That ridge she crossed, and two others. On the last one she stopped and stood, straight and still, and stared away towards the mountains, shading her eyes with one spread palm. On a distant slope a small herd of cattle fed, scattered and at peace. Nearer, a great hawk circled slowly on widespread wings, his neck craned downward as if he were watching his own shadow move ghostlike over the grass. Annie-Many-Ponies, turning her eyes disappointedly from the empty mesa, envied the hawk his swift-winged freedom. When she looked again toward the far slopes next the mountains, a black speck rolled into view, the nucleus of a little dust cloud. Her face brightened a little; she turned abruptly and sought easy footing down that ridge, and climbed hurriedly the longer rise beyond. Once or twice, when she was on high ground, she glanced behind her uneasily, as does one whose mind holds a certain consciousness of wrongdoing. She did not pause, even then, but hurried on toward the dust cloud. On the rim of a shallow, saucer-like basin that lay cunningly concealed until one stood upon the very edge of it, Annie-Many-Ponies stopped again and stood looking out from under her spread palm. Presently the dust cloud moved over the crest of a ridge, and now that it was so much closer she saw clearly the horseman loping abreast of the dust. Annie-Many-Ponies stood for another moment watching, with that inscrutable half smile on her lips. She untied the cerise silk kerchief which she wore knotted loosely around her slim neck, waited until the horseman showed plainly in the distance and then, raising her right hand high above her head, waved the scarf three times in slow, sweeping half circles from right to left. She waited, her eyes fixed expectantly upon the horseman. Like a startled rabbit he darted to the left, pulled in his horse, turned and rode for three or four jumps sharply to the right; stopped short for ten seconds and then came straight on, spurring his horse to a swifter pace. Annie-Many-Ponies smiled and went down into the shallow basin and seated herself upon the wide, adobe curbing of an old well that marked, with the nearby ruins of an adobe house, the site, of an old habitation of tragic history. She waited with the absolute patience of her race for the horseman had yet a good two miles to cover. While she waited she smiled dreamily to herself and with dainty little pats and pulls she widened the flaring red bows on her hair and retied the cerise scarf in its picturesque, loose knot about her throat. As a final tribute to that feminine instinct which knows no race she drew from some cunningly devised hiding place a small, cheap “vanity box,” and proceeded very gravely to powder her nose. CHAPTER III. TO THE VICTORS THE SPOILS