that
little inscrutable smile upon her lips. Her eyes, however, narrowed in
their gaze.

"Yuh hear me?" Poor old Applehead had never before attempted to browbeat
a woman, and her unsubmissive silence seemed to his bachelor mind
uncanny.

"I hear what Wagalexa Conka tell me." She turned her horse and rode
composedly away from him over the ridge.

"You'll hear a danged sight more'n that, now I'm tellin' yuh!" raved
Applehead impotently. "I ain't sayin' nothin' agin Luck, but they's
goin' to be some danged plain speakin' done on some subjects when
he comes back, and given' squaws a free rein and lettin' 'em ride
rough-shod over everybody and everything is one of 'era. Things is
gittin' mighty funny when a danged squaw kin straddle my horses and ride
'em to death, and sass me when I say a word agin it--now I'm tellin'
yuh!"

He went mumbling rebellion that was merely the effervescing of a
mood which would pass with the words it bred, to the store-room which
Annie-Many-Ponies had called the prop-room. He found there, piled upon
a crude shelf, many little bundles of wire folded neatly and with the
outer end wound twice around to keep each bundle separate from the
others. Applehead snorted at what he chose to consider a finicky streak
in his secret idol, Luck Lindsay; but he took two of the little bundles
and went and wired the wagon tongue. And in the work he found a salve of
anticipatory pleasure, so that he ended the task to the humming of the
tune he had heard a movie theatre playing in town as he rode by on his
way home.

CHAPTER II. THE DAUGHTER OF A CHIEF

In spite of Andy Green's plea for delay until they knew what Luck meant
to do, Applehead went on with his energetic preparations for a spring
roundup of his own. Some perverse spirit seemed to possess him and drive
him out of his easy-going shiftlessness. He offered to hire the Happy
Family by the day, since none of them would promise any permanent
service until they heard from Luck. He put them to work gathering up
the saddle-horses that had been turned loose when Luck's picture was
finished, and repairing harness and attending to the numberless details
of reorganizing a ranch long left to slipshod make-shifts.

The boys of the Flying U argued while they worked, but in spite of
themselves the lure of the mesa quickened their movements. They were
supposed to wait for Luck before they did anything; an they all knew
that. But, on the other hand, Luck was s