open. "You promise you put
ring of gold for wedding on my finger, like white woman's got."

Ramon's laugh was not pleasant. "Yoh theenk marry squaw?" he sneered.
"Luck Leen'sey, he don't marry yoh. Why yoh theenk I marry yoh? You be
good, Ramon lov' yoh. Buy yoh lots pretty theengs, me treat yoh fine.
Yoh lucky girl, yoh bet. Yoh don't be foolish no more. Yoh run away, be
my womans. W'at yoh theenk? Go back, perhaps? Yoh theenk Luck Leen'sey
take yoh back? You gone off with Ramon Chavez, he say; yoh stay weeth
Ramon then. Yoh Ramon's woman now. Yoh not be foolish like yoh too good
for be kees. Luck, be kees yoh many times, I bet! Yoh don' play
good girl no more for Ramon--oh-h, no! That joke she's w'at yoh call
ches'nut. We don' want no more soch foolish talk, or else maybe I do
w'at Bill Holmes says she's good for squaw!"

"You awful big liar," Annie-Many-Ponies stated with a calm, terrific
frankness. "You plenty big thief. You fool me plenty--now I don't be
fool no more. You so mean yoh think all mens like you. You think all
girls bad girls. You awful big fool, you think I stay for you. I go."

Ramon twisted his mustache and laughed at her. "Now yoh so pretty,
when yoh mad," he teased. "How yoh go? All yoh theengs in cabin--monee,
clothes, grob--how yoh go? Yoh mad now--pretty soon Ramon he makes yoh
glad! Shame for soch cross words--soch cross looks! Now I don't talk
till yoh be good girl, and says yoh lov' Ramon. I don't let yoh go,
neither. Yoh don't get far way--I promise yoh for true. I breeng yoh
back, sweetheart, I promise I breeng yoh back I Yoh don't want to go no
more w'en I'm through weeth yoh--I promise yoh! Yoh theenk I let yoh go?
O-oh-h, no! Ramon not let yoh get far away!"

In her heart she knew that he spoke at last the truth; that this was
the real Ramon whom she had never before seen. To every woman must come
sometime the bitter awakening from her dreamworld to the real world in
all its sordidness and selfishness. Annie-Many-Ponies, standing there
looking at Ramon--Ramon who laughed at her goodness--knew now what the
future that had lain behind the mountains held in store for her. Not
happiness, surely; not the wide ring of gold that would say she was
Ramon's wife. Luis was right. He had spoken the truth, though she had
believed that he lied when he said Ramon would never marry a woman. He
would love and laugh and ride away, Luis had told her. Well, then--

"Shunka Chistala!" she called softly t