“Do you mean to say you crept up close enough to hear anything?” demanded Adrian, as though he could hardly believe it possible on the part of the stout chum to attempt such a bold thing, in the first place, and actually carry it to a successful issue in the second.
Billie wagged his head, and a proud gleam came into his sunny blue eyes.
“I got away with it, though how I did the same will puzzle me lots,” he started to explain. “But when I saw that bunch with their heads so close together I just made up my mind they must be plottin’ like fun; and I wished I could get a chance to listen. Then, all at once I noticed that there was a way a fellow might crawl up back of the rocks, if only he knew how to do it. How I wished either you or Donald was with me; because you see I was afraid that I’d make a bad job of the thing, and only get a few nice kicks for my trouble. But all at once I gritted my teeth this way, you know; and when I do that there’s going to something happen, make up your mind to that.”
“Yes, I know, Billie, there surely is; and so you concluded to try the crawl by yourself, did you?”
“I just got down on my ham-bones, and began to sneak along the best I knew how,” the enthusiastic fat boy went on to say, excitedly, as
though even the remembrance of his recent feat stirred him to the core. “Inch by inch, and foot by foot, I went crawling along, till at last I landed in the snuggest little nook you ever saw, and where I couldn’t go any further because there wasn’t any more cover.”
“And what did you hear?” asked Adrian.
“I just managed to pick up a few words now and then, when one of the bunch talked a little louder than common; and at first it was like a lot of Choctaw to me, because, you see, I hadn’t got my clue yet. After a little I could put things together better, and then the whole thing flashed on me like an avalanche.”
“Yes, go on, Billie, I’m listening,” urged the other, beginning to himself feel the thrill of eager expectation, which of course was what Billie was leading up to all this while.
“Let me tell you what I reckon that schemer Braddon is planning to do with his big pay promises to the old Zuni chief,” Billie continued, impressively; “he wants to get the greater part of the tribe to flock away after him; and when he finds a chance he means to give ’em the slip, come back here, and force the old medicine man to show him where that wonderful treasure of his lies, that has been talked about so much all through this region for years! What d’ye think of that for a grand scheme, now, Pard Adrian?”