attitude toward her in his unguarded moments. That little, inscrutable
smile which so exasperated Applehead was on her lips while she watched
him.

Ramon finished that cigarette, threw away the stab and rolled and
lighted another. Still Annie-Many-Ponies gave no little sign of her
presence. He watched the arroyo, and once he leaned to one side and
stared back at his own quiet camp on the slope that had the biggest and
the wildest mountain of that locality for its background. He settled
himself anew with his other shoulder against the rock, and muttered
something in Spanish--that strange, musical talk which Annie-Many-Ponies
could not understand. And still she watched him, and exulted in his
impatience for her coming, and wondered if it would always be lovelight
which she would see in his eyes.

He was not of her race, though in her pride she thought him favored when
she named him akin to the Sioux. He was not of her race, but he was tall
and he was straight, he was dark as she, he was strong and brave and he
bad many cattle and much broad acreage. Annie-Many-Ponies smiled upon
him in the dark and was glad that she, the daughter of a chief of the
Sioux, had been found good in his sight.

Five minutes, ten minutes. The coyote, yap-yap-yapping in the broken
land beyond them, found his mate and was silent. Ramon Chavez, waiting
in the shadow of the ledge, muttered a Mexican oath and stepped out into
the moonlight and stood there, tempted to return to his camp--for he,
also, had pride that would not bear much bruising.

Annie-Many-Ponies waited. When he muttered again and threw his cigarette
from him as though it had been something venomous; when he turned his
face toward his own tents and took a step forward, she laughed softly, a
mere whisper of amusement that might have been a sleepy breeze stirring
the bushes somewhere near. Ramon started and turned his face her way;
in the moonlight his eyes shone with a certain love-hunger which
Annie-Many-Ponies exulted to see--because she did not understand.

"You not let moon look on you," she chided in an undertone, her
sentences clipped of superfluous words as is the Indian way, her voice
that pure, throaty melody that is a gift which nature gives lavishly to
the women of savage people. "Moon see, men see."

Ramon swung back into the shadow, reached out his two arms to fold her
close and got nothing more substantial than another whispery laugh.

"Where are yoh,sweetheart?"