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at the ground for a moment and then began to descend leisurely into the draw, leading his horse behind him.

“You go next, Pink,” Weary said shortly, and with his horse began edging him closer to the bank until Pink, unless he made some unwise demonstration of unwillingness, was almost forced to ride down the steep little slope.

“Don't look towards the ridge, boys,” Applehead warned from below. “Weary, you come on down here next. Lite kin might' nigh shoot the dang triggers offen their guns 'fore they kin pull, if they go t' work 'n' start anything.”

So Weary, leaving Lite up there grinning sheepishly over the compliment, rode down because he was told to do so by the man in command. “You seem to forget that Lite's got a wife on his hands,” he reproved as he went.

“Lite's a-comin' right now,” Applehead retorted, peering at the ridge a couple of hundred yards distant. “Git back down the draw 's fur's yuh kin b'fore yuh take out into the open agin. I'll wait a minute 'n' see—”

“Ping-NG-NG!” a bullet, striking a rock on the edge of the draw fifty feet short of the mark, glanced and went humming over the hot waste.

“Well, now, that shows they got a lookout up high, 't seen me watchin' that way. But it's hard t' git the range shootin' down, like that,” Applehead remarked, pulling his horse behind a higher part of the bank.

Close beside him Lite's rifle spoke, its little steelshod message flying straight as a homing honeybee for the spitting flash he had glimpsed up there among the rocks. Whether he did any damage or not, a dozen rifles answered venomously and flicked up tiny spurts of sand in the close neighborhood of the four.

“If they keep on trying,” Lite commented drily, “they might make a killing, soon as they learn how to shoot straight.”

“'S jest like them dang Injuns!” Applehead grumbled, shooing the three before him down the draw. “Four t' our one—it takes jest about that big a majority 'fore they feel comftable about buildin' up a fight. Lead yore bosses down till we're outa easy shootin' distance, boys, 'n' then we'll head out fer where Luck ought t' be. If they fixed a trap fer us, they've fixed another fer him, chances is, 'n! the sooner us fellers git t'gether the better show we'll all of us have. You kin see, the way they worked it to split the bunch, that they ain't so dang anxious t' tie into us when we're t'gether—'n' that's why we can't git t' Luck a dang bit too soon, now I'm tellin' yuh!”

Weary and Pink were finding things to say, also, but old Applehead went on with his monologue just as though they were listening. Lite showed a disposition to stop and take issue with the shooters who kept up a spiteful firing from the ridge. But Applehead stopped him as he was leveling his rifle.

“If yuh shoot,” he pointed out, “they'll know jest where we air and how fast we're gittin' outa here. If yuh don't, unless their lookout kin see us movin' out, they got t' do a heap uh guessin' in the next few minutes. They only got one chancet in three uh guessin' right, 'cause we might be camped in one spot, 'n' then agin we might be crawlin' up closer, fer all they kin tell.”

If they were guessing, they must have guessed right; for presently the four heard faint yells from behind them, and Applehead crawled up the bank to where he could look out across the level. What he saw made him slide hastily to the bottom again.

“They've clumb down and straddled their ponies,” he announced grimly. “An' about a dozen is comin' down this way, keepin' under cover all they kin. I calc'late mebby we better crawl our bosses 'n' do some ridin' ourselves, boys.” And he added grimly, “They ain't in good shootin' distance yit, 'n' they dassent show theirselves neither. We'll keep in this draw long as we kin. They're bound t' come careful till they git us located.”

The footing was none the best, but the horses they rode had been running over untracked mesa-land since they were bandy-legged colts. They loped along easily, picking automatically the safest places whereon to set their feet, and leaving their riders free to attend to other important matters which 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 priest. 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

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