be trespassing upon the allotment of a friend or relative of
some of the Indians he had been compelled to "get" in the course of his
duties as sheriff. And at any rate they all knew him--or at least knew
of him.

"Aw, gwan, Applehead," Happy Jack urged facetiously, sure that Applehead
had tried to scare him with tales of Indians whose pastoral pursuits
proclaimed aloud their purity of souls. "Gwan! You ain't afraid of a
couple of squaws, are yuh? Go on and talk to the ladies. Mebby yuh might
win a wife if yuh just had a little nerve!"

Applehead turned and glowered. But Luck was already walking slowly
toward the hogans and looking back frequently, so Applehead contented
himself by saying, "You wait till this yere trip's over, 'fore ye git so
dang funny in yore remarks, young man!" and stalked after Luck, hitching
his six-shooter forward as he went.

At the shed, the Indian who had peered after Pink stood in the doorway
and stared unwinkingly as they came up. Applehead glanced at him sharply
from under his sorrel eyebrows and grunted. He knew him by sight well
enough, and he took it for granted that the recognition was mutual. But
he gave no sign of remembrance. Instead, he asked how much the Indian
wanted for the grass the horses would eat in an hour.

The Indian looked at the two impassively and did not say anything at
all; so Applehead flipped him a dollar.

"Now, what time did them fellows pass here yesterday?" Applehead asked,
in the half Indian, half Mexican jargon which nearly all New Mexico
Indians speak.

The Indian looked at the dollar and moved his head of bobbed hair
vaguely from left to right.

"All right, dang ye, don't talk if ye don't feel like it," Applehead
commented in wasted sarcasm, and looked at Luck for some hint of what
was wanted next. Luck seemed uncertain, so Applehead turned toward the
ditch, and the food his empty stomach craved.

"No use tryin' to make 'em talk if they ain't in the notion," he told
Luck impatiently. "He's got his dollar, and we'll take what grass
our hosses kin pack away in their bellies. That kinda winds up the
transaction, fur's I kin see."

"I wonder if another dollar--"

But Applehead interrupted him. "Another dollar might git him warmed up
so's he'd shake his danged head twicet instid uh once't," he asserted
pessimistically, "but that's all you'd git outa him. That thar buck
ain't TALKIN' today. Yuh better come an' eat 'n' rest yer laigs. If he
talked, he'