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Annie-Many-Ponies followed its course absently with her eyes until the last winking light from its windows and the last wisp of smoke was hidden behind hills and trees. The little black dog finished the rabbit, nosed its tracks back to where it had hopped out of the brush, and came back and curled up at the feet of his mistress, licking his lips and again his travel-sore paws.
"She's go som' place, I don't know, me." The slim right hand of Annie-Many-Ponies went instinctively to her bosom and to what lay hidden there. But she waited, looking from the little campfire that was now almost dead, to Luis whom she suspected of treachery.
Luis was "muy s'prised" that Annie-Many-Ponies had ever believed that Ramon would marry her, beautiful though she was, charming though she was, altogether irresistible though she was Luis became slightly incoherent here and lapsed into swift rolling Spanish words which she did not understand.
They discussed the robbery from every angle they could think of, and once or twice someone hazarded a guess at Annie-Many-Ponies' reason for leaving and her probable destination.
"Get to the point, man. What's wrong?" So Applehead, turning a darker shade of red than was his usual hue, cleared his throat and blurted out what he had to say. He had heard Shunka Chistala whinnying at midnight in the tent of Annie-Many-Ponies, and had gone outside to see what was the matter. He didn't know, he explained, but what his cat Compadre was somehow involved.
The less Americanized brother dismounted and joined the group with a nod of greeting. "My brother Tomas," announced Ramone, with a flash of white teeth, his eyes shifting unobtrusively toward Annie-Many-Ponies, who wore a secret, half-smiling air of provocative interest in him. "Not spik much English, my brother. Always stay too much at home.
"Sh-sh yoh not spik dat name," he whispered. "Luis Rojas me. I come for breeng yoh. No can come, yoh man. No spik name som'bodys maybe hears." Annie-Many-Ponies rose and stood peering at him through the dark. "What's wrong?" she asked abruptly, borrowing the curt phrase from Luck Lindsay. "Why I not speak name? Why some body ?" she laid ironical stress upon the word "not come?
Also he resented the uninvited arrival of Annie-Many-Ponies from the Sioux reservation in North Dakota. Annie-Many-Ponies had not only come uninvited she had remained in defiance of Luck's perturbed insistence that she should go back home.
Annie-Many-Ponies shivered, and then rose and went to the horse and, reaching into the bundle which was still bound to the saddle, she worked a plaid shawl loose from the other things and pulled it out and wrapped it close around her and pulled it over her head like a cowl. Then she went back and sat down against the bowlder, waiting, with the sublime patience of her kind, for Ramon.
Ramon did not make any reply whatever, and Bill gave another chuckling laugh and joined Luis, who was going to take the gaunt horses to a tiny meadow beyond the hill. As he went he said something that made Luis look back over his shoulder and laugh. Annie-Many-Ponies lifted her head and stared straight at Ramon.
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