h proved their true value as horses that knew their
business.

Soon the draw shallowed until they found themselves out in the open,
with the square-topped mountain five miles or so ahead and a little to
the left; a high, untraversable sandstone ledge to their right, and what
looked like plain sailing straight ahead past the mountain.

Applehead twisted his body in the saddle and gave a grunt. "Throw some
lead back at them hombres, Lite," he snapped. "And make a killin' if yuh
kin. It'll make 'em mad, but it'll hold 'em back fer a spell."

Lite, the crack rifle-shot of Luck's company and the man who had taught
Jean Douglas to shoot with such wonderful precision, wheeled his horse
short around and pulled him to a stand, lined up his rifle sights and
crooked his finger on the trigger. And away back there among the Indians
a pony reared, and then pitched forward.

"I sure do bate to shoot down a horse," Lite explained shamefacedly,
"but I never did kill a man--"

"We-ell, I calc'late mebby yuh will, 'fore you're let out from this yere
meetin'," Applehead prophesied drily. "Now, dang it, RIDE!"

CHAPTER XVI. ANNIE-MANY-PONIES WAITS

In the magic light of many unnamable soft shades which the sun leaves
in New Mexico as a love token for his dark mistress night,
Annie-Many-Ponies sat with her back against a high, flat rock at the
place where Ramon had said she must wait for him, and stared somber-eyed
at what she could see of the new land that bad held her future behind
the Sandias; waiting for Ramon; and she wondered if Wagalexa Conka had
come home from his picture-making in Bear Canon and was angry because
she had gone; and shrank from the thought, and tried to picture what
life with Ramon would be like, and whether his love would last beyond
the wide ring of shiny gold that was to make her a wife.

At her feet the little black dog lay licking his sore paws that had
padded patiently after her all day. Beside the rock the black horse
stood nibbling at some weeds awkwardly, because of the Spanish bit in
his mouth. The horse was hungry, and the little black dog was hungry;
Annie-Many-Ponies was hungry also, but she did not feel her, hunger so
much, because of the heaviness that was in her heart.

When Ramon came he would bring food, or he would tell her where she
might buy. The horse, too, would be fed--when Ramon came. And he would
take her to the priest who was his friend, and together they would kneel
before the p