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ise. Now yoh come way up here, so Luck don' matter no more. Yoh be happy weeth me."
" You promise," Annie-Many-Ponies repeated, a sullen note creeping into her voice.
Bill Holmes, lounging up to the doorway, glanced from one to the other and laughed. " What's the matter, Ramon ?" he bantered. " Can't you square it with your squaw ? Go after her with a club, why don't you? That's what they're used to."
Ramon did not make any reply whatever, and Bill gave another chuckling laugh and joined Luis, who was going to take the gaunt horses to a tiny meadow beyond the hill. As he went he said something that made Luis look back over hit 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 Bill Holmes' speech; yet he had sworn that he loved her, that he would be 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.
"WAG ALEX A CONK A —COLA!"
" You promise priest for making us marriage," she reiterated coldly, as if she meant to force his real self into the open. "You promise you put ring of gold for wedding on my finger, like white woman's got."
Eamon's laugh was not pleasant. " Yoh theenk I marry squaw ? " he sneered. " Luck Leen'sey, he don't marry yoh. Why yoh theenk I marry yoh? You be good, Ramon lov' yoh. Buy yoh lots pretty theengs, me — treat yoh fine. Yoh lucky girl, yoh bet. Yoh don't be foolish no more. Yoh run away, be my womans. Wat yoh theenk ? Go back, perhaps? Yoh theenk Luck Leen'sey take yoh back? You gone off with Eamon Chavez, he say; yoh stay weeth Eamon then. Yoh Eamon's woman now. Yoh not be foolish like yoh too good for be kees. Luck, he kees yoh many times, I bet! Yoh don' play good girl no more for Eamon — oh-h, no! That joke she's w'at yoh call ches'nut. We don' want no more soch foolish talk, or else maybe I do w'at Bill Holmes says she's good for squaw! "
" You awful big liar," Annie-Many-Ponies stated with a calm, terrific frankness. " You 303
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plenty big thief. You fool me plenty — now I don't be fool no more. You so mean yoh think all mens 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 so pretty, when yoh mad," he teased. "How yoh go? All yoh theengs in cabin — monee, clothes, grob — how yoh go? Yoh mad now — pretty soon Ramon he makes yoh glad! Shame for soch cross words — soch cross looks! Xow I don't talk till yoh be good girl, and says yoh lov' Ramon. I don't let yoh go, neither. Yoh don'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 no more w'en I'm through weeth yoh — I promise yoh! Yoh theenk I let 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 this was the real Ramon whom she had never before seen. To every woman must come sometime the bitter awakening from her dreamworld to the real world in all its sordidness and
"WAG ALEX A CONK A — COLA!"
selfishness. Annie-Many-Ponies, standing there looking at Ramon — Ramon who laughed at her goodness — knew now what the future that had lain behind the mountains held in store for her. Not happiness, surely; not the wide ring of gold that would say she was Ramon's wife. Luis was right. He had spoken the truth, though she had believed 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 hand on its head when the dog jumped up to greet her. She smiled faintly while she fondled its silky, flapping ears.
" Why you all time pat that dam-dog ? " Ramon flashed out jealously. "You don't pet yoh man what lov' yoh! "
"Dogs don't lie," said Annie-Many-Ponies coldly, and walked away. She did not look back, she did not hurry, though she must have known that Ramon in one bound could have stopped her with his man's strength. Her head was high, her shoulders were straight, her eyes were so black the 305
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pupils did not show at all, and a film of inscrutability veiled what bitter thoughts were behind them.
As it had been with Luis so it was now with Ramon. Her utter disregard of him held him back from touching her. He stood with wrath in his eyes and let her go — and to hide his weakness from her strength he sent after her a sneering laugh and words that were like a whip.
"All right — jus' for now I let you ron," he jeered. " Bimeby she's different. Bimeby I show yoh who's boss. I make yoh cry for Ramon be good to yoh! "
Annie-Many-Ponies did not betray by so muck as a glance that she heard him. But had he seen her face he would have been startled at the look his words brought there. He would have been startled and perhaps he would have been warned. For never had she carried so clearly the fighting look of her forefathers who went out to battle. With the little black dog at her heels she climbed a small, round-topped hill that had a single pine like a cockade growing from the top.
For ten minutes she stood there on the top and 306
'WAG ALEX A CONKA —COLA!"
stared away to the 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 world there could not be a soul so bitter. Liar — thief — betrayer of women — and she had left the clean, steadfast friendship of her brother Wagalexa Conka for such human vermin as Ramon Chavez!
She sat down, and with her face hidden in her shawl and her slim body rocking back and forth in weird rhythm to her wailing, she crooned the mourning song of the Omaha. Death of her past, death of her place among good people, death of her friendship, death of hope — she sat there with her face turned toward the far-away, smiling mesa where she had been happy, and wailed softly to herself as the women of her tribe had wailed when sorrow came to them in the days that were gone.
All through the afternoon she sat there with her back to the lone pine tree and her face turned toward the southeast, while the little black dog lay at her feet and slept. From the cabin Ramon watched her, stubbornly waiting until she would come down to him of her own accord. She would come — of that he was sure. She would come if 307
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he convinced her that he would not go up and coax her to come. Eamon had known many girls who were given to sulking over what he considered their imaginary wrongs, and he was very sure that he knew women better than they knew themselves. She would come, give her time enough, and she could not fling at him then any taunt that he had been over-eager. Certainly she would come — she was a woman!
But the shadow of the pines lengthened until they lay like long fingers across the earth; and still she did not come. Bill Holmes and Luis, secure in the knowledge that Eamon was on guard against any unlooked-for visitors, slept heavily on the crude bunks in the cabin. Birds began twittering animatedly as the heat of the day cooled and they came forth from their shady retreats — and still Annie-Many-Ponies sat on the little hilltop, within easy calling distance of the cabin, and never once looked down that way. Still the little | black dog curled at her feet and slept. For all the movement these two made, they might have been of stone; the pine above was more unquiet than they.
' WAGALEXA CONKA — COLA!"
Eamon, watching her while lie smoked many cigarettes, became filled with a vague uneasiness. What was she thinking? What did she mean to do ? He began to have faint doubts of her coming down to him. He began to be aware of something in her nature that was unlike those other women; something more inflexible, more silent, something that troubled him even while he told himself that she was like all the rest and he would be her master.