“No--that's the Mexican bunch. I--why, I guess that will maybe be you, Ramon. I wasn't paying much attention to the parts--I was after locations, and I only had about two minutes at the script. But he's been giving you some good bits right along where he needed a Mexican type; and those scenes in the rocks the other day was bandit stuff with you for lead. It'll be you or Miguel--the Native Son, as they call him--and so far he's cast for another part. That's the worst of Luck. He won't talk about what he's going to do till he's all ready to do it.” There was a little further discussion. Ramon muttered a few sentences--rapid instructions, Annie-Many-Ponies believed from the tone he used. “All right, I'll keep you posted,” Bill Holmes replied in English. And he added as he started off, “You can send word by the squaw.” He went carefully back down the arroyo, keeping as much as possible in the shade. Behind him stole Annie-Many-Ponies, noiseless as the shadow of a cloud. Bill Holmes, she reflected angrily, had seen the day, not so far in the past, when he was happy if the “squaw” but smiled upon him. It was because she had repelled his sly lovemaking that he had come to speak of her slightingly like that; she knew it. She could have named the very day when his manner toward her had changed. Mingled with her hate and dread of him was a new contempt and a new little anxiety over this clandestine intimacy between Ramon and him. Why should Bill Holmes keep Ramon posted? Surely not about a silver bridle! Shunka Chistala was whining in her little tent when she came into the camp. She heard Bill Holmes stumble over the end of the chuck-wagon tongue and mutter the customary profanity with which the average man meets an incident of that kind. She whispered a fierce command to the little black dog and stood very still for a minute, listening. She did not hear anything further, either from Bill Holmes or the dog, and finally reassured by the silence, she crept into her tent and tied the flaps together on the inside, and lay down in her blankets with the little black dog contentedly curled at her feet with his nose between his front paws. CHAPTER V. FOR THE GOOD OF THE COMPANY