Annie-Many-Ponies did not mount and ride on immediately, however.

It was still early in the forenoon, and she was not so eager in reality as she had been in anticipation.

She sat down beside the well and stared somberly away to the mountains, and wondered why she was go sad when she should be happy.

She twisted the ring with the big red stone round and round her finger, but she got no pleasure from the crimson glow of it.

The stone looked to her now like a great, frozen drop of blood.