o the little black dog, that came
eagerly, wagging his burr-matted tail. She laid her hand on its head
when the dog jumped up to greet her. She smiled faintly while she
fondled its silky, flapping ears.

"Why you all time pat that dam-dog?" Ramon flashed out jealously. "You
don't pet yoh man what lov' yoh!"

"Dogs don't lie," said Annie-Many-Ponies coldly, and walked away. She
did not look back, she did not hurry, though she must have known that
Ramon in one bound could have stopped her with his man's strength. Her
head was high, her shoulders were straight, her eyes were so black the
pupils did not show at all, and a film of inscrutability veiled what
bitter thoughts were behind them.

As it had been with Luis so it was now with Ramon. Her utter disregard
of him held him back from touching her. He stood with wrath in his eyes
and let her go--and to hide his weakness from her strength he sent after
her a sneering laugh and words that were like a whip.

"All right--jus' for now I let you ron," he jeered. "Bimeby she's
different. Bimeby I show yoh who's boss. I make yoh cry for Ramon be
good to yoh!"

Annie-Many-Ponies did not betray by so much as a glance that she beard
him. But had he seen her face he would have been startled at the look
his words brought there. He would have been startled and perhaps
he would have been warned. For never bad she carried so clearly the
fighting look of her forefathers who went out to battle. With the little
black dog at her heels she climbed a small, round-topped hill that had a
single pine like a cockade growing from the top.

For ten minutes she stood there on the top and stared away to the
southeast, whence she had come to keep her promise to Ramon. Never, it
seemed to her, had a girl been so alone. In all the world there could
not be a soul so bitter. Liar--thief--betrayer of women--and she had
left the clean, steadfast friendship of her brother Wagalexa Conka
for such human vermin as Ramon Chavez! She sat down, and with her face
hidden in her shawl and her slim body rocking back and forth in weird
rhythm to her wailing, she crooned the mourning song of the Omaha.
Death of her past, death of her place among good people, death of her
friendship, death of hope--she sat there with her face turned toward the
far-away, smiling mesa where she had been happy, and wailed softly to
herself as the women of her tribe had wailed when sorrow came to them in
the days that were gone.

All