The Greatest Works of B. M. Bower - 51 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). B. M. Bower
in projection.”
“That’s exactly why I brought you out here, brother,” Luck assured him. “That’s why—”
“Oh, Luck Lindsay!” came Rosemary’s voice excitedly. “Mr. Forrman wants you right away quick! Somebody’s coming that he doesn’t know, and he says it’s up to you!”
“What’s up to me?” Luck came hurrying down the ladder backwards. “Has Applehead gone as crazy as his cat? I’ve nothing to do with strangers coming to the ranch.”
“Yes,” said Rosemary, twinkling her brown eyes at him, “but this is a woman. Mr. Forrman refuses to take any responsibility—”
“So do I. I don’t know of any woman that’s liable to come trailing me up. Where is she?”
From the doorway Rosemary pointed dramatically, and Luck went up and stood beside her, rolling down his sleeves while he stared at the trail. Down the slope, head bent to the whooping wind, a woman came walking with a free, purposeful stride that spoke eloquently of accustomedness to the open land. Her skirts flapped but could not impede her movements. She seemed to be carrying some bright-hued burden upon her shoulders, and she was, without doubt, coming straight down to the ranch as to a much-desired goal.
“You can search me,” he said emphatically in answer to Applehead’s question. “Must be some señora away off the trail. I never saw her before in my life.”
“We-ell, now, that there lady don’t act like she’s lost,” Applehead declared, watching her intently as she came on. “Aims to git whar she’s goin’, if I’m any jedge of actions. An’ she shore is hittin’ fur here. Ain’t been ary woman on this ranch in ten year, till Mrs. Green come t’other day.”
“She’s none of my funeral; I don’t know her from Adam,” Luck disclaimed, and went back into the dark room as though be had urgent business there, which he had not. In the back of his mind was an uneasy feeling that the newcomer was “some of his funeral,” and yet he could not tell how or why she should be. In her walk there was a teasing sense of familiarity; he did not know who she was, but he felt uncomfortably that he ought to know. He fumbled among the litter on the shelf, putting things in order; and all the while his ears were sharpened to the sounds that came muffled through the closed door.
“Oh, Luck Lindsay!” came Rosemary’s voice at last, with what Luck fancied was a malicious note in it. “You’re wanted out here!”
Luck fumbled for a minute longer while he racked his brain for some clue to this woman’s identity. For a man who has lived the varied life Luck had lived, his conscience was remarkably clean; but no one enjoys having mystery stalk unawares up to one’s door. However, he opened the door and went out, feeling sensitively the curious expectancy of the Happy Family, and faced the woman who stood just beyond the doorway. One look, and he stopped dead still in the middle of the room. “Well, I’ll be darned!” he said in a hushed tone of blank amazement.
The woman’s black eyes lighted as though flames had darted up behind them. “How, Cola?” she greeted him in the soft, cooing tones of the younger Indians whose voices have not yet grown shrill and harsh. “Wagalexa Conka!” It was the tribal name given him in great honor by his Indians of Pine Ridge Agency.
Through his astonishment, Luck’s face glowed at the words. He went up and put out his hand, impelled by the hospitality which is an unwritten law of the old West, and is not to be broken save for good cause.
“How! How!” he answered her greeting. “You long ways from home, Annie-Many-Ponies!”
Annie-Many-Ponies smiled in a way to make Happy Jack gulp with a sudden emotion he would have denied. She flashed a quick glance around at the curious faces that regarded her so intently, and she eased her shawl-wrapped burden to the ground with the air of one who has reached her journey’s end.
“Yes, I plenty long ways,” she assented placidly. “I don’t stay by reservation no more. Too lonesome. One night I beat it. I work for you now.”
“How you know you work for me?” Luck felt nine pairs of eyes trying to read his face. “That’s bad, you run away. You better go back, Annie-Many-Ponies. Your father—”
“Nah!” Annie-Many-Ponies cried in swift rebellion. “I work for you all time, I no want monies. I got plenty wardrobe; you give me plenty grub; I work for you. I think you need him Indian girl in picture. I think you plenty sorry all Indians go by reservation. You no like for Indians go home,” she stated with soft sympathy. “I sabe you not got monies for pay all thems Indians. I come be Indian girl for you; I not want monies. You let me stay—Wagalexa Conka!”
“You come in and eat, Annie-Many-Ponies,” Luck commanded with more gentleness than he was accustomed to show. The girl must have followed him all the way from Los Angeles, and she must have walked all the way out from Albuquerque. All this she seemed to take for granted, a mere detail of no importance beside her certainty that although he had no money to pay the Indians, he must surely need an Indian girl in his pictures. Loyalty always touched Luck deeply. He had brought the little black dog back with him and hidden it in the stable, just because the dog had followed him all around town and had seemed so pleased when Luck was loading the buckboards for the return trip. He could not logically repulse the manifest friendliness of Annie-Many-Ponies.
He introduced her formally to Rosemary, and was pleased when Rosemary smiled and shook hands without the slightest hesitation. The Happy Family he lumped together in one sentence. “All these my company,” he told her. “You eat now. By and by I think you better go home.”
Annie-Many-Ponies looked at him with smoldering eyes, standing in the middle of the kitchen, refusing to sit down to the table until the main question was settled.
“Why you say that?” she demanded, drawing her brows down sullenly. “You got plenty more Indian girls?”
Luck shook his head.
“You think me not good-looking any more?” With her two slim brown hands she pushed back the shawl from her hair and challenged criticism of her beauty. She was beautiful,—there was no gain saying that; she was so beautiful that the sight of her, standing there like an indignant young Minnehaha, tingled the blood of more than one of the Happy Family. “You think I so homely I spoil your picture?”
“I think you must not run away from the reservation,” Luck parried, refusing to be cajoled by her anger or her beauty. “You always were a good girl, Annie-Many-Ponies. Long time ago, when you were little girl with the Buffalo Bill show, you were good. You mind what Wagalexa Conka say?”
Annie-Many-Ponies bent her head. “I mind you now, Wagalexa Conka,” she told him quickly. “You tell me ride down that big hill,” she threw one hand out toward the bluff that sheltered the house. “I sure ride down like hell. I care not for break my neck, when you want big ‘punch’ in picture. You tell me be homely old squaw like Mrs. Ghost-Dog, I be homely so dogs yell to look on me. I mind you plenty—but I do not go by reservation no more.”
“Yow father be mad—I let you stay, he maybe shoot me,” Luck argued, secretly flattered by her persistence.
Annie-Many-Ponies smiled,—a slow, sphinx-like smile, mysteriously sweet and lingering. “Nah! Not shoot you. I write one letters, say I go work for you. Now you write one letter by Agent, say you let me stay, say I work for you, say I good girl, say I be Indian girl for your picture. I mind you plenty, Wagalexa Conka!” She smiled again coaxingly, like a child. “I like you,” she stated simply. “You good man. You need Indian girl, I think. I work for you. My father not be mad; my father know you good man for Indians.”
Luck turned from her and gave the Happy Family a pathetic, what’s-a-fellow-going-to-do look that made Andy Green snort unexpectedly and go outside. One by one the others followed him, grinning shamelessly at Luck’s helplessness. In a moment he overtook them, wanting the support of their judgment.
“The worst of it is,” he confessed, after he had explained how he had known the girl since