Page:B M Bower - Heritage of the Sioux.djvu/22

THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX 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, 10