oped and slid safely past the window that might
betray her, and then slipped away behind the house. She waited, and she
listened; for though the adobe walls were thick, there were open windows
and her hearing was keen. Within was animated babel and much laughter.
But not once again did Annie-Many-Ponies hear her name spoken. Not once
again did Wagalexa Conka remember her. Save when she, that slim woman
who bad come to play his leads, asked to see her, she had been wholly
forgotten. Even then she had been named a squaw. It was as though they
had been speaking of a horse. They did not count her worthy of a place
in their company, they did not miss her voice and her smile.

"Hid out," Wagalexa Conka had said. Well, she would hide out, then--she,
the daughter of a chief of the Sioux; she, whom Wagalexa Conka had been
glad to have in his picture when he was poor and had no money to pay
white leading women. But now he had much money; now he could come in a
big automobile, with a slim, white leading woman and a camera man and
scenic artist and much money in his pocket; and she--she was just
a squaw who had hid out, and who would show up after a while and be
grateful if he took her by the hand and said, "How!"

With so many persons moving eagerly here and there, none but an Indian
could have slipped away from that house and from the ranch without being
seen. But though the place was bald and open to the four winds save for
a few detached outbuildings, Annie-Many-Ponies went away upon the mesa
and no one saw her go.

She did not dare go to the corral for her horse. The corral was in plain
sight of the house, and the eyes of Wagalexa Conka were keen as the
eye of the Sioux, his foster brothers. He would see her there. He would
call: "Annie, come here!" and she would go, and would stand submissive
before him, and would be glad that he noticed her; for she was born of
the tribe where women obey their masters, and the heritage of centuries
may not be lightly lain aside like an outgrown garment. She felt that
this was so; that although her heart might burn with resentment because
he had forgotten and must be reminded by a strange white woman that the
"squaw" was not present, still, if he called her she must go, because
Wagalexa Conka was master there and the master must be obeyed.

Down the dry wash where Applehead had hunted for baling wire she went
swiftly, with the straight-backed, free stride of the plainswoman who
knows not t