The other sat there for a full minute, as though digesting the tremendous idea in his mind, while Billie waited to hear what his opinion might be, his face reflecting the various emotions that controlled him.
Finally Adrian looked up.
“First of all, let me congratulate you, Billie, on doing what you did. It was the work of no greenhorn. After this Donald and myself have got to look out, if we don’t want to wake up some fine morning, and find ourselves only has-beens. You’re getting there with a rush. But I reckon you hugged that hiding-place till they went about their business; you never tried to crawl back again, and take new chances?”
“I guess I knew enough for that, Adrian. I just lay there, and waited. They went off after a bit; and when the coast was clear, I stepped out and walked around, like nothing was the matter. But as soon as I got the first chance, let me tell you I scooted for the camp, licketty-split. I was fairly bursting with that news. And it’s nice of you to pay me such a compliment, that’s right. I feel as if it was worth all it cost, just to know that one of my chums appreciates me.”
“And the other will say the same when he hears what you did,” Adrian hastened to declare. “But I wish Donald would show up; he’s been gone all of two hours.”
“Say, you don’t think they could a got hold of him, any sort of way, do you, Adrian?” questioned Billie, as though a sudden terrible suspicion had gripped him.
“Well, hardly, in broad daylight,” laughed the other; “if it was night, now, there might be some little reason to think that way. He’ll be along soon. P’raps he’s found those cowboys good company, and is clinching them as friends, so we could rely on their backing, if it came to such a showdown.”
“Oh! I hope we don’t have trouble with that bunch,” remarked Billie; “because I’m opposed to violence, you know; but then, if they try to chase us out of this Zuni town, I reckon I’d get my back up, and kick just as hard as the rest of you. But you believe what I told you, don’t you, Adrian?”
“It seems almost too terrible to believe, but when I remember the look on the face of that man, Mark Braddon, I’m tempted to say that nothing would be too dreadful for him to try, if he thought he saw a chance to make a big haul by it.”
“Well, he would, if his game worked well, and they could force the old medicine man to give up the secret of his hidden treasure,” Billie went on to say in a reflective sort of way. “Goodness knows we’ve heard a heap about the same; and if even one tenth of it is true, he must know where a mighty