raised it to the sky in a mute invocation, it might be, of her gods.

"When yoh come?" he asked swiftly, his race betrayed in tone and accent. "I
look and look--I no see yoh."

"I come," she stated with a quiet meaning. "I not like cow, for make plenty
noise. I stand here, you smoke two times, I look."

"You mus' be moonbeam," he told her, reaching out again, only to lay hold upon
nothing. "Come back, sweetheart. I be good."

"I not like you touch," she repeated. "I good girl. I mind priest, I read
prayers, I mind Wagalexa Conka--" There she faltered, for the last boast was
no longer the truth.

Ramon was quick to seize upon the one weak point of her armor. "So? He send
yoh then to talk with Ramon at midnight? Yoh come to please yoh boss?"

Annie-Many-Ponies turned her troubled face his way. "Wagalexa Conka sleep
plenty. I not ask," she confessed. "You tell me come here you tell me must
talk when no one hear. I come. I no ask Wagalexa Conka--him say good girl stay
by camp. Him say not walk in night-time, say me not talk you. I no ask; I just
come."

"Yoh lov' him, perhaps? More as yoh lov' me? Always I see yoh look at
him--always watch, watch. Always I see yoh jomp when he snap the finger;
always yoh run like train dog. Yoh lov' him, perhaps? Bah! Yoh dirt onder his
feet." Ramon did not seriously consider that any woman whom he favored could
sanely love another man more than himself, but to his nature jealousy was a
necessary adjunct of lovemaking; not to have displayed jealousy would have