Page:B M Bower - Heritage of the Sioux.djvu/254

THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX unmistakable Mexican tone and soft, slurring accent. "Speak me what yoh name."

"Ramon comes?" Annie asked him quietly, and the footsteps came swiftly nearer until his form was silhouetted by the rock.

"Sh-sh—yoh not spik dat name," he whispered. "Luis Rojas me. I come for breeng yoh. No can come, yoh man. No spik name—som'bodys maybe hears."

Annie-Many-Ponies rose and stood peering at him through the dark. "What's wrong?" she asked abruptly, borrowing the curt phrase from Luck Lindsay. "Why I not speak name? Why—some body—?" she laid ironical stress upon the word—"not come? What business you got, Luis Rojas?"

"No—don' spik names, me!" The figure was seen to throw out an imploring hand. "Moch troubles, yoh bet! Yoh come now—somebodys she wait in dam-hurry!"

Annie-Many-Ponies, with her fingers still closed upon the bone handle of her sharp-edged knife, thought swiftly. Wariness had been born into her blood—therefore she could understand and 242