by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER XV. "NOW, DANG IT, RIDE!"
Indians are Indians, though they wear the green sweater and overalls ofcivilization and set upon their black hair the hat made famous by JohnB. Stetson. You may meet them in town and think them tamed to stupidity.You may travel out upon their reservations and find them shearing sheepor hoeing corn or plodding along the furrow, plowing their fields; oryou may watch them dancing grotesquely in their festivals, and stillthink that civilization is fast erasing the savage instincts from theirnatures. You will be partly right--but you will also be partly mistaken.An Indian is always an Indian, and a Navajo Indian carries a thinnercrust of civilization than do some others; as I am going to illustrate.
As you have suspected, the Happy Family was not following the trail ofRamon Chavez and his band. Ramon was a good many miles away in anotherdirection; unwittingly the Happy Family was keeping doggedly upon thetrail of a party of renegade Navajos who had been out on a thievingexpedition among those Mexicans who live upon the Rio Grande bottomland.Having plenty of reasons for hurrying back to their stronghold, andhaving plenty of lawlessness to account for, when they realized thatthey were being followed by nine white men who had four packed horseswith them to provide for their needs on a long journey, it was no morethan natural that the Indians should take it for granted that they werebeing pursued, and that if they were caught they would be taken backto town and shut up in that evil place which the white men called theirjail.
When it was known that the nine men who followed had twice recovered thetrail after sheep and cattle had trampled it out, the renegades becamesufficiently alarmed to call upon their tribesmen for help. And that wasperfectly natural and sensible from their point of view.
Now, the Navajos are peaceable enough if you leave them strictlyalone and do not come snooping upon their reservation trying to arrestsomebody. But they don't like jails, and if you persist in trailingtheir lawbreakers you are going to have trouble on your hands. The HappyFamily, with Luck and Applehead, had no intention whatever of molestingthe Navajos; but the Navajos did not know that, and they acted accordingto their lights and their ideas of honorable warfare.
Roused to resistance in behalf of their fellows, they straightwayforsook their looms, where they wove rugs for tourists, and the silverwhich they fashioned into odd bracelets and rings; and the flocks ofsheep whose wool they used in the rugs and they went upon a quiet,crafty warpath against these persistent white men.
They stole their horses and started them well on the trail back toAlbuquerque--since it is just as well to keep within the white men'slaw, if it may be done without suffering any great inconvenience. Theywould have preferred to keep the horses, but they decided to start themhome and let them go. You could not call that stealing, and no one needgo to jail for it. They failed to realize that these horses might be sothoroughly broken to camp ways that they would prefer the camp of theHappy Family to a long trail that held only a memory of discomfort;they did not know that every night these horses were given grain by thecamp-fire, and that they would remember it when feeding time came again.So the horses, led by wise old Johnny, swung in a large circle whentheir Indian drivers left them, and went back to their men.
Then the Navajos, finding that simple maneuver a failure--and too lateto prevent its failing without risk of being discovered and forced intoan open fight--got together and tried something else; something morecharacteristically Indian and therefore more actively hostile. They rodein haste that night to a point well out upon the fresh trail of theirfleeing tribesmen, where the tracks came out of a barren, lava-encrustedhollow to softer soil beyond. They summoned their squaws and theirhalf-grown papooses armed with branches that had stiff twigs andanswered the purpose of brooms. With great care about leaving anybetraying tracks of their own until they were quite ready to leave atrail, a party was formed to represent the six whom the Happy Familybad been following. These divided and made off in different directions,leaving a plain trail behind them to lure the white men into the trapswhich would be prepared for them farther on.
When dawn made it possible to do so effectively, the squaws beganto whip out the trail of the six renegade Indians, and the chancefootprints of those who bad gone ahead to leave the false trail for thewhite men to follow. Very painstakingly the squaws worked, and the youngones who could be trusted. Brushing the sand smoothly across a hoofprinthere, and another one there; walking backward, their bodies bent, theirsharp eyes scanning every little depression, every faint trace of thepassing of their tribesmen; brushing, replacing pebbles kicked asideby a hoof, wiping out completely that trail which the Happy Family badfollowed with such persistence, the squaws did their part, while theirmen went on to prepare the trap.
Years ago--yet not so many after all--the mothers of these squaws, andtheir grandmothers, had walked backward and stooped with little branchesin their hands to wipe out the trail of their warriors and themselves tocircumvent the cunning of the enemy who pursued. So had they brushedout the trail when their men had raided the ranchos of the firstdaring settlers, and had driven off horses and cattle into the remoterwilderness.
And these, mind you, were the squaws and bucks whom you might meetany day on the streets in Albuquerque, padding along the pavement andstaring in at the shop windows, admiring silken gowns with marked-downprice tags, and exclaiming over flaxen-haired dolls and bright ribbonstreamers; squaws and bucks who brought rugs and blankets to sell,and who would bargain with you in broken English and smile and nodin friendly fashion if you spoke to them in Spanish or paid withoutbickering the price they asked for a rug. You might see them in thefifteen-cent store, buying cheap candy and staring in mute admiration atall the gay things piled high on the tables. Remember that, when I tellyou what more they did out here in the wilderness. Remember that and donot imagine that I am trying to take you back into the untamed days ofthe pioneers.
Luck and the Happy Family--so well had the squaws done theirwork--passed unsuspectingly over the wiped-out trail, circled at faulton the far side of the rocky gulch for an hour or so and then found thefalse trail just as the Indian decoys had intended that they shoulddo. And from a farther flat topped ridge a group of Indians with Dutchhair-cuts and Stetson hats and moccasins (the two hall-marks of tworaces) watched them take the false trail, and looked at one another andgrinned sourly.
The false trail forked, showing that the six had separated into twoparties of three riders, each aiming to pass--so the hoofprints wouldlead one to believe--around the two ends of a lone hill that satsquarely down on the mesa like a stone treasure chest dropped there bythe gods when the world was young.
The Happy Family drew rein and eyed the parting of the ways dubiously.
"Wonder what they did that for?" Andy Green grumbled, mopping his redface irritatedly. "We've got trouble enough without having them split upon us."
"From the looks, I should say we're overhauling the bunch," Luckhazarded. "They maybe met on the other side of this butte somewhere.And the tracks were made early this morning, I should say. How about it,Applehead?"
"Well, they look fresher 'n what we bin follerin' before," Appleheadadmitted. "But I don't like this here move uh theirn, and I'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 over thehill. "And I don't like this tagging along behind, either. You take yourboys and follow those tracks to the right, Applehead. I and my bunchwill go this other way. And RIDE! We can't be so awfully much behind.If they meet, we'll meet where they do. If they scatter, we'll have toscatter too, I reckon. But get'em is the word, boys!"
"And where," asked Applehead with heavy irony, while he pulled at hismustache, "do yuh calc'late we'll git t'gether agin if we go scatterin'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 when webring in our men, if we don't meet anywhere else this side. But if youland your men, come back to
that camp where we lost the horses. That'sone, place we KNOW has got grass and water both. If you come and don'tsee any sign of us, wait a day before you start back to town. We'll dothe same. And leave a note anchored in the crack of that big bowlder bythe spring, telling the news. We'll do the same if we get there firstand don't wait for you." He hesitated, betraying that even in hiseagerness he too dreaded the parting of the ways. "Well, so long,boys--take care of yourselves."
"Well, now, I ain't so dang shore--" Applehead began querulously.
But Luck only grinned and waved his hand as he led the way to the southon the trail that obviously had skirted the side of the square butte.The four who went with him looked back and waved non-committal adieu;and Big Medicine, once he was fairly away, shouted back to them to lookout for Navvies, and then laughed with a mirthless uproar that deceivedno one into thinking he was amused. Pink and Weary raised their voicessufficiently to tell him where he could go, and settled themselvesdejectedly in their saddles again.
"Well, I ain't so darned sure, either," Lite Avery tardily echoedApplehead's vague statement, in the dry way he had of speaking detachedsentiments from the mental activities that went on behind his calm,mask-like face and his quiet eyes. "Something feels snaky around heretoday."
Applehead looked at him with a glimmer of relief in his eyes, but he didnot reply to the foreboding directly. "Boys, git yore rifles where youkin use 'em quick," he advised them grimly. "I kin smell shootin' alongthis dang trail."
Pink's dimples showed languidly for a moment, and he looked a questionat Weary. Weary grinned answer and pulled his rifle from the "boot"where it was slung under his right leg, and jerked the lever forwarduntil a cartridge slid with a click up into the chamber; let the hammergently down with his thumb and laid the gun across his thighs.
"She's ready for bear," he observed placidly.
"Well, now, you boys show some kinda sense," Applehead told them whenPink had followed Weary's example. "Fellers like Happy and Bud, theyshore 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 square butte,four Indians in greasy, gray Stetsons with flat crowns nodded with grimsatisfaction, and then made baste to point the toes of their moccasinsdown to where their unkempt ponies stood waiting. They were too far awayto, see the shifting of rifles to the laps of the riders, or perhapsthey would not have felt quite so satisfied with the steady advance ofthe four who had taken the right-hand fork of the trail. They could noteven tell just which four men made up the party. They did not greatlycare, so long as the force of the white men was divided. They gallopedaway upon urgent business of their own, elated because their ruse hadworked out as they had planned and hoped.
Applehead took a restrained pull at the canteen, cocked his eyes back atthe butte they had just passed, squinted ahead over the flat waste thatshimmered with heat to the very skyline that was notched andgashed crudely with more barren hills, and then, screwing the topabsent-mindedly on the canteen-mouth, leaned and peered long at thehoofprints they were following. Beside him Lite Avery, tall and lean tothe point of being skinny, followed his movements with quiet attentionand himself took to studying more closely the hoofprints in the sandysoil.
Applehead looked up, gauged the probable direction the trail was taking,and gave a grunt.
"You kin call me a fool," he said with a certain challenge in his 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 the way out here. 'N'another thing, they ain't aimed t' meet up with the bunch that Luck'strailin'. We're headed straight out away from whar Luck's headed. 'N'any way yuh look at it, we're headed into country whar there ain't nomore water'n what the rich man got in hell. What would any uh Ramon'soutfit want to come away off in here fur? They ain't nothin' up in hereto call 'em."
"These," said Lite suddenly, "are different horse-tracks. They'resmaller, for one thing. The bunch we followed out from the red machinerode 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 old schoolreader ofhis childhood days.
"Yes, how do you make that out, Lite? I never noticed any difference inthe tracks."
"The stride is a little shorter today for one thing." Lite looked aroundand grinned at Pink, as though he too remembered the dromedary loadedwith honey and meat. "Ain't it, Applehead?"
"It shore is," Applehead testified, his face bent toward the hot ground."Ain't ary one uh the three that travels like they bin a travelin'--'n'that shore means something, now I'm tellin' yuh!" He straightened andstared worriedly ahead of them again. "Uh course, they might a picked upfresh horses," he admitted. "I calc'late they needed 'em bad enough, ifthey ain't been grainin' their own on the trip."
"We didn't see any signs of their horses being turned loose anywherealong," Lite pointed out with a calm confidence that he was right.
Still, they followed the footprints even though they were beginningto admit with perfect frankness their uneasiness. They were swinginggradually toward one of those isolated bumps of red rockridges which youwill find scattered at random through certain parts of the southwest.Perhaps they held some faint hope that what lay on the other side of theridge would be more promising, just as we all find ourselves buildingair-castles upon what lies just over the horizon which divides presentfacts from future possibilities. Besides, these flat-faced ledgesfrequently formed a sharp dividing line between barren land and fertile,and the hoofprints led that way; so it was with a tacit understandingthat they would see what lay beyond the ridge that they rode forward.
Suddenly Applehead, eyeing the rocks speculatively, turned his headsuddenly to look behind and to either side like one who seeks a way ofescape from sudden peril.
"Don't make no quick moves, boys," he said, waving one gloved bandnonchalantly toward the flat land from which they were turning, "butfoller my lead 'n' angle down into that draw off here. Mebbe it's deepenough to put us outa sight, 'n' mebbe it ain't. But we'll try it."
"What's up? What did yuh see?" Pink and Weary spoke in a duet, urgingtheir horses a little closer.
"You fellers keep back thar 'n' don't act excited!" Applehead eyed themsternly over his shoulder. "I calc'late we're just about t' walk intoa trap." He bent--on the side away from the ridge--low over his horse'sshoulder and spoke while he appeared to be scanning the ground. "I seengun-shine up among them rocks, er I'm a goat. 'N' if it's Navvies, youkin bet they got guns as good as ours, and kin shoot mighty nigh asstraight as the best 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'll likelyhold off till we git back in the trail 'n' start comin' on agin," heexplained craftily, still pointing at the ground ahead of him and stillurging his horse to the draw. "Ef they suspicion 't we're shyin' offfrom the ridge, they'll draw a fine bead 'n' cut loose. I knowed it,"he added with a lugubrious complacency. "I told ye all day that I couldsmell trouble a-comin'; I knowed dang well 't we'd stir up a mess uhfightin' over here. I never come onto this dang res'vation yit, that Ididn't have t' kill off a mess uh Navvies before I got offen it agin.
"Now," he said when they reached the edge of the sandy depression thathad been gouged deeper by freshets and offered some shelter in case ofattack, "you boys jest fool around here on the aidge 'n' foller me downhere like you was jest curiouslike over what I'm locatin'. That'llkeep them babies up there guessin' till we're all outa sight MEBBY!" Hepulled down the corners of his mouth till his mustache-ends dropped afull inch, and lifted himself off his horse with a bored deliberationthat was masterly in its convincingness. He stood looking at the groundfor a moment and then began to descend leisurely into the draw, leadinghis horse behind him.
"You go next, Pink," Weary said shortly, a
nd with his horse beganedging him closer to the bank until Pink, unless he made some unwisedemonstration of unwillingness, was almost forced to ride down the steeplittle slope.
"Don't look towards the ridge, boys," Applehead warned from below."Weary, you come on down here next. Lite kin might' nigh shoot the dangtriggers offen their guns 'fore they kin pull, if they go t' work 'n'start anything."
So Weary, leaving Lite up there grinning sheepishly over the compliment,rode down because he was told to do so by the man in command. "You seemto 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 the ridgea couple of hundred yards distant. "Git back down the draw 's fur'syuh kin b'fore yuh take out into the open agin. I'll wait a minute 'n'see--"
"Ping-NG-NG!" a bullet, striking a rock on the edge of the draw fiftyfeet short of the mark, glanced and went humming over the hot waste.
"Well, now, that shows they got a lookout up high, 't seen me watchin'that way. But it's hard t' git the range shootin' down, like that,"Applehead remarked, pulling his horse behind a higher part of the bank.
Close beside him Lite's rifle spoke, its little steelshod message flyingstraight as a homing honeybee for the spitting flash he had glimpsed upthere among the rocks. Whether he did any damage or not, a dozen riflesanswered venomously and flicked up tiny spurts of sand in the closeneighborhood of the four.
"If they keep on trying," Lite commented drily, "they might make akilling, soon as they learn how to shoot straight."
"'S jest like them dang Injuns!" Applehead grumbled, shooing the threebefore him down the draw. "Four t' our one--it takes jest about that biga majority 'fore they feel comftable about buildin' up a fight. Leadyore bosses down till we're outa easy shootin' distance, boys, 'n' thenwe'll head out fer where Luck ought t' be. If they fixed a trap fer us,they've fixed another fer him, chances is, 'n! the sooner us fellers gitt'gether the better show we'll all of us have. You kin see, the way theyworked it to split the bunch, that they ain't so dang anxious t' tieinto us when we're t'gether--'n' that's why we can't git t' Luck a dangbit too soon, now I'm tellin' yuh!"
Weary and Pink were finding things to say, also, but old Applehead wenton with his monologue just as though they were listening. Lite showeda disposition to stop and take issue with the shooters who kept up aspiteful firing from the ridge. But Applehead stopped him as he wasleveling his rifle.
"If yuh shoot," he pointed out, "they'll know jest where we air and howfast we're gittin' outa here. If yuh don't, unless their lookout kinsee us movin' out, they got t' do a heap uh guessin' in the next fewminutes. They only got one chancet in three uh guessin' right, 'causewe might be camped in one spot, 'n' then agin we might be crawlin' upcloser, fer all they kin tell."
If they were guessing, they must have guessed right; for presently thefour heard faint yells from behind them, and Applehead crawled up thebank to where he could look out across the level. What he saw made himslide hastily to the bottom again.
"They've clumb down and straddled their ponies," he announced grimly."An' about a dozen is comin' down this way, keepin' under cover all theykin. I calc'late mebby we better crawl our bosses 'n' do some ridin'ourselves, boys." And he added grimly, "They ain't in good shootin'distance yit, 'n' they dassent show theirselves neither. We'll keep inthis draw long as we kin. They're bound t' come careful till they git uslocated."
The footing was none the best, but the horses they rode had been runningover untracked mesa-land since they were bandy-legged colts. They lopedalong easily, picking automatically the safest places whereon to settheir feet, and leaving their riders free to attend to other importantmatters which proved their true value as horses that knew theirbusiness.
Soon the draw shallowed until they found themselves out in the open,with the square-topped mountain five miles or so ahead and a little tothe left; a high, untraversable sandstone ledge to their right, and whatlooked like plain sailing straight ahead past the mountain.
Applehead twisted his body in the saddle and gave a grunt. "Throw somelead back at them hombres, Lite," he snapped. "And make a killin' if yuhkin. It'll make 'em mad, but it'll hold 'em back fer a spell."
Lite, the crack rifle-shot of Luck's company and the man who had taughtJean Douglas to shoot with such wonderful precision, wheeled his horseshort around and pulled him to a stand, lined up his rifle sights andcrooked his finger on the trigger. And away back there among the Indiansa pony reared, and then pitched forward.
"I sure do bate to shoot down a horse," Lite explained shamefacedly,"but I never did kill a man--"
"We-ell, I calc'late mebby yuh will, 'fore you're let out from this yeremeetin'," Applehead prophesied drily. "Now, dang it, RIDE!"
CHAPTER XVI. ANNIE-MANY-PONIES WAITS
In the magic light of many unnamable soft shades which the sun leavesin New Mexico as a love token for his dark mistress night,Annie-Many-Ponies sat with her back against a high, flat rock at theplace where Ramon had said she must wait for him, and stared somber-eyedat what she could see of the new land that bad held her future behindthe Sandias; waiting for Ramon; and she wondered if Wagalexa Conka hadcome home from his picture-making in Bear Canon and was angry becauseshe had gone; and shrank from the thought, and tried to picture whatlife with Ramon would be like, and whether his love would last beyondthe wide ring of shiny gold that was to make her a wife.
At her feet the little black dog lay licking his sore paws that hadpadded patiently after her all day. Beside the rock the black horsestood nibbling at some weeds awkwardly, because of the Spanish bit inhis mouth. The horse was hungry, and the little black dog was hungry;Annie-Many-Ponies was hungry also, but she did not feel her, hunger somuch, because of the heaviness that was in her heart.
When Ramon came he would bring food, or he would tell her where shemight buy. The horse, too, would be fed--when Ramon came. And he wouldtake her to the priest who was his friend, and together they would kneelbefore the priest. But first, if Ramon would wait, she wanted to confessher sins, so that she need not go into the new life bearing the sins ofthe old. The priest could pray away the ache that was in her heart; andthen, with her heart light as air, she would be married with Ramon.It was long since she had confessed--not since the priest came to theagency when she was there, before she ran away to work in pictures forWagalexa Conka.
Before her the glow deepened and darkened. A rabbit hopped out of athick clump of stunted bushes, sniffed the air that blew the wrong wayto warn him, and began feeding. Shunka Chistala gathered his soft pawsunder him, scratched softly for a firm foothold in the ground, and whenthe rabbit, his back turned and the evening wind blowing full in hisface, fed unsuspectingly upon some young bark that he liked, the littleblack dog launched himself suddenly across the space that divided them.There was a squeak and a thin, whimpering crying--and the little blackdog, at least, was sure of his supper.
Annie-Many-Ponies, roused from her brooding, shivered a little when therabbit cried. She started forward to save it--she who had taught thelittle black dog to hunt gophers and prairie-dogs!--and when she wastoo late she scolded the dog in the language of the Sioux. She tore therabbit away from him while he eyed her reproachfully; but when she sawthat it was quite dead, she flung the warm body back to him and went andsat down again with her back to the rock.
A train whistled for the little station of Bernalillo, and soon she sawits headlight paint the squat houses that had before been hidden behindthe creeping dusk. Ramon was late in coming and for one breath shecaught herself hoping that he would not come at all. But immediately sheremembered the love words he had taught her, and smiled her inscrutablelittle smile that had now a tinge of sadness. Perhaps, she thoughtwishfully, Ramon had come on the train from Albuquerque. Perhaps he hada horse in the town, and would ride out and meet her here where he hadtold her to wait.
The train shrieked and painted swiftly hill and embankment and littleadobe huts and a corral full of huddled sheep, and went c
hurning away tothe northeast. Annie-Many-Ponies followed its course absently with hereyes until the last winking light from its windows and the last wisp ofsmoke was hidden behind hills and trees. The little black dog finishedthe rabbit, nosed its tracks back to where it had hopped out of thebrush, and came back and curled up at the feet of his mistress, lickinghis lips and again his travel-sore paws. In a moment, feeling in hisdumb way her loneliness, perhaps, he reached up and laid his pink tonguecaressingly upon her brown hand.
Dark came softly and with it a noisy wind that whistled and murmured andat last, growing more boisterous as the night deepened, whooped over herbead and tossed wildly the branches of a clump of trees that grewnear. Annie-Many-Ponies listened to the wind and thought it a brother,perhaps, of the night wind that came to the Dakota prairies and carousedthere until dawn bade it be still. Too red the blood of her people ranin her veins for her to be afraid of the night, even though she peopledit with dim shapes of her fancy.
After a long while the wind grew chill. Annie-Many-Ponies shivered, andthen rose and went to the horse and, reaching into the bundle which wasstill bound to the saddle, she worked a plaid shawl loose from the otherthings and pulled it out and wrapped it close around her and pulled itover her head like a cowl. Then she went back and sat down against thebowlder, waiting, with the sublime patience of her kind, for Ramon.
Until the wind hushed, listening for the dawn, she sat there and waited.At her feet the little black dog slept with his nose folded between hisfront paws over which he whimpered sometimes in his dreams. At everylittle sound all through--the night Annie-Many-Ponies had listened,thinking that at last here came Ramon to take her to the priest, but forthe first time since she had stolen out on the mesa to meet him, Ramondid not keep the tryst--and this was to be their marriage meeting!Annie-Many-Ponies grew very still and voiceless in her heart, as if hervery soul waited. She did not even speculate upon what the future wouldbe like if Ramon never came. She was waiting.
Then, just before the sky lightened, someone stepped cautiously alonga little path that led through rocks and bushes back into the hills.Annie-Many Ponies turned her face that way and listened. But the stepswere not the steps of Ramon; Annie-Many-Ponies had too much of theIndian keenness to be fooled by the hasty footsteps of this man. Andsince it was not Ramon--her slim fingers closed upon the keen-edgedknife she carried always in its sinew-sewed buckskin sheath near herheart.
The little black dog lifted his head suddenly and growled, and thefootsteps came to a sudden stop quite near the rock.
"It is you?" asked a cautious voice with the unmistakable Mexican toneand soft, slurring accent, "speak me what yoh name."
"Ramon comes?" Annie asked him quietly, and the footsteps came swiftlynearer until his form was silhouetted by the rock.
"Sh-sh--yoh not spik dat name," he whispered. "Luis Rojas me. I come forbreeng yoh. No can come, yoh man. No spik name--som'bodys maybe hears."
Annie-Many-Ponies rose and stood peering at him through the dark."What's wrong?" she asked abruptly, borrowing the curt phrase from LuckLindsay. "Why I not speak name? Why--some body--?" she laid ironicalstress upon the word--"not come? What business you got, Luis Rojas?"
"No--don' spik names, me!" The figure was seen to throw out an imploringhand. "Moch troubles, yoh bet! Yoh come now--somebodys she wait indam-hurry!"
Annie-Many-Ponies, with her fingers still closed upon the bone handle ofher sharp-edged knife, thought swiftly. Wariness had been born into herblood--therefore she could understand and meet halfway the wariness ofanother. Perhaps Wagalexa Conka had suspected that she was goingwith Ramon; Wagalexa Conka was very keen, and his anger blazed hot aspitch-pine flame. Perhaps Ramon feared Wagalexa Conka--as she, too,feared him. She was not afraid--she would go to Ramon.
She stepped away from the rock and took the black horse by its droppedbridle-reins and followed Luis Rojas up the dim path that wound throughtrees and rocks until it dropped into a little ravine that was chockedwith brush, so that Annie-Many-Ponies had to put the stiff branchesaside with her hand lest they scratch her face as she passed.
Luis went swiftly along the path, as though his haste was great; but hewent stealthily as well, and she knew that he had some unknown cause forsecrecy. She wondered a little at this. Had Wagalexa Conka discoveredwhere she and Ramon were to meet? But how could he discover that whichhad been spoken but once, and then in the quiet loneliness of that placefar back on the mesa? Wagalexa Conka bad not been within three miles ofthat place, as Annie-Many-Ponies knew well. How then did he know? For hemust have followed, since Ramon dared not come to the place he had namedfor their meeting.
Dawn came while they were still following the little, brush-chokedravine with its faint pathway up the middle of it, made by cattle orsheep or goats, perhaps all three. Luis hurried along, stopping now andthen and holding up a hand for silence so that he might listen. Fast ashe went, Annie-Many-Ponies kept within two long steps of his heels, herplaid shawl drawn smoothly over her black head and folded together underher chin. Her mouth was set in a straight line, and her chin had thesquare firmness of the Indian. Luis, looking back at her curiously,could not even guess at her thoughts, but he thought her too calm andcold for his effervescent nature--though he would have liked to tell herthat she was beautiful. He did not, because he was afraid of Ramon.
"Poco tiempo, come to his camp, Ramon," he said when the sun was peeringover the high shoulder of a ridge; and he spoke in a hushed tone, as ifhe feared that someone might overhear him.
"You 'fraid Wagalexa Conka, he come?" Annie-Many-Ponies asked abruptly,looking at him full.
Luis did not understand her, so he lifted his shoulders in the Mexicangesture which may mean much or nothing. "Quien sabe?" he mutteredvaguely and went on. Annie-Many-Ponies did not know what he meant, butshe guessed that he did not want to be questioned upon the subject;so she readjusted the shawl that had slipped from her head and went onsilently, two long steps behind him.
In a little he turned from the ravine, which was becoming more open andnot quite so deep. They scrambled over boulders which the horse mustnegotiate carefully to avoid a broken leg, and then they were in anotherlittle ravine, walled round with rocks and high, brushy slopes. Luiswent a little way, stopped beside a huge, jutting boulder and gave alittle exclamation of dismay.
"No more here, Ramon," he said, staring down at the faintly smokingembers of a little fire. "She's go som' place, I don't know, me."
The slim right hand of Annie-Many-Ponies went instinctively to her bosomand to what lay hidden there. But she waited, looking from the littlecampfire that was now almost dead, to Luis whom she suspected oftreachery. Luis glanced up at her apologetically, caught something ofmenace in that unwinking, glittering stare, and began hastily searchinghere and there for some sign that would enlighten him further.
"She's here when I go, Ramon," he explained deprecatingly. "I don'un'stan', me. She's tell me go breeng yoh thees place. She's say I mus'huree w'ile dark she's las'. I'm sure s'prised, me!" Luis was a slenderyoung man with a thin, patrician face that had certain picture valuesfor Luck, but which greatly belied his lawless nature. Until he stoodby the rock where she had waited for Ramon, Annie-Many-Ponies hadnever spoken to him. She did not know him, therefore she did not trusthim--and she looked her distrust.
Luis turned from her after another hasty glance, and began searchingfor some sign of Ramon. Presently, in a tiny cleft near the top of theboulder, his black eyes spied a folded paper--two folded papers, as hediscovered when he reached up eagerly and pulled them out.
"She's write letter, Ramon," he cried with a certain furtive excitement."Thees for yoh." And he smiled while he gave her a folded note with"Ana" scrawled hastily across the face of it.
Annie-Many-Ponies extended her left hand for it, and backed the fewsteps away from him which would insure her safety against a suddenattack, before she opened the paper and read:
"Querida mia, you go with Luis. Hes all rite you trus him. He bring youwhe
re i am. i lov you. Ramon"
She read it twice and placed the note in her bosom--next the knife--andlooked 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 secondsentence she had spoken since they left the rock where she had waited.
Luis smiled back, relief showing in the uplift of his lips and thelightening of his eyes. "She's cache grob, Ramon," he said. "She's gosom' place and we go also. She's wait for us. Dam-long way--tree days, Itheenk me."
"You find that grub," said Annie-Many-Ponies, letting her hand drop awayfrom the knife. "I awful hongry. We eat, then we go."
"No--no go till dark comes! We walk in night--so somebody don' see!"
Annie-Many-Ponies looked at him sharply, saw that he was very much inearnest, and turned away to gather some dry twigs for the fire. Up thecanon a horse whinnied inquiringly, and Luis, hastening furtively thatway, found the horse he had ridden into this place with Ramon. Withthe problem of finding provender for the two animals, he had enough tooccupy him until Annie-Many-Ponies, from the coarse food he brought her,cooked a crude breakfast.
Truly, this was not what she had dreamed the morning would be like--shewho had been worried over the question of whether Ramon would let herconfess to the priest before they were married! Here was no priest andno Ramon, even; but a keen-eyed young Mexican whom she scarcely knew atall; and a mysterious hiding-out in closed-in canons until dark beforethey might follow Ramon who loved her. Annie-Many-Ponies did notunderstand why all this stealthiness should be necessary, for she knewthat proof of her honorable marriage would end Luck's pursuit--supposinghe did pursue--even though his anger might live always for her. She didnot understand; and when an Indian confronts a situation which puzzleshim, you may be very sure that same Indian is going to be very, verycautious. Annie-Many-Ponies was Indian to the middle of her bone.
