drive we made the
other day. I'm going to pick up the action where we left off when it
turned cloudy. Tomorrow or next day I want to move the outfit back to
the ranch. There's quite a lot of town stuff I want to get for this
picture."

Applehead looked at him uncertainly, tempted to impress further upon him
the importance of safeguarding the morals of his company. But he knew
Luck pretty well--having lived with him for months at a time when Luck
was younger and even more peppery than now. So he wisely condensed his
reply to a nod, and went back to the breakfast fire polishing his bald
bead with the flat of his palm. He met Annie-Many-Ponies coming to ask
Luck which of the two pairs of beaded moccasins she carried in her hands
he would like to have her wear. She did not look at Applehead at all as
she passed, but he nevertheless became keenly aware of her animosity and
turned half around to glare after her resentfully. You'd think, he told
himself aggrievedly, that he was the one that had been acting up! Let
her go to Luck--she'd danged soon be made to know her place in camp.

Annie-Many-Ponies went confidently on her way, carrying the two pairs of
beaded moccasins in her hands. Her face was more inscrutable than ever.
She was pondering deeply the problem of Bill Holmes' business with
Ramon, and she was half tempted to tell Wagalexa Conka of that secret
intimacy which must carry on its converse under cover of night. She did
not trust Bill Holmes. Why must he keep Ramon posted? She glanced
ahead to where Luck stood thinking deeply about something, and her eyes
softened in a shy sympathy with his trouble. Wagalexa Conka worked hard
and thought much and worried more than was good for him. Bill Holmes,
she decided fiercely, should not add to those worries. She would warn
Ramon when next she talked with him. She would tell Ramon that he must
not be friends with Bill Holmes; in the meantime, she would watch.

Ten feet from Luck she stopped short, sensing trouble in the hardness
that was in his eyes. She stood there and waited in meek subjection.

"Annie, come here!" Luck's voice was no less stern because it was
lowered so that a couple of the boys fussing with the horses inside the
rope corral could not overhear what he had to say.

Annie-Many-Ponies, pulling one of the shiny black braids into the
correct position over her shoulder and breast, stepped soft-footedly up
to him and stopped. She did not ask him what he wanted