Riding together--since they were on a plain trail and there was nothing to be gained by separating--they climbed to the higher mesa, crossed the ridge of the three barren hills that none of them but Applehead had ever passed, and went on and on and on as the hoofprints led them, straight toward the reservation.
They discussed the robbery from every angle--they could think of, and once or twice someone hazarded a guess at Annie-Many-Ponies' reason for leaving and her probable destination. They wondered how old Dave Wiswell, the dried little cattleman of The Phantom Herd, was making out in Denver, where he had gone to consult a specialist about some kidney trouble that had interfered with his riding all spring. Weary suggested that maybe Annie-Many-Ponies had taken a notion to go and visit old Dave, since the two were old friends.
It was here that Applehead unwittingly put into words the vague suspicion which Luck had been trying to stifle and had not yet faced as a definite idea.
“I calc'late we'll likely find that thar squaw putty tol'ble close to whar we find Bill Holmes,” Applehead remarked sourly. “Her goin' off same, day they stuck up that bank don't look to me like no happenstance--now I'm tellin' yuh! 'N' if I was shurf, and was ast to locate that squaw, I'd keep right on the trail uh Bill Holmes, jest as we're doin' now.”
“That isn't like Annie,” Luck said sharply to, still the conviction in his own mind. “Whatever faults she may have, she's been loyal to me, and honest. Look how she stuck last winter, when she didn't have anything at stake, wasn't getting any salary, and yet worked like a dog to help make the picture a success. Look how she got up in the night when the blizzard struck, and fed our horses and cooked breakfast of her own accord, just so I could get out early and get my scenes. I've known her since she was a dirty-faced papoose, and I never knew her to lie or steal. She wasn't in on that robbery--I'll bank on that, and she wouldn't go off with a thief. It isn't like Annie.”
“Well,” said Big Medicine, thinking of his own past, “the best uh women goes wrong when some knot-headed man gits to lovemakin'. They'll do things fer the wrong kinda man, by cripes, that they wouldn't do fer no other human on earth. I've knowed a good woman to lie and steal--fer a man that wasn't fit, by cripes, to tip his hat to 'er in the street! Women,” he added pessimistically, “is something yuh can't bank on, as safe as yuh can on a locoed horse!” He kicked his mount unnecessarily by way of easing the resentment which one woman had managed to instil against the sex in general.