dog lifted his head suddenly and growled, and the
footsteps came to a sudden stop quite near the rock.

"It is you?" asked a cautious voice with the unmistakable Mexican tone
and soft, slurring accent, "speak me what yoh name."

"Ramon comes?" Annie asked him quietly, and the footsteps came swiftly
nearer until his form was silhouetted by the rock.

"Sh-sh--yoh not spik dat name," he whispered. "Luis Rojas me. I come for
breeng 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 Luck
Lindsay. "Why I not speak name? Why--some body--?" she laid ironical
stress upon the word--"not come? What business you got, Luis Rojas?"

"No--don' spik names, me!" The figure was seen to throw out an imploring
hand. "Moch troubles, yoh bet! Yoh come now--somebodys she wait in
dam-hurry!"

Annie-Many-Ponies, with her fingers still closed upon the bone handle of
her sharp-edged knife, thought swiftly. Wariness had been born into her
blood--therefore she could understand and meet halfway the wariness of
another. Perhaps Wagalexa Conka had suspected that she was going
with Ramon; Wagalexa Conka was very keen, and his anger blazed hot as
pitch-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 dropped
bridle-reins and followed Luis Rojas up the dim path that wound through
trees and rocks until it dropped into a little ravine that was chocked
with brush, so that Annie-Many-Ponies had to put the stiff branches
aside with her hand lest they scratch her face as she passed.

Luis went swiftly along the path, as though his haste was great; but he
went stealthily as well, and she knew that he had some unknown cause for
secrecy. She wondered a little at this. Had Wagalexa Conka discovered
where she and Ramon were to meet? But how could he discover that which
had been spoken but once, and then in the quiet loneliness of that place
far back on the mesa? Wagalexa Conka bad not been within three miles of
that place, as Annie-Many-Ponies knew well. How then did he know? For he
must have followed, since Ramon dared not come to the place he had named
for their meeting.

Dawn came while they were still following the little, brush-choked
ravine with its faint pathway up the middl