hear them go on like that before.
You'd think all her relations were being murdered, wouldn't you?"

Jean was busy getting into her riding clothes and did not say what she
thought; but you may be sure that it was antipathetic to the grief of
Annie-Many-Ponies, and that Jean's attitude was caused by a complete
lack of understanding. Which, if you will stop to think, is true of
half the unsympathetic attitudes in the world. Because they did not
understand, the two dressed hastily and tucked their purses safely
inside their shirtwaists and saddled and rode away to town. And the last
they heard as they put the ranch behind them 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 chanting and
looked out in time to see the girls just disappearing over the low brow
of the hill. She stood for a moment and stared after them with frowning
brows. Rosemary she did not like and never would like, after their
hidden feud of months over such small matters as the cat and the dog,
and unswept floors, and the like. A mountain of unwashed dishes stood
between these two, as it were, and forbade anything like friendship.

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

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

She was tired when she reached the well, for her back was not used
to burden-bearing as had been her mother's, and her steps had lagged
because of the heaviness that was