Page:B M Bower - Heritage of the Sioux.djvu/65

LOVE WORDS FOR ANNIE in the broken land beyond them, found his mate and was silent. Ramon Chavez, waiting in the shadow of the ledge, muttered a Mexican oath and stepped out into the moonlight and stood there, tempted to return to his camp—for he, also, had pride that would not bear much bruising.

Annie-Many-Ponies waited. When he muttered again and threw his cigarette from him as though it had been something venomous; when he turned his face toward his own tents and took a step forward, she laughed softly, a mere whisper of amusement that might have been a sleepy breeze stirring the bushes somewhere near. Ramon started and turned his face her way; in the moonlight his eyes shone with a certain love-hunger which Annie-Many-Ponies exulted to see—because she did not understand.

"You not let moon look on you," she chided in an undertone, her sentences clipped of superfluous words as is the Indian way, her voice that pure, throaty melody that is a gift which nature gives lavishly to the women of savage people. "Moon see, men see."

Ramon swung back into the shadow, reached out 53