quare deal
for both--si?"

Annie-Many-Ponies hesitated, a dull ache in her breast when Ramon 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 his eyes. It was because he
was not so kind; because he believed that she had secret meetings with
Bill Holmes whom she hated. And in spite of the fact that Bill Holmes
had left the company the other day and was going away, Wagalexa Conka
still looked upon her with cold eyes and listened to the things that
Applehead said against her. The heart of Wagalexa Conka, she told
herself miserably, was like a stone for her. And so her own heart must
be hard. She would swear to Ramon, and she would keep the oath--and
Wagalexa Conka would not even miss her or be sorry that she had gone.

"First you make swears like I tells you," she said. "Then I make
swears."

"Muy bueno!" smiled Ramon then. "So I make oath I take you queek to one
good friend me, the Padre Dominguez. Then yoh be my wife for sure. That
good enough for yoh, perhaps? Queeck yoh make oath yoh leave these place
Manana--tomorra. Yoh go by ol' rancho where we talk so many time.
I leave horse for yoh. Yoh ride pas' that mountain, yoh come for
Bernalillo. Yoh wait. I come queeck as can when she's dark. Yoh do that,
sweetheart?"

Annie-Many-Ponies stilled the ache in her heart with the thought of her
proud place beside Ramon who had much land and many cattle and who loved
her so much. She lifted her hand and swore she would go with him.

She slipped away then and crept into her tent in the little cluster
beside the house--for the company 'had forsaken Applehead's adobe and
slept under canvas as a matter of choice. With Indian cunning she bided
her time and gave no sign of what was hidden in her heart. She rose with
the others and brushed her glossy hair until it shone in the sunlight
like the hair of a high-caste Chinese woman. She tied upon it the new
bows of red ribbon which she had bought in the secret hope that they
would be a part of her wedding finery. She put on her Indian gala dress
of beaded buckskin with the colored porcupine quills--and then she
smiled cunningly and drew a dress of red-and-blue striped calico over
her head and settled the folds of it about her with little, smoothing
pats, so that the two white women, Rosemary and Jean, should not notice
any unusual bulkiness of her figure.

She did not know how she would manage to escape the ke