Luis, before the sun went down and it was time to eat supper and go on, became so thoroughly bewitched that he professed himself eager to let his share of the gold go, and to take Annie-Many-Ponies to a priest and marry her--if she wished very much to be married by a priest. In the middle of his exaltation, Annie-Many-Ponies chilled him with the look she gave him.
“You big fool,” she told him bluntly. “I not so fool like that. I go to Ramon--and plenty gold! I think you awful fool. You make me tired!”
Luis was furious enough for a minute to do her violence--but Annie-Many-Ponies killed that impulse also with the cold contempt in her eyes. She was not afraid of him, and like an animal he dared not strike where he could not inspire fear. He muttered a Mexican oath or two and went mortifiedly away to lead the horses down to the little stream where they might drink. The girl was right--he was a fool, he told himself angrily; and sulked for hours.
Fool or not, he had told Annie-Many-Ponies what she wanted to know. He had given food to her brooding thoughts--food that revived swiftly and nourished certain traits lying dormant in her nature, buried alive under the veneer of white man's civilization--as we are proud to call it.
The two ate in silence, and in silence they saddled the horses and fared forth again in their quest of Ramon--who had the gold which Annie-Many-Ponies boldly asserted was an added lure. “The monee--always the man wins that has muchos monee.” Luis muttered often to himself as he rode into the dusk. Behind him Annie-Many-Ponies walked and led the black horse that bore all her worldly possessions bound to the saddle. The little black dog padded patiently along at his heels.
“So good little girl yoh are to true' Ramon! Now I knows for sure yoh lov' me moch as I lov' yoh! Now we go little ride more to my house high up in the pinons--then we be so happy like two birds in nes'. Firs' we rest ourselves, querida mia. This good place for res', my sweetheart that comes so far to be with Ramon. To-morrow we go to my house--to nes' of my loved one. Thees cabin, she's very good little nes' ontil tomorrow--yoh theenk so?”
Annie-Many-Ponies, sitting beside the doorway of the primitive little log cabin where the night-journeys with Luis had ended, looked up into Ramon's flushed face with her slow smile. But her eyes were two deep, black wells whose depths he could not fathom.