trade her name for a husband. You
know Lite, of course--dad, too."

"Well, well--my gorry I I should say I do! Howdy, Aleck?" He shook the
hand of the old man Jean called dad, and his lips trembled uncertainly,
seeking speech that would not hurt a very, very sore spot in the heart
of big Aleck Douglas. "I'm shore glad to meet yuh again," he stuttered
finally, and let it go at that "And how are yuh, Lite? Just as long and
lanky as ever--marriage shore ain't fattened you up none. My gorry! I
shore never expected to see you folks away down here!"

"Thought you heard me say when I left that the Great Western had offered
to get me Jean Douglas for leading lady," Luck put in, looking around
distractedly for a place to deposit his armload of packages. "That's
one thing that kept me--waiting for her to show up. Of course a man
naturally expects a woman to take her own time about starting--"

"I like that!" Jean drawled. "We broke up housekeeping and wound up a
ranch and traveled a couple of thousand miles in just a week's time.
We--we ALMOST hit the same gait you did from town out here today!"

Rosemary Green came out then, and Luck turned to greet her and to
present Jean to her, and was pleased when he saw from their eyes that
they liked each other at first sight. He introduced the Happy Family
and Applehead to her and to her husband, Lite Avery, and her father.
He pulled a skinny individual forward and announced that this was Pete
Lowry, one of the Great Western's crack cameramen; and another chubby,
smooth-cheeked young man he presented as Tommy Johnson, scenic artist
and stage carpenter. And he added with a smile for the whole bunch,
"We're going to produce some real stuff from now on believe me, folks!"

In the confusion and the mild clamor of the absence-bridging questions
and hasty answers, two persons had no part. Old Applehead, hard-ridden
by the uneasy consciousness of his treason to Luck, leaned against a
porch post and sucked hard at the stem of an empty pipe. And just beyond
the corner out of sight but well within hearing, Annie-Many-Ponies stood
flattened against the wall and listened with fast-beating pulse for the
sound of her name, spoken in the loved voice of Wagalexa Conka. She, the
daughter of a chief and Luck's sister by tribal adoption--would he
not miss her: from among those others who welcomed him? Would he not
presently ask: "Where is Annie-Many-Ponies?" She knew just how he would
turn and search f