cloth, held her fast to the gala dress of her people, modified and touched
here and there with the gay ornaments of civilization. So much had her work in
the silent drama taught her. Bareheaded, her hair in two glossy braids each
tied with a big red bow, she strode on and on in the clear sunlight of spring.

Not until she was more than two miles from the ranch did she show herself upon
one of the numberless small ridges which, blended together in the disance,
give that deceptive look of flatness to the mesa. Even two miles away, in that
clear air that dwarfs distance so amazingly, Wagalexa Conka might recognize
her if he looked at her with sufficient attention. But Wagalexa Conka, she
told herself with a flash of her black eyes, would not look. Wagalexa Conka
was too busy looking at that slim woman he had brought with him.

That ridge she crossed, and two others. On the last one she stopped and stood,
straight and still, and stared away towards the mountains, shading her eyes
with one spread palm. On a distant slope a small herd of cattle fed, scattered
and at peace. Nearer, a great hawk circled slowly on widespread wings, his
neck craned downward as if he were watching his own shadow move ghostlike over
the grass. Annie-Many-Ponies, turning her eyes disappointedly from the empty
mesa, envied the hawk his swift-winged freedom.

When she looked again toward the far slopes next the mountains, a black speck
rolled into view, the nucleus of a little dust cloud. Her face brightened a
little; she turned abruptly and sought easy footing down that ridge, and
climbed hurriedly the longer rise beyond. Once or twice, when she was on high
ground, she glanced behind her uneasily, as does one whose mind holds a
certain consciousness of wrongdoing. She did not pause, even then, but hurried
on toward the dust cloud.

On the rim of a shallow, saucer-like basin that lay cunningly concealed until