"
Annie-Many-Ponies stooped and slid safely past the window that might betray
her, and then slipped away behind the house. She waited, and she listened; for
though the adobe walls were thick, there were open windows and her hearing was
keen. Within was animated babel and much laughter. But not once again did
Annie-Many-Ponies hear her name spoken. Not once again did Wagalexa Conka
remember her. Save when she, that slim woman who bad come to play his leads,
asked to see her, she had been wholly forgotten. Even then she had been named
a squaw. It was as though they had been speaking of a horse. They did not
count her worthy of a place in their company, they did not miss her voice and
her smile.
"Hid out," Wagalexa Conka had said. Well, she would hide out, then--she, the
daughter of a chief of the Sioux; she, whom Wagalexa Conka had been glad to
have in his picture when he was poor and had no money to pay white leading
women. But now he had much money; now he could come in a big automobile, with
a slim, white leading woman and a camera man and scenic artist and much money
in his pocket; and she--she was just a squaw who had hid out, and who would
show up after a while and be grateful if he took her by the hand and said,
"How!"
With so many persons moving eagerly here and there, none but an Indian could
have slipped away from that house and from the ranch without being seen.
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