tated with soft sympathy. "I sabe you not got monies for pay
all thems Indians. I come be Indian girl for you; I not want monies. You
let me stay--Wagalexa Conka!"

"You come in and eat, Annie-Many-Ponies," Luck commanded with more
gentleness than he was accustomed to show. The girl must have followed
him all the way from Los Angeles, and she must have walked all the way
out from Albuquerque. All this she seemed to take for granted, a mere
detail of no importance beside her certainty that although he had no
money to pay the Indians, he must surely need an Indian girl in his
pictures. Loyalty always touched Luck deeply. He had brought the little
black dog back with him and hidden it in the stable, just because the dog
had followed him all around town and had seemed so pleased when Luck was
loading the buckboards for the return trip. He could not logically
repulse the manifest friendliness of Annie-Many-Ponies.

He introduced her formally to Rosemary, and was pleased when Rosemary
smiled and shook hands without the slightest hesitation. The Happy Family
he lumped together in one sentence. "All these my company," he told her.
"You eat now. By and by I think you better go home."

Annie-Many-Ponies looked at him with smoldering eyes, standing in the
middle of the kitchen, refusing to sit down to the table until the main
question was settled.

"Why you say that?" she demanded, drawing her brows down sullenly. "You
got plenty more Indian girls?"

Luck shook his head.

"You think me not good-looking any more?" With her two slim brown hands
she pushed back the shawl from her hair and challenged criticism of her
beauty. She was beautiful,--there was no gain saying that; she was so
beautiful that the sight of her, standing there like an indignant young
Minnehaha, tingled the blood of more than one of the Happy Family. "You
think I so homely I spoil your picture?"

"I think you must not run away from the reservation," Luck parried,
refusing to be cajoled by her anger or her beauty. "You always were a
good girl, Annie-Many-Ponies. Long time ago, when you were little girl
with the Buffalo Bill show, you were good. You mind what Wagalexa
Conka say?"

Annie-Many-Ponies bent her head. "I mind you now, Wagalexa Conka," she
told him quickly. "You tell me ride down that big hill," she threw one
hand out toward the bluff that sheltered the house. "I sure ride down
like hell. I care not for break my neck, when you want big 'punch' i