beyond them, found his mate and was silent. Ramon Chavez, waiting in the
shadow of the ledge, muttered a Mexican oath and stepped out into the
moonlight and stood there, tempted to return to his camp--for he, also, had
pride that would not bear much bruising.

Annie-Many-Ponies waited. When he muttered again and threw his cigarette from
him as though it had been something venomous; when he turned his face toward
his own tents and took a step forward, she laughed softly, a mere whisper of
amusement that might have been a sleepy breeze stirring the bushes somewhere
near. Ramon started and turned his face her way; in the moonlight his eyes
shone with a certain love-hunger which Annie-Many-Ponies exulted to
see--because she did not understand.

"You not let moon look on you," she chided in an undertone, her sentences
clipped of superfluous words as is the Indian way, her voice that pure,
throaty melody that is a gift which nature gives lavishly to the women of
savage people. "Moon see, men see."

Ramon swung back into the shadow, reached out his two arms to fold her close
and got nothing more substantial than another whispery laugh.

"Where are yoh,sweetheart?" He peered into the shadow where she had been, and
saw the place empty. He laughed, chagrined by her elusiveness, yet hungering
for her the more.

"You not touch," she warned. "Till priest say marriage prayers, no man touch."

He called her a devil in Spanish, and she thought it a love-word and laughed
and came nearer. He did not attempt to touch her, and so, reassured, she stood
close so that he could see the pure, Indian profile of her face when she