into the pot. If we fail we'll have to
borrow carfare to get outa here. And here's Applehead. We've used his
ranch, we've used his house and his horses and himself; we've killed his
cattle for beef, by ----! And we've got just that one chance--the chance
of a storm--for winning out. One chance, and that chance getting slimmer
every day, as he says. No--there's no joke in this; or if there is, I've
lost my appetite for comedy. I can't laugh." He stopped as suddenly as he
had begun his rapid speech, caught up his hat, and went out alone into
the soft morning sunlight. He left silence behind him,--a stunned silence
that was awkward to break.

"It's a perfect shame!" Rosemary said at last, and her lips were
trembling. "He's just about crazy--and I know he hasn't slept a wink,
lately, just from worrying."

"I calc'late that's about the how of it," Applehead agreed, rubbing his
chin nervously. "He lays awful still, last few weeks, and that thar's a
bad sign fer him. And I ain't heerd 'im talkin' in his sleep lately,
either. Up till lately he made more pitchers asleep than he done awake.
Take it when things was movin' right along, Mis' Green, 'n' Luck was
shore talkative, now I'm tellin' yuh!"

"My father, he got one oncle," Annie-Many-Ponies spoke up unexpectedly
from her favorite corner. "Big Medicine man. Maybe I write one letter,
maybe Noisy-Owl he come, make plenty storm. Noisy-Owl, he got awful
strong medicine for make storm come."

"Well, by cripes, yuh better send for 'im then!" Big Medicine advised
gruffly, and went out.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE STORM

_The Phantom Herd_, as the days slipped nearer and nearer to April, might
almost have been christened _The Forlorn Hope_. On the twenty-first the
sun was so hot that Luck rode in his shirt sleeves to Albuquerque,
stubbornly intending to order more "positive" for his prints in the final
work of putting his Big Picture into marketable form. He did not have the
slightest idea of where the money to pay for the stuff was coming from,
but he sent the letter ordering the stock sent C.O.D. He was playing for
big results, and he had no intention of being balked at the last minute
because of his timidity in assuming an ultimate success which was
beginning to look extremely doubtful.

On the twenty-second, a lark flew impudently past his head and perched
upon a bush near by and sang straight at him. As a general thing Luck
loved to hear bird songs when he rode abr