“Looky, will you, boys, just the same kind of crooked writing and bad spelling there was in that other warning letter. Yes, sir, it’s from that same unknown friend that keeps watch over us, and never shows himself. Don’t it beat all who he can be?”
[CHAPTER XXIII.—THE STEALING OF THE SACRED BELT.]
“You hit the right nail on the head, Billie, when you said that,” was the way Donald told how he agreed with the remark of the other.
In fact, all of them had been struck with the similarity of the crooked handwriting that they saw upon the soiled piece of paper before them, and
that which had been upon the warning at the spring.
To make doubly sure Billie pulled out the latter, he having secured it at the time; and a hasty examination proved to be all that was necessary to convince the three boys that their suspicions held good.
“The same hand wrote both!” declared Adrian.
“All right,” spoke up Billie, instantly; “don’t that prove the other warning was meant right for us, and not stuck there in a general way, as Donald here seemed to think?”
“I own up that the proof is overwhelming, Billie,” admitted the party in question; “but just to think of them laying such a measly plot to get us in bad favor with our new friend, the Zuni chief. I remember seeing that belt right well, and remarked at the time that it was the finest one I had ever set eyes on, and I’ve seen quite a bunch of the same among the Indians on the reservations; for they try to excel each other making them valuable with precious stones and little nuggets of gold.”
“Yes,” added Adrian, “and I could hardly take my eyes off it this very morning, when the medicine man took a share in the first part of the programme. Then he left the rest to some sub-chiefs, and went away with the head of the tribe. It’s a beauty of a belt, and must be worth considerable, just in money alone.”