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The smile meant that all was well, that she might stay with Wagalexa Conka and be his Indian girl in the picture of The Phantom Herd.
She did not doubt that Luck had seen her the night before, and had seen also Bill Holmes when he left camp or returned perhaps both. She could not tell him that Bill Holmes had gone out to meet Ramon, for that, she felt instinctively, was a secret which Ramon trusted her not to betray. She could not tell Wagalexa Conka, either, that she met Ramon often when the camp was asleep.
"Poco tiempo, come to his camp, Ramon," he said when the sun was peering over the high shoulder of a ridge; and he spoke in a hushed tone, as if he feared that someone might overhear him. "You 'fraid Wagalexa Conka, he come?" Annie-Many-Ponies asked abruptly, looking at him full. Luis did not understand her, so he lifted his shoulders in the Mexican gesture which may mean much or nothing.
He say die plenty if Wagalexa Conka no make well. I go ticket wagon, tell Wagalexa Conka, he come quick, fix up leg all right. "All them Indians like to make him " She stopped, searching her mind for the elusive, little-used word which she had learned in the mission school. "Make him sdop'," she finished triumphantly. "Indians make much dance, plenty music, lots speeches make him Indian man.
Him not friend to Wagalexa Conka say nothing always go around still, like fox watching for rabbit. You not friend to Bill Holmes?" "Me? No I not friend, querida mia. I got business. I sell Bill Holmes one silver bridle, perhaps. I don' know mus' talk about it. Yoh tell him come here by big rock, sweetheart?" Annie-Many-Ponies took a minute for deliberation which is the Indian way.
Perhaps her heart forgot to beat when the thought stabbed her brain perhaps they had killed Wagalexa Conka! It might be so, if he had suspected her flight and had followed Ramon, and they had fought. In the thick shade of a pinon Luis slept with his face to the ground, his forehead pressed upon his folded arms.
And although her vanity might lead her to believe herself and her smile the cause of Luck's mask-like displeasure, she had no delusions as to which side he would take in an argument between herself and Shunka Chistala on the one side, and Rosemary and Compadre on the other; and in the back of her mind lived always the fear that Wagalexa Conka might refuse to let her stay and work for him in pictures.
She had stayed on the ranch where she belonged, except once or twice, on particularly fine days, when she had meekly asked "Wagalexa Conka," as she persisted in calling Luck, for permission to go for a ride.
Rosemary was a white woman and the wife of Wagalexa Conka's friend; Annie-Many-Ponies was an Indian girl, not even of the same race as her brother Wagalexa Conka.
With one jerk he had the door open and stood glorying in the wild gust of snow that broke over him like a wave. In his bare feet he stood there, and felt the snow beat in his face, and said never a word, since big emotions never quite reached the surface of Luck's manner. "Day come quick, Wagalexa Conka!"