in her chest. It seemed to her
that some bad spirit was driving her forth an exile. She could not
understand, last night she had been glad at the thought of going, and if
the thought of leaving Wagalexa Conka so treacherously had hurt like a
knife-thrust, still, she had sworn willingly enough that she would go.

The horse was there, saddled and tied in a tumble-down shed just as
Ramon had promised that it would be. Annie-Many-Ponies did not mount and
ride on immediately, however. It was still early in the forenoon, and
she was not so eager in reality as she had been in anticipation. She
sat down beside the well and stared somberly away to the mountains, and
wondered why she was go sad when she should be happy. She twisted the
ring with the big red stone round and round her finger, but she got no
pleasure from the crimson glow of it. The stone looked to her now like a
great, frozen drop of blood. She wondered grimly whose blood it was, and
stared at it strangely before her eyes went again worshipfully to the
mountains which she loved and which she must leave and perhaps never see
again as they looked from there, and from the ranch.

She must ride and ride until she was around on the other side of that
last one that had the funny, pointed cone top like a big stone tepee.
On the other side was Ramon, and the priest, and the strange new life of
which she was beginning to feel afraid. There would be no more riding up
to camera, laughing or sighing or frowning as Wagalexa Conka commanded
her to do. There would be no more shy greetings of the slim young woman
in riding skirt--the friendship scenes and the black-browed anger, while
Pete Lowry turned the camera and Luck stood beside him telling her just
what she must do, and smiling at her when she did it well.

There would be Ramon, and the priest and the wide ring of shiny
gold--what more? The mountains, all pink and violet and smiling green
and soft gray--the mountains hid the new life from her. And she must
ride around that last, sharp-pointed one, and come into the new life
that was on the other side--and what if it should be bitter? What if
Ramon's love did not live beyond the wide ring of shiny gold? She had
seen it so, with other men and other maids.

No matter. She had sworn the oath that she would go. But first, there
at the old well where Ramon had taught her the Spanish love words, there
where she had listened shyly and happily to his voice that was so soft
and s