Page:B M Bower - Heritage of the Sioux.djvu/321

"WAGALEXA CONKA—COLA!" Ramon, watching her while he smoked many cigarettes, became filled with a vague uneasiness. What was she thinking? What did she mean to do? He began to have faint doubts of her coming down to him. He began to be aware of something in her nature that was unlike those other women; something more inflexible, more silent, something that troubled him even while he told himself that she was like all the rest and he would be her master.

"Bah! She thinks to play with me, Ramon! Then I will go up and I will show her—she will follow weeping at my heels—like that dog of hers that some day I shall kill!"

He got up and threw away his cigarette, glanced within and saw that Bill and Luis still slept, and started up the hill to where that motionless figure sat beneath the pine and kept her face turned from him. It would be better, thought Ramon, to come upon her unawares, and so he went softly and very slowly, placing each foot as carefully as though he were stalking a wild thing of the woods.

Annie-Many-Ponies did not hear him coming. All her heart was yearning toward that far away 309