Annie-Many-Ponies had not only come uninvited--she had remained in defiance of
Luck's perturbed insistence that she should go back home. The Flying U boys
might overlook that fact because of her beauty, but Applehead was not so
easily beguiled--especially when she proceeded to form a violent attachment to
the little black dog, which she called Shunka Chistala in what Applehead
considered a brazen flaunting of her Indian blood and language, Between the
mistress of Shunka Chistala and the master of the cat there could never be
anything more cordial than an armed truce. She had championed that ornery cur
in a way to make Applehead's blood boil. She had kept the dog in the house at
night, which forced the cat to seek cold comfort elsewhere. She had pilfered
the choicest table scraps for the dog--and Compadre was a cat of fastidious
palate and grew thin on what coarse bits were condescendingly left for him.

Applehead had not approved of Luck's final consent that Annie-Many-Ponies
should stay and play the Indian girl in his big picture. In the mind of
Applehead there lurked a grudge that found all the more room to grow because
of the natural bigness and generosity of his nature. It irked him to see her
going her calm way with that proud uptilt to her shapely head and that little,
inscruable smile when she caught the meaning of his grumbling hints.

Applehead was easy-going to a fault in most things, but his dislike had grown
in Luck's absence to the point where he considered himself aggrieved whenever
Annie-Many-Ponies saddled the horse which had been tacitly set aside for her
use, and rode off into the mesa without a word of explanation or excuse.
Applehead reminded the boys that she had not acted like that when luck was
home. She had stayed on the ranch where she belonged, except once or twice, on
particularly fine days, when she had meekly asked "Wagalexa Conka," as she
persisted in calling Luck, for permission to go for a ride.

Applehead itched to tell her a few things about the social, moral,