' 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 often 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 231
THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX
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,' Apple-head remarked, pulling his horse behind a higher part of the bank.
Close beside him Lite's rifle spoke, its little steel-shod 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 comf'table about buildin' up a fight. Lead yore bosses down till we're outa easy shootin' distance, boys, 'n' then we'll head out f er where Luck ought t' be. If they 232
fixed a trap fer us, they've fixed another fer him, chances is, V the sooner us fellers git together the better show we'll all of us have. You kin see, the fway they worked it to split the bunch, that they ain't so dang anxious t' tie into us when we're t'gether—V 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 233
THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX
to where he could look out across the level. What he saw made him slide hastily to the bottom again.
' They've dumb down and straddled their ponies,' he announced grimly. ' An' about a dozen is comin' down this way, keepin' under cover all they kin. I calculate mebby we better crawl our hosses 'n' do some ridin' ourselves, boys.' And he added grimly, ' They ain't in good shootin' distance yit, V 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, 234
'NOW, DANG IT, RIDE!'
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 hate 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-MANT-PONIES TAIT9
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 had 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 nib-236
