her features sometimes resembled. Shunka Chistala (which is Sioux for Little
Dog) came bounding over the low ridge that hid the ranch buildings from sight,
and wagged himself dislocatingly up to her. Annie-Many-Ponies frowned at his
approach until she saw that Applehead was aiming a clod at the dog, whereupon
she touched her heels to the horse and sent him between Applehead and her pet,
and gave Shunka Chistala a sharp command in Sioux that sent him back to the
house with his tail dropped.

For a full half minute she and old Applehead looked at each other in open
antagonism. For a squaw, Annie-Many-Ponies was remarkably unsubmissive in her
bearing. Her big eyes were frankly hostile; her half smile was, in the opinion
of Applehead, almost as frankly scornful. He could not match her in the
subtleties of feminine warfare. He took refuge behind the masculine bulwark of
authority.

"Where yuh bin with that horse uh mine?" he demanded harshly. "Purty note when
I don't git no say about my own stock. Got him all het up and heavin' like
he'd been runnin' cattle; I ain't goin' to stand for havin' my horses ran to
death, now I'm tellin' yuh! Fer a squaw, I must say you're gittin' too danged
uppish in your ways around here. Next time you want to go traipsin' around the
mesa, you kin go afoot. I'm goin' to need my horses fer roundup."

A white girl would have made some angry retort; but Annie-Many-Ponies, without
looking in the least abashed, held her peace and kept that little inscrutable
smile upon her lips. Her eyes, however, narrowed in their gaze.

"Yuh hear me?" Poor old Applehead had never before attempted to browbeat a
woman, and her unsubmissive silence seemed to his bachelor mind uncanny.

"I hear what Wagalexa Conka tell me." She turned her horse and rode composedly