Bower, 1874-1940 - The heritage of the Sioux

THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX

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. 246

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" She's write letter, Bamon," 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.

" EAMON."

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, Kamon," he said. " She's go som' place and we go also. She's wait for us. Dam-long way — tree days, I theenk me." 247

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" 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, savr 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 under-248

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stand 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 bones.

CHAPTEK XVII

APPLEHEAD SHOWS THE STUFF HE IS MADE OF

LITE AVEKY, 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 250

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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. !N"o water ner grass ner nothin' else 'ceptin' shakes. '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' 261

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that there butte, V 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, V 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 252

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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 253