terribly excited and full of enthusiasm for the picture at the time the tongue was cracked, but now he looked upon it merely as a vital weakness in his roundup outfit. A new tongue would mean delay; and delay, in his present mood, was tragedy.
He couldn't find any old baling wire, though he had long been accustomed to tangling his feet in snarled bunches of it when he went forth in the dark after a high wind. Until now he had not observed its unwonted absence from the yard. For a long while he had not needed any wire to mend things, because Luck had attended to everything about the ranch, and if anything needed mending he had set one of the Happy Family at the task.
His search led him out beyond the corrals in the little dry wash that sometimes caught and held what the high winds brought rolling that way. The wash was half filled with tumble-weed, so that Applehead was forced to get down into it and kick the weeds aside to see if there was any wire lodged beneath. His temper did not sweeten over the task, especially since he found nothing that he wanted.
Annie-Many-Ponies, riding surreptitiously up the dry wash—meaning to come out in a farther gully and so approach the corral from the west instead of from the east—came upon Applehead quite unexpectedly. She stopped and eyed him aslant from under her level, finely marked brows, and her eyes lightened with relief when she saw that Applehead looked more startled than she had felt. Indeed, Applehead had been calling Luck uncomplimentary names for cleaning the place of everything a man might need in a hurry, and he was ashamed of himself.
“Can't find a foot of danged wire on the danged place!” Applehead kicked a large, tangled bunch of weeds under the very nose of the horse which jumped sidewise. “Never seen such a maniac for puttin' things where a feller can't find 'em, as what Luck is.” He was not actually speak ing to Annie-Many-Ponies—or if he was he did not choose to point his remarks by glancing at her.
“Wagalexa Conka, he heap careful for things belong when they stay,” Annie-Many-Ponies observed in her musical contralto voice which always irritated Applehead with its very melody. “I think plenty wire all fold up neat in prop-room. Wagalexa Conka, he all time clean this studio from trash lie around everywhere.”
“He does, hey?” Applehead's sunburnt mustache bristled like the whiskers of Compadre when he was snarling defiance at the little black dog. The feud was asserting itself. “Well, this here danged place ain't no studio! It's a ranch, and it b'longs to ME, Nip Furrman. And any balin' wire on this ranch is my balin' wire, and it's got a right to lay around wherever I want it t' lay. And I don't need no danged squaw givin' me hints about 'how my place oughta be kept—now I'm tellin' yuh!”
Annie-Many-Ponies did not reply in words. She sat on her horse, straight as any young warchief that ever led her kinsmen to battle, and looked down at Applehead with that maddening half smile of hers, inscrutable as the Sphinx her features sometimes resembled. Shunka Chistala (which is Sioux for Little Dog) came bounding over the low ridge that hid the ranch buildings from sight, and wagged himself dislocatingly up to her. Annie-Many-Ponies frowned at his approach until she saw that Applehead was aiming a clod at the dog, whereupon she touched her heels to the horse and sent him between Applehead and her pet, and gave Shunka Chistala a sharp command in Sioux that sent him back to the house with his tail dropped.
For a full half minute she and old Applehead looked at each other in open antagonism. For a squaw, Annie-Many-Ponies was remarkably unsubmissive in her bearing. Her big eyes were frankly hostile; her half smile was, in the opinion of Applehead, almost as frankly scornful. He could not match her in the subtleties of feminine warfare. He took refuge behind the masculine bulwark of authority.
“Where yuh bin with that horse uh mine?” he demanded harshly. “Purty note when I don't git no say about my own stock. Got him all het up and heavin' like he'd been runnin' cattle; I ain't goin' to stand for havin' my horses ran to death, now I'm tellin' yuh! Fer a squaw, I must say you're gittin' too danged uppish in your ways around here. Next time you want to go traipsin' around the mesa, you kin go afoot. I'm goin' to need my horses fer roundup.”
A white girl would have made some angry retort; but Annie-Many-Ponies, without looking in the least abashed, held her peace and kept that little inscrutable smile upon her lips. Her eyes, however, narrowed in their gaze.
“Yuh hear me?” Poor old Applehead had never before attempted to browbeat a woman, and her unsubmissive silence seemed to his bachelor mind uncanny.
“I hear what Wagalexa Conka tell me.” She turned her horse and rode composedly away from him over the ridge.
“You'll hear a danged sight more'n that, now I'm tellin' yuh!” raved Applehead impotently. “I ain't sayin' nothin' agin Luck, but they's goin' to be some danged plain speakin' done on some subjects when he comes back, and given' squaws a free rein and lettin' 'em ride rough-shod over everybody and everything is one of 'era. Things is gittin' mighty funny when a danged squaw kin straddle my horses and ride 'em to death, and sass me when I say a word agin it—now I'm tellin' yuh!”
He went mumbling rebellion that was merely the effervescing of a mood which would pass with the words it bred, to the store-room which Annie-Many-Ponies had called the prop-room. He found there, piled upon a crude shelf, many little bundles of wire folded neatly and with the outer end wound twice around to keep each bundle separate from the others. Applehead snorted at what he chose to consider a finicky streak in his secret idol, Luck Lindsay; but he took two of the little bundles and went and wired the wagon tongue. And in the work he found a salve of anticipatory pleasure, so that he ended the task to the humming of the tune he had heard a movie theatre playing in town as he rode by on his way home.
CHAPTER II. THE DAUGHTER OF A CHIEF
In spite of Andy Green's plea for delay until they knew what Luck meant to do, Applehead went on with his energetic preparations for a spring roundup of his own. Some perverse spirit seemed to possess him and drive him out of his easy-going shiftlessness. He offered to hire the Happy Family by the day, since none of them would promise any permanent service until they heard from Luck. He put them to work gathering up the saddle-horses that had been turned loose when Luck's picture was finished, and repairing harness and attending to the numberless details of reorganizing a ranch long left to slipshod make-shifts.
The boys of the Flying U argued while they worked, but in spite of themselves the lure of the mesa quickened their movements. They were supposed to wait for Luck before they did anything; an they all knew that. But, on the other hand, Luck was supposed to keep them informed as to his movements; which he had not done. They did not voice one single doubt of Lucks loyalty to them, but human nature is more prone to suspicion than to faith, as every one knows. And Luck had the power and the incentive to “double-cross” them if he was the kind to do such a thing. He was manager for their little free-lance picture company which did not even have a name to call itself by. They had produced one big feature film, and it was supposed to be a cooperative affair from start to finish. If Luck failed to make good, they would all be broke together. If Luck cleared up the few thousands that had been their hope, why—they would all profit by the success, if Luck—
I maintain that they showed themselves of pretty good metal, in that not even Happy Tack, confirmed pessimist that he was, ever put the least suspicion of Luck's honesty into words. They were not the kind to decry a comrade when his back was turned. And they had worked with Luck Lindsay and had worked for him. They had slept under the same roof with him, had shared his worries, his hopes, and his fears. They did not believe that Luck had appropriated the proceeds of The Phantom Herd and had deliberately left them there to cool their heels and feel the emptiness of their pockets in New Mexico, while he disported himself in Los Angeles; they did—not believe that—they would have resented the implication that they harbored any doubt of him. But for all that, as the days passed and he neither came nor sent them any word, they yielded more and more to the determination of Applehead to start out upon his own business, and they said less and less about Luck's probable plans for the future.
And