therefore your life shall go for his life, and your people
        for his people.
020:043 The king of Israel went to his house sullen and angry,
        and came to Samaria.
021:001 It happened after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite
        had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace
        of Ahab king of Samaria.
021:002 Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying, Give me your vineyard, that I may
        have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near to my house;
        and I will give you for it a better vineyard than it:
        or, if it seem good to you, I will give you the worth
        of it in money.
021:003 Naboth said to Ahab, Yahweh forbid it me, that I should give
        the inheritance of my fathers to you.
021:004 Ahab came into his house sullen and angry because of the word
        which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him; for he had said,
        I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.
        He laid him down on his bed, and turned away his face,
        and would eat no bread.
021:005 But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said to him, Why is your
        spirit so sad, that you eat no bread?
021:006 He said to her, Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite,
        and said to him, Give me your vineyard for money; or else,
        if it please you, I will give you [another] vineyard for it:
        and he answered, I will not give you my vineyard.
021:007 Jezebel his wife said to him, Do you now govern the kingdom
        of Israel? arise, and eat bread, and let your heart be merry:
        I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.
021:008 So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, and sealed them with his seal,
        and sent the letters to the elders and to the nobles who were
        in his city, [and] who lived with Naboth.
021:009 She wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, and set
        Naboth on high among the people:
021:010 and set two men, base fellows, before him, and let them
        testify against him, saying, You did curse God and the king.
        Then carry him out, and stone him to death.
021:011 The men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who lived
        in his city, did as Jezebel had sent to them, according as it
        was written in the letters which she had sent to them.
021:012 They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people.
021:013 The two men, the base fellows, came in and sat before him:
        and the base fellows bore witness against him, even against Naboth,
        in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did curse God
        and the king.  Then they carried him forth out of the city,
        and stoned him to death with stones.
021:014 Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, Naboth is stoned,
        and is dead.
021:015 It happened, when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned,
        and was dead, that Jezebel said to Ahab, Arise, take possession
        of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused
        to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead.
021:016 It happened, when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, that Ahab
        rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite,
        to take possession of it.
021:017 The word of Yahweh came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,
021:018 Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who dwells in Samaria:
        behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, where he is gone
        down to take possession of it.
021:019 You shall speak to him, saying, Thus says Yahweh, Have you
        killed and also taken possession?  You shall speak to him,
        saying, Thus says Yahweh, In the place where dogs licked
        the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick your blood, even yours.
021:020 Ahab said to Elijah, Have you found me, my enemy?
        He answered, I have found you, because you have sold yourself
        to do that which is evil in the sight of Yahweh.
021:021 Behold, I will bring evil on you, and will utterly sweep you
        away and will cut off from Ahab everyone who urinates against
        a wall,{or, male} and him who is shut up and him who is left
        at large in Israel:
021:022 and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son
        of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah
        for the provocation with which you have provoked me to anger,
        and have made Israel to sin.
021:023 Of Jezebel also spoke Yahweh, saying, The dogs shall eat
        Jezebel by the rampart of Jezreel.
021:024 Him who dies of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat;
        and him who dies in the field shall the birds of the sky eat.
021:025 (But there was none like Ahab, who did sell himself to do
        that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, whom Jezebel
        his wife stirred up.
021:026 He did very abominably in following idols, according to
        all that the Amorites did, whom Yahweh cast out before
        the children of Israel.)
021:027 It happened, when Ahab heard those words, that he tore his clothes,
        and put sackcloth on his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth,
        and went softly.
021:028 The word of Yahweh came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,
021:029 See you how Ahab humbles himself before me? because he humbles
        himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days;
        but in his son's days will I bring the evil on his house.
022:001 They continued three years without war between Syria and Israel.
022:002 It happened in the third year, that Jehoshaphat the king
        of Judah came down to the king of Israel.
022:003 The king of Israel said to his servants, "You know that
        Ramoth Gilead is ours, and we are still, and don't take it
        out of the hand of the king of Syria?"
022:004 He said to Jehoshaphat, Will you go with me to battle to
        Ramoth Gilead?  Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am
        as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.
022:005 Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, Please inquire first
        for the word of Yahweh.
022:006 Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together,
        about four hundred men, and said to them, Shall I go
        against Ramoth Gilead to battle, or shall I forbear?
        They said, Go up; for the Lord will deliver it into the hand
        of the king.
022:007 But Jehoshaphat said, Isn't there here a prophet of Yahweh besides,
        that we may inquire of him?
022:008 The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, there is yet one man
        by whom we may inquire of Yahweh, Micaiah the son of Imlah:
        but I hate him; for he does not prophesy good concerning me,
        but evil.  Jehoshaphat said, "Don't let the king say so."
022:009 Then the king of Israel called an officer, and said, Get quickly
        Micaiah the son of Imlah.
022:010 Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah
        were sitting each on his throne, arrayed in their robes,
        in an open place at the entrance of the gate of Samaria;
        and all the prophets were prophesying before them.
022:011 Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made him horns of iron, and said,
        Thus says Yahweh, With these shall you push the Syrians,
        until they be consumed.
022:012 All the prophets prophesied so, saying, Go up to Ramoth Gilead,
        and prosper; for Yahweh will deliver it into the hand
        of the king.
022:013 The messenger who went to call Micaiah spoke to him, saying, See now,
        the words of the prophets [declare] good to the king with one mouth:
        please let your word be like the word of one of them,
        and speak you good.
022:014 Micaiah said, As Yahweh lives, what Yahweh says to me,
        that will I speak.
022:015 When he was come to the king, the king said to him, Micaiah,
        shall we go to Ramoth Gilead to battle, or shall we forbear?
        He answered him, Go up and prosper; and Yahweh will deliver
        it into the hand of the king.
022:016 The king said to him, How many times shall I adjure you that you
        speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of Yahweh?
022:017 He said, I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, as sheep
        that have no shepherd:  and Yahweh said, These have no master;
        let them return every man to his house in peace.
022:018 The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Didn't I tell you
        that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?
022:019 [Micaiah] said, "Therefore hear the word of Yahweh:  I saw
        Yahweh sitting on his throne, and all the army of heaven
        standing by him on his right hand and on his left.
022:020 Yahweh said, 'Who shall entice Ahab, that he may go up
        and fall at Ramoth Gilead?'  One said on this manner;
        and another said on that manner.
022:021 There came forth a spirit, and stood before Yahweh, and said,
        'I will entice him.'
022:022 Yahweh said to him, 'How?'  He said, 'I will go forth,
        and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.'
        He said, 'You shall entice him, and shall prevail also:
        go forth, and do so.'
022:023 Now therefore, behold, Yahweh has put a lying spirit in
        the mouth of all these your prophets; and Yahweh has spoken
        evil concerning you."
022:024 Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah came near, and struck Micaiah
        on the cheek, and said, Which way went the Spirit of Yahweh
        from me to speak to you?
022:025 Micaiah said, Behold, you shall see on that day, when you
        shall go into an inner chamber to hide yourself.
022:026 The king of Israel said, Take Micaiah, and carry him back
        to Amon the governor of the city, and to Joash the king's son;
022:027 and say, Thus says the king, Put this fellow in the prison,
        and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction,
        until I come in peace.
022:028 Micaiah said, If you return at all in peace, Yahweh has not
        spoken by me.  He said, Hear, you peoples, all of you.
022:029 So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah went
        up to Ramoth Gilead.
022:030 The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself,
        and go into the battle; but put you on your robes.
        The king of Israel disguised himself, and went into the battle.
022:031 Now the king of Syria had commanded the thirty-two captains
        of his chariots, saying, Fight neither with small nor great,
        save only with the king of Israel.
022:032 It happened, when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat,
        that they said, Surely it is the king of Israel; and they
        turned aside to fight against him:  and Jehoshaphat cried out.
022:033 It happened, when the captains of the chariots saw that it was
        not the king of Israel, that they turned back from pursuing him.
022:034 A certain man drew his bow at a venture, and struck
        the king of Israel between the joints of the armor:
        therefore he said to the driver of his chariot, Turn your hand,
        and carry me out of the army; for I am severely wounded.
022:035 The battle increased that day:  and the king was stayed
        up in his chariot against the Syrians, and died at even;
        and the blood ran out of the wound into the bottom of the chariot.
022:036 There went a cry throughout the army about the going down
        of the sun, saying, Every man to his city, and every man
        to his country.
022:037 So the king died, and was brought to Samaria; and they buried
        the king in Samaria.
022:038 They washed the chariot by the pool of Samaria; and the dogs licked
        up his blood (now the prostitutes washed themselves [there]);
        according to the word of Yahweh which he spoke.
022:039 Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did,
        and the ivory house which he built, and all the cities that
        he built, aren't they written in the book of the chronicles
        of the kings of Israel?
022:040 So Ahab slept with his fathers; and Ahaziah his son reigned
        in his place.
022:041 Jehoshaphat the son of Asa began to reign over Judah in the fourth
        year of Ahab king of Israel.
022:042 Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he began to reign;
        and he reigned twenty-five years in Jerusalem.
        His mother's name was Azubah the daughter of Shilhi.
022:043 He walked in all the way of Asa his father; He didn't turn aside
        from it, doing that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh:
        however the high places were not taken away; the people still
        sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places.
022:044 Jehoshaphat made peace with the king of Israel.
022:045 Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, and his might that
        he shown, and how he warred, aren't they written in the book
        of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
022:046 The remnant of the sodomites, that remained in the days of his
        father Asa, he put away out of the land.
022:047 There was no king in Edom:  a deputy was king.
022:048 Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish to go to Ophir for gold:
        but they didn't go; for the ships were broken at Ezion Geber.
022:049 Then said Ahaziah the son of Ahab to Jehoshaphat, Let my servants
        go with your servants in the ships.  But Jehoshaphat would not.
022:050 Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers, and was buried with his
        fathers in the city of David his father; Jehoram his son
        reigned in his place.
022:051 Ahaziah the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria
        in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah,
        and he reigned two years over Israel.
022:052 He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and walked
        in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother,
        and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, in which he made
        Israel to sin.
022:053 He served Baal, and worshiped him, and provoked to anger Yahweh,
        the God of Israel, according to all that his father had done.


she guessed that he did not want to be questioned upon the subject;
so she readjusted the shawl that had slipped from her head and went on
silently, two long steps behind him.

In a little he turned from the ravine, which was becoming more open and
not quite so deep. They scrambled over boulders which the horse must
negotiate carefully to avoid a broken leg, and then they were in another
little ravine, walled round with rocks and high, brushy slopes. Luis
went a little way, stopped beside a huge, jutting boulder and gave a
little exclamation of dismay.

"No more here, Ramon," he said, staring down at the faintly smoking
embers of a little fire. "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 glanced up at her apologetically, caught something of
menace in that unwinking, glittering stare, and began hastily searching
here and there for some sign that would enlighten him further.

"She's here when I go, Ramon," he explained deprecatingly. "I don'
un'stan', me. She's tell me go breeng yoh thees place. She's say I mus'
huree w'ile dark she's las'. I'm sure s'prised, me!" Luis was a slender
young man with a thin, patrician face that had certain picture values
for Luck, but which greatly belied his lawless nature. Until he stood
by the rock where she had waited for Ramon, Annie-Many-Ponies had
never spoken to him. She did not know him, therefore she did not trust
him--and she looked her distrust.

Luis turned from her after another hasty glance, and began searching
for some sign of Ramon. Presently, in a tiny cleft near the top of the
boulder, his black eyes spied a folded paper--two folded papers, as he
discovered when he reached up eagerly and pulled them out.

"She's write letter, Ramon," he cried with a certain furtive excitement.
"Thees for yoh." And he smiled while he gave her a folded note with
"Ana" scrawled hastily across the face of it.

Annie-Many-Ponies extended her left hand for it, and backed the few
steps away from him which would insure her safety against a sudden
attack, before she opened the paper and read:

"Querida mia, you go with Luis. Hes all rite you trus him. He bring you
where i am. i lov you. Ramon"

She read it twice and placed the note in her bosom--next the knife--and
looked at Luis, the glitter gone from her eyes. She smiled a little.
"I awful hongry," she said in her soft voice, and it was the second
sentence she had spoken since they left the rock where she had waited.

Luis smiled back, relief showing in the uplift of his lips and the
lightening of his eyes. "She's cache grob, Ramon," he said. "She's go
som' place and we go also. She's wait for us. Dam-long way--tree days, I
theenk me."

"You find that grub," said Annie-Many-Ponies, letting her hand drop away
from the knife. "I awful hongry. We eat, then we go."

"No--no go till dark comes! We walk in night--so somebody don' see!"

Annie-Many-Ponies looked at him sharply, saw that he was very much in
earnest, and turned away to gather some dry twigs for the fire. Up the
canon a horse whinnied inquiringly, and Luis, hastening furtively that
way, found the horse he had ridden into this place with Ramon. With
the problem of finding provender for the two animals, he had enough to
occupy him until Annie-Many-Ponies, from the coarse food he brought her,
cooked a crude breakfast.

Truly, this was not what she had dreamed the morning would be like--she
who had been worried over the question of whether Ramon would let her
confess to the priest before they were married! Here was no priest and
no Ramon, even; but a keen-eyed young Mexican whom she scarcely knew at
all; and a mysterious hiding-out in closed-in canons until dark before
they might follow Ramon who loved her. Annie-Many-Ponies did not
understand why all this stealthiness should be necessary, for she knew
that proof of her honorable marriage would end Luck's pursuit--supposing
he did pursue--even though his anger might live always for her. She did
not understand; and when an Indian confronts a situation which puzzles
him, you may be very sure that same Indian is going to be very, very
cautious. Annie-Many-Ponies was Indian to the middle of her bone.

CHAPTER XVII. APPLEHEAD SHOWS THE STUFF HE IS MADE OF

Lite Avery, turning to look back as they galloped up a long slope so
gradual in its rise that it seemed almost level, counted just fourteen
Indians spreading out fanwise in pursuit. He turned to Applehead with
the quiet deference in his manner that had won the old man's firm
friendship.

"What's this new move signify, boss?" he asked, tilting his head
backward. "What they spreading out like that for, when they're outa easy
rifle range?"

Applehead looked behind him, studied the new formation of their enemy,
and scowled in puzzlement. He looked ahead, where he knew the land lay
practically level before them, all sand and rabbit weed, with a little
grass here and there; to the left, where the square butte stood up
bold-faced and grim; to the right where a ragged sandstone ledge blocked
the way.

"'S some dang new trap uh theirn," he decided, his voice signifying
disgust for such methods. "Take an Injun 'n' he don't calc'late he's
fightin' 'nless he's figgurin' on gittin' yuh cornered. Mebby they got
some more cached ahead som'ers. Keep yer eye peeled, boys, 'n' shoot at
any dang thing yuh see that yuh ain't dead sure 's a rabbit weed. Don't
go bankin' on rocks bein' harmless--'cause every dang one's liable to
have an Injun layin' on his belly behind it. Must be another bunch ahead
som'ers, 'cause I know it's smooth goin' fer five miles yit. After that
they's a drop down into a rocky kinda pocket that's hard t' git out
of except the way yuh go in, account of there bein' one uh them dang
rim-rocks runnin' clean 'round it. Some calls it the Devil's Fryin'-pan.
No water ner grass ner nothin' else 'ceptin' snakes. 'N' Navvies kinda
ownin' rattlers as bein' their breed uh cats, they don't kill 'em off,
so they's a heap 'n' plenty of 'em in that basin.

"But I ain't aimin' t' git caught down in there, now I'm tellin' yuh! I
aim t' keep along clost t' that there butte, 'n' out on the other side
where we kin pick up luck's trail. I shore would do some rarin' around
if that boy rode off into a mess uh trouble, 'n' I'm tellin' yuh
straight!"

"He's got some good boy at his back," Weary reminded him, loyal to his
Flying U comrade.

"You're dang right he has! I ain't sayin' he ain't, am I? Throw some
more lead back at them skunks behind us, will ye, Lite? 'N' the rest
of yuh save yore shells fer close-ups!" He grinned a little at the
incongruity of a motion-picture phrase in such a situation as this. "'N'
don't be so dang skeered uh hurtin' somebody!" he adjured Lite, drawing
rein a little so as not to forge ahead of the other. "You'll have to
kill off a few anyway 'fore you're through with 'em."

Lite aimed at the man riding in the center of the half-circle, and the
bullet he sent that way created excitement of some sort; but whether the
Indian was badly hit, or only missed by a narrow margin, the four did
not wait to discover. They had held their horses down to a pace that
merely kept them well ahead of the Indians; and though the horses were
sweating, they were holding their own easily enough--with a reserve fund
of speed if their riders needed to call upon it.

Applehead, glancing often behind him, scowled over the puzzle of that
fanlike formation of riders. They would hardly begin so soon to herd him
and his men into that evil little rock basin with the sinister name, and
there was no other reason he could think of which would justify those
tactics, unless another party waited ahead of them. He squinted ahead
uneasily, but the mesa lay parched and empty under the sky--

And then, peering straight into the glare of the sun, he saw, down the
slope which they had climbed without realizing that it would have a
crest, it was so low--Applehead saw the answer to the puzzle; saw and
gave his funny little grunt of astonishment and dismay. Straight as
a chalk line from the sandstone ledge on their right to the
straight-walled butte on their left stretched that boundary line between
the untamed wilderness and the tamed--a barbed wire fence; a four-wire
fence at that, with stout cedar posts whereon the wire was stretched
taut and true. From the look of the posts, it was not new--four or five
years old, perhaps; not six years, certainly, for Applehead had ridden
this way six years before and there had been not so much as a post-hole
to herald the harnessing of the mesa.

Here, then, was the explanation of the fanlike spreading out of the line
of Indians. They knew that the white men would be trapped by the fence,
and they were cutting off the retreat--and keeping out of the hottest
danger-zone of the white men's guns. Even while the four were grasping
the full significance of the trap that they had ridden into unaware, the
Indians topped the ridge behind them, yip-yip-yipping gleefully their
coyotelike yells of triumph. The sound so stirred the slow wrath of Lite
Avery that, without waiting for the word from Applehead he twisted
half around in his saddle, glanced at the nearest Indian along his
rifle-sights, bent his forefinger with swift deliberation upon the
trigger, and emptied the saddle of one yelling renegade, who made haste
to crawl behind a clump of rabbit weed.

"They howl like a mess uh coyotes," Lite observed in justification of
the shot, "and I'm getting sick of hearing 'em."

"Mama!" Weary, exclaimed annoyedly, "that darn fence is on an up-slope,
so it's going to be next to impossible to jump it! I guess here's where
we do about an eight-hundred-foot scene of Indian Warfare, or Fighting
For Their Lives. How yuh feel, Cadwalloper?"

"Me?" Pink's eyes were purple with sheer, fighting rage. "I feel like
cleaning out that bunch back there. They'll have something to howl about
when I get through!"

"Stay back uh me, boys!" Applehead's voice had a masterful sharpness
that made the three tighten reins involuntarily. "You foller me and
don't crowd up on me, neither. Send back a shot or two if them Injuns
gits too ambitious."

The three fell in behind him without cavil or question. He was in charge
of the outfit, and that settled it. Pink, released from irksome inaction
by the permission to shoot, turned and fired back at the first Indian
his sights rested upon. He saw a spurt of sand ten jumps in advance of
his target, and he swore and fired again without waiting to steady his
aim. The sorrel pack-horse, loping along fifty yards or so behind with
a rhythmic clump-clump of frying-pan against coffee-pot at every leap he
took, swerved sharply, shook his head as though a bee had stung him,
and came on with a few stiff-legged "crow hops" to register his violent
objection to being shot through the ear.

Pink, with an increased respect for the shooting skill of Lite Avery,
glanced guiltily at the others to see if they had observed where his
second bullet hit. But the others were eyeing Applehead uneasily and
paid no attention to Pink or his attempts to hit an Indian on the run.
And presently Pink forgot it also while he watched Applehead, who was
apparently determined to commit suicide in a violently original form.

"You fellers keep behind, now---and hold the Injuns back fer a minute
er two," Applehead yelled while he set himself squarely in the saddle,
gathered up his reins as though he were about to "top a bronk" and
jabbed the spurs with a sudden savageness into Johnny's flanks.

"GIT outa here!" he yelled, and Johnny with an astonished lunge, "got."

Straight toward the fence they raced, Johnny with his ears laid back
tight against his skull and his nose pointed straight out before him,
with old Applehead leaning forward and yelling to Johnny with a cracked
hoarseness that alone betrayed how far youth was behind him.

They thought at first that he meant to jump the fence, and they knew he
could not make it. When they saw that he meant to ride through it, Weary
and Pink groaned involuntarily at the certainty of a fall and sickening
entanglement in the wires. Only Lite, cool as though he were rounding up
milch cows, rode half-turned in the saddle and sent shot after shot
back at the line of Navajos, with such swift precision that the Indians
swerved and fell back a little, leaving another pony wallowing in the
sand and taking with them one fellow who limped until he had climbed up
behind one who waited for him.

"Go it, Johnny--dang yore measly hide, go to it! We'll show 'm we ain't
so old 'n' tender we cain't turn a trick t'bug their dang eyes out?
Bust into it! WE'LL show 'em!--" And Applehead shrilled a raucous range
"HOO-EEE-EE!" as Johnny lunged against the taut wires.

It was a long chance he took--a "dang long chance" as Applehead admitted
afterward. But, as he had hoped, it happened that Johnny's stride
brought him with a forward leap against the wires, so that the full
impact of his eleven-hundred pounds plus the momentum of his speed, plus
the weight of Applehead and the saddle, hit the wires fair and full.
They popped like cut wires on a bale of hay--and it was lucky that they
were tight strung so that there was no slack to take some of the force
away. It was not luck, but plain shrewdness on Applehead's part, that
Johnny came straight on, so that there was no tearing see-saw of the
strands as they broke. Two inch-long cuts on his chest and a deeper,
longer one on his foreleg was the price Johnny paid, and that was all.
The lower wire he never touched, since it was a leap that landed him
against the fence. He lurched and recovered himself, and went on at a
slower gallop while Applehead beckoned the three to come on.

"I kain't say I'd want to git in the habit uh bustin' fences that way,"
he grinned over his shoulder as the three jumped through the gap he had
made and forged up to him. "But I calc'late if they's another one Johnny
n' me kin make it, mebby."

"Well, I was brought up in a barbed wire country," Pink exploded, "but
I'll be darned if I ever saw a stunt like that pulled off before!"

"We-ell, I hed a bronk go hog-wild 'n' pop three wires on a fence one
time," Applehead explained modestly, "'n' he didn't cut hisself a-tall,
skurcely. It's all accordin' t' how yuh hit it, I reckon. Anyway, I
calc'lated it was wuth tryin', 'cause we shore woulda had our hands
full if we'd a stopped at that fence, now I'm tellin' yuh! 'N' another
thing," he added bodefully, "I figgured we'd better be gittin' to Luck
In' his bunch. I calc'late they need us, mebby."

No one made any reply to that statement, but even Lite, who never had
been inclined to laugh at him, looked at Applehead with a new respect.
The Indians, having scurried back out of range of Lite's uncomfortably
close shooting, yelled a bedlam of yips and howls and came on again in a
closer group than before, shooting as they rode--at the four men first,
and then at the hindmost pack-horse that gave a hop over the wire
left across the gap, and came galloping heavily after the others. They
succeeded in burying a bullet in the packed bedding, but that was all.

Three hundred yards or so in the lead, the four raced down the long,
gentle slope. A mile or two, perhaps three, they could run before their
horses gave out. But then, when they could run no longer, they would
have to stop and fight; and the question that harped continually through
their minds was: Could they run until they reached Luck and the boys
with him? Could they? They did not even know where Luck was, or
what particular angle of direction would carry them to him quickest.
Applehead and Johnny were pointing the way, keeping a length ahead of
the others. But even old Applehead was riding, as he would have put it,
"by-guess and by-gosh" until they crossed a shallow draw, labored up the
hill beyond, and heard, straight away before them, the faint pop-pop of
rifle shots. Old Applehead turned and sent them a blazing blue glance
over his shoulders.

"RIDE, dang ye!" he barked. "They've got Luck cornered in the Devil's
Fryin'-pan!"

CHAPTER XVIII. IN THE DEVIL'S FRYING-PAN

Luck, riding confidently on the trail of the three horsemen who had
taken to the south along the front of the square butte, believed that
the turn of the trail around the southern end meant simply that the
three who came this way would meet their companions on the other side,
and that he, following after, would be certain to meet Applehead. He had
hopes of the speedy capture of Ramon Chavez and his men, and the
hope spread to the four who went with him, so that their spirits rose
considerably. Big Medicine and Happy Jack even found a good deal of
amusement in their exchange of opinions regarding old granny Applehead
and his constant fear of the Navvies. Now and then the Native Son joined
in the laugh, though his attention was chiefly given to the discussion
Andy and Luck were having about Ramon and his manner of using Luck's
work as an opportunity to rob the bank, and the probable effect it would
have on the general standing of Luck and his company unless they managed
to land the thieves in jail. Being half Mexican himself, the Native Son
was sensitive upon the subject of Ramon, and almost as anxious to see
Ramon in jail as was Luck himself.

So while Applehead and his boys were scenting danger and then finding
themselves in the middle of it, Luck and his party rode along absorbed
in themselves and in the ultimate goal, which was Ramon. They saw
nothing queer about the trail they followed, and they saw no evidence
of treachery anywhere. They rode with the rifles slung under their
right thighs and their six-shooters at their hips, and their eyes roving
casually over their immediate surroundings while their minds roved
elsewhere--not because they were growing careless, but because there was
absolutely nothing to rouse their suspicions, now that they no longer
bad Applehead along to preach danger and keep them keyed up to expect
it.

They followed the tracks through a scattered grove of stunted pinons,
circled at fault for a few minutes in the rocks beyond, and then picked
up the trail. They were then in the narrow neck which was called
the handle of the Devil's Frying-pan--and they would have ridden
unsuspectingly into the very Pan itself, had not the Native Son's quick
eyes caught a movement on the rim-rock across the bare, rock-bottomed
basin. He spoke to luck about it, and luck levelled his field glasses
and glimpsed a skulking form up there.

"Hunt yourselves some shelter, boys!" he cried in the sharp tone of
warning. "We'll make sure who's ahead before we go any farther."

They ducked behind rocks or trees and piled off their horses in a burry.
And a scattered fusillade from the rim-rock ahead of them proved how
urgent was their need.

For the first fifteen minutes or so they thought that they were fighting
Ramon and his party, and their keenest emotions were built largely of
resentment, which showed in the booming voice of Big Medicine when he
said grimly:

"Well, I'd jest about as soon pack Ramon in dead, as lead 'im in alive
'n' kickin', by cripes! Which is him, d'yuh reckon?"

From behind a rock shield luck was studying the ledge. "They're
Injuns--or there are Injuns in the bunch, at least," he told them after
a moment. "See that sharp point sticking up straight ahead? I saw an
Injun peeking around the edge--to the south. You watch for him, Andy,
and let him have it where he lives next time be sticks his head out." He
swung the glasses slowly, taking every inch of the rim in his field of
vision. As he moved them be named the man he wanted to watch each place
where he had reason to suspect that someone was hiding.

The disheartening part of it was that he needed about a dozen more
men than he had; for the rock wall which was the rim of the Frying-pan
seemed alive with shooters who waited only for a fair target. Then the
Native Son, crouched down between a rock and a clump of brush, turned
his head to see what his horse was looking at, back whence they had
come.

"Look behind you, Luck," he advised with more calmness than one would
expect of a man in his straits. "They're back in the pines, too."

"Fight 'em off--and take care that your backs don't show to those babies
on the rim-rocks," he ordered instantly, thrusting his glasses into
their case and snatching his rifle from its boot on the saddle. "They
won't tackle coming across that bare hollow, even if they can get down
into it without breaking their necks. Happy, lead your horse in
here between these rocks where mine is. Bud, see if you can get the
pack-horses over there outa sight among those bushes and rocks. We'll
hold 'em off while you fix the horses--can't let ourselves be set afoot
out here!"

"I-should-say--NOT!" Andy Green punctuated the sentence with a shot or
two. "Say, I wish they'd quit sneaking around in those trees that way,
so a fellow could see where to shoot!"

A half hour dragged by. From the rim-rock came occasional shots,
to which the besieged could not afford to reply, they were so fully
occupied with holding back those who skulked among the trees. The
horses, fancying perhaps that this was a motion-picture scene, dozed
behind their rock-and-brush shelters and switched apathetically at
buzzing flies and whining bullets alike. Their masters crouched behind
their bowlders and watched catlike for some open demonstration, and
fired when they had the slightest reason to believe that they would hit
something besides scenery.

"Miguel must have upset their plans a little," Luck deduced after a
lull. "They set the stage for us down in that hollow, I guess. You can
see what we'd have been up against if we had ridden ten rods farther,
out away from these rocks and bushes."

"Aw, they wouldn't dast kill a bunch uh white men!" Happy Jack
protested, perhaps for his own comfort.

"You think they wouldn't? Luck's voice was surcharged with sarcasm. What
do you think they're trying to do, then?"

"Aw, the gov'ment wouldn't STAND fer no such actions!"

"Well, by cripes, I hain't aimin' to give the gov'ment no job uh
setting on my remains, investigatin' why I was killed off!" Big Medicine
asserted, and took a shot at a distant grimy Stetson to prove he meant
what he said.

"Say, they'd have had a SNAP if we'd gone on, and let these fellows back
here in the trees close up behind us!" Andy Green exclaimed suddenly,
with a vividness of gesture that made Happy Jack try to swallow his
Adam's apple. "By gracious, it would have been a regular rabbit-drive
business. They could set in the shade and pick us off just as they
darned pleased."

"Aw, is that there the cheerfullest thing you can think of to say?"
Happy Jack was sweating, with something more than desert heat.

"Why, no. The cheerfullest thing I can think of right now is that
Mig, here, don't ride with his eyes shut." He cast a hasty glance of
gratitude toward the Native Son, who flushed under the smooth brown of
his cheeks while he fired at a moving bush a hundred yards back in the
grove.

For another half hour nothing was gained or lost. The Indians fired
desultorily, spatting bit& of lead here and there among the rocks
but hitting nobody. The Happy Family took a shot at every symptom of
movement in the grove, and toward the rim-rock they sent a bullet
now and then, just to assure the watchers up there that they were not
forgotten, and as a hint that caution spelled safety.

For themselves, the boys were amply protected there on the side of the
Frying-pan where the handle stretched out into the open land toward the
mountain. Perhaps here was once a torrent flowing from the basin-like
hollow walled round with rock; at any rate, great bowlders were
scattered all along the rim as though spewed from the basin by some
mighty force of the bygone ages. The soil, as so often happens in the
West, was fertile to the very edge of the Frying-pan and young pinons
and bushes had taken root there and managed to keep themselves alive
with the snow-moisture of winter, in spite of the scanty rainfall the
rest of the year.

The boys were amply protected, yes; but there was not a drop of water
save what they had in their canteens, and there was no feed for their
horses unless they chose to nibble tender twigs off the bushes near them
and call that food. There was, of course, the grain in the packs, but
there was neither time nor opportunity to get it out. If it came to a
siege, luck and his boys were in a bad way, and they knew it. They were
penned as well as protected there in that rocky, brushy neck. The most
that they could do was to discourage any rush from those back in the
grove; as to getting through that grove themselves, and out in the open,
there was not one chance in a hundred that they could do it.

From the outside in to where they were entrenched was just a trifle
easier. The Indiana in the grove were all absorbed in watching the edge
of the Frying-pan and had their backs to the open, never thinking that
white men would be coming that way; for had not the other party been
decoyed around the farther end of the big butte, and did not several
miles and a barbed-wire fence lie between?

So when Applehead and his three, coming in from the north, approached
the grove, they did it under cover of a draw that hid them from sight.
From the shots that were fired, Applehead guessed the truth; that
Luck's bunch had sensed danger before they had actually ridden into the
Frying-pan itself, and that the Navajos were trying to drive them out of
the rocks, and were not making much of a success of it.

"Now," Applehead instructed the three when they were as close as they
could get to the grove without being seen, "I calc'late about the best
thing we kin do, boys, is t' spur up our hosses and ride in amongst 'em
shooting and a-hollerin'. Mebby we kin jest natcherlay stampede 'em--but
we've sure got t' git through In' git under cover mighty dang suddent,
er they'll come to theirselves an' wipe us clean off'n the map--if
they's enough of 'em. These here that's comin' along after us, they'll
help t' swell the party, oncet they git here. I calc'late they figger
't we're runnin' head-on into a mess uh trouble, 'n' they don't want t'
colleck any stray bullets--'n' that's why they've dropped back in the
last half mile er so. Haze them pack bosses up this way, Pink, so'st
they won't git caught up 'fore they git t' what the rest air. Best use
yore six-guns fer this, boys--that'll leave ye one hand t' guide yore
bosses with, and they're handier all around in close--work. Air ye
ready? Then come on--foller me 'n' come a-whoopin'!"

A-whooping they came, up out of the draw and in among the trees as
though they had a regiment behind them. Certain crouching figures
jumped, sent startled glances behind them and ran like partridges
for cover farther on. Only one or two paused to send a shot at these
charging fiends who seemed bent on riding them down and who yelled like
devils turned loose from the pit. And before they had found safe
covert on the farther fringes of the grove and were ready to meet the
onslaught, the clamor had ceased and the white men had joined those
others among the rocks.

So now there were nine men cornered here on the edge of the Frying-pan,
with no water for their horses and not much hope of getting out of
there.

"Darn you, Applehead, why didn't you keep out of this mess?" Luck
demanded with his mouth drawn down viciously at the corners and his eyes
warm with affection and gratitude. "What possessed your fool heart to
ride into this trap?"

"We-ell, dang it, we had t' ride som'ers, didn't we?" Applehead, safe
behind a bowlder, pulled off his greasy, gray Stetson and polished his
bald head disconcertedly. "Had a bunch uh Navvies hangin' t' our heels
like tumbleweed--'n' we been doin' some RIDIN', now, I'm a tellin' ye!
'F Lite, here, hadn't kep' droppin' one now an' then fur the rest t'
devour, I calc'late we'd bin et up, a mile er two back!"

Lite looked up from shoving more cartridges into his rifle-magazine. "If
we hadn't had a real, simon-pure go-getter to boss the job," he drawled,
"I reckon all the shooting I did wouldn't have cut any ice. Ain't that
right, boys?"

Pink, resting his rifle in a niche of the boulder and moving it here and
there trying to fix his sights on a certain green sweater back in the
woods that he had glimpsed a minute before, nodded assent. "You're durn
tootin' it's right!" he testified.

Weary looked shining-eyed at Applehead's purple face. "Sure, that's
right!" he emphasized. "And I don't care how much of a trap you call
this, it isn't a patching to the one Applehead busted us out of. He's
what I call a Real One, boys."

"Aw, shet yore dang head 'n' git yore rifles workin'!" Applehead
blurted. "This yere ain't no time fer kiddin', 'n' I'm tellin' yuh
straight. What's them fellers acrost the Fryin'-pan think they're tryin'
t' do? luck le's you'n me make a few remarks over that way, 'n' leave
the boys t' do some gun-talk with these here babies behind us. Dang it,
if I knowed of a better place 'n' what this is fer holdin' 'em off, I'd
say make a run fer it. But I don't 'n' that's fact. Yuh musta sprung the
trap 'fore yuh got inside, 'cause they shore aimed t' occupy this nest
uh rocks theirselves, with you fellers down there in the Fryin'-pan
where they could git at yuh.

"Thar's one of 'em up on the rim-rock--see 'im?--standin' thar, by
granny, like he was darin' somebody t' cut loose! Here, Lite, you spill
some lead up thar. We'll learn 'im t' act up smart--"

"Hey, hold on!" Luck grabbed Lite's arm as he was raising his rifle
for a close shot at the fellow. "Don't shoot! Don't you see? Thaf's the
peace-sign he's making!"

"Well, now, dang it, he better be makin' peace-signs!" growled Applehead
querulously, and sat down heavily on a shelf of the rock. "'Cause Lite,
here, shore woulda tuk an ear off'n him in another minute, now I'm
tellin' ye!"

CHAPTER XIX. PEACE TALK

Across the Frying-pan an Indian stood boldly out upon a jutting point of
rock and raised a hand in the sweeping upward motion of the peace-sign.
The questing bullets that came seeking for bone and flesh among the
rocks and bushes came no more when the signal was passed from those
who saw to those farther back who could not see the figure silhouetted
against the brilliant blue of the sky. A moment he stood, made the sign
again, and waited.

"That's peace-sign, sure as you're born!" Luck cried breathlessly, and
went scrambling through the bushes to where he might stand in the open,
on the very rim of the basin. Applehead yelled to him to come back and
not make a dang fool of himself, but luck gave no heed to the warning.
He stood out in the blazing sunshine and gave the peace-sign in reply.

On the-rim rock the Indian stood motionless while he might have taken
three or four breaths. Then with his hand he gave the sign for "pow-wow"
and waited again.

Luck, his pulse thrilling at the once familiar gesture which his tribal
"father," old chief Big Turkey, used to give when he came stalking up
for his daily confab with his adopted son, gave back the sign with a
hand that trembled noticeably. Whereupon the Indian on the farther rim
turned and began dignifiedly to climb through a rift in the ledge down
into the Frying-pan.

"He wants a pow-wow," Luck called back to the bunch. "You fellows stay
where you're at I'm going out there in the middle and talk to him."

"Now, Luck, don't let 'em make a dang monkey outa ye," Applehead
protested anxiously. "Injuns is tricky--"

"That's all right. You can keep a couple of rifles sighted on that old
chief--that's what he is, I take it, from his actions and his talking
'sign' and then if they pot me, you can pot him. But they won't. I
know Injuns better than you do, Applehead. He just wants to talk things
over--and I'm certainly willing that he should!"

"Well, Lite, you keep your sights lined up on that Injun, then. 'N' if
they's a crooked move made towards Luck, you cut loose--'n' say!
You shoot to kill, this time!" He shook his finger in Lite's face
admonishingly. "'S all right t' nip "em here 'n' take a hunk out there
jest t' kinda take their minds off'n us---'s all right enough so fur,
'n' I ain't kickin' none 'cause yuh ain't killed off yuh hit. But if
this here's a trick t' git Luck, you KILL that Injun. 'N' if you don't
do it I'll go out there m'self 'n' choke the dang skunk t' death!"

"I'll kill him--don't worry about that," Lite promised--and the look
in his eyes told them that the Indian was doomed at the first sign of
treachery.

"You fellers wanta keep an eye peeled fer them in the grove," Applehead
warned. "We ain't goin' t' give 'em no chanst t' sneak up 'n' skulp us
whilst we're watchin' Luck 'n' his dang-fool pow-wowin' out there in the
middle."

"Aw, gwan! They wouldn't DAST skelp white folks!" There was a wail in
the voice of Happy Jack.

"They dast if they git the chanst," Applehead retorted fretfully. "'N'
if you don't wanta loose that there red mop uh yourn ye better keep yer
eyes open, now I'm tellin' yuh!" He refilled his rifle magazine and took
up his station beside Lite Avery where he could watch the Frying-pan
through the bushes without exposing himself to a treacherous shot from
the rim-rock.

At the foot of the sandstone ledge the Indian stood with his bright red
blanket wrapped around him watching Luck. On his own side Luck stood
just clear of the rock huddle and watched the Indian. Presently he of
the red blanket lifted his hand in the gesture of peace, and started
deliberately out across the bare little basin. From his own side, Luck,
returning again the gesture, went out to meet him. In the center they
met, and eyed each other frankly. Still eyeing Luck, the old Indian put
out his hand Indian fashion, and Luck grave it one downward shake and
let go.

"How?" he grunted; and in the Indian custom of preparing for a leisurely
pow-wow as he had been taught by the Sioux, he squatted upon his boot
heels and reached for his cigarette papers and tobacco.

"How?" replied the Navajo, a flicker of interest in his eyes at
these little Indian touches in Luck's manner, and sat himself down
cross-legged on the hot sand. Luck rolled a cigarette and passed the
"makings" to the other, who received it gravely and proceeded to help
himself. Luck scratched a match on a stone that lay beside him, lighted
the Indian's cigarette and then his own, took four puffs and blew the
smoke upward, watching it spread and drift away, and made the gesture
that meant "Our pow-wow will be good," as he had seen the Sioux medicine
men do before a council. Afterwards he began placidly to smoke and
meditate.

From his manner you would never have guessed that his life and the lives
of the Happy Family hung upon the outcome of this meeting. You would not
have surmised that his stomach was gnawing at his nerves, sending out
insistently the call for food; or that his thirst tormented him; or that
the combination of hunger, heat, thirst and mental strain had bred a
jumping headache that was knotting the veins in his temples. All these
nagging miseries beset him--but he knew the ways of the Indians and
he meant to impress this old man first of all with his plains-Indian
training; so he schooled himself to patience.

The Indian eyed him furtively from under heavy eyebrows while he smoked.
And the sun beat savagely down upon the sand of that basin, and Luck's
vision blurred with the pain that throbbed behind his eyes. But the
facial discipline of the actor was his to command, and he permitted his
face to give no sign of what he felt or thought.

The Indian leaned slowly, lifted a brown hand, made a studied gesture
or two and waited, his eyes fixed unwinkingly upon Luck. It was as if
he were saying to himself: "We'll see if this white man can speak in the
sign-talk of the Indians."

Luck lifted his two hands, drew them slowly apart to say that he had
come a long way. Then, using only his hands--sometimes his fingers
only--he began to talk; to tell the old Navajo that he and eight other
white men were sheriffs and that they were chasing four white men (since
he had no sign that meant Mexican) who had stolen money; that they had
come from Albuquerque--and there he began to draw in the sand between
them a crude but thoroughly understandable sketch of the trail they had
taken and the camps they had made, and the distance they believed the
four thieves had travelled ahead of them.

He marked the camp where their horses had been stolen from them and
told how long they had waited there until the horses of their own accord
returned to camp; thirteen horses, he explained to the old Navajo. He
drew a rough square to indicate the square butte, sketched the fork of
the trail there and told how four men had turned to the north on a false
trail, while he and four others had gone around the southern end of the
hill. He calmly made plain that at the end of both false trails a trap
had been laid, that Indians had fired upon white men and for no just
cause. Why was this go? Why had Indians surrounded them back there in
the grove and tried to kill them? Why were Indians shooting at them from
the ledge of rocks that circled this little basin? They had no quarrel
with the Navajos. They were chasing thieves, to take them to jail.

Folded swelteringly in his red blanket the old Indian sat humped forward
a little, smoking slowly his cigarette and studying the sketch Luck had
drawn for him. With aching head and parched throat and hungry stomach,
Luck sat cross-legged on the hot sand and waited, and would not let his
face betray any emotion at all. Up on the Tim-rock brown faces peered
down steadfastly at the pow-wow. And back among the rocks and bushes
the Happy Family waited restively with eyes turning in all directions
guarding against treachery; and Lite, whose bullets always went straight
to the spot where they were aimed, stood and stared fixedly over his
rifle sights at the red-blanketed figure squatted in the sand and kept
his finger crooked upon the trigger. Beside him Applehead fidgeted and
grumbled and called Luck names for being so dang slow, and wondered if
those two out there meant to sit and chew the rag all day.

The Indian leaned and traced Luck's trail slowly with his finger. Did
the four white men come that way? he asked in sign. And then, had Luck
seen them? Was he sure that he was following the four who had stolen
money in Albuquerque?

Come to think of it, Luck was not sure to the point of being able to
take oath that it was so. He traced again where the hoofprints had been
discovered near the stalled automobile, and signed that the six horses
they believed to have belonged to the four who had taken two horses
packed with food and blankets--and the stolen money.

Then suddenly Luck remembered that, for proof of his story, he had a
page of the Evening Herald in his pocket, torn from a copy he had bought
on the streets the evening after the robbery. He pulled the folded paper
out, spread it before the other and pointed to the article that told
of the robbery. "Call some young man of your tribe who can read," he
signed. "Let him read and tell you if I have spoken the truth."

The Indian took the paper and looked at it curiously.

Now, unless Applehead or some other hot-head spoiled things, Luck
believed that things would smooth down beautifully. There had been
some misunderstanding, evidently--else the Indiana would never have
manifested all this old-fashioned hostility.

The blanketed one showed himself a true diplomat. "Call one of your
white men, that there may be two and two," he gestured. And he added,
with the first words he had spoken since they met, "Hablo espanol?"

Well, if he spoke Spanish, thought Luck, why the deuce hadn't he done
it at first? But there is no fathoming the reticence of an Indian--and
Luck, by a sudden impulse, hid his own knowledge of the language. He
stood up and turned toward the rocks, cupped his hands around his lips
and called for the Native Son. "And leave your rifle at home," he added
as an afterthought and in the interests of peace.

The Indian turned to the rim-rock, held up the fragment of newspaper and
called for one whom he called Juan. Presently Juan's Stetson appeared
above the ledge, and Juan himself scrambled hastily down the rift and
came to them, grinning with his lips and showing a row of beautifully
even teeth, and asking suspicious questions with his black eyes that
shone through narrowed lids.

Miguel, arriving just then from the opposite direction, sized him up
with one heavy-lashed glance and nodded negligently. He had left his
rifle behind him as he had been told, but his six-shooter hung inside
the waistband of his trousers where he could grip it with a single
drop of his hand. The Native Son, lazy as he looked, was not taking any
chances.

The old Indian explained in Navajo to the young man who eyed the two
white men while he listened. Of the blanket-vending, depot-haunting type
was this young man, with a ready smile and a quick eye for a bargain and
a smattering of English learned in his youth at a mission, and a larger
vocabulary of Mexican that lent him fluency of speech when the mood to
talk was on him. Half of his hair was cut so that it hung even with his
ear-lobes. At the back it was long and looped up in the way a horse's
tail is looped in muddy weather, and tied with a grimy red ribbon wound
round and round it. He wore a green-and-white roughneck sweater
broadly striped, and the blue overalls that inevitably follow American
civilization into the wild places.

"'S hot day," he announced unemotionally, and took the paper which the
red-blanketed one held out to him. His air of condescension could not
hide the fact that behind his pride at being able to read print he was
unhappily aware also of his limitations in the accomplishment. Along the
scare-head Luck had indicated, his dirty forefinger moved slowly while
he spelled out the words. "A-a-bank rob!" he read triumphantly, and
repeated the statement in Spanish. After that he mumbled a good deal
of it, the longer words arresting his finger while he struggled with the
syllables. But he got the sense of it nevertheless, as Luck and Miguel
knew by the version he gave in Spanish to the old Indian, with now and
then a Navajo word to help out.

When he came to the place where Ramon Chavez and Luis Rojas were named
as the thieves, he gave a grunt and looked up at Luck and Miguel, read
in, their faces that these were the men they sought, and grinned.

"Me, I know them feller," he declared unexpectedly. "Dat day I seen them
feller. They go--"

The old Indian touched him on the shoulder, and Juan turned and
repeated the statement in Spanish. The old man's eyes went to luck
understandingly, while he asked Juan a question in the Navajo tongue,
and afterwards gave a command. He turned his eyes upon the Native Son
and spoke in Spanish. "The men you want did not come this way," he said
gravely. "Juan will tell."

"Yes, I know dat Ramon Chavez. I seen him dat day. I'm start for home,
an' I seen Ramon Chavez an' dat Luis Rojas an' one white feller I'm
don't know dat feller. They don't got red car. They got big, black car.
They come outa corral--scare my horse. They go 'cross railroad. I go
'cross rio. One red car pass me. I go along, bimeby I pass red car in
sand. Ramon Chavez, he don't go in dat car. I don't know them feller.
Ramon Chavez he go 'cross railroad in big black car."

"Then who was it we've been trailing out this way?" Luck asked the
question in Spanish and glanced from one brown face to the other.

The older Indian shifted his moccasined feet in the sand and looked
away. "Indians," he said in Mexican. "You follow, Indians think you
maybe take them away--put 'm in jail. All friends of them Indians pretty
mad. They come fight you. I hear, I come to find out what's fighting
about."

Luck gazed at him stupidly for a moment until the full meaning of the
statement seeped through the ache into his brain. He heaved a great
sigh of relief, looked at the Native Son and laughed.

"The joke's on us, I guess," he said. "Go, back and tell that to the
boys. I'll be along in a minute."

Juan, grinning broadly at what he considered a very good joke on the
nine white men who had traveled all this way for nothing, went back to
explain the mistake to his fellows on the ledge. The old Indian took it
upon himself to disperse the Navajos in the grove, and just as suddenly
as the trouble started it was stopped--and the Happy Family, if they had
been at all inclined to belittle the danger of their position, were
made to realize it when thirty or more Navajos came flocking in from all
quarters. Many of them could--and did--talk English understandably, and
most of them seemed inclined to appreciate the joke. All save those whom
Lite had "nipped and nicked" in the course of their flight from the rock
ridge to the Frying-Pan. These were inclined to be peevish over
their hurts and to nurse them in sullen silence while Luck, having a
rudimentary knowledge of medicine and surgery, gave them what firstaid
treatment was possible.

Applehead, having plenty of reasons for avoiding publicity, had gone
into retirement in the shade of a clump of brush, with Lite to keep him
company while he smoked a meditative pipe or two and studied the puzzle
of Ramon's probable whereabouts.

"Can't trust a Navvy," he muttered in a discreet undertone to Lite.
"I've fit 'em b'fore now, 'n' I KNOW. 'N' you kin be dang sure they
ain't fergot the times I've fit 'em, neither! There's bucks millin'
around here that's jes' achin' fer a chanst at me, t' pay up fer some
I've killed off when I was shurf 'n' b'fore. So you keep 'n' eye peeled,
Lite, whilst I think out this yere dang move uh Ramon's. 'N' if you see
anybody sneakin' up on me, you GIT him. I cain't watch Navvyies 'n' mill
things over in m' haid at the same time."

Lite grinned and wriggled over so that his back was against a rock.
He laid his six-shooter Ostentatiously across his lap and got out
his tobacco and papers. "Go ahead and think, Applehead," he consented
placidly. "I'll guard your scalp-lock."

Speaking literally, Applehead had no scalplock to guard. But he did have
a shrewd understanding of the mole-like workings of the criminal mind;
and with his own mind free to work on the problem, he presently declared
that he would bet he could land Ramon Chavez in jail within a week, and
sent Lite after Luck.

"I've got it figgered out," he announced when Luck came over to his
retreat. "If Ramon crossed the railroad he was aimin' t' hit out across
the mesa to the mountains 'n' beyond. He wouldn't go south, 'cause he
could be traced among the Injun pueblos--they's a thousand eyes down,
that way b'fore he'd git t' wild country. He'd keep away from the valley
country--er I would, if I was him. I know dang well whar I'D hit fer if
I was makin' a gitaway 'n' didn't come off over here--'n' I shore would
keep outa Navvy country, now I'm tellin' yuh! No, sir, I'd take out
t'other way, through Hell Canon er Tijeras, 'n' I'd make fer the Jemes
country. That thar's plenty wild 'n' rough--'n' come t' think of it, the
Chavez boys owns quite a big grant, up in there som'ers, 'n' have got
men in their pay up thar, runnin' their cattle. Ramon could lay low fer
a dang long while up thar 'n' be safer'n what he would be out amongst
strangers.

"'N' another thing, I'd plan t' have some hosses stached out in one uh
them canons, 'n' I'd mebby use a autymobile t' git to 'em, 'n' send the
car back t' town--I could trust the feller that drove it--outa my sight.
'N', Luck, if you'll take my advice, you'll hit out t'wards the Jemes
country. I know every foot uh the way, 'n' we kin make it in a coupla
days by pushin' the hosses. 'N' I'll bet every dang hoof I own 't we
round up that bunch over thar som'ers."

"You lead out, then," Luck told him promptly. "I'm willing to admit
you're better qualified to take charge of the outfit than I am. You know
the country--and you've fit Indians."

"We-ell, now, you're dang right I have! 'N' if some them bucks don't go
off 'n' mind their own business, I'll likely fight a few morel You shoo
'em outa camp, Luck, 'n' start 'em about their own dang business. 'N'
we'll eat a bite 'n' git on about our own. If we show up any grub whilst
this bunch is hangin' around we'll have t' feed 'em--'n' you know dang
well we ain't got enough skurcely fer the Jemes trip as it is."

"I've been handing out money as it is till I'm about broke," Luck
confessed, "making presents to those fellows that came in with bullets
in their legs and arms. Funny nobody got hit in the body--except one
poor devil that got shot in the shoulder."

"We-ell, now, you kin blame Lite's dang tender heart fer that there,"
Applehead accused, pulling at his sunbrowned mustache. "We was all
comin' on the jump, 'n' so was the Injuns; 'n' it was purty long range
'n' nobody but lite could hit 'n Injun t' save his soul. 'N' Lite,
he wouldn't shoot t' kill--he jes' kep' on nippin' an' nickin', 'n'
shootin' a boss now an' then. I wisht I was the expert shot Lite is--I'd
shore a got me a few Navvies back there, now I'm tellin' yuh!"

"Bud's got a bullet in his arm," Luck said, "but the bone wasn't hit, so
he'll make out, and one of the pack-horses was shot in the ear. We got
off mighty lucky, and I'm certainly glad Lite didn't get careless. Cost
me about fifty dollars to square us as it is. You stay where you are,
Applehead, till I get rid of the Indians. The old fellow acts like he
feels he ought to stick along till we're outa here. He's kind of taken a
notion to me because I can talk sign, and he seems to want to make sure
we don't mix it again with the tribe. Some of them are kinda peeved,
all right. You've got no quarrel with this old fellow, have you? He's
a big-league medicine man in the tribe, and his Spanish name is Mariano
Pablo Montoya. Know him?"

"No I don't, 'n' I don't keer to neither," Applehead retorted crossly.
"Shoo 'em off, Luck, so's we kin eat. My belly's shore a floppin' agin
m' backbone, 'n' I'm tellin' yuh right!"

CHAPTER XX. LUIS ROJAS TALKS

Three days of hiding by day in sequestered little groves or deep, hidden
canons, with only Luis Rojas to bear her company--Luis Rojas whom she
did not trust and therefore watched always from under her long straight
lashes, with oblique glances when she seemed to be gazing straight
before her; three nights of tramping through rough places where often
the horses must pause and feel carefully for space to set their feet.
Roads there were, but Luis avoided roads as though they carried the
plague. When he must cross one he invariably turned back and brushed out
their footprints--until he discovered that Annie-Many-Ponies was much
cleverer at this than he was; often he smoked a cigarette while Annie
covered their trail. Three days and three nights, and Ramon was not
there where they stopped for the third day.

"We go slow," Luis explained nervously because of the look in the
black, unreadable eyes of this straight, slim Indian girl who was
so beautiful--and so silent. "They go muy fas', Ramon an' Beel. Poco
tiempo--sure, we fin' dem little soon."

Annie-Many-Ponies did not betray by so much as a quiver of an eyelash
that Luis had mentioned Bill unwittingly. But she hid the name away in
her memory, and all that day she sat and pondered over the meager facts
that had come her way, and with the needle of her suspicion she wove
them together patiently until the pattern was almost complete.

Ramon and Bill--what Bill, save Bill Holmes, would be with Ramon?
Ramon and Bill Holmes--memory pictured them again by the rock in the
moonlight, muttering in Spanish mostly, muttering mystery always. Ramon
and Bill Holmes she remembered the sly, knowing glances between these
two at "location" though they scarcely seemed on speaking terms. Ramon
and Bill and this mysterious night-travelling, when there should be no
trouble and no mystery at all beyond the house of the priest! So much
trouble over the marriage of an Indian girl and a young Mexican cattle
king? Annie-Many-Ponies was not so stupid as to believe that; she had
seen too much of civilization in her wanderings with the show, and her
work in pictures. She had seen man and maid "make marriage," in pictures
and in reality. There should be no trouble, no mysterious following of
Ramon by night.

Something evil there was, since Bill Holmes was with Ramon.
Annie-Many-Ponies knew that it was so. Perhaps--perhaps the evil was
against Wagalexa Conka! 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. Annie-Many-Ponies got up
silently and went and stood beside him, looking down at him as though
she meant to wrest the truth from his brain. And Luis, feeling in his
sleep the intensity of her gaze, stirred uneasily, yawned and sat up,
looking about him bewilderedly. His glance rested on the girl, and he
sprang to his feet and faced her.

Annie-Many-Ponies smiled her little, tantalizing, wistfully inviting
smile--the smile which luck bad whimsically called heart-twisting.
"I awful lonesome," she murmured, and sat down with her back nestling
comfortably against a grassy bank. "You talk. I not lets you sleep all
time. You think I not good for talk to?"

"Me, I not tell w'at I'm theenk," Luis retorted with a crooning note,
and sat down facing her. "Ramon be mad me."

Annie-Many-Ponies looked at him, her eyes soft and heavy with that
languorous look which will quickest befuddle the sense of a man. "You
tell; Ramon not hear," she hinted. "Ramon, he got plenty trobles for
thinking about." She smiled again. "Ramon plenty long ways off. He got
Bill Holmes for talking to. You talk to me."

How he did it, why he did it, Luis Rojas could never explain afterwards.
Something there was in her smile, in her voice, that bewitched him.
Something there was that made him think she knew and approved of
the thing Ramon had planned. He made swift, Spanish love to
Annie-Many-Ponies, who smiled upon him but would not let him touch her
hand--and so bewitched him the more. He made love--but also he talked.
He told Annie-Many-Ponies all that she wished him to tell; and some
things that she had never dreamed and that she shrank from hearing.

For he told her of the gold they had stolen, and how they had made it
look as though Luck Lindsay had planned the theft. He told her that
he loved her--which did not interest her greatly--and he told her that
Ramon would never marry her--which was like a knife thrust to her soul.
Ramon had many loves, said Luis, and he was true to none; never would he
marry a woman to rule his life and make him trouble--it were easier to
make love and then laugh and ride away. 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.

Luis, before the sun went down and it was time to eat supper and go on,
became so thoroughly bewitched that he professed himself eager to let
his share of the gold go, and to take Annie-Many-Ponies to a priest and
marry her--if she wished very much to be married by a priest. In the
middle of his exaltation, Annie-Many-Ponies chilled him with the look
she gave him.

"You big fool," she told him bluntly. "I not so fool like that. I go to
Ramon--and plenty gold! I think you awful fool. You make me tired!"

Luis was furious enough for a minute to do her violence--but
Annie-Many-Ponies killed that impulse also with the cold contempt in her
eyes. She was not afraid of him, and like an animal he dared not strike
where he could not inspire fear. He muttered a Mexican oath or two and
went mortifiedly away to lead the horses down to the little stream where
they might drink. The girl was right--he was a fool, he told himself
angrily; and sulked for hours.

Fool or not, he had told Annie-Many-Ponies what she wanted to know. He
had given food to her brooding thoughts--food that revived swiftly and
nourished certain traits lying dormant in her nature, buried alive under
the veneer of white man's civilization--as we are proud to call it.

The two ate in silence, and in silence they saddled the horses and
fared forth again in their quest of Ramon--who had the gold which
Annie-Many-Ponies boldly asserted was an added lure. "The monee--always
the man wins that has muchos monee." Luis muttered often to himself as
he rode into the dusk. Behind him Annie-Many-Ponies walked and led the
black horse that bore all her worldly possessions bound to the saddle.
The little black dog padded patiently along at his heels.

CHAPTER XXI. "WAGALEXA CONKA--COLA!"

"So good little girl yoh are to true' Ramon! Now I knows for sure yoh
lov' me moch as I lov' yoh! Now we go little ride more to my house high
up in the pinons--then we be so happy like two birds in nes'. Firs' we
rest ourselves, querida mia. This good place for res', my sweetheart
that comes so far to be with Ramon. To-morrow we go to my house--to
nes' of my loved one. Thees cabin, she's very good little nes' ontil
tomorrow--yoh theenk so?"

Annie-Many-Ponies, sitting beside the doorway of the primitive little
log cabin where the night-journeys with Luis had ended, looked up into
Ramon's flushed face with her slow smile. But her eyes were two deep,
black wells whose depths he could not fathom.

"Where them priest you promise?" she asked, her voice lowered to its
softest Indian tone. "Now I think we make plenty marriage; then we go
for live in your house."

Ramon turned and caught her unexpectedly in his arms. "Ah, now you spik
foolish talk. Yoh not trus' Ramon! Why yoh talk pries', pries' all time?
Lov', she's plenty pries' for us. Pries' she don' make us more lov'
each other--pries' don' make us happy--we like birds that make nes'
in tree-tops. Yoh think they mus' have pries' for help them be happy?
Lov'--that's plenty for me."

Annie-Many-Ponies drew herself away from his embrace, but she did it
gently. Bill Holmes, coming up from the spring, furnished excuse enough,
and Ramon let her go.

"You promise me priest for making us marriage," she persisted in her
soft voice.

Ramon twisted the points of his black mustache and regarded her askance,
smiling crookedly. "Yoh 'fraid for trus' me, that's why I promise,"
he said at last. "Me, I don' need padre to mumble-mumble foolish
words before I can be happy. Yoh 'fraid of Luck Leen'sey, that's why I
promise. Now yoh come way up here, so luck don' matter no more. Yoh be
happy weeth me."

"You promise," Annie-Many-Ponies repeated, a sullen note creeping into
her voice.

Bill Holmes, lounging up to the doorway, glanced from one to the other
and laughed. "What's the matter, Ramon?" he bantered. "Can't you square
it with your squaw? Go after her with a club, why don't you? That's what
they're used to."

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. He
did not meet her eyes, nor did he show any resentment of Bill Holmes'
speech; yet he had sworn that he loved her, that he would be proud to
have her for his wife. She, the daughter of a chief, had been insulted
in his presence, and he had made no protest, shown no indignation.

"You promise priest for making us marriage," she reiterated coldly, as
if she meant to force his real self into the open. "You promise you put
ring of gold for wedding on my finger, like white woman's got."

Ramon's laugh was not pleasant. "Yoh theenk marry squaw?" he sneered.
"Luck Leen'sey, he don't marry yoh. Why yoh theenk I marry yoh? You be
good, Ramon lov' yoh. Buy yoh lots pretty theengs, me treat yoh fine.
Yoh lucky girl, yoh bet. Yoh don't be foolish no more. Yoh run away, be
my womans. W'at yoh theenk? Go back, perhaps? Yoh theenk Luck Leen'sey
take yoh back? You gone off with Ramon Chavez, he say; yoh stay weeth
Ramon then. Yoh Ramon's woman now. Yoh not be foolish like yoh too good
for be kees. Luck, be kees yoh many times, I bet! Yoh don' play
good girl no more for Ramon--oh-h, no! That joke she's w'at yoh call
ches'nut. We don' want no more soch foolish talk, or else maybe I do
w'at Bill Holmes says she's good for squaw!"

"You awful big liar," Annie-Many-Ponies stated with a calm, terrific
frankness. "You plenty big thief. You fool me plenty--now I don't be
fool no more. You so mean yoh think all mens like you. You think all
girls bad girls. You awful big fool, you think I stay for you. I go."

Ramon twisted his mustache and laughed at her. "Now yoh so pretty,
when yoh mad," he teased. "How yoh go? All yoh theengs in cabin--monee,
clothes, grob--how yoh go? Yoh mad now--pretty soon Ramon he makes yoh
glad! Shame for soch cross words--soch cross looks! Now I don't talk
till yoh be good girl, and says yoh lov' Ramon. I don't let yoh go,
neither. Yoh don't get far way--I promise yoh for true. I breeng yoh
back, sweetheart, I promise I breeng yoh back I Yoh don't want to go no
more w'en I'm through weeth yoh--I promise yoh! Yoh theenk I let yoh go?
O-oh-h, no! Ramon not let yoh get far away!"

In her heart she knew that he spoke at last the truth; that this was
the real Ramon whom she had never before seen. To every woman must come
sometime the bitter awakening from her dreamworld to the real world in
all its sordidness and selfishness. Annie-Many-Ponies, standing there
looking at Ramon--Ramon who laughed at her goodness--knew now what the
future that had lain behind the mountains held in store for her. Not
happiness, surely; not the wide ring of gold that would say she was
Ramon's wife. Luis was right. He had spoken the truth, though she had
believed that he lied when he said Ramon would never marry a woman. He
would love and laugh and ride away, Luis had told her. Well, then--

"Shunka Chistala!" she called softly to the little black dog, that came
eagerly, wagging his burr-matted tail. She laid her hand on its head
when the dog jumped up to greet her. She smiled faintly while she
fondled its silky, flapping ears.

"Why you all time pat that dam-dog?" Ramon flashed out jealously. "You
don't pet yoh man what lov' yoh!"

"Dogs don't lie," said Annie-Many-Ponies coldly, and walked away. She
did not look back, she did not hurry, though she must have known that
Ramon in one bound could have stopped her with his man's strength. Her
head was high, her shoulders were straight, her eyes were so black the
pupils did not show at all, and a film of inscrutability veiled what
bitter thoughts were behind them.

As it had been with Luis so it was now with Ramon. Her utter disregard
of him held him back from touching her. He stood with wrath in his eyes
and let her go--and to hide his weakness from her strength he sent after
her a sneering laugh and words that were like a whip.

"All right--jus' for now I let you ron," he jeered. "Bimeby she's
different. Bimeby I show yoh who's boss. I make yoh cry for Ramon be
good to yoh!"

Annie-Many-Ponies did not betray by so much as a glance that she beard
him. But had he seen her face he would have been startled at the look
his words brought there. He would have been startled and perhaps
he would have been warned. For never bad she carried so clearly the
fighting look of her forefathers who went out to battle. With the little
black dog at her heels she climbed a small, round-topped hill that had a
single pine like a cockade growing from the top.

For ten minutes she stood there on the top and stared away to the
southeast, whence she had come to keep her promise to Ramon. Never, it
seemed to her, had a girl been so alone. In all the world there could
not be a soul so bitter. Liar--thief--betrayer of women--and she had
left the clean, steadfast friendship of her brother Wagalexa Conka
for such human vermin as Ramon Chavez! She sat down, and with her face
hidden in her shawl and her slim body rocking back and forth in weird
rhythm to her wailing, she crooned the mourning song of the Omaha.
Death of her past, death of her place among good people, death of her
friendship, death of hope--she sat there with her face turned toward the
far-away, smiling mesa where she had been happy, and wailed softly to
herself as the women of her tribe had wailed when sorrow came to them in
the days that were gone.

All through the afternoon she sat there with her back to the lone pine
tree and her face turned toward the southeast, while the little black
dog lay at her feet and slept. From the cabin Ramon watched her,
stubbornly waiting until she would come down to him of her own accord.
She would come--of that he was sure. She would come if he convinced her
that he would not go up and coax her to come. Ramon had known many
girls who were given to sulking over what he considered their imaginary
wrongs, and he was very sure that he knew women better than they knew
themselves. She would come, give her time enough, and she could not
fling at him then any taunt that he had been over-eager. Certainly she
would come--she was a woman!

But the shadow of the pines lengthened until they lay like long fingers
across the earth; and still she did not come. Bill Holmes and Luis,
secure in the knowledge that Ramon was on guard against any unlooked-for
visitors, slept heavily on the crude bunks in the cabin. Birds began
twittering animatedly as the beat of the day cooled and they came forth
from their shady retreats--and still Annie-Many-Ponies sat on the little
hilltop, within easy calling distance of the cabin, and never once
looked down that way. Still the little black dog curled at her feet
and slept. For all the movement these two made, they might have been of
stone; the pine above was more unquiet than they.

Ramon, watching her while he smoked many cigarettes, became filled with
a vague uneasiness What was she thinking? What did she mean to do? He
began to have faint doubts of her coming down to him. He began to be
aware of something in her nature that was unlike those other women;
something more inflexible, more silent, something that troubled him even
while he told himself that she was like all the rest and he would be her
master.

"Bah! She thinks to play with me, Ramon! Then I will go up and I will
show her--she will follow weeping at my heels--like that dog of hers
that some day I shall kill!"

He got up and threw away his cigarette, glanced within and saw that Bill
and Luis still slept, and started up the hill to where that motionless
figure sat beneath the pine and kept her face turned from him. It would
be better, thought Ramon, to come upon her unawares, and so he went
softly and very slowly, placing each foot as carefully as though he were
stalking a wild thing of the woods.

Annie-Many-Ponies did not hear him coming. All her heart was yearning
toward that far away mesa. "Wagalexa Conka--cola!" she whispered, for
"cola" is the Sioux word for friend. Aloud she dared not speak the
word, lest some tricksy breeze carry it to him and fill him with; anger
because she had betrayed his friendship. "Wagalexa Conka--cola! cola!"

Friendship that was dead--but she yearned for it the more. And it seemed
to her as she whispered, that Wagalexa Conka was very, very near. Her
heart felt his nearness, and her eyes softened. The Indian look--the
look of her fighting forefathers--drifted slowly from her face as fog,
drifts away before the sun. He was near--perhaps he was dead and
his spirit had come to take her spirit by the hand and call her
cola--friend. If that were so, then she wished that her spirit might go
with his spirit, up through all that limitless blue, away and away
and away, and never stop, and never tire and never feel anything but
friendship like warm, bright sunshine!

Down at the cabin a sound--a cry, a shout--startled her. She brushed her
hand across her eyes and looked down. There, surrounding the cabin, were
the Happy Family, and old Applehead whom she hated because he hated her.
And in their midst stood Bill Holmes and Luis, and the setting sun shone
on something bright--like great silver rings--that clasped their wrists.

Coming up the hill toward her was Wagalexa Conka, climbing swiftly,
looking up as he came. Annie-Many-Ponies sprang to her feet, startling
the little black dog that gave a yelp of astonishment. Came he in peace?
She hesitated, watching him unwinkingly. Something swelled in her chest
until she could hardly breathe, and then fluttered there like a prisoned
bird. "COLA!" she gasped, just under her breath, and raised her hand in
the outward, sweeping gesture that spoke peace.

"You theenk to fix trap, you--!"

She whirled and faced Ramon, whose eyes blazed bate and murder and whose
tongue spoke the foulness of his soul. He flung out his arm fiercely and
thrust her aside. "Me, I kill that dam--"

He did not say any more, and the six-shooter he had levelled at Luck
dropped from his nerveless hand like a coiled adder, Annie-Many-Ponies
had struck. Like an avenging spirit she pulled the knife free and held
it high over her head, facing Luck who stared up at her from below.
He thought the look in her eyes was fear of him and of the law, and he
lifted his hand and gave back the peace-sign. It was for him she had
killed and she should not be punished if he could save her. But Luck
failed to read her look aright; it was not fear he saw, but farewell.

For with her free hand she made the sign of peace and farewell--and then
the knife descended straight as a plummet to her heart. But even as
she fell she spurned the dead Ramon with her feet, so that he rolled a
little way while the black dog growled at him with bared teeth; even in
death she would not touch him who had been so foul.

Luck ran the last few, steep steps, and took her in his arms. His eyes
were blurred so that he could not see her face, and his voice shook so
that he could scarcely form the words that brushed back death from her
soul and brought a smile to her eyes.

"Annie--little sister!"

Annie-Many-Ponies raised one creeping hand, groping until her fingers
touched his face.

"Wagalexa Conka--cola!"

He took her fingers and for an instant, while she yet could feel, he
laid them against his lips.