riest. But first, if Ramon would wait, she wanted to confess
her sins, so that she need not go into the new life bearing the sins of
the old. The priest could pray away the ache that was in her heart; and
then, with her heart light as air, she would be married with Ramon.
It was long since she had confessed--not since the priest came to the
agency when she was there, before she ran away to work in pictures for
Wagalexa Conka.

Before her the glow deepened and darkened. A rabbit hopped out of a
thick clump of stunted bushes, sniffed the air that blew the wrong way
to warn him, and began feeding. Shunka Chistala gathered his soft paws
under him, scratched softly for a firm foothold in the ground, and when
the rabbit, his back turned and the evening wind blowing full in his
face, fed unsuspectingly upon some young bark that he liked, the little
black dog launched himself suddenly across the space that divided them.
There was a squeak and a thin, whimpering crying--and the little black
dog, at least, was sure of his supper.

Annie-Many-Ponies, roused from her brooding, shivered a little when the
rabbit cried. She started forward to save it--she who had taught the
little black dog to hunt gophers and prairie-dogs!--and when she was
too late she scolded the dog in the language of the Sioux. She tore the
rabbit away from him while he eyed her reproachfully; but when she saw
that it was quite dead, she flung the warm body back to him and went and
sat down again with her back to the rock.

A train whistled for the little station of Bernalillo, and soon she saw
its headlight paint the squat houses that had before been hidden behind
the creeping dusk. Ramon was late in coming and for one breath she
caught herself hoping that he would not come at all. But immediately she
remembered the love words he had taught her, and smiled her inscrutable
little smile that had now a tinge of sadness. Perhaps, she thought
wishfully, Ramon had come on the train from Albuquerque. Perhaps he had
a horse in the town, and would ride out and meet her here where he had
told her to wait.

The train shrieked and painted swiftly hill and embankment and little
adobe huts and a corral full of huddled sheep, and went churning away to
the northeast. Annie-Many-Ponies followed its course absently with her
eyes until the last winking light from its windows and the last wisp of
smoke was hidden behind hills and trees. The little black dog finished
the rabbit,