Page:B M Bower - Heritage of the Sioux.djvu/189

THE WILD-GOOSE CHASE was already walking slowly toward the hogans and looking back frequently, so Applehead contented himself by saying, "You wait till this yere trip's over, 'fore ye git so dang funny in yore remarks, young man!" and stalked after Luck, hitching his six-shooter forward as he went.

At the shed, the Indian who had peered after Pink stood in the doorway and stared unwinkingly as they came up. Applehead glanced at him sharply from under his sorrel eyebrows and grunted. He knew him by sight well enough, and he took it for granted that the recognition was mutual. But he gave no sign of remembrance. Instead, he asked how much the Indian wanted for the grass the horses would eat in an hour.

The Indian looked at the two impassively and did not say anything at all; so Applehead flipped him a dollar,

"Now, what time did them fellows pass here yesterday?" Applehead asked, in the half Indian, half Mexican jargon which nearly all New Mexico Indians speak.

The Indian looked at the dollar and moved his head of bobbed hair vaguely from left to right. 177