she did it would be to see his angerblaze and burn her heart to ashes. To her it was as though deathsat beside her; the death of Wagalexa Conka's friendship for her.She forgot his harshness because he thought her disobedient andwicked. She forgot that she loved Ramon Chavez, and that he wasrich and would give her a fine home and much love. She forgoteverything but that she had sworn an oath and that she must keep itthough it killed faith and kindness and friendship as with aknife.

So she wailed, in high-keyed, minor chanting unearthly in itsprimitive inarticulateness of sorrow, the chant of the Omahamourning song. So had her tribe wailed in the olden days whenwarriors returned to the villages and told of their dead. So hadher mother wailed when the Great Spirit took away her firstman-child. So had the squaws wailed in their tepees since the landwas young. And the little black dog, sitting on his haunches beforeher door, pointed his moist nose into the sunlight and howled inmournful sympathy.

"Oh, my gracious!" Jean, usually so calm, flung a magazineagainst the wall. "This is just about as pleasant as a hanging!let's saddle up and ride in after the mail, Rosemary. Maybe thesquaw in her will be howled out by the time we get back." And sheadded with a venomous sincerity that would have warmed the heart ofold Applehead, "I'd shoot that dog, for half a cent! How do yousuppose an animal of his size can produce all that noise?"

"Oh, I don't know!" Rosemary spoke with the patience of utterweariness. "I've stood her and the dog for about eight months andI'm getting kind of hardened to it. But I never did hear them go onlike that before. You'd think all her relations were beingmurdered, wouldn't you?"

Jean was busy getting into her riding clothes and did not saywhat she thought; but you may be sure that it was antipathetic tothe grief of Annie-Many-Ponies, and that Jean's attitude wascaused by a complete lack of understanding. Which, if you will stopto think, is true of half the unsympathetic attitudes in the world.Because they did not understand, the two dressed hastily and tuckedtheir purses safely inside their shirtwaists and saddled and rodeaway to town. And the last they heard as they put the ranch behindthem was the wailing chant of Annie-Many-Ponies and the prodigious,long-drawn howling of the little black dog.

Annie-Many-Ponies, hearing the beat of hoofs ceased her chantingand looked out in time to see the girls just disappearing over thelow brow of the hill. She stood for a moment and stared after themwith frowning brows. Rosemary she did not like and never wouldlike, after their hidden feud of months over such small matters asthe cat and the dog, and unswept floors, and the like. A mountainof unwashed dishes stood between these two, as it were, and forbadeanything like friendship.

But the parting that was at hand had brushed aside her jealousyof Jean as leading woman. Intuitively she knew that with anyencouragement Jean would have been her friend. Oddly, sheremembered now that Jean had been the first to ask for her when shecame to the ranch. So, although Jean would never know,Annie-Many-Ponies raised her hand and gave the peace-and-farewellsign of the plains Indians.

The way was open now, and she must go. She had sworn that shewould meet Ramon—but oh, the heart of her was heavier thanthe bundle which she bound with her bright red sash and lifted toher shoulders with the sash drawn across her chest and shoulders.So had the women of her tribe borne burdens since the land wasyoung; but none had ever borne a heavier load than didAnnie-Many-Ponies when she went soft footed across the open spaceto the dry wash and down that to another, and so on and on untilshe crossed the low ridge and came down to the deserted old ranchowith its crumbling adobe cabins and the well where she had waitedso often for Ramon.

She was tired when she reached the well, for her back was notused to burden-bearing as had been her mother's, and her steps hadlagged because of the heaviness that was in her chest. It seemed toher that some bad spirit was driving her forth an exile. She couldnot understand. Last night she had been glad at the thought ofgoing, and if the thought of leaving Wagalexa Conka sotreacherously had hurt like a knife-thrust, still, she had swornwillingly enough that she would go.

The horse was there, saddled and tied in a tumble-down shed justas Ramon had promised that it would be. Annie-Many-Ponies did notmount and ride on immediately, however. It was still early in theforenoon, and she was not so eager in reality as she had been inanticipation. She sat down beside the well and stared somberly awayto the mountains, and wondered why she was so sad when she shouldbe happy. She twisted the ring with the big red stone round andround her finger, but she got no pleasure from the crimson glow ofit. The stone looked to her now like a great, frozen drop of blood.She wondered grimly whose blood it was, and stared at it strangelybefore her eyes went again worshipfully to the mountains which sheloved and which she must leave and perhaps never see again as theylooked from there, and from the ranch.

She must ride and ride until she was around on the other side ofthat last one that had the funny, pointed cone top like a big stonetepee. On the other side was Ramon, and the priest, and the strangenew life of which she was beginning to feel afraid. There would beno more riding up to camera, laughing or sighing or frowning asWagalexa Conka commanded her to do. There would be no more shygreetings of the slim young woman in riding skirt—thefriendship scenes and the black-browed anger, while Pete Lowryturned the camera and Luck stood beside him telling her just whatshe must do, and smiling at her when she did it well.

There would be Ramon, and the priest and the wide ring of shinygold—what more? The mountains, all pink and violet andsmiling green and soft gray—the mountains hid the new lifefrom her. And she must ride around that last, sharp-pointed one,and come into the new life that was on the other side—andwhat if it should be bitter? What if Ramon's love did not livebeyond the wide ring of shiny gold? She had seen it so, with othermen and other maids.

No matter. She had sworn the oath that she would go. But first,there at the old well where Ramon had taught her the Spanish lovewords, there where she had listened shyly and happily to his voicethat was so soft and so steeped in love, Annie-Many-Ponies stood upwith her face to the mountains and sorrow in her eyes, and chantedagain the wailing, Omaha mourning-song. And just behind her thelittle black dog, that had followed close to her heels all the way,sat upon his haunches and pointed his nose to the sky andhowled.

For a long time she wailed. Then to the mountains that she lovedshe made the sign of peace-and-farewell, and turned herselfstoically to the keeping of her oath. Her bundle that was so bigand heavy she placed in the saddle and fastened with thesaddle-string and with the red sash that had bound it across herchest and shoulders. Then, as her great grandmother had ploddedacross the bleak plains of the Dakotas at her master's behest,Annie-Many-Ponies took the bridle reins and led the horse out ofthe ruin, and started upon her plodding, patient journey to whatlay beyond the mountains. Behind her the black horse walked withdrooping head, half asleep in the warm sunlight. At the heels ofthe horse followed the little black dog.

IX. —RIDERS IN THE BACKGROUND

LUCK, as explained elsewhere, was sweating andswearing at the heat in Bear Cañon. The sun had crept around sothat it shone full into a certain bowlder-strewn defile, and upthis sunbaked gash old Applehead was toiling, leading thescrawniest burro which Luck had been able to find in the country.The burro was packed with a prospector's outfit startlingly real inits pathetic meagerness. Old Applehead was picking his way amongrocks so hot that he could hardly bear to lay his bare hand uponthem, tough as that hand was with years of exposure to heat andcold alike. Beads of perspiration were standing on his face, whichwas a deep, apoplectic crimson, and little trickles of sweat weredropping off his lower jaw.

He was muttering as he climbed, but the camera fortunatelyfailed to record the language that he used. Now and then he turnedand yanked savagely at the lead rope; whereupon the burro would sitdown upon its haunches and allow Applehead to stretch its neck asfar as bone and tough hide and tougher sinew would permit. Someoneamong the group roosting in the shade across the defile and wellout of camera range would laugh, and Luck, standing on a ledge justbehind and above the camera, would shout directions or criticism ofthe "business."

"Come on back, Applehead," Luck yelled when the "prospector" hadturned a corner of rock and disappeared from sight of the camera."We'll do that scene over once more before the sun gets too fararound."

"Do it over, will ye?" Applehead snarled as he came toilingobediently back down the gulch. "Well, now, I ain't so danged shoreabout that there doin' over—'nless yuh want to wait and do itafter sundown. Ain't nobody but a danged fool It would go trailin'up that there gulch this kinda' day. Them rocks up there is hotenough to brile a lizard—now, I'm tellin' ye!"

Luck covered a smile with his moist palm. He could not afford tobe merciful at the expense of good "picture-stuff," however, so hecalled down grimly:

"Now you're just about fagged enough for that close-up I want ofyou, Applehead. You went up that gulch a shade too brisk for afellow that's all in from traveling, and starved into the bargain.Come back down here by this sand bank, and start up towards camera.Back up a little, Pete, so you can 'pam' his approach. I want toget him pulling his burro up past that bank—sabe? And theclose-up of his face with all those sweat-streaks will prove howfar he's come—and then I want the detail of that burro andhis pack which you'll get as they go by. You see what I mean. Let'ssee. Will it swing you too far into the sun, Pete, if you pick himup down there in that dry channel?"

"Not if you let me make it right away," Pete replied after asquint or two through the viewfinder. "Sun's getting pretty farover—"

"Ought to leave a feller time to git his wind," Appleheadcomplained, looking up at Luck with eyes bloodshot from the heat."I calc'late mebby you think it'sfun to drag that thereburro up over them rocks?"

"Sure, it isn't fun. We didn't come out here for fun. Go downand wait behind that bank, and come out into the channel when Igive the word. I want you coming up all-in, just as you look rightnow. Sorry, but I can't let you wait to cool off, Applehead."

"Well now," Applehead began with short-winded sarcasm, "I'ms'posed to be outa grub. Why didn't yuh up n' starve me fer a weekor two, so'st I'd be gaunted up realistic? Why didn't yuh break alaig fer me, sos't I kin show some five-cent bunch in apitcher-show how bad I'm off? Danged if I ain't jest about gettin'my hide full uh this here danged foolreelism you'rehollerin' fur all the time. 'F you send me down there to comehaulin' that there burro back up here so's the camery kin watch mesweat 'n' puff my danged daylights out—before I git a drinkuh water, I'll murder ye in cold blood, now I'm tellin' ye!"

"You go on down there and shut up!" Luck yelled inexorably. "Youcan drink a barrel when I'm through with this scene—and notbefore. Get that? My Lord! If you can't lead a burro a hundredyards without setting down and fanning yourself to sleep, you mustbe losing your grip for fair. I'll stake you to a rocking-chair andlet you do old grandpa parts, if you aren't able to—"

"Dang you, Luck, if you wasn't such a little runt I'd come upthere and jest about lick the pants off you! Talk that way tome, will ye? I'll have ye know I kin lead burros with you orany other dang man, heat er no heat. Ef yuh ain't got no moreheart'n to AST it of me, I'll haul this here burro up 'n' down thisdang gulch till there ain't nothin' left of 'im but the lead-rope,and the rocks is all wore down to cobble-stone! Ole grandpa parts,hey? You'll swaller them words when I git to ye, youngfeller—and you'll swaller 'em mighty dang quick, now I'mtellin' ye!"

He went off down the gulch to the sand bank. The Happy Family,sprawled at ease in the shade, took cigarettes from their lips thatthey might chortle their amusement at the two. Like father and sonwere Applehead and Luck, but their bickerings certainly would neverlead one to suspect their affection.

"Get that darned burro outa sight, will you?" Luck bawledimpatiently when Applehead paused to send a murderous glance backtoward camera. "What's the matter—yuhparalyzed downthere? Haul him in behind that bank! The moon'll be up before youget turned around, at that rate!"

"You shet yore haid!" Applehead retorted at the full capacity ofhis lungs and with an absolute disregard for Luck's position asdirector of the company. "Who's leadin' this here burro—youer me? Fer two cents I'd come back and knock the tar outa you,Luck! Stand up there on a rock and flop your wings and crow like adanged banty rooster—'n' I was leadin' burros 'fore you wasborn! I'd like to know who yuh think yoube?"

Pete Lowry, standing feet-apart and imperturbably focussing thecamera while the two yelled insults at each other, looked up atLuck.

"Riders in the background," he announced laconically, andreturned to his squinting and fussing. "Maybe you can make 'em hearwith the megaphone," he hinted, looking again at Luck. "They'reriding straight up the cañon, in the middle distance. They'llregister in the scene, if you can't turn 'em."

"Applehead!" Luck called through the megaphone to his irritatedprospector. "Get those riders outa the cañon—they're in thescene!"

Applehead promptly appeared, glaring up at Luck. "Well, now, ifI've got to haul this here dang jackass up this dang gulch, Ical'clate that'll be about job enough for one man," he yelled. "Howyuh expect me t' go two ways 't once? Hey? Yuh figured that outyit?" He turned then for a look at the interrupting strangers, andimmediately they saw his manner change. He straightened up, and hisright hand crept back significantly toward his hip. Applehead, Imay here explain, was an ex-sheriff, and what range men call a"go-getter." He had notches on the ivory handle of hisgun—three of them. In fair fights and in upholding the law hehad killed, and he would kill again if the need ever arose, asthose who knew him never doubted.

Luck, seeing that backward movement of the hand, unconsciouslyhitched his own gun into position on his hip and came down off hisrock ledge with one leap. Just as instinctively the Happy Familyscrambled out of the shade and followed Luck down the gulch towhere Applehead stood facing down the cañon, watchfulness in everytense line of his lank figure. Tommy Johnson, who never seemed tobe greatly interested in anything save his work, got up from wherehe lay close beside the camera tripod and went over to the otherside of the gulch where he could see plainer.

Like a hunter poising his shotgun and making ready when histrained bird-dog points, Luck walked guardedly down the gulch towhere Applehead stood watching the horsemen who had for the momentpassed out of sight of those above.

"Now, what's that danged shurf want, prowlin' upherewith a couple uh depittys?" Applehead grumbled when he heard Luck'sfootsteps crunching behind him. "Uh course," he added grimly, "hemight be viewin' the scenery—but it's dang poreweather fur pleasure-ridin', now I'm tellin' ye! Them a comin' uphere don't look good tome, Luck—'n' if theyain't—"

"How do you know it's the sheriff?" Luck for no reason whateverfelt a sudden heaviness of spirit.

"Hey? Think my eyes is failin' me?" Applehead gave him asidelong glance of hasty indignation. "I'd know ole Hank Miller amile off with m' eyes shet."

By then the three riders rode out into plain view. Perhaps thesight of Luck and Applehead standing there awaiting their arrival,with the whole Happy Family and Big Aleck Douglas and Lite Averymoving down in a close-bunched, expectant group behind the two, wasconstrued as hostility rather than curiosity. At any rate thesheriff and his deputies shifted meaningly in their saddles andcame up sour-faced and grim, and with their guns out and pointingat the group.

"Don't go making any foolish play, boys," the sheriff warned."We don't want trouble—we aren't looking for any. But weain't taking any chances."

"Well now, you're takin' a dang long chance, Hank Miller, whenyuh come ridin' up on us fellers like yuh was cornerin' a bunch uhoutlaws," Applehead exploded. But Luck pushed him aside and steppedto the front.

"Nobody's making any foolish play but you," he answered thesheriff calmly. "You may not know it, but you're blocking my sceneand the light's going. If you've got any business with me or mycompany, get it over and then get out so we can make this scene.What d'yuh want?"

"For pulling off that robbery at the bank today." The sheriffcould be pretty blunt, and he shot the charge straight, without anyquibbling.

Luck looked a little blank; and old Applehead, shaking with avery real anger now, shoved Luck away and stepped up where he couldshake his fist under the sheriff's nose.

"We don't know, and we don't give a cuss, what you're aimin'at," he thundered. "We been out here workin' in this brilin' sunsense nine o'clock this mornin'. Luck ain't robbed no bank, ner heain't the kind thatdoes rob banks, and I'm here to see youswaller them words 'fore I haul ye off'n that horse and plumb wearye out! Yuh wanta think twicet 'fore ye come ridin' up where I kinhear yuh call Luck Lindsay a thief, now I'm tellin' ye! If a bankwas robbed, ye better be gittin' out after them that done it, andgit outa the way uh that camery sos't we can git t' work! Git!"

The sheriff did not "git" exactly, but he did look considerablyembarrassed. His eyes went to Luck apologetically.

"Cashier come to and said you'd called him up on the phone abouteleven, claimin' you wanted to make a movin' pitcher of the bankbeing robbed," he explained—though he was careful not tolower his gun. "He swore it was your men that done the work andtook the gold you told him to pile out on the—"

"I told him?" Luck's voice had the sharpened quality thatcaused laggard actors to jump. "Be a little more exact in the wordsyou use."

"Well-l—somebody on the phone 't hethought wasyou," the sheriff amended obediently. "Your men—and they sureWAS your men, because three or four fellers besides the cashierseen 'em goin' in and comin' out—they gagged the cashier andtook his keys away from him and cleaned the safe, besides takingwhat gold he'd piled on the counter for y'—for 'em.

"So," he finished vigorously, "I an' my men hit the trail ferthe ranch and was told by the women that you was out here. And herewe are, and you might just as well come along peaceable as to makea fuss—"

"That thar is shore enough outayou, Hank Miller!"Applehead exploded again. "I calc'late you kin countme in,when you go mixin' up with Luck, here. I'm one of his men—andif he was to pull off a bank robbery I calc'late I'd be in on thatthere performance too, I'm tellin' you! Luck don't go no whars nerdo nothin' that Iain't in on.

"I've had some considerable experience as shurf myself, ifyou'll take the trouble to recolleck; and I calc'late my word'll goabout as fur as the next. When I tell ye thar ain't goin' to be noarrest made in Bear Cañon, and that you ain't goin' to take Luck infer no bank robbery, you kin be dang shore I mean every word uhthat thar!" He moved a step or two nearer the sheriff, and thesheriff backed his horse away from him.

"Ef you kin cut out this here accusin' Luck, and talk like awhite man," Applehead continued heatedly, "we'd like to hear thestraight uh this here robbery. I would, 'n' I know Luck would,seein' they've gone t' work and mixed him into it. His bunch is allhere, as you kin see fer yourself. Now we're listenin' 's long'syou talk polite—'n' you kin tell us what men them was thatwas seen goin' in and comin' out—and all about the hul' dangbusiness."

The sheriff had not ridden to Bear Cañon expecting to be bulliedinto civil speech and lengthy explanations; but he knew AppleheadFurrman, and he had sufficient intelligence to read correctly thecharacter of the group of men that stood behind Applehead. Honestmen or thieves, they were to be reckoned with if any attempt weremade to place Luck under arrest; any fool could see that—andHank Miller was not a fool.

He proceeded therefore to explain his errand and the robbery asthe cashier had described it to the clerks who returned after lunchto finish their Saturday's work at the bank.

"Fifteen thousand they claim is what the fellers got. And one ofyour men that runs the camera was keeping up a bluff of taking apitcher of it all the time—that's why they got away with it.Nobody suspicioned it was anything more'n moving-pitcher actingtill they found the cashier and brought him to, along about oneo'clock. It was that Chavez feller that you had working for yuh,and Luis Rojas that done it—them and a couple fellersstalling outside with the camera."

"I wonder," hazarded Pete Lowry, who had come down and joinedthe group, "if that wasn't Bill Holmes with the camera? He was alot more friendly with Ramon than he tried to let on."

"The point is," Luck broke in, "that they took advantage of myholdup scene to pull off the robbery. I can see how the cashierwould fall for a retake like that, especially since he don't knowmuch about picture-making. Gather up the props, boys, and let's gohome. I'm going to get the rights of this thing."

"You've got it now," the sheriff informed him huffily. "Think Ibeen loading you up with hot air? I was sent out to round youup—"

"Forget all that!" snapped Luck. "I don't know as I enjoy havingyou fellows jump at the notion I'm a bank-robber—or that if Ihad robbed a bank I would have come right back here and gone towork. What kind of a simp do you think I am, for gosh sake? Can yousee where anyone but a lunatic would go like that in broad daylightand pull off a robbery as raw as that one must have been, and noteven make an attempt at a getaway? I'll gamble Applehead, here,wouldn't have fallen for a play as coarse as that was if he wassheriff yet. He'd have seen right away that the camera part wasjust the coarsest kind of a blind.

"My Lord! Think of grown men—officers of the law atthat—being simple-minded enough to come fogging out here tome, instead of getting on the trail of the men that were seen onthe spot! You say they came in a machine to the bank and you neverso much as tried to trace it, or to get the license number even,I'll bet a month's salary you didn't! It was a moving-picturestall, and so you come blundering out here to the only picturecompany in the country, thinking, by gravy, that it was allstraight goods—oh, can you beat that for a boob?" He shookback his heavy mane of gray hair and turned to his boysdisgustedly.

"Pete and Tommy, you can drive the wagon back all right, can'tyou? We'll go on ahead and see what there is at the bottom of thisyarn."

X. — DEPUTIES ALL

AT the ranch, whither they rode in haste, Luckmeant to leave his boys and go on with the sheriff to town. But theHappy Family flatly refused to be left behind. Even old AleckDouglas—whom years and trouble had enfeebled until his verypresence here with Jean and Lite was a health-seeking mission inthe wonderful air of New Mexico—even old Aleck Douglasstamped his foot at Jean and declared that he was going along tosee that "the boy" got a square deal. There wouldn't be anyrailroading Luck to the pew for something he didn't do, he assertedwith a tragic meaning that wrung the heart of Jean. It took Lite'sarguments and Luck's optimism and, finally, the assurance of thesheriff that Luck was not under arrest and was in no danger of it,to keep the old man at the ranch. Also, they promised to returnwith all speed and not to keep supper waiting, before the two womenwere satisfied to let them go.

"Oh, Luck Lindsay," Rosemary bethought her to announce just asthey were leaving, "you better keep an eye out for Annie, whileyou're in town. She's gone—and the dog and all her clothesand everything. Maybe she took the train back to the reservation. Ijust wanted you to know, so if you feel you ought tobother—"

"Annie gone?" Even in his preoccupation the news came with astab. "When did she go?"

"We don't know. She set up an awful yowling when you boys wentto work. And the dog commenced howling, till it was simply awful.So we rode in to town after the mail, and when we came back she wasgone, bag and baggage. We didn't see anything of her on the trail,but she could dodge us if she wanted to—she's Injun enoughfor that."

So Luck carried a double load of anxiety with him to town, andthe first thing he did when he reached it was to seek, not thebeaten cashier who had accused him, but the ticket agent at thedepot, and the baggage men—anyone who would be apt toremember Annie-Many-Ponies if she took a train out of town.

You might think that, with so many Indians coming and going atthe depot, selling their wares and making picturesque setting forthe curios which are purveyed there, that Luck stood a very slightchance of gaining any information whatever. But a Sioux squaw inAlbuquerque would be as noticeable as a Hindoo. Pueblos,Navajos—they may come and go unnoticed because of theirnumbers. But an Indian of another tribe and style of dress would beconspicuous enough to be remembered. So, when no one rememberedseeing Annie-Many-Ponies, Luck dismissed the conjecture that shehad taken the train, and turned his attention to picking up thetrail of the bank-robbers.

Here the Happy Family, with Applehead and Lite Avery, hadmanaged to accomplish a good deal in a very short time. The NativeSon, for instance, had ridden straight out from the bank into theMexican quarter, as soon as he learned that the red automobile hadgone up Silver Street and turned south on Fourth. By the time Luckreached the bank Miguel came loping back with the news that the redmachine had crossed the lower bridge and had turned up towardAtrisco, that little Mexican hamlet which lies between the riverand the bluffs where the white sand of the desert spills over intothe nearest corrals and little pastures.

The others had learned definitely that Bill Holmes hadmanipulated the fake camera while the bank was being robbed, andthat the man with him, who had also driven the machine, was acertain chauffeur of colorless personality and an unsavoryreputation among other drivers; and that the number of theautomobile was a matter of conjecture, since three different menwho were positive they remembered it gave three differentnumbers.

In company with the sheriff they called upon the cashier, whowas in bed with his head bandaged and his nerves very muchunstrung. He was much calmer, however, than when he hadhysterically accused Luck of betraying him into putting the moneyout to be stolen. He admitted now that he was not at all sure ofthe voice which talked with him over the phone; indeed, now when heheard Luck speak, he felt extremely doubtful of the similarity ofthat other voice. He protested against being blamed for being tooconfiding. He had never dreamed, he said, that anyone could be sobold as to plan a thing like that. It all sounded straight, aboutthe spoiled negative and so forth. He was very sorry that he hadcaused Luck Lindsay any inconvenience or annoyance, and he beggedLuck's pardon several times in the course of his explanation of thedetails.

They left him still protesting and apologizing and explainingand touching his bandaged head with self-pitying tenderness. In thestreet Luck turned to the sheriff as though his mind was made up tosomething which argument could not alter in the slightestdegree.

"I realize that in a way I'm partly responsible for this," hesaid crisply. "The scenes I took the other day made this playpossible for Ramon and his bunch. What you'd better do right now isto swear Applehead and me in as deputies—and any of the boysthat want to come along and help round up that bunch. We'll do it,if it's to be done at all. I feel I kind of owe it to that poorsimp in there to get the money back—sabe? And I owe it tomyself to bring in Ramon and Bill Holmes, and whoever else is with'em on this; young Rojas we know is for one."

"Where do you aim to look for 'em, if you don't mind telling?"Hank Miller was staring doubtfully down at Luck.

"Where? Miguel here says they went toward Atrisco. That meansthey're hitting for the Navajo reservation. There's three hundredmiles of country straight west, and not so much as a telegraphpole! Mighty few service stations for the machine, too, when youthink of it—and rough country to travel over. If they try togo by automobile, we'll overhaul them, most likely, before they getfar. Also, we can trace 'em easy enough."

The sheriff pulled at his stubby mustache and looked the bunchover. "You know that country?" he asked, still doubtfully. "ThemNavvies are plumb snaky, lemme tell yuh. Ain't like thePueblos—you're taking a risk when yuh ride into the Navvycountry. They'll get yuh if they get a chancet; run off yourhorses, head yuh away from water—they're plumbmean!"

"Well, now, I calc'late I know them Navvies putty tol'ble well,"Applehead cut in. "I've fit 'em comin' and goin'. Why, my shucks!Ef I notched my gun for the Navvies I've got off an' on in thecourse uh my travels, she'd shore look like a saw-blade, now I'mtellin' yuh!"

"Yes, an' yuh got a couple too many fer to go monkeyin' aroundon their groun' agin," the sheriff informed him bluntly. "Theyain't forgot the trip you made over there after Jose Martinez. Bestfer you to keep off'n that reservation, Applehead—and I'mspeakin' as a friend."

"As a friend you kin shet up," Applehead retorted pettishly. "EfLuck hits fer the Navvy country after them skunks, I calc'late oleApplehead'll be somers close handy by—"

"Hurry up and swear us in," Luck interrupted. "We've got to getto the ranch and back with an outfit, yet tonight, so we can hitthe trail as soon as possible. No use for you to take the oath,Andy—what you better do is to stay at the ranch with thewomen folks."

"Aleck will be there, and Pete and Tommy and the cook," Andyrebelled instantly. His hand went up to take the oath with theothers.

There on the corner of the street where the shadows lay under agently whispering box-elder tree, Hank Miller faced the group thatstood with right hands uplifted and swore them as he hadsworn—with the oath that made deputy sheriffs of them all. Hetold them that while he did not believe the thieves had gone to thereservation, and would look for them elsewhere, the idea was worthacting upon—seeing they wanted to do it anyway; and that thesheriff's office stood ready to assist them in any way possible. Hewished them luck and hurried away, evidently much relieved to getaway and out of an uncomfortable position.

In the next two hours Luck managed to accomplish a good deal,which was one of the reasons why he was manager and director of theFlying U Feature Films. Just for example, he went to a friend whowas also something of a detective, and put him on the job of findAnnie-Many-Ponies—a bigger task than it looked to Luck, as wehave occasion to know. He sent some of the boys back to the ranchin a machine, and told them just what to bring back with them inthe way of rifles, bedding rolls, extra horses and so on. Thehorses they had ridden into town he had housed in a livery stable.He took the Native Son and a Mexican driver and went over toAtrisco, routed perfectly polite and terribly sleepy individualsout of their beds and learned beyond all question that a redautomobile with several men in it had passed through the dustylanes and had labored up the hill to the desert mesa beyond andthat no one had seen it return.

He sent a hundred-and-fifty-word message to Dewitt of the GreatWestern Company in Los Angeles, explaining with perfect franknessthe situation and his determination to get out after the robbers,and made it plain also that he would not expect salary for the timehe spent in the chase. He ended by saying tersely, "My reputationand standing of company here at stake," and signed his name in ahasty scrawl that made the operator scratch his ear reflectivelywith his pencil when he had counted the words down to thesignature. After that, Luck gave every ounce of his energy andevery bit of his brain to the outfitting of the expedition.

So well did he accomplish the task that by one o'clock thatnight a low-voiced company of men rode away from a livery stable inthe heart of the town, leading four pack-horses and heading asstraight as might be for the bridge. They met no one; they sawscarcely a light in any of the windows that they passed. A chillwind crept up the river so that they buttoned their coats when thehoofbeats of the horses sounded hollow on the bridge. Out throughthe lane that leads to Atrisco, which slept in the stolid blacknessof low adobe houses with flat roofs and tiny windows, they rode ata trot. Dogs barked, ran out to the road and barked again, ran backto the adobe huts and kept on barking. In one field some loosehorses, seeing so many of their kind in the lane, galloped up tothe fence and stood there snorting. These were still in theircolthood, however, and the saddle-horses merely flicked ears intheir direction and gave them no more heed.

"I'm glad you're sure of the country, up here on top," Luck saidto Applehead when they had climbed, by the twisting, sandy trail,to the sand dunes that lay on the edge of the mesa and stretchedvaguely away under the stars. To the rim-rock line that separatedthis first mesa from the higher one beyond, Luck himself knew thesand-hills well. But beyond the broken line of hills off to thenorthwest he had never gone—and there lay the territory thatbelongs to the Navajos, who are a tricky tribe and do not love thewhite people who buy their rugs and blankets and, so claim theNavajos, steal their cattle and their horses as well.

At the rim of lava rock they made a dry camp and lay down inwhat comfort they could achieve, to doze and wait for daylight sothat they could pick up the trail of the red automobile.

XI. — ALL THIS WAR-TALK ABOUTINJUNS

OVER his second cup of coffee the pale eyes of BigMedicine goggled thoughtfully at the forbidding wall of lava rockthat stretched before them as far as he could see to left or right.There were places here and there where he believed that a man couldclimb to the top with the aid of his hands as well as his feet, butfor the horses he was extremely skeptical; and as for a certain bigred automobile...His eyes swung from the brown rampart and restedgrievedly upon the impassive face of Luck, who was just thenreaching forward to spear another slice of bacon from the fryingpan.

"Kinda looks to me, by cripes, as if we'd come to the end uh thetrail," he observed in his usual full-lunged bellow, as though hehad all his life been accustomed to pitching his voice above someunending clamor. "Yuh got any idee of how an autyMObile clumb thatthere rim-rock?"

Old Applehead, squatting on his heels across the littlecamp-fire, leaned and picked a coal out of the ashes for his pipeand afterwards cocked his eyes toward Big Medicine.

"What yuh calc'late yuh tryin' to do?" he inquired pettishly."Start up an argyment uh some kind? Cause if ye air, lemme tell yuhI got the yer-ache from listenin' to you las' night."

Big Medicine looked at him as though he was going to spring uponhim in deadly combat—but that was only a peculiar facialtrick of his. What he did do was to pour that last swallow of hot,black coffee down his throat and then laugh his big haw-haw-hawthat could be heard half a mile off.

"Y' oughta kep' Applehead to home with the wimmin folks, Luck,"he bawled unabashed. "Night air's bad fer 'im, and the trail ain'tgoin' to be smooth goin',—not if we gotta ride our hawsesstraight up, by cripes!"

"We haven't got to." Luck balanced his slice of bacon upon theunscorched side of a bannock and glanced indifferently at the rimof rock that was worrying the other. "I swung down here to makecamp off the trail. But it's only a half mile or so over this risethat looks level to you, to where the lava ledge peters out so wecan ride over it easier than we rode up off the river-flat in thatloose sand. That ease your mind any?"

"Helps some," Big Medicine admitted, his eyes goingspeculatively to the rise that looked perfectly level. "I'm willin'to take your word fer it, boss. But what's gittin' to worry me, bycripes, is all this here war-talk about Injuns. Honest to grandma,I feel like as if I'd been readin'—"

"Aw, it's jest a josh, Bud!" Happy Jack asserted boredly. "Ibetche there ain't been a Injun on the fight here sence hell was atradin' post!"

"You think there hasn't?" Luck looked up quickly to ask. But oldApplehead rose up and shook an indignant finger at Happy Jack.

"There ain't, hey? Well, I calc'late that fer a josh, them tharNavvies has got a right keen sense uh humor, and I've knowed men tolaff theirselves to death on their danged resavation—now I'mtellin' yuh! It was all a josh mebby, when they riz up a year ortwo back 'cause one uh their tribe was goin' t' be arrested er somedarn thing! Ole General Scott, he didn't call it no joke when hewent in thar to settle 'em down, did he? I calc'late, mebby it wasjest fer a josh them troops waited on the aidge, ready to go in ifhe didn't git back a certain time! 'N' that wasn't so fur back,shorely,—only two years. Why dang your fool heart, I've laidout there in them hills myself and fit off the Navvies 'n'Ididn't see nothin' much to laugh at, now I'm tellin' yuh! Time Iwent there after Jose Martinez—"

"Better get under way, boys," Luck interrupted, having heardmany times the details of that fight and capture. "We'll throw outa circle and pick up the trail of that machine, or whatever theymade their getaway in. My idea is that they must have stashed somehorses out here somewhere. I don't believe they'd take the risk oftrying to get away in a machine; that would hold them to the maintrails, mostly. I know it wouldn't be my way of getting outa reach.I'd want horses so I could get into rough country, and I've dopedit out that Ramon is too trail-wise to bank very high on anautomobile once he got out away from town. Applehead, you and Liteand Pink and Weary form one party if it comes to where we want todivide forces. Pack a complete camp outfit on the sorrel and theblack—you notice that's the way I had 'em packed first. Keeptheir packs just as we started out, then you'll be ready to strikeout by yourselves whenever it seems best. Get me?"

"We get you, boss," Weary sang out cheerfully, and went to workgathering up the breakfast things and putting them into two littlepiles for the packs. Pink led up the black and the sorrel, andhelped to pack them with bedding and supplies for four, as Luck hadordered, while Lite and Applehead saddled their horses and thencame up to help throw the diamond hitches on the packs.

A couple of rods nearer the rock wall Happy Jack was grumbling,across the canvas pack of a little bay, at Big Medicine, who waswarning him against leaving his hair so long as a direct temptationto scalp-lifting. Luck bad already mounted and ridden out a littleway, where he could view the country behind them with his fieldglasses, to make sure that in the darkness they had not passed byanything that deserved a closer inspection. He came back at a lopeand motioned to Andy and the Native Son.

"That red automobile is standing back about half a mile," heannounced hurriedly. "Empty and deserted, looks like. We'll go backand take a look at it. The rest of you can finish packing and waithere till we come back. No use making extra travel for your horses.They'll get all they need, the chances are."

The red automobile was empty of everything but the upholsteringand a jack in the toolbox. The state license number was gone, andthe serial number on the engine had been hammered intoillegibility. What tracks there were had been blown nearly full ofthe white sand of that particular locality. There was nothing to belearned there, except the very patent fact that the machine hadbeen abandoned for some reason. Luck took a look at the engine andsaw nothing wrong with it. There was oil and there was"gas"—a whole tank full. Andy and Miguel, riding anever-widening circle around the machine while Luck was looking forevidence of a breakdown, ran across a lot of hoofprints that seemedto head straight away past the rim-rock and on to the hills.

They picked up the trail of the hoofprints and followed it. Whenthey returned to the others they found the boys all mounted andwaiting impatiently like hounds on the leash eager to get away onthe chase. Six horses there were, and even old Applehead, who wasin a bad humor that morning and seemed to hate agreeing withanyone, admitted that probably the four who had committed therobbery and left town in the machine had been met out here by a manwho brought horses for them and one extra pack horse. Thisexplained the number in the most plausible manner, and satisfiedeveryone that they were on the right trail.

Riding together since they were on a plain trail and there wasnothing to be gained by separating—they climbed to the highermesa, crossed the ridge of the three barren hills that none of thembut Applehead had ever passed, and went on and on and on as thehoofprints led them, straight toward the reservation.

They discussed the robbery from every angle they could think of,and once or twice someone hazarded a guess at Annie-Many-Ponies'reason for leaving and her probable destination. They wondered howold Dave Wiswell, the dried little cattleman of The Phantom Herd,was making out in Denver, where he had gone to consult a specialistabout some kidney trouble that had interfered with his riding allspring. Weary suggested that maybe Annie-Many-Ponies had taken anotion to go and visit old Dave, since the two were oldfriends.

It was here that Applehead unwittingly put into words the vaguesuspicion which Luck had been trying to stifle and had not yetfaced as a definite idea.

"I calc'late we'll likely find that thar squaw putty tol'bleclose to whar we find Bill Holmes," Applehead remarked sourly. "Hergoin' off same day they stuck up that bank don't look to me like nohappenstance—now I'm tellin' yuh! 'N' if I was shurf, and wasast to locate that squaw, I'd keep right on the trail uh BillHolmes, jest as we're doin' now."

"That isn't like Annie," Luck said sharply to still theconviction in his own mind. "Whatever faults she may have, she'sbeen loyal to me, and honest. Look how she stuck last winter, whenshe didn't have anything at stake, wasn't getting any salary, andyet worked like a dog to help make the picture a success. Look howshe got up in the night when the blizzard struck, and fed ourhorses and cooked breakfast of her own accord, just so I could getout early and get my scenes. I've known her since she was adirty-faced papoose, and I never knew her to lie or steal. Shewasn't in on that robbery—I'll bank on that, and she wouldn'tgo off with a thief. It isn't like Annie."

"Well," said Big Medicine, thinking of his own past, "the bestuh women goes wrong when some knot-headed man gits to lovemakin'.They'll do things fer the wrong kinda man, by cripes, that theywouldn't do fer no other human on earth. I've knowed a good womanto lie and steal—fer a man that wasn't fit, by cripes, to tiphis hat to 'er in the street! Women," he added pessimistically, "issomething yuh can't bank on, as safe as yuh can on a locoed horse!"He kicked his mount unnecessarily by way of easing the resentmentwhich one woman had managed to instil against the sex ingeneral.

"That's where you're darned right, Bud," Pink attested with asudden bitterness which memory brought. "I wouldn't trust the bestwoman that ever lived outa my sight, when you come right down tocases."

"Aw, here!" Andy Green, thinking loyally of his Rosemary, swunghis horse indignantly toward the two. "Cut that out, both of you!Just because you two got stung, is no reason why you've got to rundown all the rest of the women. I happen to know one—"

"Aw, nobody was talking about Rosemary," Big Medicine apologizedgruffly. "She's different; any fool knows that."

"Well, I've got a six-gun here that'll talk for another one,"silent Lite Avery spoke up suddenly. "One that would tip the scaleson the woman's side for goodness if the rest of the whole sex wasbad."

"Oh, thunder!" Pink cried, somewhat redder than the climbing sunalone would warrant. "I'll take it back. I didn't meanthem—you know darned well I didn't mean them—norlots of other women I know. What I meant was—"

"What you meant was Annie," Luck broke in uncompromisingly. "AndI'm not condemning her just because things look black. You don'tknow Indians the way I know them. There's some things an Indianwill do, and then again there's some things they won't do. You boysdon't know it—but yesterday morning when we left the ranch,Annie-Many-Ponies made me the peace-sign. And after that she wentinto her tent and began to sing the Omaha. It didn't mean anythingto you—Old Dave is the only one that would have sabed, and hewasn't there. But it meant enough to me that I came pretty nearriding back to have a pow-wow with Annie, even if we were late. Iwish I had. I'd have less on my conscience right now."

"Fur's I kin see," Applehead dissented impatiently, "you ain'tgot no call to have nothin' on your conscience where that tharsquaw is concerned. You treated her a hull lot whiter'n what shedeserved—now I'm tellin' ye! 'N' her traipsin' around atnights 'n'—"

"I tell you, you don't know Indians!" Luck swung round in thesaddle so that he could face Applehead. "You don't know the Sioux,anyway. She wouldn't have made me that peace-sign if she'd beendouble-crossing me, I tell you. And she wouldn't have sung theOmaha if she was going to throw in with a thief that was trying tolay me wide open to suspicion. I've been studying things over in mymind, and there's something in this affair I can't sabe. And untilyou've got some proof, the less you say about Annie-Many-Ponies thebetter I'll be pleased."

That, coming from Luck in just that tone and with just that lookin his eyes, was tantamount to an ultimatum, and it was received asone. Old Applehead grunted and chewed upon a wisp of his sunburnedmustache that looked like dried cornsilk after a frost. The HappyFamily exchanged careful glances and rode meekly along in silence.There was not a man of them but believed that Applehead was nearerright than Luck, but they were not so foolish as to express thatbelief.

After a while Big Medicine began bellowing tunelessly that oldditty, once popular but now half forgotten:

Which stirred old Applehead to an irritated monologue upon thetheme of certain persons whose ignorance is not blissful, buttrouble-inviting. Applehead, it would seem from his speech upon thesubject, would be a much surprised ex-sheriff—now adeputy—if they were not all captured and scalped, if notworse, the minute their feet touched the forbidden soil of thesedemons in human form, the Navajo Indians.

"If they were not too busy weaving blankets for Fred Harvey,"Luck qualified with his soft Texan drawl and the smile that wentwith it. "You talk as if these boys were tourists."

"Yes," added Andy Green maliciously, "here comes a war-partynow, boys. Duck behind a rock, Applehead, they're liable to chargeyuh fer them blankets!"

The Happy Family laughed uproariously, to the evidentbewilderment of the two Indians who, swathed in blankets and withtheir hair knotted and tied with a green ribbon and a yellow, droveleisurely toward the group in an old wagon that had a bright newseat and was drawn by a weazened span of mangy-looking bay ponies.In the back of the wagon sat a young squaw and two papooses, andbeside them were stacked three or four of the gay, handwoven rugsfor which the white people will pay many dollars.

"Buenas dias," said the driver of the wagon, who was an oldishIndian with a true picturepostal face. And: "Hello," said theother, who was young and wore a bright blue coat, such as youngMexicans affect.

"Hello, folks," cried the Happy Family genially, and liftedtheir hats to the good-looking young squaw in the wagon-bed, whotittered in bashful appreciation of the attention.

"Mama! They sure are wild and warlike," Weary commented drily ashe turned to stare after the wagon.

"By cripes, I know now what went with Applehead's hair!" bawledBig Medicine. "Chances is, it's weaved into that red blanket theold buck is wearin'—Haw-haw-haw!"

"Laff, dang ye, laff!" Applehead cried furiously. "But do yourlaffing where I can't hear ye, fer I'm tellin' ye right now I'vehad enough of yore dang foolishness. And the next feller that makesa crack is goin' to wisht he hadn't now I'm tellin' ye!"

This was not so much an ultimatum as a declaration ofwar—and the Happy Family suddenly found themselves all out ofthe notion of laughing at anything at all.

XII. — THE WILD-GOOSE CHASE

BECAUSE they had no human means of knowinganything about the black automobile that had whirled across themesa to the southeast and left its mysterious passengers in one ofthe arroyos that leads into the Sandia Mountains near CoyoteSprings, nine cowpuncher deputy-sheriffs bored their way steadilythrough sun and wind and thirst, traveling due northwest, keepingalways on the trail of the six horses that traveled steadily beforethem. Always a day's march behind, always watching hopefully forsome sign of delay—for an encouraging freshness in the tracksthat would show a lessening distance between the two parties, Luckand his Happy Family rode from dawn till dusk, from another dawn toanother dusk. Their horses, full of little exuberant outbursts ofhorse-foolishness when they had left town, settled down to adogged, plodding half walk, half trot which is variously describedupon the range; Luck, for instance, calling it poco-poco; while theHappy Family termed it running-walk, trail-trot,fox-trot—whatever came easiest to their tongues at the time.Call it what they pleased, the horses came to a point where theytook the gait mechanically whenever the country was decently level.They forgot to shy at strange objects, and they never danced awayfrom a foot lifted to the stirrup when the sky was flauntinggorgeous bantiers to herald the coming of the sun. More than oncethey were thankful to have the dust washed from their nostrils andto let that pass for a drink. For water holes were few and farbetween when they struck that wide, barren land ridged here andthere with hills of rock.

Twice the trail of the six horses was lost, because herds ofcattle had passed between those who rode in haste before, and thosewho followed in haste a day's ride behind. They saw riders in thedistance nearly every day, but only occasionally did any Indianscome within speaking distance. These were mostly headed townward inwagons and rickety old buggies, with the men riding dignifiedly onthe spring seat and the squaws and papooses sitting flat in thebottom behind. These family parties became more and more inclinedto turn and stare after the Happy Family, as if they were puzzlingover the errand that would take nine men riding close-groupedacross the desert, with four pack-horses to proclaim the journey along one.

When the trail swung sharply away from the dim wagon road andinto the northwest where the land lay parched and pitiless underthe hot sun, the Happy Family hitched their gun-belts into place,saw to it that their canteens were brimming with the water that wasso precious, and turned doggedly that way, following the lead ofApplehead, who knew the country fairly well, and of Luck, who didnot know the country, but who knew that he meant to overhaul RamonChavez and Bill Holmes, go where they would, and take them back tojail. If they could ride across this barren stretch, said Luck toApplehead, he and his bunch could certainly follow them.

"Well, this is kinda takin' chances," Applehead observedsoberly, "unless Ramon, he knows whar's the water-holes. If he doeshit water regular, I calc'late we kin purty nigh foller his lead.They's things I don't like about the way this here trail is leadingout this way, now I'm tellin' yuh! Way we're goin', we'll be in theSeven Lakes country 'fore we know it. Looks to me like themgreasers must stand in purty well with the Navvies—'n' ifthey do, it'll be dang hard pullin' to git 'em away 'n' outa here.'N' if they don't stand in, they'd oughta bore more west than whatthey're doin'. Looks dang queer to me, now I'm tellin' ye!"

"Well, all I want is to overtake them. We'll do it, too. Thelittle grain these horses get is showing its worth right now," Luckcheered him. "They're keeping up better than I was afraid theywould. We've got that advantage—a Mexican don't as a rulegrain his horses, and the chances are that Ramon thought more aboutthe gold than he did about carrying horse-feed. We can hold onlonger than he can, Applehead."

"We can't either," Applehead disputed, "because if Ramon takes anotion he'll steal fresh horses from the Injuns."

"I thought you said he stood in with the Injuns," Weary spoke upfrom the ambling group, behind. "You're kinda talkin' in circles,ain't you, Applehead?"

"Well, I calc'late yuh jest about got to talk in circles to gitanywheres near Ramon," Applehead retorted, looking back at theothers. "They's so, dang many things hemight be aimin' todo, that I ain't been right easy in my mind the last day or two,and I'm tellin' ye so. 'S like a storm—I kin smell troubletwo days off; that's mebby why I'm still alive an' able to fork ahoss. An' I'm tellin' you right now, I kin smell trouble stronger'na polecat under the chicken-house!"

"Well, by cripes, let 'er come!" Big Medicine roared cheerfully,inspecting a battered plug of "chewin'" to see where was the mostinviting corner in which to set his teeth. "Me'n' trouble haslocked horns more'n once, 'n' I'd feel right lonesome if I thoughtour trails'd never cross agin. Why, down in Coconino County—"He went off into a long recital of certain extremely bloodychapters in the history of that famed county as chronicled by oneBud Welch, otherwise known as Big Medicine—and not because ofhis modesty, you may be sure.

Noon of that day found them plodding across a high, barren mesaunder a burning sun. Since red dawn they had been riding, and thehorses showed their need of water. They lagged often into aheavy-footed walk and their ears drooped dispiritedly. Even BigMedicine found nothing cheerful to say. Luck went out of his way togain the top of every little rise, and to scan the surroundingcountry through his field glasses. The last time he came slidingdown to the others his face was not so heavy with anxiety and hisvoice when he spoke had a new briskness.

"There's a ranch of some kind straight ahead about two miles,"he announced. "I could see a green patch, so there must be wateraround there somewhere. We'll make noon camp there, and maybe wecan dig up a little information. Ramon must have stopped there forwater, and we'll find out just how far we are behind."

The ranch, when they finally neared it, proved to be a huddle oflow, octagon-shaped huts (called hogans) made of short cedar logsand plastered over with adobe, with a hole in the center of thelid-like roof to let the smoke out and a little light in; and dogs,that ran out and barked and yelped and trailed into mourningrumbles and then barked again; and half-naked papooses thatscurried like rabbits for shelter when they rode up; and two dingy,shapeless squaws that disappeared within a hogan and peered out atone side of the blanket door.

Luck started to dismount and make some attempt at a politerequest for water, and for information as well, but Appleheadobjected and finally had his way.

If the squaws could speak English, he argued, they would lieunless they refused to talk at all. As to the water, if there wasany around the place the bunch could find it and help themselves."These yer Navvies ain't yore Buffalo-Bill Sioux!" he pointed outto Luck. "Yuh can't treat 'em the same. The best we kin look fer isto be left alone—an' I'm tellin' ye straight."

Luck gave the squalid huts a long stare and turned away towardthe corral and a low shed that served as a stable. A rusty oldmower and a toothless rake and a rickety buckboard stood baking inthe sun, and a few stunted hens fluttered away from their approach.In the corral a mangy pony blinked in dejected slumber; and all thewhile, the three dogs followed them and barked and yapped andgrowled, until Pink turned in the saddle with the plain intentionof stopping the clamor with a bullet or two.

"Ye better let 'em alone!" Applehead warned sharply, and Pinkput up his gun unfired and took down his rope.

"The darned things are getting on my nerves!" he complained, andwheeled suddenly in pursuit of the meanest-looking dog of thethree. "I can stand a decent dog barking at me, but so help meJosephine, I draw the line at Injun curs!"

The dog ran yelping toward the hogans with Pink hard at itsheels swinging his loop menacingly. When the dog, with a lasthysterical yelp, suddenly flattened its body and wriggled under acorner of the shed, Pink turned and rode after the others, who hadpassed the corral and were heading for the upper end of a smallpatch of green stuff that looked like a half-hearted attempt at avegetable garden. As he passed the shed an Indian in dirty overallsand gingham shirt craned his neck around the doorway and watchedhim malevolently; but Pink, sighting the green patch andremembering their dire need of water, was kicking his horse into atrot and never once thought to cast an eye over his shoulder.

In that arid land, where was green vegetation you may be surethere was water also. And presently the nine were distributed alonga rod or two of irrigating ditch, thankfully watching the swallowsof water go sliding hurriedly down the outstretched gullets oftheir horses that leaned forward with half-bent, trembling knees,fetlock deep in the wet sand of the ditch-banks.

"Drink, you sons-uh-guns, drink!" Weary exclaimed jubilantly."you've sure got it coming—and mama, how I do hate to see agood horse suffering for a feed or water, or shelter from astorm!"

They pulled them away before they were satisfied, and led themback to where green grass was growing. There they pulled thesaddles off and let the poor brutes feed while they unpacked foodfor themselves.

"It'll pay in the long run," said Luck, "to give them an hourhere. I'll pay the Injuns for what grass they eat. Ramon must havestopped here yesterday. I'm going up and see if I can't pry alittle information loose from those squaws and papooses. Come on,Applehead—you can talk a little Navvy; you come and tell 'emwhat I want."

Applehead hesitated, and with a very good reason. He might, forall he knew, be trespassing upon the allotment of a friend orrelative of some of the Indians he had been compelled to "get" inthe course of his duties as sheriff. And at any rate they all knewhim—or at least knew of him.

"Aw, gwan, Applehead," Happy Jack urged facetiously, sure thatApplehead had tried to scare him with tales of Indians whosepastoral pursuits proclaimed aloud their purity of souls. "Gwan!You ain't afraid of a couple of squaws, are yuh? Go on and talk tothe ladies. Mebby yuh might win a wife if yuh just had a littlenerve!"

Applehead turned and glowered. But Luck was already walkingslowly toward the hogans and looking back frequently, so Appleheadcontented himself by saying, "You wait till this yere trip's over,'fore ye git so dang funny in yore remarks, young man!" and stalkedafter Luck, hitching his six-shooter forward as he went.

At the shed, the Indian who had peered after Pink stood in thedoorway and stared unwinkingly as they came up. Applehead glancedat him sharply from under his sorrel eyebrows and grunted. He knewhim by sight well enough, and he took it for granted that therecognition was mutual. But he gave no sign of remembrance.Instead, he asked how much the Indian wanted for the grass thehorses would eat in an hour.

The Indian looked at the two impassively and did not sayanything at all; so Applehead flipped him a dollar.

"Now, what time did them fellows pass here yesterday?" Appleheadasked, in the half Indian, half Mexican jargon which nearly all NewMexico Indians speak.

The Indian looked at the dollar and moved his head of bobbedhair vaguely from left to right.

"All right, dang ye, don't talk if ye don't feel like it,"Applehead commented in wasted sarcasm, and looked at Luck for somehint of what was wanted next. Luck seemed uncertain, so Appleheadturned toward the ditch, and the food his empty stomach craved.

"No use tryin' to make 'em talk if they ain't in the notion," hetold Luck impatiently. "He's got his dollar, and we'll take whatgrass our hosses kin pack away in their bellies. That kinda windsup the transaction, fur's I kin see."

But Applehead interrupted him. "Another dollar might git himwarmed up so's he'd shake his danged head twicet instid uh once't,"he asserted pessimistically, "but that's all you'd git outa him.That thar buck ain'ttalkin' today. Yuh better come an' eat'n' rest yer laigs. If he talked, he'd lie. We're a heap better offjest doin' our own trailin' same as we been doin'. That bunch comeby here; the tracks show that. If they went on, the tracks'll showwhere they headed fur. 'N' my idee is that they'll take their timefrom now on. They don't know we're trailin' 'em up. I'll bet theynever throwed back any scout t' watch the back trail, 'n' they'rein Navvy country now—whar they're purty tol'ble safe if theystand in with the Injuns. 'N' I'm tellin' yuh right now, Luck, Iwisht I could say as much fer us!" Applehead lifted his hat andrubbed his palm over his bald pate that was covered thickly withbeads of perspiration, as if his head were a stone jar filled withcold water. "If we have to sep'rate, Luck, you take a fool's adviceand keep yore dang eyes open. The boys, they think I been stringin''em along. Mebby you think so too, but I kin tell ye right now 'twe gotta keep our dang eyes in our haids!"

"I'm taking your word for it, Applehead," Luck told him,lowering his voice a little because they were nearing the others."Besides, I've heard a lot about these tricky boys with theDutch-cut on their hair. I'm keeping it all in mind don't worry.But I sure am going to overhaul Ramon, if we have to follow him tosalt water."

"Well, now, I ain't never turned back on a trail yit, fer wantuh nerve to foller it," AppleHead stated offendedly. "When I wasshurf—"

The enlivened jumble of voices, each proclaiming the owner'shopes or desires or disbelief to ears that were not listening,quite submerged Applehead's remarks upon the subject of hiswellknown prowess when he was "shurf." The Happy Family weresprawled in unwonted luxury on the shady side of an outcropping ofrock from under which a little spring seeped and made a small oasisin the general barrenness. They had shade, they had water and food,and through the thin aromatic smoke of their cigarettes they couldwatch their horses cropping avidly the green grass that meant somuch to them. The knowledge that an hour later they would betraveling again in the blazing heat of midday but emphasized theirpresent comfort. They were enjoying every minute to its full sixtyseconds. Laughter came easily and the hardships of the trail werepushed into the background of their minds.

They were not particularly anxious over the success or failureof Luck's trip to the hogans. They were on Ramon's trail (or sothey firmly believed) and sooner or later they would overhaul himand Bill Holmes. When that happened they believed that they wouldbe fully equal to the occasion, and that Ramon and Bill and thosewho were with him would learn what it means to turn traitor to thehand that has fed them, and to fling upon that hand the mud ofpublic suspicion. But just now they were not talking about thesethings; they were arguing very earnestly over a very trivial matterindeed, and they got as much satisfaction out of the contention asthough it really amounted to something.

When Luck had eaten and smoked and had ground his cigarette stubunder his heel in the moist earth beside the spring, and had lookedat his watch and got upon his feet with a sigh to say: "Well, boys,let's go," the Happy Family (who by the way must now be understoodas including Lite Avery) sighed also and pulled their reluctantfeet toward them and got up also, with sundry hitchings-into-placeas to gun-belts and sundry resettlings as to hats. They pulledtheir horses—more reluctant even than their riders—awayfrom the green grass; resaddled, recinched the packs on the fouranimals that carried the camp supplies, gave them a last drink atthe little irrigating ditch and mounted and straggled out againupon the trail of the six whom they seemed never able toovertake.

They did not know that the silent Indian with the dingy overallsand the bobbed hair had watched every movement they made. Throughall that hour of rest not even a papoose had been visible aroundthe hogans—which, while there was nothing warlike in theirkeeping under cover, was not exactly a friendly attitude. Appleheadhad kept turning his keen, bright blue eyes that way while he ateand afterwards smoked an after-dinner pipe, but when they wereactually started again upon the trail he appeared to lay aside hismisgivings.

Not even Applehead suspected that the Indian had led a ponycarefully down into a draw, keeping the buildings always betweenhimself and the party of white men; nor that he watched them whilethey spread out beyond the cultivated patch of irrigated grounduntil they picked up the trail of the six horses, when they closedthe gaps between them and followed the trail straight away into theparched mesa that was lined with deep washes and cañons and crossedwith stony ridges where the heat radiated up from the bare rocks asfrom a heating stove when the fire is blazing within. When theyrode away together, the Indian ran back into the draw, mounted hispony and lashed it into a heavy, sure-footed gallop.

XIII. — SET AFOOT

THE tracks of the six horses led down into arock-bottomed arroyo so deep in most places that all view of thesurrounding mesa was shut off completely, save where the raggedtops of a distant line of hills pushed up into the dazzling blue ofthe sky. The heat, down here among the rocks, was all butunbearable; and when they discovered that no tracks led out of thearroyo on the farther side, the Happy Family dismounted and walkedto save their horses while they divided into two parties and huntedup and down the arroyo for the best trail.

It was just such vexatious delays as this which had kept themalways a day's ride or more behind their quarry, and Luck's handtrembled with nervous irritability when he turned back and handedApplehead one of those small, shrill police whistles whose soundcarries so far, and which are much used by motion-picture producersfor the long-distance direction of scenes.

"I happened to have a couple in my pocket," he explainedhurriedly. "You know the signals, don't you? One long, two shortwill mean you've picked up the trail. Three or more short, quickones is an emergency call, for all hands to come running."

"Well, they's one thing you want to keep in mind, Luck,"Applehead urged from his superior trail craft. "They might be sharpenough to ride in here a ways and come out the same side they rodein at. Yuh want to hunt both sides as yuh go up."

"Sure," said Luck, and hurried away up the arroyo with Pink, BigMedicine, Andy and the Native Son at his heels, leading the twopack-horses that belonged to their party. In the opposite directionwent Applehead and the others, their eyes upon the ground watchingfor the faintest sign of hoofprints.

That blazing ball of torment, the sun, slid farther and fartherdown to the skyline, tempering its heat with the cool promise ofdusk. Away up the arroyo, Luck stopped for breath after a sharpclimb up through a narrow gash in the sheer wall of what was now asmall cañon, and saw that to search any farther in that directionwould be useless. Across the arroyo—that had narrowed anddeepened until it was a cañon—Andy Green was mopping his facewith his handkerchief and studying a bold hump of jumbled bowldersand ledges, evidently considering whether it was worth whiletoiling up to the top. A little below him, the Native Son wasflinging rocks at a rattlesnake with the vicious precision of frankabhorrence. Down in the cañon bottom Big Medicine and Pink wereholding the horses on the shady side of the gorge, and the smoke oftheir cigarettes floated lazily upward with the jumbled monotone oftheir voices.

Andy, glancing across at Luck, waved his hand and sat down on arock that was shaded by a high bowlder; reached mechanically forhis "makings" and with his feet far apart and his elbows on histhighs, wearily rolled a cigarette.

"How about it, boss?" he asked, scarcely raising his voice abovethe ordinary conversational tone, though a hard fifteen-minutes'climb up and down separated the two; "they never came up thearroyo, if you askme. My side don't show a hoof track fromwhere we left the boys down below."

"Mine either," Luck replied, by the power of suggestion seatinghimself and reaching for his own tobacco and papers. "We might aswell work back down and connect with Applehead. Wish there was somesign of water in this darn gulch. By the time we get down where westarted from, it'll be sundown." He glanced down at Bud and Pink."Hey! You can start back any time," he called. "Nothing up thisway."

"Here's the grandfather of all rattlers," Miguel called acrossto Luck, and held up by the tail a great snake that had not ceasedits muscular writhings. "Twelve rattles and a button. Have I gottime to skin him? He tried to bite me on the leg—but I heardhim and got outa reach."

"We've got to be moving," Luck answered. "It's a long ways backwhere we started from, and we've got to locate water, if we can."He rose with the deliberateness that indicated tired muscles, andstarted back; and to himself be muttered exasperatedly: "A goodthree hours all shot to pieces—and not a mile gained on thatbunch!"

The Native Son, calmly pinching the rattles of the snake he hadnot time to skin, climbed down into the Cañon and took his horse bythe bridle reins. Behind him Andy Green came scrambling; but Luck,still faintly hoping for a clue, kept to the upper rim of thearroyo, scanning every bit of soft ground where it seemed possiblefor a horse to climb up from below. He had always recognized thenative cunning of Ramon, but he had never dreamed him as cunning asthis latest ruse would seem to prove him.

As for Bill Holmes, Luck dismissed him with a shrug of contempt.Bill Holmes had been stranded in Albuquerque when the cold weatherwas coming on; he had been hungry and shelterless andill-clad—one of those bits of flotsam which drift into ourtowns and stand dejectedly upon our street-corners when they do notprowl down alleys to the back doors of our restaurants in the hopeof being permitted to wash the soiled dishes of more fortunate menfor the food which diners have left beside their plates. Luck hadfed Bill Holmes, and he had given him work to do and the best foodand shelter he could afford; and for thanks, Bill had—as Luckbelieved—made sly, dishonest love to Annie-Many-Ponies, forwhose physical and moral welfare Luck would be held responsible.Bill had deliberately chosen to steal rather than work for honestwages, and had preferred the unstable friendship of Ramon Chavez tothe cleaner life in Luck's company. He did not credit Bill Holmeswith anything stronger than a weak-souled treachery. Ramon, he toldhimself while he made his way down the arroyo side, was at leastworking out a clever scheme of his own, and it rested with Luck andhis posse to see that Ramon was cheated of success.

So deeply was he engrossed that before he realized it he wasdown where they had left Applehead's party. There was no sign ofthem anywhere, so Luck went down and mounted his horse and led theway down the arroyo.

Already the heat was lessening and the land was taking on thosetranslucent opal tints which make of New Mexico a land ofenchantment. The far hills enveloped themselves in a faint,purplish haze through which they seemed to blush unwittingly. Themesa, no longer showing itself an arid waste of heat and untrackedwilderness, lay soft under a thin veil of many ethereal tints. Awayoff to the northeast they heard the thin, vague clamor of a band ofsheep and the staccato barking of a dog.

Luck rode for some distance, his uneasiness growing as theshadows deepened with the setting of the sun. They had gone too farto hear any whistled signal, but it seemed to him reasonable tosuppose that Applehead would return to their starting point,whether he found the trail or not; or at least send a man back.Luck began to think more seriously of Applehead's numerous warningsabout the Indians—and yet, there had been no sound ofshooting, which is the first sign of trouble in this country. Rifleshots can be heard a long way in this clear air; so Luck presentlydismissed that worry and gave his mind to the very real one whichassailed them all; which was water for their horses.

The boys were riding along in silence, sitting over to one sidewith a foot dangling free of its stirrup; except Andy, who hadhooked one leg over the saddle-horn and was riding sidewise,smoking a meditative cigarette and staring out between the ears ofhis horse. They were tired; horses and men, they were tired to themiddle of their bones. But they went ahead without making anycomplaints whatever or rasping one another's tempers withill-chosen remarks; and for that Luck's eyes brightened withappreciation.

Presently, when they had ridden at least a mile down the arroyo,a gray hat-crown came bobbing into sight over a low tongue of rockyground that cut the channel almost in two. The horses threw uptheir heads and perked cars forward inquiringly, and in a momentHappy Jack came into view, his gloomy, sunburned face wearing areluctant grin.

"Well, we got on the trail," he announced as soon as he wasclose enough. "And we follered it to water. Applehead says fer youto come on and make camp. Tracks are fresher around that water-hole'n what they have been, an' Applehead, he's all enthused. I betchewe land them fellers t'morrow."

Out of the arroyo in a place where the scant grassland lappeddown over the edge, Happy Jack led the way and the rest followedeagerly. Too often had they made dry camp not to feel jubilant overthe prospect even of a brackish water-hole. Even the horses seemedto know and to step out more briskly. Straight across the mesa withits deceptive lights that concealed distance behind a glamor ofintimate nearness, they rode into the deepening dusk that had aglow all through it. After a while they dipped into a grassy drawso shallow that they hardly realized the descent until theydismounted at the bottom, where Applehead was already starting afire and the others were laying out their beds and doing thehundred little things that make for comfort in camp.

A few bushes and a stunted tree or two marked the spring thatseeped down and fed a shallow water-hole where the horses drankthirstily. Applehead grinned and pointed to the now familiarhoofprints which they had followed so far.

"I calc'late Ramon done a heap uh millin' around back there inthat rocky arroyo," he observed, "'fore he struck off over here. Erelse they was held up fer some reason, 'cause them tracks isfresher a hull lot than what them was that passed the Injun ranch.Musta laid over here las' night, by the looks. But I figgered thatwe'd best camp whilst we had water, 'n' take up the trail agin atdaybreak. Ain't that about the way you see it, Luck?"

"Why, certainly," Luck assured him with as much heartiness ashis utter weariness would permit. "Men and horses, we're about allin. If Ramon was just over the next ridge, I don't know but itwould pay to take our rest before we overhaul them."

"They's grass here, yuh notice," Applehead pointed out. "I'llput the bell on Johnny, and if Pink'll hobble that buckskin that'sallus wantin' to wander off by hisself, I calc'late we kin settledown an' rest our bones quite awhile b'fore anybody needs to go onguard. Them ponies ain't goin' to stray fur off if they don't haveto, after the groun' they covered t'day—now I'm tellin' yuh!They'll save their steps."

There is a superstition about prophesying too boastfully that acertain thing will or will not happen; you will remember that thereis also a provision that the rash prophet may avert disaster byknocking wood. Applehead should, if there is any grain of sense inthe rite, have knocked wood with his fingers crossed as an extraprecaution, against evil fortune.

For after they had eaten and methodically packed away the food,and while they were lying around the cheerful glow of their littlecampfire, misfortune stole up out of the darkness unaware. Theytalked desultorily as tired men will, their alertness dulled by thecontented tinkle-tinkle of the little bell strapped around the neckof big, bay Johnny, Applehead's companion of many a desertwandering. That brilliant constellation which seems to hang justover one's head in the high altitude of our sagebrush states, heldhypnotically the sleepy gaze of Pink, whose duty it was to go onguard when the others turned in for the night. He lay with hislocked fingers under his head, staring up at one particularlybright group of stars, and listened to the droning voice ofApplehead telling of a trip he had made out into this country fiveor six years before; and soaking in the peace and the comfort whichwas all the more precious because he knew that soon he must draghis weary body into the saddle and ride out to stand guard over thehorses. Once he half rose, every movement showing hisreluctance.

Whereupon Weary, who sprawled next to him, reached out a languidfoot and gave him a poke. "Aw, lay down," he advised. "They're allright out there for another hour. Don't yuh hear the bell?"

They all listened for a minute. The intermittent tinkle of thecheap little sheep bell came plainly to them from farther down thedraw as though Johnny was eating contentedly with his mates,thankful for the leisure and the short, sweet grass that was betterthan hay. Pink lay back with a sigh of relief, and Luck told him tosleep a little if he wanted to, because everything was all rightand he would call him if the horses got to straying too faroff.

Down the draw—where there were no horses feeding—anIndian in dirty overalls and gingham shirt and moccasins, and withhis hair bobbed to his collar, stood up and peered toward the vaguefigures grouped in the fire-glow. He lifted his hand and moved itslightly, so that the bell he was holding tinkled exactly as it haddone when it was strapped around Johnny's neck; Johnny, who was atthat moment trailing disgustedly over a ridge half a mile away withhis mates, driven by two horsemen who rode very carefully, so as tomake no noise.

The figures settled back reassured, and the Indian grinnedsourly and tinkled the little bell painstakingly, with thematchless patience of the Indian. It was an hour before he dimlysaw Pink get up from the dying coals and mount his horse. Then,still tinkling the bell as a feeding horse would have made it ring,he moved slowly down the draw; slowly, so that Pink did not atfirst suspect that the bell sounded farther off than before; slowlyyet surely, leading Pink farther and farther in the hope ofspeedily overtaking the horses that he cursed for theirwandering.

Pink wondered, after a little, what was the matter with thedarned things, wandering off like that by themselves, and with nopossible excuse that he could see. For some time he was not uneasy;he expected to overtake them within the next five or ten minutes.They would stop to feed, surely, or to look back andlisten—in a strange country like this it was againsthorse-nature that they should wander far away at night unless theywere thirsty and on the scent of water. These horses had drunktheir fill at the little pool below the spring. They should befeeding now, or they should lie down and sleep, or stand up andsleep—anything but travel like this, deliberately away fromcamp.

Pink tried loping, but the ground was too treacherous and hishorse too leg-weary to handle its feet properly in the dark. Itstumbled several times, so he pulled down again to a fast walk. Fora few minutes he did not hear the bell at all, and when he did itwas not where he had expected to hear it, but away off to one side.So he had gained nothing save in anger and uneasiness.

There was no use going back to camp and rousing the boys, for hewas now a mile or so away; and they would be afoot, since theircustom was to keep but one horse saddled. When he went in to callthe next guard he would be expected to bring that man's horse backwith him, and would turn his own loose before he went to sleep.Certainly there was nothing to be gained by rousing the camp.

He did not suspect the trick being played upon him, though hedid wonder if someone was leading the horses away. Still, in thatcase whoever did it would surely have sense enough to muffle thebell. Besides, it sounded exactly like a horse feeding and movingaway at random—which, to those familiar with the sound, cannever be mistaken for the tinkle of an animal traveling steadily tosome definite point.

It was an extremely puzzled young man who rode and rode thatnight in pursuit of that evasive, nagging, altogether maddeningtinkle. Always just over the next little rise he would hear it, ordown in the next little draw; never close enough for him todiscover the trick; never far enough away for him to give up thechase. The stars he had been watching in camp swam through thepurple immensity above him and slid behind the skyline. Other starsas brilliant appeared and began their slow, swimming journey. Pinkrode, and stopped to listen, and rode on again until it seemed tohim that he must be dreaming some terribly realistic nightmare.

He was sitting on his horse on a lava-crusted ridge, strainingbloodshot eyes into the mesa that stretched dimly before him, whendawn came streaking the sky with blood orange and purple andcrimson. The stars were quenched in that flood of light; and Pink,looking now with clearer vision, saw that there was no living thingin sight save a coyote trotting home from his night's hunting. Heturned short around and, getting his bearings from his memory ofcertain stars and from the sun that was peering at him from the topof a bare peak, and from that sense of direction which becomessecond nature to a man who had lived long on the range, started forcamp with his ill news.

XIV. — ONE PUT OVER ON THEBUNCH

"SOUNDS to me," volunteered the irrepressible BigMedicine after a heavy silence, "like as if you'd gone to sleep onyour hawse, Little One, and dreamed that there tinkle-tinkle stuff.By cripes, I'd like to see the bell-hawse that could walk away fromme 'nless I was asleep an' dreamin' about it. Soundslike—"

"Sounds like Navvy work," Applehead put in, eyeing thesurrounding rim of sun-gilded mesa, where little brown birdsfluttered in short, swift flights and chirped with exasperatingcheerfulness.

"If it was anybody, it was Ramon Chavez," Luck declared with thepositiveness of his firm conviction. "By the tracks here, we'recrowding up on him. And no man that's guilty of a crime, Applehead,is going to ride day after day without wanting to take a look overhis shoulder to see if he's followed. He's probably seen us fromsome of these ridges—yesterday, most likely. And do you thinkhe wouldn't know this bunch as far as he could see us, even withoutglasses? The chances are he has them, though. He'd be a fool if hedidn't stake himself to a pair."

"Say, by gracious," Andy observed somewhat irrelevantly, hiseyes going over the group, "this would sure make great picturedope, wouldn't it? Why didn't we bring Pete along, darn it? Us allstanding around here, plumb helpless because we'reafoot—"

"Aw, shut up!" snapped Pink, upon whom the burden ofresponsibility lay heavy. "I oughta be hung for laying around thefire here instead of being out there on guard! I oughta—"

"Yes—and damn it,I heard the bell from then ontill daylight!" Pink's lips quivered perceptibly with themortification that burned within him. "If I'd been onguard—"

"Well, I calc'late you'd a been laid out now with a knife-cut inyuh som'ers," Applehead stopped twisting his sunburnt mustache tosay bluntly. "'S a dang lucky thing fer you, young man, 't youwasn't on guard, 'n' the only thing't looks queer to me isthat you wasn't potted las' night when yuh got out away from here.Musta been only one of 'em stayed behind, an' he had t' keep out infront uh yuh t' tinkle that dang bell. Figgered on wearin' out yerhoss, I reckon, 'n' didn't skurcely dare t' take the risk uhkillin' you off 'nless they was a bunch around t' handle us." Hisbright blue eyes with their range squint went from one to anotherwith a certain speculative pride in the glance. "'N' they shorewant t' bring a crowd along when they tie into this yere outfit,now I'm tellin' yuh!"

Lite Avery, who had gone prowling down the draw by himself, cameback to camp, tilting stiff-leggedly along in his high-heeled bootsand betraying, in every step he took, just how handicapped acowpuncher is when set afoot upon the range and forced to walkwhere he has always been accustomed to ride. He stopped to givePink's exhausted horse a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, and cameon, grinning a little with the comers of his mouth tipped down.

"Here's what's left of the hobbles the buckskin wore," he said,holding up the cut loops of a figure-eight rope hobble. "Kindaspeaks for itself, don't it?"

They crowded around to inspect this plain evidence of stealing.Afterwards they stood hard-eyed and with a flush on theircheek-bones, considering what was the best and wisest way to meetthis emergency. As to hunting afoot for their horses, the chance ofsuccess was almost too small to be considered at all, Pink's horsewas not fit for further travel until he had rested. There was onepair of field glasses and there were nine irate men to whominaction was intolerable.

"One thing we can do, if we have to," Luck said at last, withthe fighting look in his face which moving-picture people had causeto remember. "We can help ourselves to any horses we run across.Applehead, how's the best way to go about it?"

Applehead, thus pushed into leadership, chewed his mustache andeyed the mesa sourly. "Well, seein' they've set us afoot, Icalc'late we're jest about entitled to any dang thing we run acrossthat's ridable," he acceded. "'N' the way I'd do, would be to giton high groun' with them glasses 'n' look fer hosses. 'N' then headfer 'em 'n' round 'em up afoot 'n' rope out what we want. They'senough of us t' mebby git a mount apiece, but it shore ain't goin't' be no snap, now I'm tellin' ye. 'N' if yuh do that," he added,"yuh want t' leave a man er two in camp—'n' they want to keeptheir dang eyes peeled, lemme tell yuh! Ef we was t' find ourselvesafoot an' our grub 'n' outfit stole—"

"We won't give them that chance at us." Luck was searching withhis eyes for the nearest high point that was yet not too far fromcamp. "I think I'll just take Andy up on that pinnacle there, andcamp down by that pile of boulders. The rest of you stay aroundcamp and rest yourselves while you've got the chance. In a coupleof hours, Applehead, you and Lite come up and take our place; thenMiguel and Bud, and after that Weary and Happy. Pink, you go andbed down in the shade somewhere and go to sleep—and quitworrying over last night. Nobody could have done any better thanyou did. It was just one put over on the bunch, and you happened tobe the particular goat, that's all.

"Now, if one of us waves his hat over his head, all of you butHappy and Bud and Pink come up with your rifles and your ropes,because we'll have some horses sighted. If we wave from side toside, like this, about even with our belts, you boys want to lookout for trouble. So one of you keep an eye on us all the time we'reup there. We'll be up outa reach of any trouble ourselves, if Iremember that little pinnacle right." He hung the strap that heldthe leather case of the glasses over one shoulder, picked up hisrifle and his rope and started off, with Andy similarly equippedcoming close behind him.

The mesa, when they reached the pinnacle and looked down overthe wide expanse of it, glimmered like clear, running water withthe heat waves that rose from the sand. Away to the southward ascattered band of sheep showed in a mirage that made them looklong-legged as camels and half convinced them both that they wereseeing the lost horses, until the vision changed and shrunk themoving objects to mere dots upon the mesa.

Often before they had watched the fantastic airpictures of thedesert mirage, and they knew well enough that what they saw mightbe one mile away or twenty. But unless the atmospheric conditionshappened to be just right, what was pictured in the air could notbe depended upon to portray truthfully what was reflected. They satthere and saw the animals suddenly grow clearly defined and veryclose, and discovered at last that they were sheep, and that a manwas walking beside the flock; and even while they watched it andwondered if the sheep were really as close as they seemed, thevision slowly faded into blank, wavery distance and the mesa layempty and quivering under the sun.

"Fine chance we've got of locating anything," Andy grumbled, "ifit's going to be miragy all day. We could run our fool heads offtrying to get up to a bunch that would puff out into nothing. Makesa fellow think of the stories they tell about old prospectors goingcrazy trying to find mirage water-holes. I'm glad we didn't gethung up at a dry camp, Luck. Yuh realize what that would belike?"

"Oh, I may have some faint idea," Luck drawled whimsically."Look over there, Andy, over toward Albuquerque. Is that a mirageagain, or do you see something moving?"

Andy, having the glasses, swung them slowly to the southeast.After a minute or two he shook his head and gave the glasses toLuck. "There was one square look I got, and I'd been willing toswear it was our saddle-bunch," he said. "And then they got towobbling and I couldn't make out what they are. They might be fieldmice, or they might be giraffes—I'm darned if I knowwhich."

Luck focussed the glasses, but whatever the objects had been,they were no longer to be seen. So the two hours passed and theysaw Applehead and Lite come slowly up the hill from camp bearingtheir rifles and their ropes and a canteen of fresh water, as thethree things they might find most use for.

These two settled themselves to watch for horses—their ownrange horses. When they were relieved they reported nothing save acontinued inclination on the part of the atmosphere to be what Andycalled miragy. So, the day passed, chafing their spirits worse thanany amount of active trouble would have done. Pink slept andbrooded by turns, still blaming himself for the misfortune. Theothers moped, or took their turns on the pinnacle to strain theireyes unavailingly into the four corners of the earth—or asmuch as they could in those directions.

With the going of the sun Applehead and Lite, sitting out theirsecond guard on the pinnacle, discussed seriously the desperateidea of going in the night to the nearest Navajo ranch and helpingthemselves to what horses they could find about the place. Thebiggest obstacle was their absolute ignorance of where the nearestranch lay. Not, surely, that half-day's ride back towardsAlbuquerque, where they had seen but one pony and that a poorspecimen of horseflesh. Another obstacle would be the dogs, whichcould be quieted only with bullets.

"We might git hold of something to ride," Applehead statedglumly, "an' then agin the chances is we wouldn't git nothin'more'n a scrap on our hands. 'N' I'm tellin' yuh right now, Lite, Iain't hankerin' fer no fuss till I git a hoss under me."

"Me either," Lite testified succinctly. "Say, is that somethingcoming, away up that draw the camp's in? Seems to me I sawsomething pass that line of lava, about half a mile over."

Applehead stood up and peered into the half darkness. In acouple of minutes he said: "Ye better git down an' tell the boys t'be on the watch, Lite. They can't see no hat-wavin' this time uhday. They's somethin' movin' up to-wards camp, but what er who theybe I can't make out in the dark. Tell Luck—"

"What's the matter with us both going?" Lite asked, cupping hishands around his eyes that he might see better. "It's getting toodark to do any good up here—"

"Well, I calc'late mebby yore right," Applehead admitted, andbegan to pick his way down over the rocks. "Ef them's Injuns, thebigger we stack up in camp the better. If it's Ramon 'n' his bunch,I want t' git m' hands on 'im."

He must have turned the matter over pretty thoroughly in hismind, for when the two reached camp he had his ideas fixed and hisplans all perfected. He told Luck that somebody was working downthe draw in the dark, and that it looked like a Navvy trick; andthat they had better be ready for them, because they weren't comingjust to pass the time of day—"now I'm tellin' ye!"

The nerves of the Happy Family were raw enough by now to welcomeanything that promised action; even an Indian fight would not be somuch a disaster as a novel way of breaking the monotony. Applehead,with the experience gathered in the old days when he was a youngfellow with a freighting outfit and old Geronimo was terrorizingall this country, sent them back in compact half circle just withinthe shelter of the trees and several rods away from their campfireand the waterhole. There, lying crouched behind their saddles withtheir rifles across the seat-sides and with ammunition belts fullof cartridges, they waited for whatever might be coming in thedark.

"It's horses," Pink exclaimed under his breath, as faint soundscame down the draw. "Maybe—"

"Horses—and an Injun laying along the back of every one,most likely," Applehead returned grimly. "An old Navvy trick, thatis—don't let 'em fool ye, boys! You jest wait, 'n' I'll tellye when t' shoot, er whether t' shoot at all. They can't foolme—now I'm tellin' yuh!"

After that they were silent, listening strainedly to the growingsounds of approach. There was the dull, unmistakable click of ahoof striking against a rock, the softer sound of treading onyielding soil. Then a blur of dark objects became visible, movingslowly and steadily toward the camp.

Applehead stretched a lean leg in his direction and gave HappyJack a kick. "They're cunnin'," he hissed warningly. "Don't yuh befooled—"

"That's Johnny in the lead," Pink whispered excitedly. "I'd knowthe way he walks—"

"'N' youthought yuh knowed how he jingled his dangbell," Applehead retorted unkindly. "Sh-sh-sh—"

Reminded by the taunt of the clever trick that had been playedupon them the night before, the Happy Family stiffened again intostrained, waiting silence, their rifles aimed straight at theadvancing objects. These, still vague in the first real darkness ofearly night, moved steadily in a scattered group behind a leaderthat was undoubtedly Johnny of the erstwhile tinkling bell. Hecircled the campfire just without its radius of light, so that theycould not tell whether an Indian lay along his back, and headedstraight for the water-hole. The others followed him, and not onecame into the firelight—a detail which sharpened thesuspicions of the men crouched there in the edge of the bushes, andtingled their nerves with the sense of something sinister in thevery unconcernedness of the animals.

They splashed into the water-hole and drank thirstily and long.They stood there as though they were luxuriating in the feel ofmore water than they could drink, and one horse blew the moisturefrom his nostrils with a sound that made Happy Jack jump.

After a few minutes that seemed an hour to those who waited withfingers crooked upon gun-triggers, the horse that looked vaguelylike Johnny turned away from the water-hole and sneezed while heappeared to be wondering what to do next. He moved slowly towardthe packs that were thrown down just where they had been taken fromthe horses, and began nosing tentatively about.

The others loitered still at the water-hole, save one—thebuckskin, by his lighter look in the dark—that came over toJohnny. The two horses nosed the packs. A dull sound of clashingmetal came to the ears of the Happy Family.

"Hey! Get outa that grain, doggone your fool hide," Pink calledout impulsively, crawling over his saddle and catching his foot inthe stirrup leather so that he came near going headlong.

Applehead yelled something, but Pink had recovered his balanceand was running to save the precious horsefeed from waste, andJohnny from foundering. There might have been two Indians on everyhorse in sight, but Pink was not thinking of that possibility justthen.

Johnny whirled guiltily away from the grain bag, licking hislips and blowing dust from his nostrils. Pink went up to him andslipped a rope around his neck. "Where's that bell?" he called outin his soft treble. "Or do you think we better tie the oldson-of-a-gun up and be sure of him?"

"Aw," said Happy Jack disgustedly a few minutes later, when theHappy Family had crawled out of their ambush and were feelingparticularly foolish. "Nex' time old granny Furrman says Injuns t'this bunch, somebody oughta gag him."

"I notice you waited till he'd gone outa hearing before you saidthat," Luck told him drily. "We're going to put out extra guardstonight, just the same. And I guess you can stand the first shift,Happy, up there on the ridge—you're so sure of things!"

XV. — "NOW, DANG IT, RIDE!"

INDIANS are Indians, though they wear the greensweater and overalls of civilization and set upon their black hairthe hat made famous by John B. Stetson. You may meet them in townand think them tamed to stupidity. You may travel out upon theirreservations and find them shearing sheep or hoeing corn orplodding along the furrow, plowing their fields; or you may watchthem dancing grotesquely in their festivals, and still think thatcivilization is fast erasing the savage instincts from theirnatures. You will be partly right—but you will also be partlymistaken. An Indian is always an Indian, and a Navajo Indiancarries a thinner crust of civilization than do some others; as Iam going to illustrate.

As you have suspected, the Happy Family was not following thetrail of Ramon Chavez and his band. Ramon was a good many milesaway in another direction; unwittingly the Happy Family was keepingdoggedly upon the trail of a party of renegade Navajos who had beenout on a thieving expedition among those Mexicans who live upon theRio Grande bottomland. Having plenty of reasons for hurrying backto their stronghold, and having plenty of lawlessness to accountfor, when they realized that they were being followed by nine whitemen who had four packed horses with them to provide for their needson a long journey, it was no more than natural that the Indiansshould take it for granted that they were being pursued, and thatif they were caught they would be taken back to town and shut up inthat evil place which the white men called their jail.

When it was known that the nine men who followed had twicerecovered the trail after sheep and cattle had trampled it out, therenegades became sufficiently alarmed to call upon their tribesmenfor help. And that was perfectly natural and sensible from theirpoint of view.

Now, the Navajos are peaceable enough if you leave them strictlyalone and do not come snooping upon their reservation trying toarrest somebody. But they don't like jails, and if you persist intrailing their lawbreakers you are going to have trouble on yourhands. The Happy Family, with Luck and Applehead, had no intentionwhatever of molesting the Navajos; but the Navajos did not knowthat, and they acted according to their lights and their ideas ofhonorable warfare.

Roused to resistance in behalf of their fellows, theystraightway forsook their looms, where they wove rugs for tourists,and the silver which they fashioned into odd bracelets and rings;and the flocks of sheep whose wool they used in the rugs and theywent upon a quiet, crafty warpath against these persistent whitemen.

They stole their horses and started them well on the trail backto Albuquerque—since it is just as well to keep within thewhite men's law, if it may be done without suffering any greatinconvenience. They would have preferred to keep the horses, butthey decided to start them home and let them go. You could not callthat stealing, and no one need go to jail for it. They failed torealize that these horses might be so thoroughly broken to campways that they would prefer the camp of the Happy Family to a longtrail that held only a memory of discomfort; they did not know thatevery night these horses were given grain by the camp-fire, andthat they would remember it when feeding time came again. So thehorses, led by wise old Johnny, swung in a large circle when theirIndian drivers left them, and went back to their men.

Then the Navajos, finding that simple maneuver afailure—and too late to prevent its failing without risk ofbeing discovered and forced into an open fight got together andtried something else; something more characteristically Indian andtherefore more actively hostile. They rode in haste that night to apoint well out upon the fresh trail of their fleeing tribesmen,where the tracks came out of a barren, lava-encrusted hollow tosofter soil beyond. They summoned their squaws and their half-grownpapooses armed with branches that had stiff twigs and answered thepurpose of brooms. With great care about leaving any betrayingtracks of their own until they were quite ready to leave a trail, aparty was formed to represent the six whom the Happy Family hadbeen following. These divided and made off in different directions,leaving a plain trail behind them to lure the white men into thetraps which would be prepared for them farther on.

When dawn made it possible to do so effectively, the squawsbegan to whip out the trail of the six renegade Indians, and thechance footprints of those who had gone ahead to leave the falsetrail for the white men to follow. Very painstakingly the squawsworked, and the young ones who could be trusted. Brushing the sandsmoothly across a hoofprint here, and another one there; walkingbackward, their bodies bent, their sharp eyes scanning every littledepression, every faint trace of the passing of their tribesmen;brushing, replacing pebbles kicked aside by a hoof, wiping outcompletely that trail which the Happy Family had followed with suchpersistence, the squaws did their part, while their men went on toprepare the trap.

Years ago—yet not so many after all—the mothers ofthese squaws, and their grandmothers, had walked backward andstooped with little branches in their hands to wipe out the trailof their warriors and themselves to circumvent the cunning of theenemy who pursued. So had they brushed out the trail when their menhad raided the ranchos of the first daring settlers, and had drivenoff horses and cattle into the remoter wilderness.

And these, mind you, were the squaws and bucks whom you mightmeet any day on the streets in Albuquerque, padding along thepavement and staring in at the shop windows, admiring silken gownswith marked-down price tags, and exclaiming over flaxen-haireddolls and bright ribbon streamers; squaws and bucks who broughtrugs and blankets to sell, and who would bargain with you in brokenEnglish and smile and nod in friendly fashion if you spoke to themin Spanish or paid without dickering the price they asked for arug. You might see them in the fifteen-cent store, buying cheapcandy and staring in mute admiration at all the gay things piledhigh on the tables. Remember that, when I tell you what more theydid out here in the wilderness. Remember that and do not imaginethat I am trying to take you back into the untamed days of thepioneers.

Luck and the Happy Family—so well had the squaws donetheir work—passed unsuspectingly over the wiped-out trail,circled at fault on the far side of the rocky gulch for an hour orso and then found the false trail just as the Indian decoys hadintended that they should do. And from a farther flat topped ridgea group of Indians with Dutch hair-cuts and Stetson hats andmoccasins (the two hall-marks of two races) watched them take thefalse trail, and looked at one another and grinned sourly.

The false trail forked, showing that the six had separated intotwo parties of three riders, each aiming to pass—so thehoofprints would lead one to believe—around the two ends of alone hill that sat squarely down on the mesa like a stone treasurechest dropped there by the gods when the world was young.

"Wonder what they did that for?" Andy Green grumbled, moppinghis red face irritatedly. "We've got trouble enough without havingthem split up on us."

"From the looks, I should say we're overhauling the bunch," Luckhazarded. "They maybe met on the other side of this buttesomewhere. And the tracks were made early this morning, I shouldsay. How about it, Applehead?"

"Well, they look fresher 'n what we bin follerin' before,"Applehead admitted. "But I don't like this here move uh theirn, andI'm tellin' yuh so. The way—"

"I don't like anything about 'em," snapped Luck, standing in hisstirrups as though that extra three inches would let him see overthe hill. "And I don't like this tagging along behind, either. Youtake your boys and follow those tracks to the right, Applehead. Iand my bunch will go this other way. Andride! We can't beso awfully much behind. If they meet, we'll meet where they do. Ifthey scatter, we'll have to scatter too, I reckon. But get'em isthe word, boys!"

"And where," asked Applehead with heavy irony, while he pulledat his mustache, "do yuh calc'late we'll git t'gether agin if we goscatterin' out?"

Luck looked at him and smiled his smile. "We aren't any of ustenderfeet, exactly," he said calmly. "We'll meet at the jail whenwe bring in our men, if we don't meet anywhere else this side. Butif you land your men, come back to that camp where we lost thehorses. That's one place weknow has got grass and waterboth. If you come and don't see any sign of us, wait a day beforeyou start back to town. We'll do the same. And leave a noteanchored in the crack of that big bowlder by the spring, tellingthe news. We'll do the same if we get there first and don't waitfor you." He hesitated, betraying that even in his eagerness he toodreaded the parting of the ways. "Well, so long, boys—takecare of yourselves."

But Luck only grinned and waved his hand as he led the way tothe south on the trail that obviously had skirted the side of thesquare butte. The four who went with him looked back and wavednon-committal adieu; and Big Medicine, once he was fairly away,shouted back to them to look out for Navvies, and then laughed witha mirthless uproar that deceived no one into thinking he wasamused. Pink and Weary raised their voices sufficiently to tell himwhere he could go, and settled themselves dejectedly in theirsaddles again.

"Well, I ain't so darned sure, either," Lite Avery tardilyechoed Applehead's vague statement, in the dry way he had ofspeaking detached sentiments from the mental activities that wenton behind his calm, mask-like face and his quiet eyes. "Somethingfeels snaky around here today."

Applehead looked at him with a glimmer of relief in his eyes,but he did not reply to the foreboding directly. "Boys, git yorerifles where you kin use 'em quick," he advised them grimly. "I kinsmell shootin' along this dang trail."

Pink's dimples showed languidly for a moment, and be looked aquestion at Weary. Weary grinned answer and pulled his rifle fromthe "boot" where it was slung under his right leg, and jerked thelever forward until a cartridge slid with a click up into thechamber; let the hammer gently down with his thumb and laid the gunacross his thighs.

"Well, now, you boys show some kinda sense," Applehead told themwhen Pink had followed Weary's example. "Fellers like Happy andBud, they shore do show their ign'rance uh this here, dang country,when they up 'n' laff at the idee uh trouble—now I'm tellin'yuh!"

From the ridge which was no more than a high claw of the squarebutte, four Indians in greasy, gray Stetsons with flat crownsnodded with grim satisfaction, and then made haste to point thetoes of their moccasins down to where their unkempt ponies stoodwaiting. They were too far away to see the shifting of rifles tothe laps of the riders, or perhaps they would not have felt quiteso satisfied with the steady advance of the four who had taken theright-hand fork of the trail. They could not even tell just whichfour men made up the party. They did not greatly care, so long asthe force of the white men was divided. They galloped away uponurgent business of their own, elated because their ruse had workedout as they had planned and hoped.

Applehead took a restrained pull at the canteen, cocked his eyesback at the butte they had just passed, squinted ahead over theflat waste that shimmered with heat to the very skyline that wasnotched and gashed crudely with more barren hills, and then,screwing the top absent-mindedly on the canteen-mouth, leaned andpeered long at the hoofprints they were following. Beside him LiteAvery, tall and lean to the point of being skinny, followed hismovements with quiet attention and himself took to studying moreclosely the hoofprints in the sandy soil.

Applehead looked up, gauged the probable direction the trail wastaking, and gave a grunt.

"You kin call me a fool," he said with a certain challenge inhis tone, "but this yere trail don't look good to me, somehow.These yere tracks, they don't size up the same as they done all theway out here. 'N' another thing, they ain't aimed t' meet up withthe bunch that Luck's trailin'. We're headed straight out away fromwhar Luck's headed. 'N' any way yuh look at it, we're headed intocountry whar there ain't no more water'n what the rich man got inhell. What would any uh Ramon's outfit want to come away off inhere fur? They ain't nothin' up in here to call 'em."

"These," said Lite suddenly, "are different horse-tracks. They'resmaller, for one thing. The bunch we followed out from the redmachine rode bigger horses."

"And carried honey on one side and fresh meat on the other; andone horse was blind in the right eye," enlarged Pink banteringly,remembering the story of the Careful Observer in an oldschoolreader of his childhood days.

"Yes, how do you make that out, Lite? I never noticed anydifference in the tracks."

"The stride is a little shorter today for one thing." Litelooked around and grinned at Pink, as though he too remembered thedromedary loaded with honey and meat. "Ain't it, Applehead?"

"It shore is," Applehead testified, his face bent toward the hotground. "Ain't ary one uh the three that travels like they bin atravelin'—'n' that shore means something, now I'm tellin'yuh!" He straightened and stared worriedly ahead of them again. "Uhcourse, they might a picked up fresh horses," he admitted. "Icalc'late they needed 'em bad enough, if they ain't been grainin'their own on the trip."

"We didn't see any signs of their horses being turned looseanywhere along," Lite pointed out with a calm confidence that hewas right.

Still, they followed the footprints even though they werebeginning to admit with perfect frankness their uneasiness. Theywere swinging gradually toward one of those isolated bumps of redrockridges which you will find scattered at random through certainparts of the southwest. Perhaps they held some faint hope that whatlay on the other side of the ridge would be more promising, just aswe all find ourselves building air-castles upon what lies just overthe horizon which divides present facts from future possibilities.Besides, these flat-faced ledges frequently formed a sharp dividingline between barren land and fertile, and the hoofprints led thatway; so it was with a tacit understanding that they would see whatlay beyond the ridge that they rode forward.

Suddenly Applehead, eyeing the rocks speculatively, turned hishead suddenly to look behind and to either side like one who seeksa way of escape from sudden peril.

"Don't make no quick moves, boys," he said, waving one glovedband nonchalantly toward the flat land from which they wereturning, "but foller my lead 'n' angle down into that draw offhere. Mebbe it's deep enough to put us outa sight, 'n' mebbe itain't. But we'll try it."

"What's up? What did yuh see?" Pink and Weary spoke in a duet,urging their horses a little closer.

"You fellers keep back thar 'n' don't act excited!" Appleheadeyed them sternly over his shoulder. "I calc'late we're just aboutt' walk into a trap." He bent—on the side away from theridge—low over his horse's shoulder and spoke while heappeared to be scanning the ground. "I seen gun-shine up among themrocks, er I'm a goat. 'N' if it's Navvies, you kin bet they gotguns as good as ours, and kin shoot mighty nigh as straight as thebest of us—except Lite, uh course, that's a expert." Hepointed aimlessly at the ground and edged toward the draw.

"Ef they think we're jest follerin' a stray track, they'lllikely hold off till we git back in the trail 'n' start comin' onagin," he explained craftily, still pointing at the ground ahead ofhim and still urging his horse to the draw. "Ef they suspicion 'twe're shyin' off from the ridge, they'll draw a fine bead 'n' cutloose. I knowed it," he added with a lugubrious complacency. "Itold ye all day that I could smell trouble a-comin'; I knowed dangwell 't we'd stir up a mess uh fightin' over here. I never comeonto this dang res'vation yit, that I didn't have t' kill off amess uh Navvies before I got offen it agin.

"Now," he said when they reached the edge of the sandydepression that had been gouged deeper by freshets and offered someshelter in case of attack, "you boys jest fool around here on theaidge 'n' foller me down here like you was jest curiouslike overwhat I'm locatin'. That'll keep them babies up there guessin' tillwe're all outa sightmebby!" He pulled down the corners ofhis mouth till his mustache-ends dropped a full inch, and liftedhimself off his horse with a bored deliberation that was masterlyin its convincingness. He stood looking at the ground for a momentand then began to descend leisurely into the draw, leading hishorse behind him.

"You go next, Pink," Weary said shortly, and with his horsebegan edging him closer to the bank until Pink, unless he made someunwise demonstration of unwillingness, was almost forced to ridedown the steep little slope.

"Don't look towards the ridge, boys," Applehead warned frombelow. "Weary, you come on down here next. Lite kin might' nighshoot the dang triggers offen their guns 'fore they kin pull, ifthey go t' work 'n' start anything."

So Weary, leaving Lite up there grinning sheepishly over thecompliment, rode down because he was told to do so by the man incommand. "You seem to forget that Lite's got a wife on his hands,"he reproved as he went.

"Lite's a-comin' right now," Applehead retorted, peering at theridge a couple of hundred yards distant. "Git back down the draw 'sfur's yuh kin b'fore yuh take out into the open agin. I'll wait aminute 'n' see—"

"Ping-NG-NG!" a bullet, striking a rock on the edge of the drawfifty feet short of the mark, glanced and went humming over the hotwaste.

"Well, now, that shows they got a lookout up high, 't seen mewatchin' that way. But it's hard t' git the range shootin' down,like that," Applehead remarked, pulling his horse behind a higherpart of the bank.

Close beside him Lite's rifle spoke, its little steelshodmessage flying straight as a homing honeybee for the spitting flashhe had glimpsed up there among the rocks. Whether he did any damageor not, a dozen rifles answered venomously and flicked up tinyspurts of sand in the close neighborhood of the four.

"If they keep on trying," Lite commented drily, "they might makea killing, soon as they learn how to shoot straight."

"'S jest like them dang Injuns!" Applehead grumbled, shooing thethree before him down the draw. "Four t' our one—it takesjest about that big a majority 'fore they feel comf'table aboutbuildin' up a fight. Lead yore hosses down till we're outa easyshootin' distance, boys, 'n' then we'll head out fer where Luckought t' be. If they fixed a trap fer us, they've fixed another ferhim, chances is, 'n' the sooner us fellers git t'gether the bettershow we'll all of us have. You kin see, the way they worked it tosplit the bunch, that they ain't so dang anxious t' tie into uswhen we're t'gether—'n' that's why we can't git t' Luck adang bit too soon, now I'm tellin' yuh!"

Weary and Pink were finding things to say, also, but oldApplehead went on with his monologue just as though they werelistening. Lite showed a disposition to stop and take issue withthe shooters who kept up a spiteful firing from the ridge. ButApplehead stopped him as he was leveling his rifle.

"If yuh shoot," he pointed out, "they'll know jest where we airand how fast we're gittin' outa here. If yuh don't, unless theirlookout kin see us movin' out, they got t' do a heap uh guessin' inthe next few minutes. They only got one chancet in three uhguessin' right, 'cause we might be camped in one spot, 'n' thenagin we might be crawlin' up closer, fer all they kin tell."

If they were guessing, they must have guessed right; forpresently the four heard faint yells from behind them, andApplehead crawled up the bank to where he could look out across thelevel. What he saw made him slide hastily to the bottom again.

"They've clumb down and straddled their ponies," he announcedgrimly. "An' about a dozen is comin' down this way, keepin' undercover all they kin. I calc'late mebby we better crawl our hosses'n' do some ridin' ourselves, boys." And he added grimly, "Theyain't in good shootin' distance yit, 'n' they dassent showtheirselves neither. We'll keep in this draw long as we kin.They're bound t' come careful till they git us located."

The footing was none the best, but the horses they rode had beenrunning over untracked mesaland since they were bandy-legged colts.They loped along easily, picking automatically the safest placeswhereon to set their feet, and leaving their riders free to attendto other important matters which proved their true value as horsesthat knew their business.

Soon the draw shallowed until they found themselves out in theopen, with the square-topped mountain five miles or so ahead and alittle to the left; a high, untraversable sandstone ledge to theirright, and what looked like plain sailing straight ahead past themountain.

Applehead twisted his body in the saddle and gave a grunt."Throw some lead back at them hombres, Lite," he snapped. "And makea killin' if yuh kin. It'll make 'em mad, but it'll hold 'em backfer a spell."

Lite, the crack rifle-shot of Luck's company and the man who hadtaught Jean Douglas to shoot with such wonderful precision, wheeledhis horse short around and pulled him to a stand, lined up hisrifle sights and crooked his finger on the trigger. And away backthere among the Indians a pony reared, and then pitchedforward.

"I sure do hate to shoot down a horse," Lite explainedshamefacedly, "but I never did kill a man—"

"We-ell, I calc'late mebby yuh will, 'fore you're let out fromthis yere meetin'," Applehead prophesied drily. "Now, dang it,ride!"

XVI. — ANNIE-MANY-PONIESWAITS

IN the magic light of many unnamable soft shadeswhich the sun leaves in New Mexico as a love token for his darkmistress night, Annie-Many-Ponies sat with her back against a high,flat rock at the place where Ramon had said she must wait for him,and stared somber-eyed at what she could see of the new land thathad held her future behind the Sandias; waiting for Ramon; and shewondered if Wagalexa Conka had come home from his picture-making inBear Cañon and was angry because she had gone; and shrank from thethought, and tried to picture what life with Ramon would be like,and whether his love would last beyond the wide ring of shiny goldthat was to make her a wife.

At her feet the little black dog lay licking his sore paws thathad padded patiently after her all day. Beside the rock the blackhorse stood nibbling at some weeds awkwardly, because of theSpanish bit in his mouth. The horse was hungry, and the littleblack dog was hungry; Annie-Many-Ponies was hungry also, but shedid not feel her hunger so much, because of the heaviness that wasin her heart.

When Ramon came he would bring food, or he would tell her whereshe might buy. The horse, too, would be fed—when Ramon came.And he would take her to the priest who was his friend, andtogether they would kneel before the priest. But first, if Ramonwould wait, she wanted to confess her sins, so that she need not gointo the new life bearing the sins of the old. The priest couldpray away the ache that was in her heart; and then, with her heartlight as air, she would be married with Ramon. It was long sinceshe had confessed—not since the priest came to the agencywhen she was there, before she ran away to work in pictures forWagalexa Conka.

Before her the glow deepened and darkened. A rabbit hopped outof a thick clump of stunted bushes, sniffed the air that blew thewrong way to warn him, and began feeding. Shunka Chistala gatheredhis soft paws under him, scratched softly for a firm foothold inthe ground, and when the rabbit, his back turned and the eveningwind blowing full in his face, fed unsuspectingly upon some youngbark that he liked, the little black dog launched himself suddenlyacross the space that divided them. There was a squeak and a thin,whimpering crying—and the little black dog, at least, wassure of his supper.

Annie-Many-Ponies, roused from her brooding, shivered a littlewhen the rabbit cried. She started forward to save it—she whohad taught the little black dog to hunt gophers andprairie-dogs!—and when she was too late she scolded the dogin the language of the Sioux. She tore the rabbit away from himwhile he eyed her reproachfully; but when she saw that it was quitedead, she flung the warm body back to him and went and sat downagain with her back to the rock.

A train whistled for the little station of Bernalillo, and soonshe saw its headlight paint the squat houses that had before beenhidden behind the creeping dusk. Ramon was late in coming and forone breath she caught herself hoping that he would not come at all.But immediately she remembered the love words he had taught her,and smiled her inscrutable little smile that had now a tinge ofsadness. Perhaps, she thought wishtully, Ramon had come on thetrain from Albuquerque. Perhaps he had a horse in the town, andwould ride out and meet her here where he had told her to wait.

The train shrieked and painted swiftly hill and embankment andlittle adobe huts and a corral full of huddled sheep, and wentchurning away to the northeast. Annie-Many-Ponies followed itscourse absently with her eyes until the last winking light from itswindows and the last wisp of smoke was hidden behind hills andtrees. The little black dog finished the rabbit, nosed its tracksback to where it had hopped out of the brush, and came back andcurled up at the feet of his mistress, licking his lips and againhis travel-sore paws. In a moment, feeling in his dumb way herloneliness, perhaps, he reached up and laid his pink tonguecaressingly upon her brown hand.

Dark came softly and with it a noisy wind that whistled andmurmured and at last, growing more boisterous as the nightdeepened, whooped over her bead and tossed wildly the branches of aclump of trees that grew near. Annie-Many-Ponies listened to thewind and thought it a brother, perhaps, of the night wind that cameto the Dakota prairies and caroused there until dawn bade it bestill. Too red the blood of her people ran in her veins for her tobe afraid of the night, even though she peopled it with dim shapesof her fancy.

After a long while the wind grew chill. Annie-Many-Poniesshivered, and then rose and went to the horse and, reaching intothe bundle which was still bound to the saddle, she worked a plaidshawl loose from the other things and pulled it out and wrapped itclose around her and pulled it over her head like a cowl. Then shewent back and sat down against the bowlder, waiting, with thesublime patience of her kind, for Ramon.

Until the wind hushed, listening for the dawn, she sat there andwaited. At her feet the little black dog slept with his nose foldedbetween his front paws over which he whimpered sometimes in hisdreams. At every little sound all through the nightAnnie-Many-Ponies had listened, thinking that at last here cameRamon to take her to the priest, but for the first time since shehad stolen out on the mesa to meet him, Ramon did not keep thetryst—and this was to be their marriage meeting!Annie-Many-Ponies grew very still and voiceless in her heart, as ifher very soul waited. She did not even speculate upon what thefuture would be like if Ramon never came. She was waiting.

Then, just before the sky lightened, someone stepped cautiouslyalong a little path that led through rocks and bushes back into thehills. Annie-Many Ponies turned her face that way and listened. Butthe steps were not the steps of Ramon; Annie-Many-Ponies had toomuch of the Indian keenness to be fooled by the hasty footsteps ofthis man. And since it was not Ramon—her slim fingers closedupon the keen-edged knife she carried always in its sinew-sewedbuckskin sheath near her heart.

The little black dog lifted his head suddenly and growled, andthe footsteps came to a sudden stop quite near the rock.

"It is you?" asked a cautious voice with the unmistakableMexican tone and soft, slurring accent. "Speak me what yohname."

"Ramon comes?" Annie asked him quietly, and the footsteps cameswiftly nearer until his form was silhouetted by the rock.

"Sh-sh—yoh not spik dat name," he whispered. "Luis Rojasme. I come for breeng yoh. No can come, yoh man. No spikname—som'bodys maybe hears."

Annie-Many-Ponies rose and stood peering at him through thedark. "What's wrong?" she asked abruptly, borrowing the curt phrasefrom Luck Lindsay. "Why I not speak name? Why—somebody—?" she laid ironical stress upon the word—"notcome? What business you got, Luis Rojas?"

"No—don' spik names, me!" The figure was seen to throw outan imploring hand. "Moch troubles, yoh bet! Yoh comenow—somebodys she wait in dam-hurry!"

Annie-Many-Ponies, with her fingers still closed upon the bonehandle of her sharp-edged knife, thought swiftly. Wariness had beenborn into her blood—therefore she could understand and meethalfway the wariness of another. Perhaps Wagalexa Conka hadsuspected that she was going with Ramon; Wagalexa Conka was verykeen, and his anger blazed hot as pitch-pine flame. Perhaps Ramonfeared Wagalexa Conka—as she, too, feared him. She was notafraid—she would go to Ramon.

She stepped away from the rock and took the black horse by itsdropped bridle-reins and followed Luis Rojas up the dim path thatwound through trees and rocks until it dropped into a little ravinethat was choked with brush, so that Annie-Many-Ponies had to putthe stiff branches aside with her hand lest they scratch her faceas she passed.

Luis went swiftly along the path, as though his haste was great;but he went stealthily as well, and she knew that he had someunknown cause for secrecy. She wondered a little at this. HadWagalexa Conka discovered where she and Ramon were to meet? But howcould he discover that which had been spoken but once, and then inthe quiet loneliness of that place far back on the mesa? WagalexaConka had not been within three miles of that place, asAnnie-Many-Ponies knew well. How then did he know? For he must havefollowed, since Ramon dared not come to the place he had named fortheir meeting.

Dawn came while they were still following the little,brush-choked ravine with its faint pathway up the middle of it,made by cattle or sheep or goats, perhaps all three. Luis hurriedalong, stopping now and then and holding up a hand for silence sothat he might listen. Fast as he went, Annie-Many-Ponies keptwithin two long steps of his heels, her plaid shawl drawn smoothlyover her black head and folded together under her chin. Her mouthwas set in a straight line, and her chin had the square firmness ofthe Indian. Luis, looking back at her curiously, could not evenguess at her thoughts, but he thought her too calm and cold for hiseffervescent nature—though he would have liked to tell herthat she was beautiful. He did not, because he was afraid ofRamon.

"Poco tiempo, come to his camp, Ramon," he said when the sun waspeering over the high shoulder of a ridge; and he spoke in a hushedtone, as if he feared that someone might overhear him.

"You 'fraid Wagalexa Conka, he come?" Annie-Many-Ponies askedabruptly, looking at him full.

Luis did not understand her, so he lifted his shoulders in theMexican gesture which may mean much or nothing. "Quien sabe?" hemuttered vaguely and went on. Annie-Many-Ponies did not know whathe meant, but she guessed that he did not want to be questionedupon the subject; so she readjusted the shawl that had slipped fromher head and went on silently, two long steps behind him.

In a little he turned from the ravine, which was becoming moreopen and not quite so deep. They scrambled over boulders which thehorse must negotiate carefully to avoid a broken leg, and then theywere in another little ravine, walled round with rocks and high,brushy slopes. Luis went a little way, stopped beside a huge,jutting boulder and gave a little exclamation of dismay.

"No more here, Ramon," he said, staring down at the faintlysmoking embers of a little fire. "She's go som' place, I don'tknow, me."

The slim right hand of Annie-Many-Ponies went instinctively toher bosom and to what lay hidden there. But she waited, lookingfrom the little campfire that was now almost dead, to Luis whom shesuspected of treachery. Luis glanced up at her apologetically,caught something of menace in that unwinking, glittering stare, andbegan hastily searching here and there for some sign that wouldenlighten him further.

"She's here when I go, Ramon," he explained deprecatingly. "Idon' un'stan', me. She's tell me go breeng yoh thees place. She'ssay I mus' huree w'ile dark she's las'. I'm sure s'prised, me!"Luis was a slender young man with a thin, patrician face that hadcertain picture values for Luck, but which greatly belied hislawless nature. Until he stood by the rock where she had waited forRamon, Annie-Many-Ponies had never spoken to him. She did not knowhim, therefore she did not trust him—and she looked herdistrust.

Luis turned from her after another hasty glance, and begansearching for some sign of Ramon. Presently, in a tiny cleft nearthe top of the boulder, his black eyes spied a foldedpaper—two folded papers, as he discovered when he reached upeagerly and pulled them out.

"She's write letter, Ramon," he cried with a certain furtiveexcitement. "Thees for yoh." And he smiled while he gave her afolded note with "Ana" scrawled hastily across the face of it.

Annie-Many-Ponies extended her left hand for it, and backed thefew steps away from him which would insure her safety against asudden attack, before she opened the paper and read:

"Querida mia, you go with Luis. Hes all rite you trus him. Hebring you where i am. i lov you. Ramon"

She read it twice and placed the note in her bosom—nextthe knife—and looked at Luis, the glitter gone from her eyes.She smiled a little. "I awful hongry," she said in her soft voice,and it was the second sentence she had spoken since they left therock where she had waited.

Luis smiled back, relief showing in the uplift of his lips andthe lightening of his eyes. "She's cache grob, Ramon," he said."She's go som' place and we go also. She's wait for us. Dam-longway—tree days, I theenk me."

"You find that grub," said Annie-Many-Ponies, letting her handdrop away from the knife. "I awful hongry. We eat, then we go."

Annie-Many-Ponies looked at him sharply, saw that he was verymuch in earnest, and turned away to gather some dry twigs for thefire. Up the cañon a horse whinnied inquiringly, and Luis,hastening furtively that way, found the horse he had ridden intothis place with Ramon. With the problem of finding provender forthe two animals, he had enough to occupy him untilAnnie-Many-Ponies, from the coarse food he brought her, cooked acrude breakfast.

Truly, this was not what she had dreamed the morning would belike—she who had been worried over the question of whetherRamon would let her confess to the priest before they were married!Here was no priest and no Ramon, even; but a keen-eyed youngMexican whom she scarcely knew at all; and a mysterious hiding-outin closed-in cañons until dark before they might follow Ramon wholoved her. Annie-Many-Ponies did not understand why all thisstealthiness should be necessary, for she knew that proof of herhonorable marriage would end Luck's pursuit—supposing he didpursue—even though his anger might live always for her. Shedid not understand; and when an Indian confronts a situation whichpuzzles him, you may be very sure that same Indian is going to bevery, very cautious. Annie-Many-Ponies was Indian to the middle ofher bone.

XVII. — APPLEHEAD SHOWS THESTUFF HE IS MADE OF

LITE AVERY, turning to look back as they gallopedup a long slope so gradual in its rise that it seemed almost level,counted just fourteen Indians spreading out fanwise in pursuit. Heturned to Applehead with the quiet deference in his manner that hadwon the old man's firm friendship.

"What's this new move signify, boss?" he asked, tilting his headbackward. "What they spreading out like that for, when they're outaeasy rifle range?"

Applehead looked behind him, studied the new formation of theirenemy, and scowled in puzzlement. He looked ahead, where he knewthe land lay practically level before them, all sand and rabbitweed, with a little grass here and there; to the left, where thesquare butte stood up bold-faced and grim; to the right where aragged sandstone ledge blocked the way.

"'S some dang new trap uh theirn," he decided, his voicesignifying disgust for such methods. "Take an Injun 'n' he don'tcalc'late he's fightin' 'nless he's figgurin' on gittin' yuhcornered. Mebby they got some more cached ahead som'ers. Keep yereye peeled, boys, 'n' shoot at any dang thing yuh see that yuhain't dead sure 's a rabbit weed. Don't go bankin' on rocks bein'harmless—'cause every dang one's liable to have an Injunlayin' on his belly behind it. Must be another bunch ahead som'ers,'cause I know it's smooth goin' fer five miles yit. After thatthey's a drop down into a rocky kinda pocket that's hard t' git outof except the way yuh go in, account of there bein' one uh themdang rim-rocks runnin' clean 'round it. Some calls it the Devil'sFryin'-pan. No water ner grass ner nothin' else 'ceptin' snakes.'N' Navvies kinda ownin' rattlers as bein' their breed uh cats,they don't kill 'em off, so they's a heap 'n' plenty of 'em in thatbasin.

"But I ain't aimin' t' git caught down in there, now I'm tellin'yuh! I aim t' keep along clost t' that there butte, 'n' out on theother side where we kin pick up Luck's trail. I shore would do somerarin' around if that boy rode off into a mess uh trouble, 'n' I'mtellin' yuh straight!"

"He's got some good boy at his back," Weary reminded him, loyalto his Flying U comrade.

"You're dang right he has! I ain't sayin' he ain't, am I? Throwsome more lead back at them skunks behind us, will ye, Lite? 'N'the rest of yuh save yore shells fer close-ups!" He grinned alittle at the incongruity of a motion-picture phrase in such asituation as this. "'N' don't be so dang skeered uh hurtin'somebody!" he adjured Lite, drawing rein a little so as not toforge ahead of the other. "You'll have to kill off a few anyway'fore you're through with 'em."

Lite aimed at the man riding in the center of the half-circle,and the bullet he sent that way created excitement of some sort;but whether the Indian was badly hit, or only missed by a narrowmargin, the four did not wait to discover. They had held theirhorses down to a pace that merely kept them well ahead of theIndians; and though the horses were sweating, they were holdingtheir own easily enough—with a reserve fund of speed if theirriders needed to call upon it.

Applehead, glancing often behind him, scowled over the puzzle ofthat fanlike formation of riders. They would hardly begin so soonto herd him and his men into that evil little rock basin with thesinister name, and there was no other reason he could think ofwhich would justify those tactics, unless another party waitedahead of them. He squinted ahead uneasily, but the mesa lay parchedand empty under the sky—

And then, peering straight into the glare of the sun, he saw,down the slope which they had climbed without realizing that itwould have a crest, it was so low—Applehead saw the answer tothe puzzle; saw and gave his funny little grunt of astonishment anddismay. Straight as a chalk line from the sandstone ledge on theirright to the straight-walled butte on their left stretched thatboundary line between the untamed wilderness and the tamed—abarbed wire fence; a four-wire fence at that, with stout cedarposts whereon the wire was stretched taut and true. From the lookof the posts, it was not new—four or five years old, perhaps;not six years, certainly, for Applehead had ridden this way sixyears before and there had been not so much as a post-hole toherald the harnessing of the mesa.

Here, then, was the explanation of the fanlike spreading out ofthe line of Indians. They knew that the white men would be trappedby the fence, and they were cutting off the retreat—andkeeping out of the hottest danger-zone of the white men's guns.Even while the four were grasping the full significance of the trapthat they had ridden into unaware, the Indians topped the ridgebehind them, yip-yip-yipping gleefully their coyotelike yells oftriumph. The sound so stirred the slow wrath of Lite Avery that,without waiting for the word from Applehead he twisted half aroundin his saddle, glanced at the nearest Indian along hisrifle-sights, bent his forefinger with swift deliberation upon thetrigger, and emptied the saddle of one yelling renegade, who madehaste to crawl behind a clump of rabbit weed.

"They howl like a mess uh coyotes," Lite observed injustification of the shot, "and I'm getting sick of hearing'em."

"Mama!" Weary, exclaimed annoyedly, "that darn fence is on anup-slope, so it's going to be next to impossible to jump it! Iguess here's where we do about an eight-hundred-foot scene ofIndian Warfare, or Fighting For Their Lives. How yuh feel,Cadwalloper?"

"Me?" Pink's eyes were purple with sheer, fighting rage. "I feellike cleaning out that bunch back there. They'll have something tohowl about when I get through!"

"Stay back uh me, boys!" Applehead's voice had a masterfulsharpness that made the three tighten reins involuntarily. "Youfoller me and don't crowd up on me, neither. Send back a shot ortwo if them Injuns gits too ambitious."

The three fell in behind him without cavil or question. He wasin charge of the outfit, and that settled it. Pink, released fromirksome inaction by the permission to shoot, turned and fired backat the first Indian his sights rested upon. He saw a spurt of sandten jumps in advance of his target, and he swore and fired againwithout waiting to steady his aim. The sorrel pack-horse, lopingalong fifty yards or so behind with a rhythmic clump-clump offrying-pan against coffee-pot at every leap he took, swervedsharply, shook his head as though a bee had stung him, and came onwith a few stiff-legged "crow hops" to register his violentobjection to being shot through the ear.

Pink, with an increased respect for the shooting skill of LiteAvery, glanced guiltily at the others to see if they had observedwhere his second bullet hit. But the others were eyeing Appleheaduneasily and paid no attention to Pink or his attempts to hit anIndian on the run. And presently Pink forgot it also while hewatched Applehead, who was apparently determined to commit suicidein a violently original form.

"You fellers keep behind, now—-and hold the Injuns backfer a minute er two," Applehead yelled while he set himselfsquarely in the saddle, gathered up his reins as though he wereabout to "top a bronk" and jabbed the spurs with a suddensavageness into Johnny's flanks.

Straight toward the fence they raced, Johnny with his ears laidback tight against his skull and his nose pointed straight outbefore him, with old Applehead leaning forward and yelling toJohnny with a cracked hoarseness that alone betrayed how far youthwas behind him.

They thought at first that he meant to jump the fence, and theyknew he could not make it. When they saw that he meant to ridethrough it, Weary and Pink groaned involuntarily at the certaintyof a fall and sickening entanglement in the wires. Only Lite, coolas though he were rounding up milch cows, rode half-turned in thesaddle and sent shot after shot back at the line of Navajos, withsuch swift precision that the Indians swerved and fell back alittle, leaving another pony wallowing in the sand and taking withthem one fellow who limped until he had climbed up behind one whowaited for him.

"Go it, Johnny—dang yore measly hide, go to it! We'll show'm we ain't so old 'n' tender we cain't turn a trick t'bug theirdang eyes out? Bust into it!We'll show 'em!—" AndApplehead shrilled a raucous range"Hoo-eee-ee!" as Johnnylunged against the taut wires.

It was a long chance he took—a "dang long chance" asApplehead admitted afterward. But, as he had hoped, it happenedthat Johnny's stride brought him with a forward leap against thewires, so that the full impact of his eleven-hundred pounds plusthe momentum of his speed, plus the weight of Applehead and thesaddle, hit the wires fair and full. They popped like cut wires ona bale of hay—and it was lucky that they were tight strung sothat there was no slack to take some of the force away. It was notluck, but plain shrewdness on Applehead's part, that Johnny camestraight on, so that there was no tearing see-saw of the strands asthey broke. Two inch-long cuts on his chest and a deeper, longerone on his foreleg was the price Johnny paid, and that was all. Thelower wire he never touched, since it was a leap that landed himagainst the fence. He lurched and recovered himself, and went on ata slower gallop while Applehead beckoned the three to come on.

"I kain't say I'd want to git in the habit uh bustin' fencesthat way," he grinned over his shoulder as the three jumped throughthe gap he had made and forged up to him. "But I calc'late ifthey's another one Johnny n' me kin make it, mebby."

"Well, I was brought up in a barbed wire country," Pinkexploded, "but I'll be darned if I ever saw a stunt like thatpulled off before!"

"We-ell, I hed a bronk go hog-wild 'n' pop three wires on afence one time," Applehead explained modestly, "'n' he didn't cuthisself a-tall, skurcely. It's all accordin' t' how yuh hit it, Ireckon. Anyway, I calc'lated it was wuth tryin', 'cause we shorewoulda had our hands full if we'd 'a' stopped at that fence, nowI'm tellin' yuh! An' another thing," he added bodefully, "Ifiggured we'd better be gittin' to Luck 'n' his bunch. I calc'latethey need us, mebby."

No one made any reply to that statement, but even Lite, whonever had been inclined to laugh at him, looked at Applehead with anew respect. The Indians, having scurried back out of range ofLite's uncomfortably close shooting, yelled a bedlam of yips andhowls and came on again in a closer group than before, shooting asthey rode—at the four men first, and then at the hindmostpack-horse that gave a hop over the wire left across the gap, andcame galloping heavily after the others. They succeeded in buryinga bullet in the packed bedding, but that was all.

Three hundred yards or so in the lead, the four raced down thelong, gentle slope. A mile or two, perhaps three, they could runbefore their horses gave out. But then, when they could run nolonger, they would have to stop and fight; and the question thatharped continually through their minds was: Could they run untilthey reached Luck and the boys with him? Could they? They did noteven know where Luck was, or what particular angle of directionwould carry them to him quickest. Applehead and Johnny werepointing the way, keeping a length ahead of the others. But evenold Applehead was riding, as he would have put it, "by-guess andby-gosh" until they crossed a shallow draw, labored up the hillbeyond, and heard, straight away before them, the faint pop-pop ofrifle shots. Old Applehead turned and sent them a blazing blueglance over his shoulders.

"Ride, dang ye!" he barked. "They've got Luck cornered inthe Devil's Fryin'-pan!"

XVIII. — IN THE DEVIL'SFRYING-PAN

LUCK, riding confidently on the trail of the threehorsemen who had taken to the south along the front of the squarebutte, believed that the turn of the trail around the southern endmeant simply that the three who came this way would meet theircompanions on the other side, and that he, following after, wouldbe certain to meet Applehead. He had hopes of the speedy capture ofRamon Chavez and his men, and the hope spread to the four who wentwith him, so that their spirits rose considerably. Big Medicine andHappy Jack even found a good deal of amusement in their exchange ofopinions regarding old granny Applehead and his constant fear ofthe Navvies. Now and then the Native Son joined in the laugh,though his attention was chiefly given to the discussion Andy andLuck were having about Ramon and his manner of using Luck's work asan opportunity to rob the bank, and the probable effect it wouldhave on the general standing of Luck and his company unless theymanaged to land the thieves in jail. Being half Mexican himself,the Native Son was sensitive upon the subject of Ramon, and almostas anxious to see Ramon in jail as was Luck himself.

So while Applehead and his boys were scenting danger and thenfinding themselves in the middle of it, Luck and his party rodealong absorbed in themselves and in the ultimate goal, which wasRamon. They saw nothing queer about the trail they followed, andthey saw no evidence of treachery anywhere. They rode with therifles slung under their right thighs and their six-shooters attheir hips, and their eyes roving casually over their immediatesurroundings while their minds roved elsewhere—not becausethey were growing careless, but because there was absolutelynothing to rouse their suspicions, now that they no longer hadApplehead along to preach danger and keep them keyed up to expectit.

They followed the tracks through a scattered grove of stuntedpinons, circled at fault for a few minutes in the rocks beyond, andthen picked up the trail. They were then in the narrow neck whichwas called the handle of the Devil's Frying-pan—and theywould have ridden unsuspectingly into the very Pan itself, had notthe Native Son's quick eyes caught a movement on the rim-rockacross the bare, rock-bottomed basin. He spoke to Luck about it,and Luck levelled his field glasses and glimpsed a skulking form upthere.

"Hunt yourselves some shelter, boys!" he cried in the sharp toneof warning. "We'll make sure who's ahead before we go anyfarther."

They ducked behind rocks or trees and piled off their horses ina hurry. And a scattered fusillade from the rim-rock ahead of themproved how urgent was their need.

For the first fifteen minutes or so they thought that they werefighting Ramon and his party, and their keenest emotions were builtlargely of resentment, which showed in the booming voice of BigMedicine when he said grimly:

"Well, I'd jest about as soon pack Ramon in dead, as lead 'im inalive 'n' kickin', by cripes! Which is him, d'yuh reckon?"

From behind a rock shield Luck was studying the ledge. "They'reInjuns—or there are Injuns in the bunch, at least," he toldthem after a moment. "See that sharp point sticking up straightahead? I saw an Injun peeking around the edge—to the south.You watch for him, Andy, and let him have it where he lives nexttime he sticks his head out." He swung the glasses slowly, takingevery inch of the rim in his field of vision. As he moved them henamed the man he wanted to watch each place where he had reason tosuspect that someone was hiding.

The disheartening part of it was that he needed about a dozenmore men than he had; for the rock wall which was the rim of theFrying-pan seemed alive with shooters who waited only for a fairtarget. Then the Native Son, crouched down between a rock and aclump of brush, turned his head to see what his horse was lookingat, back whence they had come.

"Look behind you, Luck," he advised with more calmness than onewould expect of a man in his straits. "They're back in the pines,too."

"Fight 'em off—and take care that your backs don't show tothose babies on the rim-rocks," he ordered instantly, thrusting hisglasses into their case and snatching his rifle from its boot onthe saddle. "They won't tackle coming across that bare hollow, evenif they can get down into it without breaking their necks. Happy,lead your horse in here between these rocks where mine is. Bud, seeif you can get the pack-horses over there outa sight among thosebushes and rocks. We'll hold 'em off while you fix thehorses—can't let ourselves be set afoot out here!"

"I-should-say—not!" Andy Green punctuated thesentence with a shot or two. "Say, I wish they'd quit sneakingaround in those trees that way, so a fellow could see where toshoot!"

A half hour dragged by. From the rim-rock came occasional shots,to which the besieged could not afford to reply, they were so fullyoccupied with holding back those who skulked among the trees. Thehorses, fancying perhaps that this was a motion-picture scene,dozed behind their rock-and-brush shelters and switchedapathetically at buzzing flies and whining bullets alike. Theirmasters crouched behind their bowlders and watched catlike for someopen demonstration, and fired when they had the slightest reason tobelieve that they would hit something besides scenery.

"Miguel must have upset their plans a little," Luck deducedafter a lull. "They set the stage for us down in that hollow, Iguess. You can see what we'd have been up against if we had riddenten rods farther, out away from these rocks and bushes."

"Aw, they wouldn't dast kill a bunch uh white men!" Happy Jackprotested, perhaps for his own comfort.

"You think they wouldn't?" Luck's voice was surcharged withsarcasm. "What do you think they're trying to do, then?"

"Well, by cripes, I hain't aimin' to give the gov'ment no job uhsetting on my remains, investigatin' why I was killed off!" BigMedicine asserted, and took a shot at a distant grimy Stetson toprove he meant what he said.

"Say, they'd have had asnap if we'd gone on, and letthese fellows back here in the trees close up behind us!" AndyGreen exclaimed suddenly, with a vividness of gesture that madeHappy Jack try to swallow his Adam's apple. "By gracious, it wouldhave been a regular rabbit-drive business. They could set in theshade and pick us off just as they darned pleased."

"Aw, is that there the cheerfullest thing you can think of tosay?" Happy Jack was sweating, with something more than desertheat.

"Why, no. The cheerfullest thing I can think of right now isthat Mig, here, don't ride with his eyes shut." He cast a hastyglance of gratitude toward the Native Son, who flushed under thesmooth brown of his cheeks while he fired at a moving bush ahundred yards back in the grove.

For another half hour nothing was gained or lost. The Indiansfired desultorily, splatting bits of lead here and there among therocks but hitting nobody. The Happy Family took a shot at everysymptom of movement in the grove, and toward the rim-rock they senta bullet now and then, just to assure the watchers up there thatthey were not forgotten, and as a hint that caution spelledsafety.

For themselves, the boys were amply protected there on the sideof the Frying-pan where the handle stretched out into the open landtoward the mountain. Perhaps here was once a torrent flowing fromthe basin-like hollow walled round with rock; at any rate, greatbowlders were scattered all along the rim as though spewed from thebasin by some mighty force of the bygone ages. The soil, as sooften happens in the West, was fertile to the very edge of theFrying-pan and young pinons and bushes had taken root there andmanaged to keep themselves alive with the snow-moisture of winter,in spite of the scanty rainfall the rest of the year.

The boys were amply protected, yes; but there was not a drop ofwater save what they had in their canteens, and there was no feedfor their horses unless they chose to nibble tender twigs off thebushes near them and call that food. There was, of course, thegrain in the packs, but there was neither time nor opportunity toget it out. If it came to a siege, Luck and his boys were in a badway, and they knew it. They were penned as well as protected therein that rocky, brushy neck. The most that they could do was todiscourage any rush from those back in the grove; as to gettingthrough that grove themselves, and out in the open, there was notone chance in a hundred that they could do it.

From the outside in to where they were entrenched was just atrifle easier. The Indians in the grove were all absorbed inwatching the edge of the Frying-pan and had their backs to theopen, never thinking that white men would be coming that way; forhad not the other party been decoyed around the farther end of thebig butte, and did not several miles and a barbed-wire fence liebetween?

So when Applehead and his three, coming in from the north,approached the grove, they did it under cover of a draw that hidthem from sight. From the shots that were fired, Applehead guessedthe truth; that Luck's bunch had sensed danger before they hadactually ridden into the Frying-pan itself, and that the Navajoswere trying to drive them out of the rocks, and were not makingmuch of a success of it.

"Now," Applehead instructed the three when they were as close asthey could get to the grove without being seen, "I calc'late aboutthe best thing we kin do, boys, is t' spur up our hosses and ridein amongst 'em shooting and a-hollerin'. Mebby we kin jestnatcherlay stampede 'em—but we've sure got t' git through 'n'git under cover mighty dang suddent, er they'll come to theirselvesan' wipe us clean off'n the map—if they's enough of 'em.These here that's comin' along after us, they'll help t' swell theparty, oncet they git here. I calc'late they figger 't we'rerunnin' head-on into a mess uh trouble, 'n' they don't want t'colleck any stray bullets—'n' that's why they've dropped backin the last half mile er so. Haze them pack hosses up this way,Pink, so'st they won't git caught up 'fore they git t' what therest air. Best use yore six-guns fer this, boys—that'll leaveye one hand t' guide yore hosses with, and they're handier allaround in close—work. Air ye ready? Then come on—follerme 'n' come a-whoopin'!"

A-whooping they came, up out of the draw and in among the treesas though they had a regiment behind them. Certain crouchingfigures jumped, sent startled glances behind them and ran likepartridges for cover farther on. Only one or two paused to send ashot at these charging fiends who seemed bent on riding them downand who yelled like devils turned loose from the pit. And beforethey had found safe covert on the farther fringes of the grove andwere ready to meet the onslaught, the clamor had ceased and thewhite men had joined those others among the rocks.

So now there were nine men cornered here on the edge of theFrying-pan, with no water for their horses and not much hope ofgetting out of there.

"Darn you, Applehead, why didn't you keep out of this mess?"Luck demanded with his mouth drawn down viciously at the cornersand his eyes warm with affection and gratitude. "What possessedyour fool heart to ride into this trap?"

"We-ell, dang it, we had t' ride som'ers, didn't we?" Applehead,safe behind a bowlder, pulled off his greasy, gray Stetson andpolished his bald head disconcertedly. "Had a bunch uh Navvieshangin' t' our heels like tumbleweed—'n' we been doin' someRIDIN', now, I'm a tellin' ye! 'F Lite, here, hadn't kep' droppin'one now an' then fur the rest t' devour, I calc'late we'd bin etup, a mile er two back!"

Lite looked up from shoving more cartridges into hisrifle-magazine. "If we hadn't had a real, simon-pure go-getter toboss the job," he drawled, "I reckon all the shooting I didwouldn't have cut any ice. Ain't that right, boys?"

Pink, resting his rifle in a niche of the boulder and moving ithere and there trying to fix his sights on a certain green sweaterback in the woods that he had glimpsed a minute before, noddedassent. "You're durn tootin' it's right!" he testified.

Weary looked shining-eyed at Applehead's purple face. "Sure,that's right!" he emphasized. "And I don't care how much of a trapyou call this, it isn't a patching to the one Applehead busted usout of. He's what I call a Real One, boys."

"Aw, shet yore dang head 'n' git yore rifles workin'!" Appleheadblurted. "This yere ain't no time fer kiddin', 'n' I'm tellin' yuhstraight. What's them fellers acrost the Fryin'-pan think they'retryin' t' do? Luck le's you'n me make a few remarks over that way,'n' leave the boys t' do some gun-talk with these here babiesbehind us. Dang it, if I knowed of a better place 'n' what this isfer holdin' 'em off, I'd say make a run fer it. But I don't 'n'that's fact. Yuh musta sprung the trap 'fore yuh got inside, 'causethey shore aimed t' occupy this nest uh rocks theirselves, with youfellers down there in the Fryin'-pan where they could git atyuh.

"Thar's one of 'em up on the rim-rock—see'im?—standin' thar, by granny, like he was darin' somebody t'cut loose! Here, Lite, you spill some lead up thar. We'll learn 'imt' act up smart—"

"Hey, hold on!" Luck grabbed Lite's arm as he was raising hisrifle for a close shot at the fellow. "Don't shoot! Don't you see?Thaf's the peace-sign he's making!"

"Well, now, dang it, he better be makin' peace-signs!" growledApplehead querulously, and sat down heavily on a shelf of the rock."'Cause Lite, here, shore woulda tuk an ear off'n him in anotherminnute, now I'm tellin' ye!"

XIX. — PEACE TALK

ACROSS the Frying-pan an Indian stood boldly outupon a jutting point of rock and raised a hand in the sweepingupward motion of the peace-sign. The questing bullets that cameseeking for bone and flesh among the rocks and bushes came no morewhen the signal was passed from those who saw to those farther backwho could not see the figure silhouetted against the brilliant blueof the sky. A moment he stood, made the sign again, and waited.

"That's peace-sign, sure as you're born!" Luck criedbreathlessly, and went scrambling through the bushes to where hemight stand in the open, on the very rim of the basin. Appleheadyelled to him to come back and not make a dang fool of himself, butLuck gave no heed to the warning. He stood out in the blazingsunshine and gave the peace-sign in reply.

On the-rim rock the Indian stood motionless while he might havetaken three or four breaths. Then with his hand he gave the signfor "pow-wow" and waited again.

Luck, his pulse thrilling at the once familiar gesture which histribal "father," old chief Big Turkey, used to give when he camestalking up for his daily confab with his adopted son, gave backthe sign with a hand that trembled noticeably. Whereupon the Indianon the farther rim turned and began dignifiedly to climb through arift in the ledge down into the Frying-pan.

"He wants a pow-wow," Luck called back to the bunch. "Youfellows stay where you're at. I'm going out there in the middle andtalk to him."

"Now, Luck, don't let 'em make a dang monkey outa ye," Appleheadprotested anxiously. "Injuns is tricky—"

"That's all right. You can keep a couple of rifles sighted onthat old chief—that's what he is, I take it, from his actionsand his talking 'sign' and then if they pot me, you can pot him.But they won't. I know Injuns better than you do, Applehead. Hejust wants to talk things over—and I'm certainly willing thathe should!"

"Well, Lite, you keep your sights lined up on that Injun, then.'N' if they's a crooked move made towards Luck, you cutloose—'n' say! You shoot to kill, this time!" He shook hisfinger in Lite's face admonishingly. "'S all right t' nip 'em here'n' take a hunk out there jest t' kinda take their minds off'nus—-'s all right enough so fur, 'n' I ain't kickin' none'cause yuh ain't killed off yuh hit. But if this here's a trick t'git Luck, youkill that Injun. 'N' if you don't do it I'llgo out there m'self 'n' choke the dang skunk t' death!"

"I'll kill him—don't worry about that," Litepromised—and the look in his eyes told them that the Indianwas doomed at the first sign of treachery.

"You fellers wanta keep an eye peeled fer them in the grove,"Applehead warned. "We ain't goin' t' give 'em no chanst t' sneak up'n' skulp us whilst we're watchin' Luck 'n' his dang-foolpow-wowin' out there in the middle."

"Aw, gwan! They wouldn't DAST skelp white folks!" There was awail in the voice of Happy Jack.

"They dast if they git the chanst," Applehead retortedfretfully. "'N' if you don't wanta loose that there red mop uhyourn ye better keep yer eyes open, now I'm tellin' yuh!" Herefilled his rifle magazine and took up his station beside LiteAvery where he could watch the Frying-pan through the busheswithout exposing himself to a treacherous shot from therim-rock.

At the foot of the sandstone ledge the Indian stood with hisbright red blanket wrapped around him watching Luck. On his ownside Luck stood just clear of the rock huddle and watched theIndian. Presently he of the red blanket lifted his hand in thegesture of peace, and started deliberately out across the barelittle basin. From his own side, Luck, returning again the gesture,went out to meet him. In the center they met, and eyed each otherfrankly. Still eyeing Luck, the old Indian put out his hand Indianfashion, and Luck gave it one downward shake and let go.

"How?" he grunted; and in the Indian custom of preparing for aleisurely pow-wow as he had been taught by the Sioux, he squattedupon his boot heels and reached for his cigarette papers andtobacco.

"How?" replied the Navajo, a flicker of interest in his eyes atthese little Indian touches in Luck's manner, and sat himself downcross-legged on the hot sand. Luck rolled a cigarette and passedthe "makings" to the other, who received it gravely and proceededto help himself. Luck scratched a match on a stone that lay besidehim, lighted the Indian's cigarette and then his own, took fourpuffs and blew the smoke upward, watching it spread and drift away,and made the gesture that meant "Our pow-wow will be good," as hehad seen the Sioux medicine men do before a council. Afterwards hebegan placidly to smoke and meditate.

From his manner you would never have guessed that his life andthe lives of the Happy Family hung upon the outcome of thismeeting. You would not have surmised that his stomach was gnawingat his nerves, sending out insistently the call for food; or thathis thirst tormented him; or that the combination of hunger, heat,thirst and mental strain had bred a jumping headache that wasknotting the veins in his temples. All these nagging miseries besethim—but he knew the ways of the Indians and he meant toimpress this old man first of all with his plains-Indian training;so he schooled himself to patience.

The Indian eyed him furtively from under heavy eyebrows while hesmoked. And the sun beat savagely down upon the sand of that basin,and Luck's vision blurred with the pain that throbbed behind hiseyes. But the facial discipline of the actor was his to command,and he permitted his face to give no sign of what he felt orthought.

The Indian leaned slowly, lifted a brown hand, made a studiedgesture or two and waited, his eyes fixed unwinkingly upon Luck. Itwas as if he were saying to himself: "We'll see if this white mancan speak in the sign-talk of the Indians."

Luck lifted his two hands, drew them slowly apart to say that hehad come a long way. Then, using only his hands—sometimes hisfingers only—he began to talk; to tell the old Navajo that heand eight other white men were sheriffs and that they were chasingfour white men (since he had no sign that meant Mexican) who hadstolen money; that they had come from Albuquerque—and therehe began to draw in the sand between them a crude but thoroughlyunderstandable sketch of the trail they had taken and the campsthey had made, and the distance they believed the four thieves hadtravelled ahead of them.

He marked the camp where their horses had been stolen from themand told how long they had waited there until the horses of theirown accord returned to camp; thirteen horses, he explained to theold Navajo. He drew a rough square to indicate the square butte,sketched the fork of the trail there and told how four men hadturned to the north on a false trail, while he and four others hadgone around the southern end of the hill. He calmly made plain thatat the end of both false trails a trap had been laid, that Indianshad fired upon white men and for no just cause. Why was this go?Why had Indians surrounded them back there in the grove and triedto kill them? Why were Indians shooting at them from the ledge ofrocks that circled this little basin? They had no quarrel with theNavajos. They were chasing thieves, to take them to jail.

Folded swelteringly in his red blanket the old Indian sat humpedforward a little, smoking slowly his cigarette and studying thesketch Luck had drawn for him. With aching head and parched throatand hungry stomach, Luck sat cross-legged on the hot sand andwaited, and would not let his face betray any emotion at all. Up onthe rim-rock brown faces peered down steadfastly at the pow-wow.And back among the rocks and bushes the Happy Family waitedrestively with eyes turning in all directions guarding againsttreachery; and Lite, whose bullets always went straight to the spotwhere they were aimed, stood and stared fixedly over his riflesights at the red-blanketed figure squatted in the sand and kepthis finger crooked upon the trigger. Beside him Applehead fidgetedand grumbled and called Luck names for being so dang slow, andwondered if those two out there meant to sit and chew the rag allday.

The Indian leaned and traced Luck's trail slowly with hisfinger. Did the four white men come that way? he asked in sign. Andthen, had Luck seen them? Was he sure that he was following thefour who had stolen money in Albuquerque?

Come to think of it, Luck was not sure to the point of beingable to take oath that it was so. He traced again where thehoofprints had been discovered near the stalled automobile, andsigned that the six horses they believed to have belonged to thefour who had taken two horses packed with food andblankets—and the stolen money.

Then suddenly Luck remembered that, for proof of his story, hehad a page of the Evening Herald in his pocket, torn from a copy hehad bought on the streets the evening after the robbery. He pulledthe folded paper out, spread it before the other and pointed to thearticle that told of the robbery. "Call some young man of yourtribe who can read," he signed. "Let him read and tell you if Ihave spoken the truth."

Now, unless Applehead or some other hot-head spoiled things,Luck believed that things would smooth down beautifully. There hadbeen some misunderstanding, evidently—else the Indians wouldnever have manifested all this old-fashioned hostility.

The blanketed one showed himself a true diplomat. "Call one ofyour white men, that there may be two and two," he gestured. And headded, with the first words he had spoken since they met, "Habloespanol?"

Well, if he spoke Spanish, thought Luck, why the deuce hadn't hedone it at first? But there is no fathoming the reticence of anIndian—and Luck, by a sudden impulse, hid his own knowledgeof the language. He stood up and turned toward the rocks, cuppedhis hands around his lips and called for the Native Son. "And leaveyour rifle at home," he added as an afterthought and in theinterests of peace.

The Indian turned to the rim-rock, held up the fragment ofnewspaper and called for one whom he called Juan. Presently Juan'sStetson appeared above the ledge, and Juan himself scrambledhastily down the rift and came to them, grinning with his lips andshowing a row of beautifully even teeth, and asking suspiciousquestions with his black eyes that shone through narrowed lids.

Miguel, arriving just then from the opposite direction, sizedhim up with one heavy-lashed glance and nodded negligently. He hadleft his rifle behind him as he had been told, but his six-shooterhung inside the waistband of his trousers where he could grip itwith a single drop of his hand. The Native Son, lazy as he looked,was not taking any chances.

The old Indian explained in Navajo to the young man who eyed thetwo white men while he listened. Of the blanket-vending,depot-haunting type was this young man, with a ready smile and aquick eye for a bargain and a smattering of English learned in hisyouth at a mission, and a larger vocabulary of Mexican that lenthim fluency of speech when the mood to talk was on him. Half of hishair was cut so that it hung even with his ear-lobes. At the backit was long and looped up in the way a horse's tail is looped inmuddy weather, and tied with a grimy red ribbon wound round andround it. He wore a green-and-white roughneck sweater broadlystriped, and the blue overalls that inevitably follow Americancivilization into the wild places.

"'S hot day," he announced unemotionally, and took the paperwhich the red-blanketed one held out to him. His air ofcondescension could not hide the fact that behind his pride atbeing able to read print he was unhappily aware also of hislimitations in the accomplishment. Along the scare-head Luck hadindicated, his dirty forefinger moved slowly while he spelled outthe words. "A-a-bank rob!" he read triumphantly, and repeated thestatement in Spanish. After that he mumbled a good deal of it, thelonger words arresting his finger while he struggled with thesyllables. But he got the sense of it nevertheless, as Luck andMiguel knew by the version he gave in Spanish to the old Indian,with now and then a Navajo word to help out.

When he came to the place where Ramon Chavez and Luis Rojas werenamed as the thieves, he gave a grunt and looked up at Luck andMiguel, read in their faces that these were the men they sought,and grinned.

"Me, I know them feller," he declared unexpectedly. "Dat day Iseen them feller. They go—"

The old Indian touched him on the shoulder, and Juan turned andrepeated the statement in Spanish. The old man's eyes went to Luckunderstandingly, while he asked Juan a question in the Navajotongue, and afterwards gave a command. He turned his eyes upon theNative Son and spoke in Spanish. "The men you want did not comethis way," he said gravely. "Juan will tell."

"Yes, I know dat Ramon Chavez. I seen him dat day. I'm start forhome, an' I seen Ramon Chavez an' dat Luis Rojas an' one whitefeller I'm don't know dat feller. They don't got red car. They gotbig, black car. They come outa corral—scare my horse. They go'cross railroad. I go 'cross rio. One red car pass me. I go along,bimeby I pass red car in sand. Ramon Chavez, he don't go in datcar. I don't know them feller. Ramon Chavez he go 'cross railroadin big black car."

"Then who was it we've been trailing out this way?" Luck askedthe question in Spanish and glanced from one brown face to theother.

The older Indian shifted his moccasined feet in the sand andlooked away. "Indians," he said in Mexican. "You follow, Indiansthink you maybe take them away—put 'm in jail. All friends ofthem Indians pretty mad. They come fight you. I hear, I come tofind out what's fighting about."

Luck gazed at him stupidly for a moment until the full meaningof the statement seeped through the ache into his brain. He heaveda great sigh of relief, looked at the Native Son and laughed.

"The joke's on us, I guess," he said. "Go back and tell that tothe boys. I'll be along in a minute."

Juan, grinning broadly at what he considered a very good joke onthe nine white men who had traveled all this way for nothing, wentback to explain the mistake to his fellows on the ledge. The oldIndian took it upon himself to disperse the Navajos in the grove,and just as suddenly as the trouble started it wasstopped—and the Happy Family, if they had been at allinclined to belittle the danger of their position, were made torealize it when thirty or more Navajos came flocking in from allquarters. Many of them could—and did—talk Englishunderstandably, and most of them seemed inclined to appreciate thejoke. All save those whom Lite had "nipped and nicked" in thecourse of their flight from the rock ridge to the Frying-Pan. Thesewere inclined to be peevish over their hurts and to nurse them insullen silence while Luck, having a rudimentary knowledge ofmedicine and surgery, gave them what first-aid treatment waspossible.

Applehead, having plenty of reasons for avoiding publicity, hadgone into retirement in the shade of a clump of brush, with Lite tokeep him company while he smoked a meditative pipe or two andstudied the puzzle of Ramon's probable whereabouts.

"Can't trust a Navvy," he muttered in a discreet undertone toLite. "I've fit 'em b'fore now, 'n' Iknow. 'N' you kin bedang sure they ain't fergot the times I've fit 'em, neither!There's bucks millin' around here that's jes' achin' fer a chanstat me, t' pay up fer some I've killed off when I was shurf 'n'b'fore. So you keep 'n eye peeled, Lite, whilst I think out thisyere dang move uh Ramon's. 'N' if you see anybody sneakin' up onme, you GIT him. I cain't watch Navvyies 'n' mill things over in m'haid at the same time."

Lite grinned and wriggled over so that his back was against arock. He laid his six-shooter ostentatiously across his lap and gotout his tobacco and papers. "Go ahead and think, Applehead," heconsented placidly. "I'll guard your scalp-lock."

Speaking literally, Applehead had no scalplock to guard. But hedid have a shrewd understanding of the mole-like workings of thecriminal mind; and with his own mind free to work on the problem,he presently declared that he would bet he could land Ramon Chavezin jail within a week, and sent Lite after Luck.

"I've got it figgered out," he announced when Luck came over tohis retreat. "If Ramon crossed the railroad he was aimin' t' hitout across the mesa to the mountains 'n' beyond. He wouldn't gosouth, 'cause he could be traced among the Injunpueblos—they's a thousand eyes down that way b'fore he'd gitt' wild country. He'd keep away from the valley country—er Iwould, if I was him. I know dang well wharI'd hit fer if Iwas makin' a gitaway 'n' didn't come off over here—'n' Ishore would keep outa Navvy country, now I'm tellin' yuh! No, sir,I'd take out t'other way, through Hell Cañon er Tijeras, 'n' I'dmake fer the Jemes country. That thar's plenty wild 'n'rough—'n' come t' think of it, the Chavez boys owns quite abig grant, up in there som'ers, 'n' have got men in their pay upthar, runnin' their cattle. Ramon could lay low fer a dang longwhile up thar 'n' be safer'n what he would be out amongststrangers.

"'N' another thing, I'd plan t' have some hosses stashed out inone uh them cañons, 'n' I'd mebby use a autymobile t' git to 'em,'n' send the car back t' town—if I could trust the fellerthat drove it—outa my sight. 'N', Luck, if you'll take myadvice, you'll hit out t'wards the Jemes country. I know every footuh the way, 'n' we kin make it in a coupla days by pushin' thehosses. 'N' I'll bet every dang hoof I own 't we round up thatbunch over thar som'ers."

"You lead out, then," Luck told him promptly. "I'm willing toadmit you're better qualified to take charge of the outfit than Iam. You know the country—and you've fit Indians."

"We-ell, now, you're dang right I have! 'N' if some them bucksdon't go off 'n' mind their own business, I'll likely fight a fewmore! You shoo 'em outa camp, Luck, 'n' start 'em about their owndang business. 'N' we'll eat a bite 'n' git on about our own. If weshow up any grub whilst this bunch is hangin' around we'll have t'feed 'em—'n' you know dang well we ain't got enough skurcelyfer the Jemes trip as it is."

"I've been handing out money as it is till I'm about broke,"Luck confessed, "making presents to those fellows that came in withbullets in their legs and arms. Funny nobody got hit in thebody—except one poor devil that got shot in theshoulder."

"We-ell, now, you kin blame Lite's dang tender heart fer thatthere," Applehead accused, pulling at his sunbrowned mustache. "Wewas all comin' on the jump, 'n' so was the Injuns; 'n' it was purtylong range 'n' nobody but Lite could hit 'n Injun t' save his soul.'N' Lite, he wouldn't shoot t' kill—he jes' kep' on nippin'an' nickin', 'n' shootin' a hoss now an' then. I wisht I was theexpert shot Lite is—I'd shore a got me a few Navvies backthere, now I'm tellin' yuh!"

"Bud's got a bullet in his arm," Luck said, "but the bone wasn'thit, so he'll make out, and one of the pack-horses was shot in theear. We got off mighty lucky, and I'm certainly glad Lite didn'tget careless. Cost me about fifty dollars to square us as it is.You stay where you are, Applehead, till I get rid of the Indians.The old fellow acts like he feels he ought to stick along tillwe're outa here. He's kind of taken a notion to me because I cantalk sign, and he seems to want to make sure we don't mix it againwith the tribe. Some of them are kinda peeved, all right. You'vegot no quarrel with this old fellow, have you? He's a big-leaguemedicine man in the tribe, and his Spanish name is Mariano PabloMontoya. Know him?"

"No I don't, 'n' I don't keer to neither," Applehead retortedcrossly. "Shoo 'em off, Luck, so's we kin eat. My belly's shore afloppin' agin m' backbone, 'n' I'm tellin' yuh right!"

XX. — LUIS ROJAS TALKS

THREE days of hiding by day in sequestered littlegroves or deep, hidden cañons, with only Luis Rojas to bear hercompany—Luis Rojas whom she did not trust and thereforewatched always from under her long straight lashes, with obliqueglances when she seemed to be gazing straight before her; threenights of tramping through rough places where often the horses mustpause and feel carefully for space to set their feet. Roads therewere, but Luis avoided roads as though they carried the plague.When he must cross one he invariably turned back and brushed outtheir footprints—until he discovered that Annie-Many-Ponieswas much cleverer at this than he was; often he smoked a cigarettewhile Annie covered their trail. Three days and three nights, andRamon was not there where they stopped for the third day.

"We go slow," Luis explained nervously because of the look inthe black, unreadable eyes of this straight, slim Indian girl whowas so beautiful—and so silent. "They go muy fas', Ramon an'Beel. Poco tiempo—sure, we fin' dem little soon."

Annie-Many-Ponies did not betray by so much as a quiver of aneyelash that Luis had mentioned Bill unwittingly. But she hid thename away in her memory, and all that day she sat and pondered overthe meager facts that had come her way, and with the needle of hersuspicion she wove them together patiently until the pattern wasalmost complete.

Ramon and Bill—what Bill, save Bill Holmes, would be withRamon? Ramon and Bill Holmes—memory pictured them again bythe rock in the moonlight, muttering in Spanish mostly, mutteringmystery always. Ramon and Bill Holmes—she remembered the sly,knowing glances between these two at "location" though theyscarcely seemed on speaking terms. Ramon and Bill and thismysterious night-travelling, when there should be no trouble and nomystery at all beyond the house of the priest! So much trouble overthe marriage of an Indian girl and a young Mexican cattle king?Annie-Many-Ponies was not so stupid as to believe that; she hadseen too much of civilization in her wanderings with the show, andher work in pictures. She had seen man and maid "make marriage," inpictures and in reality. There should be no trouble, no mysteriousfollowing of Ramon by night.

Something evil there was, since Bill Holmes was with Ramon.Annie-Many-Ponies knew that it was so. Perhaps—perhaps theevil was against Wagalexa Conka! Perhaps—her heart forgot tobeat when the thought stabbed her brain—perhaps they hadkilled Wagalexa Conka! It might be so, if he had suspected herflight and had followed Ramon, and they had fought.

In the thick shade of a pinon Luis slept with his face to theground, his forehead pressed upon his folded arms.Annie-Many-Ponies got up silently and went and stood beside him,looking down at him as though she meant to wrest the truth from hisbrain. And Luis, feeling in his sleep the intensity of her gaze,stirred uneasily, yawned and sat up, looking about himbewilderedly. His glance rested on the girl, and he sprang to hisfeet and faced her.

Annie-Many-Ponies smiled her little, tantalizing, wistfullyinviting smile—the smile which Luck had whimsically calledheart-twisting. "I awful lonesome," she murmured, and sat down withher back nestling comfortably against a grassy bank. "You talk. Inot lets you sleep all time. You think I not good for talk to?"

"Me, I not tell w'at I'm theenk," Luis retorted with a crooningnote, and sat down facing her. "Ramon be mad me."

Annie-Many-Ponies looked at him, her eyes soft and heavy withthat languorous look which will quickest befuddle the sense of aman. "You tell; Ramon not hear," she hinted. "Ramon, he got plentytrobles for thinking about." She smiled again. "Ramon plenty longways off. He got Bill Holmes for talking to. You talk to me."

How he did it, why he did it, Luis Rojas could never explainafterwards. Something there was in her smile, in her voice, thatbewitched him. Something there was that made him think she knew andapproved of the thing Ramon had planned. He made swift, Spanishlove to Annie-Many-Ponies, who smiled upon him but would not lethim touch her hand—and so bewitched him the more. He madelove—but also he talked. He told Annie-Many-Ponies all thatshe wished him to tell; and some things that she had never dreamedand that she shrank from hearing.

For he told her of the gold they had stolen, and how they hadmade it look as though Luck Lindsay had planned the theft. He toldher that he loved her—which did not interest hergreatly—and he told her that Ramon would never marryher—which was like a knife thrust to her soul. Ramon had manyloves, said Luis, and he was true to none; never would he marry awoman to rule his life and make him trouble—it were easier tomake love and then laugh and ride away. Luis was "muy s'prised"that Annie-Many-Ponies had ever believed that Ramon would marryher, beautiful though she was, charming though she was, altogetherirresistible though she was—Luis became slightly incoherenthere and lasped into swift rolling Spanish words which she did notunderstand.

Luis, before the sun went down and it was time to eat supper andgo on, became so thoroughly bewitched that he professed himselfeager to let his share of the gold go, and to takeAnnie-Many-Ponies to a priest and marry her—if she wishedvery much to be married by a priest. In the middle of hisexaltation, Annie-Many-Ponies chilled him with the look she gavehim.

"You big fool," she told him bluntly. "I not so fool like that.I go to Ramon—and plenty gold! I think you awful fool. Youmake me tired!"

Luis was furious enough for a minute to do herviolence—but Annie-Many-Ponies killed that impulse also withthe cold contempt in her eyes. She was not afraid of him, and likean animal he dared not strike where he could not inspire fear. Hemuttered a Mexican oath or two and went mortifiedly away to leadthe horses down to the little stream where they might drink. Thegirl was right—he was a fool, he told himself angrily; andsulked for hours.

Fool or not, he had told Annie-Many-Ponies what she wanted toknow. He had given food to her brooding thoughts—food thatrevived swiftly and nourished certain traits lying dormant in hernature, buried alive under the veneer of white man'scivilization—as we are proud to call it.

The two ate in silence, and in silence they saddled the horsesand fared forth again in their quest of Ramon—who had thegold which Annie-Many-Ponies boldly asserted was an added lure."The monee—always the man wins that has muchos monee." Luismuttered often to himself as he rode into the dusk. Behind himAnnie-Many-Ponies walked and led the black horse that bore all herworldly possessions bound to the saddle. The little black dogpadded patiently along at his heels.

XXI. — "WAGALEXACONKA—COLA!"

"SO good little girl yoh are to true' Ramon! Now Iknows for sure yoh lov' me moch as I lov' yoh! Now we go littleride more to my house high up in the pinons—then we be sohappy like two birds in nes'. Firs' we rest ourselves, querida mia.This good place for res', my sweetheart that comes so far to bewith Ramon. To-morrow we go to my house—to nes' of my lovedone. Thees cabin, she's very good little nes' ontiltomorrow—yoh theenk so?"

Annie-Many-Ponies, sitting beside the doorway of the primitivelittle log cabin where the night-journeys with Luis had ended,looked up into Ramon's flushed face with her slow smile. But hereyes were two deep, black wells whose depths he could notfathom.

"Where them priest you promise?" she asked, her voice lowered toits softest Indian tone. "Now I think we make plenty marriage; thenwe go for live in your house."

Ramon turned and caught her unexpectedly in his arms. "Ah, nowyou spik foolish talk. Yoh not trus' Ramon! Why yoh talk pries',pries' all time? Lov', she's plenty pries' for us. Pries' she don'make us more lov' each other—pries' don' make ushappy—we like birds that make nes' in tree-tops. Yoh thinkthey mus' have pries' for help them be happy? Lov'—that'splenty for me."

Annie-Many-Ponies drew herself away from his embrace, but shedid it gently. Bill Holmes, coming up from the spring, furnishedexcuse enough, and Ramon let her go.

Ramon twisted the points of his black mustache and regarded heraskance, smiling crookedly. "Yoh 'fraid for trus' me, that's why Ipromise," he said at last. "Me, I don' need padre to mumble-mumblefoolish words before I can be happy. Yoh 'fraid of Luck Leen'sey,that's why I promise. Now yoh come way up here, so Luck don' matterno more. Yoh be happy weeth me."

"You promise," Annie-Many-Ponies repeated, a sullen notecreeping into her voice.

Bill Holmes, lounging up to the doorway, glanced from one to theother and laughed. "What's the matter, Ramon?" he bantered. "Can'tyou square it with your squaw? Go after her with a club, why don'tyou? That's what they're used to."

Ramon did not make any reply whatever, and Bill gave anotherchuckling laugh and joined Luis, who was going to take the gaunthorses to a tiny meadow beyond the hill. As he went he saidsomething that made Luis look back over his shoulder and laugh.

Annie-Many-Ponies lifted her head and stared straight at Ramon.He did not meet her eyes, nor did he show any resentment of BillHolmes' speech; yet he had sworn that he loved her, that he wouldbe proud to have her for his wife. She, the daughter of a chief,had been insulted in his presence, and he had made no protest,shown no indignation.

"You promise priest for making us marriage," she reiteratedcoldly, as if she meant to force his real self into the open. "Youpromise you put ring of gold for wedding on my finger, like whitewoman's got."

Ramon's laugh was not pleasant. "Yoh theenk marry squaw?" hesneered. "Luck Leen'sey, he don't marry yoh. Why yoh theenk I marryyoh? You be good, Ramon lov' yoh. Buy yoh lots pretty theengs, metreat yoh fine. Yoh lucky girl, yoh bet. Yoh don't be foolish nomore. Yoh run away, be my womans. W'at yoh theenk? Go back,perhaps? Yoh theenk Luck Leen'sey take yoh back? You gone off withRamon Chavez, he say; yoh stay weeth Ramon then. Yoh Ramon's womannow. Yoh not be foolish like yoh too good for be kees. Luck, hekees yoh many times, I bet! Yoh don' play good girl no more forRamon—oh-h, no! That joke she's w'at yoh call ches'nut. Wedon' want no more soch foolish talk, or else maybe I do w'at BillHolmes says she's good for squaw!"

"You awful big liar," Annie-Many-Ponies stated with a calm,terrific frankness. "You plenty big thief. You fool meplenty—now I don't be fool no more. You so mean yoh think allmens like you. You think all girls bad girls. You awful big fool,you think I stay for you. I go."

Ramon twisted his mustache and laughed at her. "Now yoh sopretty, when yoh mad," he teased. "How yoh go? All yoh theengs incabin—monee, clothes, grob—how yoh go? Yoh madnow—pretty soon Ramon he makes yoh glad! Shame for soch crosswords—soch cross looks! Now I don't talk till yoh be goodgirl, and says yoh lov' Ramon. I don't let yoh go, neither. Yohdon't get far way—I promise yoh for true. I breeng yoh back,sweetheart, I promise I breeng yoh back! Yoh don't want to go nomore w'en I'm through weeth yoh—I promise yoh! Yoh theenk Ilet yoh go? O-oh-h, no! Ramon not let yoh get far away!"

In her heart she knew that he spoke at last the truth; that thiswas the real Ramon whom she had never before seen. To every womanmust come sometime the bitter awakening from her dreamworld to thereal world in all its sordidness and selfishness.Annie-Many-Ponies, standing there looking at Ramon—Ramon wholaughed at her goodness—knew now what the future that hadlain behind the mountains held in store for her. Not happiness,surely; not the wide ring of gold that would say she was Ramon'swife. Luis was right. He had spoken the truth, though she hadbelieved that he lied when he said Ramon would never marry a woman.He would love and laugh and ride away, Luis had told her. Well,then—

"Shunka Chistala!" she called softly to the little black dog,that came eagerly, wagging his burr-matted tail. She laid her handon its head when the dog jumped up to greet her. She smiled faintlywhile she fondled its silky, flapping ears.

"Why you all time pat that dam-dog?" Ramon flashed outjealously. "You don't pet yoh man what lov' yoh!"

"Dogs don't lie," said Annie-Many-Ponies coldly, and walkedaway. She did not look back, she did not hurry, though she musthave known that Ramon in one bound could have stopped her with hisman's strength. Her head was high, her shoulders were straight, hereyes were so black the pupils did not show at all, and a film ofinscrutability veiled what bitter thoughts were behind them.

As it had been with Luis so it was now with Ramon. Her utterdisregard of him held him back from touching her. He stood withwrath in his eyes and let her go—and to hide his weaknessfrom her strength he sent after her a sneering laugh and words thatwere like a whip.

"All right—jus' for now I let you ron," he jeered. "Bimebyshe's different. Bimeby I show yoh who's boss. I make yoh cry forRamon be good to yoh!"

Annie-Many-Ponies did not betray by so much as a glance that sheheard him. But had he seen her face he would have been startled atthe look his words brought there. He would have been startled andperhaps he would have been warned. For never had she carried soclearly the fighting look of her forefathers who went out tobattle. With the little black dog at her heels she climbed a small,round-topped hill that had a single pine like a cockade growingfrom the top.

For ten minutes she stood there on the top and stared away tothe southeast, whence she had come to keep her promise to Ramon.Never, it seemed to her, had a girl been so alone. In all the worldthere could not be a soul so bitter.Liar—thief—betrayer of women—and she had left theclean, steadfast friendship of her brother Wagalexa Conka for suchhuman vermin as Ramon Chavez! She sat down, and with her facehidden in her shawl and her slim body rocking back and forth inweird rhythm to her wailing, she crooned the mourning song of theOmaha. Death of her past, death of her place among good people,death of her friendship, death of hope—she sat there with herface turned toward the far-away, smiling mesa where she had beenhappy, and wailed softly to herself as the women of her tribe hadwailed when sorrow came to them in the days that were gone.

All through the afternoon she sat there with her back to thelone pine tree and her face turned toward the southeast, while thelittle black dog lay at her feet and slept. From the cabin Ramonwatched her, stubbornly waiting until she would come down to him ofher own accord. She would come—of that he was sure. She wouldcome if he convinced her that he would not go up and coax her tocome. Ramon had known many girls who were given to sulking overwhat he considered their imaginary wrongs, and he was very surethat he knew women better than they knew themselves. She wouldcome, give her time enough, and she could not fling at him then anytaunt that he had been over-eager. Certainly she wouldcome—she was a woman!

But the shadow of the pines lengthened until they lay like longfingers across the earth; and still she did not come. Bill Holmesand Luis, secure in the knowledge that Ramon was on guard againstany unlooked-for visitors, slept heavily on the crude bunks in thecabin. Birds began twittering animatedly as the beat of the daycooled and they came forth from their shady retreats—andstill Annie-Many-Ponies sat on the little hilltop, within easycalling distance of the cabin, and never once looked down that way.Still the little black dog curled at her feet and slept. For allthe movement these two made, they might have been of stone; thepine above was more unquiet than they.

Ramon, watching her while he smoked many cigarettes, becamefilled with a vague uneasiness. What was she thinking? What did shemean to do? He began to have faint doubts of her coming down tohim. He began to be aware of something in her nature that wasunlike those other women; something more inflexible, more silent,something that troubled him even while he told himself that she waslike all the rest and he would be her master.

"Bah! She thinks to play with me, Ramon! Then I will go up and Iwill show her—she will follow weeping at my heels—likethat dog of hers that some day I shall kill!"

He got up and threw away his cigarette, glanced within and sawthat Bill and Luis still slept, and started up the hill to wherethat motionless figure sat beneath the pine and kept her faceturned from him. It would be better, thought Ramon, to come uponher unawares, and so he went softly and very slowly, placing eachfoot as carefully as though he were stalking a wild thing of thewoods.

Annie-Many-Ponies did not hear him coming. All her heart wasyearning toward that far away mesa. "Wagalexa Conka—cola!"she whispered, for "cola" is the Sioux word for friend. Aloud shedared not speak the word, lest some tricksy breeze carry it to himand fill him with anger because she had betrayed his friendship."Wagalexa Conka—cola! cola!"

Friendship that was dead—but she yearned for it the more.And it seemed to her as she whispered, that Wagalexa Conka wasvery, very near. Her heart felt his nearness, and her eyessoftened. The Indian look—the look of her fightingforefathers—drifted slowly from her face as fog drifts awaybefore the sun. He was near—perhaps he was dead and hisspirit had come to take her spirit by the hand and call hercola—friend. If that were so, then she wished that her spiritmight go with his spirit, up through all that limitless blue, awayand away and away, and never stop, and never tire and never feelanything but friendship like warm, bright sunshine!

Down at the cabin a sound—a cry, a shout—startledher. She brushed her hand across her eyes and looked down. There,surrounding the cabin, were the Happy Family, and old Appleheadwhom she hated because he hated her. And in their midst stood BillHolmes and Luis, and the setting sun shone on somethingbright—like great silver rings—that clasped theirwrists.

Coming up the hill toward her was Wagalexa Conka, climbingswiftly, looking up as he came. Annie-Many-Ponies sprang to herfeet, startling the little black dog that gave a yelp ofastonishment. Came he in peace? She hesitated, watching himunwinkingly. Something swelled in her chest until she could hardlybreathe, and then fluttered there like a prisoned bird."Cola!" she gasped, just under her breath, and raised herhand in the outward, sweeping gesture that spoke peace.

She whirled and faced Ramon, whose eyes blazed hate and murderand whose tongue spoke the foulness of his soul. He flung out hisarm fiercely and thrust her aside. "Me, I kill that dam—"

He did not say any more, and the six-shooter he had levelled atLuck dropped from his nerveless hand. Like a coiled adder,Annie-Many-Ponies had struck. Like an avenging spirit she pulledthe knife free and held it high over her head, facing Luck whostared up at her from below. He thought the look in her eyes wasfear of him and of the law, and he lifted his hand and gave backthe peace-sign. It was for him she had killed and she should not bepunished if he could save her. But Luck failed to read her lookaright; it was not fear he saw, but farewell.

For with her free hand she made the sign of peace andfarewell—and then the knife descended straight as a plummetto her heart. But even as she fell she spurned the dead Ramon withher feet, so that he rolled a little way while the black doggrowled at him with bared teeth; even in death she would not touchhim who had been so foul.

Luck ran the last few, steep steps, and took her in his arms.His eyes were blurred so that he could not see her face, and hisvoice shook so that he could scarcely form the words that brushedback death from her soul and brought a smile to her eyes.

Annie-Many-Ponies raised one creeping hand, groping until herfingers touched his face.

He took her fingers and for an instant, while she yet couldfeel, he laid them against his lips.

Movatterモバイル変換

The Heritage of the Sioux

by

B.M. Bower

First US editions:
Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1916
Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1916

This e-book edition: Project Gutenberg Australia, 2017

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. —WHEN GREEN GRASS COMES

II. —THE DAUGHTER OF A CHIEF

III. —TO THE VICTORS THESPOILS

IV. —LOVE WORDS FOR ANNIE

V. —FOR THE GOOD OF THECOMPANY

VI. —"I GO WHERE WAGALEXA CONKASAY"

VII. —ADVENTURE COMES SMILING

VIII. —THE SONG OF THE OMAHA

IX. —RIDERS IN THE BACKGROUND

X. — DEPUTIES ALL

XI. — ALL THIS WAR-TALK ABOUTINJUNS

XII. — THE WILD-GOOSE CHASE

XIII. — SET AFOOT

XIV. — ONE PUT OVER ON THEBUNCH

XV. — "NOW, DANG IT, RIDE!"

XVI. — ANNIE-MANY-PONIESWAITS

XVII. — APPLEHEAD SHOWS THESTUFF HE IS MADE OF

XVIII. — IN THE DEVIL'SFRYING-PAN

XIX. — PEACE TALK

XX. — LUIS ROJAS TALKS

XXI. — "WAGALEXACONKA—COLA!"

THE END

Movatterモバイル変換

The Heritage of the Sioux

by

B.M. Bower

First US editions:Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1916Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1916This e-book edition: Project Gutenberg Australia, 2017

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE END

First US editions:
Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1916
Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1916

This e-book edition: Project Gutenberg Australia, 2017