was perfectly simple and sensible and the right thing to do;
THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX
if you wanted to know for sure whether a person lied to you, you had but to watch and listen and let your own eyes and ears prove guilt or innocence.
So Annie-Many-Ponies stood by the rock and listened and watched. She did not see any silver bridle. She heard many words, but the two were speaking in that strange Spanish talk which she did not know at all, save ' Querida mia,' which Ramon had told her meant sweetheart.
The two talked, low-voiced and earnest. Bill was telling all that he knew of Luck Lindsay's plans — and that was not much.
' He don't talk,' Bill complained. ' He just tells the bunch a day ahead — just far enough to get their makeup and costumes on, generally. But he won't stay around here much longer; he's taken enough spring roundup stuff now for half a dozen pictures. He'll be moving in to the ranch again pretty quick. And I know this picture calls for a lot of town business that he'll have to take. I saw the script the other day.' This, of course, being a free translation of the meaningless jumble of strange words which Annie heard.
LOVE WORDS FOR ANNIE
'What town business is that? Where will he work ? '' Eamon was plainly impatient of so much vagueness.
'' Well, there's a bank robbery — I paid particular attention, Ramon, so I know for certain. But when he'll do it, or what bank he'll use, I don't know any more than you do. And there's a running fight down the street and through the Mexican quarter. The rest is just street stuff — that and a fiesta that I think he'll probably use the old plaza for location. He'll need a lot of Mexicans for that stuff. He'll want you, of course.'
' That bank —who will do that?' Eamon's fingers trembled so that he could scarcely roll a cigarette. ' Andy, perhaps? '
'' No — that's the Mexican bunch. I — why, I
•
guess that will maybe be you, Ramon. I wasn't paying much attention to the parts — I was after locations, and I only had about two minutes at the script. But he's been giving you some good bits right along where he needed a Mexican type; and those scenes in the rocks the other day was bandit stuff with you for lead. It'll be you or Miguel —;
THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX
the Native Son, as they call him — and so far he's cast for another part. That's the worst of Luck. He won't talk about what he's going to do till he's all ready to do it.'
There was a little further discussion. Ramon muttered a few sentences — rapid instructions, Annie-Many- Ponies believed from the tone he used.
'All right, I'll keep you posted,' Bill Holmes replied in English. And he added as he started off, ' You can send word by the squaw.'
He went carefully back down the arroyo, keeping as much as possible in the shade. Behind him stole Annie- Many-Ponies, noiseless as the shadow of a cloud. Bill Holmes, she reflected angrily, had seen the day, not so far in the past, when he was happy if the ' squaw ' but smiled upon him. It was because she had repelled his sly lovemaking that he had come to speak of her slightingly like that; she knew it. She could have named the very day when his manner toward her had changed. Mingled with her hate and dread of him was a new contempt and a new little anxiety over this clandestine intimacy between Ramon and him. Why
LOVE WORDS FOR ANNIE
should Bill Holmes keep Ramon posted? Surely not about a silver bridle!
Shunka Chistala was whining in her little tent when she came into the camp. She heard Bill Holmes stumble over the end of the chuck-wagon tongue and mutter the customary profanity with which the average man meets an incident of that kind. She whispered a fierce command to the little black dog and stood very still for a minute, listening. She did not hear anything further, either from Bill Holmes or the dog, and finally reassured by the silence, she crept into her tent and tied the flaps together on the inside, and lay down in her blankets with the little black dog contentedly curled at her feet with his nose between his front paws.
CHAPTER V
FOB THE GOOD OF THE COMPANY
ALL through, breakfast Applehead seemed to have something weighty on his mind. He kept pulling at his streaked, reddish-gray mustache when his fingers should have been wholly occupied with his food, and he stared abstractedly at the ground after he had finished his first cup of coffee and before he took his second. Once Bill Holmes caught him glaring with an intensity which circumstances in no wise justified — and it was Bill Holmes who first shifted his gaze in vague uneasiness when he tried to stare Apple-head down. Annie-Many-Ponies did not glance at him at all, so far as one could discover; yet she was the first to sense trouble in the air, and withdrew herself from the company and sat apart, wrapped closely in her crimson shawl that matched well the crimson bows on her two shiny braids.
Luck, keenly alive to the moods of his people, 70
THE GOOD OF THE COMPANY
looked at her inquiringly. ' Come on up by the fire, Annie/' he commanded gently. ' What you sitting away off there for ? Come and eat — I want you to work today.'
Annie-Many-Ponies did not reply, but she rose obediently and came forward in the silent way she had, stepping lightly, straight and slim and darkly beautiful. Applehead glanced at her sourly, and her lashes drooped to hide the venom in her eyes as she passed him to stand before Luck.
' I not hungry,' she told Luck tranquilly, yet with a hardness in her voice which did not escape him, who knew her so well. ' I go put on makeup.'
' Wear that striped blanket you used last Saturday when we worked up there in Tijeras Canon. Same young squaw makeup you wore then, Annie.' He eyed her sharply as she turned away to her own tent, and he observed
