Then she went back and sat down against the bowlder, waiting, with the
sublime patience of her kind, for Ramon.
Until the wind hushed, listening for the dawn, she sat there and waited. At
her feet the little black dog slept with his nose folded between his front
paws over which he whimpered sometimes in his dreams. At every little sound
all through--the night Annie-Many-Ponies had listened, thinking that at last
here came Ramon to take her to the priest, but for the first time since she
had stolen out on the mesa to meet him, Ramon did not keep the tryst--and this
was to be their marriage meeting! Annie-Many-Ponies grew very still and
voiceless in her heart, as if her very soul waited. She did not even speculate
upon what the future would be like if Ramon never came. She was waiting.
Then, just before the sky lightened, someone stepped cautiously along a little
path that led through rocks and bushes back into the hills. Annie-Many Ponies
turned her face that way and listened. But the steps were not the steps of
Ramon; Annie-Many-Ponies had too much of the Indian keenness to be fooled by
the hasty footsteps of this man. And since it was not Ramon--her slim fingers
closed upon the keen-edged knife she carried always in its sinew-sewed
buckskin sheath near her heart.
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