down that slope faster than a walk
she was taking a chance of an accident. It was that risk that lightened
her heart which had been so heavy all day. The greater the risk, the
more eager was she to take it. She would show Ramon that she, too, could
ride.

"Oh, do be careful, Annie!" Jean called anxiously when she was riding
into the mouth of the draw. "Turn to the right, when you come to that
big flat rock, and don't come down where I did. It's too steep. Really,"
she drawled to Rosemary and Lite, "my heart was in my mouth when I came
straight down by that rock. It's a lot steeper than it looks from here."

"She won't go round it," Rosemary predicted pessimistically. "She's in
one of her contrary moods today. She'll come down the worst way she can
find just to scare the life out of us."

Up the steep draw that led to the top, Annie-Many-Ponies rode
exultantly. She would show Ramon that she could ride wherever the white
girl dared ride. She would shame Wagalexa Conka, too, for his injustice
to her. She would put the too, for big punch in that scene or--she would
ride no more, unless it were upon a white cloud, drifting across the
moon at night and looking, down at this world and upon Ramon.

At the top of the ridge she rode out to the edge and made the peace-sign
to Luck as a signal that she was ready to do his bidding. Incidentally,
while she held her hand high over her head, her eyes swept keenly the
bowlder-strewn bluff beneath her. A little to one side was a narrow
backbone of smoother soil than the rest, and here were printed deep the
marks of Jean's horse. Even there it was steep, and there was a
bank, down there by the big flat rock which Jean had mentioned.
Annie-Many-Ponies looked daringly to the left, where one would say the
bluff was impassable. There she would come down, and no other place. She
would show Ramon what she could do--he who had praised boldly another
when she was by!

"All right, Annie!" Luck called to her through his megaphone. "Go back
now and wait for whistle. Ride along the edge when you come, from bushes
to where you stand. I want silhouette, you coming. You sabe?"

Annie-Many-Ponies raised her hand even with her breast, and swept it
out and upward in the Indian sign-talk which meant "yes." Luck's eyes
flashed appreciation of the gesture; he loved the sign-talk of the old
plains tribes.

"Be careful, Annie," he cried impulsively. "I don't want you to be
hurt." He dropped the megapho