brush, with Lite to keep him company while he smoked a meditative pipe or two and studied the puzzle of Eamon's probable 'whereabouts.
' Can't trust a E'awy,' he muttered in a discreet undertone to Lite. ' I've fit 'em b'fore now, V I know. 'N' you kin be dang sure they ain't fergot the times I've fit 'em, neither! There's bucks millin' around here that's jes' achin' fer a chanst at me, t' pay up fer some I've killed off when I was shurf 'n' b'fore. So you keep 'n eye peeled, Lite, whilst I think out this yere dang move uh Ramon's. 'N' if you see anybody sneakin' up on me, you git him. I cain't watch Nawyies 'n' mill things over in m' haid at the same time.'
Lite grinned and wriggled over so that his back 288
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was against a rock. He laid his six-shooter ostentatiously across his lap and got out his tobacco and papers. ' Go ahead and think, Applehead,' he consented placidly. ' I'll guard your scalp-lock.'
Speaking literally, Applehead had no scalp-lock to guard. But he did have a shrewd understanding of the mole- like workings of the criminal mind; and with his own mind free to work on the problem, he presently declared that he would bet he could land Ramon Chavez in jail within a week; and sent Lite after Luck.
' I've got it figgered out,' he announced when Luck came over to his retreat. ' If Ramon crossed the railroad he was aimin' t' hit out across the mesa to the mountains 'n' beyond. He wouldn't go south, 'cause he could be traced among the Injun pueblos — they's a thousand eyes down that way b'fore he'd git t' wild country. He'd keep away from the valley country — er I would, if I was him. I know dang well whar I'd hit fer if I was makin' a gitaway 'n' didn't come off over here — 'n' I shore would keep outa Navvy country, now I'm tellin' yuh! No, sir, I'd take out t' other way, through Hell Canon er Tijeras, 'n' I'd make-289
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fer the Jemes country. That tliar's plenty wild 'n' rough — 'n' come t' think of it, the Chavez boys owns quite a big grant, up in there som'ers, 'n' have got men in their pay up thar, runnin' their cattle. Ramon could lay low fer a dang long while up thar 'n' be safer'n what he would be out amongst strangers.
' ']SP another thing, I'd plan t' have some bosses stached out in one uh them canons, ? n' I'd mebby use a autymobile t' git to 'em, 'n' send the car back t' town — if I could trust the feller that drove it outa my sight. 'N', Luck, if you'll take my advice, you'll hit out t'wards the Jemes country. I know every foot uh the way, 'n' we kin make it in a coupla days by pushin' the bosses. 'N' I'll bet every dang hoof I own 't we round up that bunch over thar som'ers.'
' You lead out, then,' Luck told him promptly. ' I'm willing to admit you're better qualified to take charge of the outfit than I am. You know the country— and you've fit Indians.'
' We-ell, now, you're dang right I have! ''N 9 if some them bucks don't go off V mind their own business, I'll likely fight a few more! You 290
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shoo 'em outa camp, Luck, V start 'em about their own dang business. '1ST' we'll eat a bite 'n' git on about our own. If we show up any grub whilst this bunch is hangin' around we'll have t' feed 'em
— 'n' you know dang well we ain't got enough skurcely fer the Jemes trip as it is.'
' I've been handing out money as it is till I'm about broke,' Luck confessed, 'making presents to those fellows that came in with bullets in their legs and arms. Funny nobody got hit in the body
— except one poor devil that got shot in the shoulder.'
' We-ell, now, you kin blame Lite's dang tender heart fer that there,' Applehead accused, pulling at his sunbrowned mustache. ' We was all comin' on the jump, 'n' so was the Injuns; 'n' it was purty long range 'n' nobody but Lite could hit 'n Injun t' save his soul. 'N' Lite, he wouldn't shoot t' kill — he jes' kep' on nippin' an' nickin', V shootin' a boss now an' then. I wisht I was the expert shot Lite is — I'd shore a got me a few Navvies back there, now I'm tellin' yuh! '
' Bud's got a bullet in his arm,' Luck said, ' but the bone wasn't hit, so he'll make out, and 291
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one of the pack-horses was shot in the ear. We got off mighty lucky, and I'm certainly glad Lite didn't get careless. Cost me about fifty dollars to square us as it is. You stay where you are, Apple-head, till I get rid of the Indians. The old fellow acts like he feels he ought to stick along till we're outa here. He's kind of taken a notion to me because I can talk sign, and he seems to want to make sure we don't mix it again with the tribe. Some of them are kinda peeved, all right. You've got no quarrel with this old fellow, have you ? He's a big-league medicine man in the tribe, and his Spanish name is Mariano Pablo Montoya. Know him?'
' ISTo I don't, V I don't keer to neither,' Apple-head retorted crossly. ' Shoo 'em off, Luck, so's we kin eat My belly's shore a floppin' agin m' backbone, V I'm tellin' yuh right! '
CHAPTER XX
LUIS ROJAS TALKS
THREE days of biding by day in sequestered little groves or deep, bidden canons, with only Luis Rojas to bear ber company — Luis Rojas wbom she did not trust and therefore watched always from under her long straight lashes, with oblique glances when she seemed to be gazing straight before her; three nights of tramping through rough places where often the horses must pause and feel carefully for space to set their feet. Roads there were, but Luis avoided roads as though they carried the plague. When he must cross one he invariably turned back and brushed out their footprints — until he discovered that Annie-Many-Ponies was much cleverer at this than he was; often he smoked a cigarette while Annie covered their trail. Three days and three nights, and Ramon was not there where they stopped for the third day.
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' We go slow,' Luis explained nervously because of the look in the black, unreadable eyes of this straight, slim Indian girl who was so beautiful — and so silent. ' They go nroy fas', Kamon an' Beel. Poco tiempo — sure, we fin' dem little soon.'
Annie-Many-Ponies did not betray by so much as a quiver of an eyelash that Luis had mentioned Eill unwittingly. But she hid the name away in her memory, and all that day she sat and pondered over the meager facts that had come her way, and with the needle of her suspicion she wove them together patiently until the
