he muscle-bondage of boned girdle. In moccasins she walked;
for a certain pride of race, a certain sense of the picture-value of
beaded buckskin and bright cloth, held her fast to the gala dress of her
people, modified and touched here and there with the gay ornaments
of civilization. So much had her work in the silent drama taught her.
Bareheaded, her hair in two glossy braids each tied with a big red bow,
she strode on and on in the clear sunlight of spring.

Not until she was more than two miles from the ranch did she show
herself upon one of the numberless small ridges which, blended together
in the distance, give that deceptive look of flatness to the mesa. Even
two miles away, in that clear air that dwarfs distance so amazingly,
Wagalexa Conka might recognize her if he looked at her with sufficient
attention. But Wagalexa Conka, she told herself with a flash of her
black eyes, would not look. Wagalexa Conka was too busy looking at that
slim woman he had brought with him.

That ridge she crossed, and two others. On the last one she stopped
and stood, straight and still, and stared away towards the mountains,
shading her eyes with one spread palm. On a distant slope a small herd
of cattle fed, scattered and at peace. Nearer, a great hawk circled
slowly on widespread wings, his neck craned downward as if he
were watching his own shadow move ghostlike over the grass.
Annie-Many-Ponies, turning her eyes disappointedly from the empty mesa,
envied the hawk his swift-winged freedom.

When she looked again toward the far slopes next the mountains, a black
speck rolled into view, the nucleus of a little dust cloud. Her face
brightened a little; she turned abruptly and sought easy footing down
that ridge, and climbed hurriedly the longer rise beyond. Once or twice,
when she was on high ground, she glanced behind her uneasily, as does
one whose mind holds a certain consciousness of wrongdoing. She did not
pause, even then, but hurried on toward the dust cloud.

On the rim of a shallow, saucer-like basin that lay cunningly concealed
until one stood upon the very edge of it, Annie-Many-Ponies stopped
again and stood looking out from under her spread palm. Presently the
dust cloud moved over the crest of a ridge, and now that it was so
much closer she saw clearly the horseman loping abreast of the
dust. Annie-Many-Ponies stood for another moment watching, with that
inscrutable half smile on her lips. She untied the cerise sil