Perhaps Mark Braddon realized something to this effect. That would account for his gradually falling back as he ran, allowing the others to outstrip him in the race. Adrian believed him to be as cunning as he was bold, and that was saying a good deal.
But now the medicine man and the three Zuni braves who accompanied him were close to the tent, and still coming under “full steam,” as Billie muttered to himself, while crouching there, nervously handling his Marlin, as he waited the rush of events.
Adrian threw up his gun. At the same time he made an imperious gesture with his hand that could not be misunderstood.
He knew that the old medicine man could speak English almost as well as the chief of the tribe. Intercourse with the whites for all these years, with visitors frequently stopping over for days at a time to study the interesting ways of the Zuni people, had brought this about.
Besides, unless Adrian had been misinformed, the Witch Doctor had been away from his home in the desert on several occasions; and while his people believed he was at these times holding an extended audience with the Manitou, deep in the heart of the Sacred Mountain, Donald and Adrian, on talking it over, had come to the conclusion that the keen-witted old fraud may have been visiting civilization, to see for himself some of the wonderful things of which these white pilgrims had told the Zunis.
“Stop!” said Adrian; and singularly enough they all came to a standstill, just forty feet or so on the other side of the lone tent; because there was something commanding in both the voice and gesture of the white boy.
Besides, those two rifles looked more or less ready for business; and it is well known that firearms may be as dangerous in the hands of boys, as when grown men possess them.
“Now, tell me what all this means, Pick-ne-quan-to?” called out Adrian, purposely making use of the Indian name by which the medicine man was known, and which doubtless had more or less to do with his strange calling as a magician.
Thereupon the medicine man drew himself up, and restraining his anger as much as possible, he answered with great deliberation:
“From the lodge of Pick-ne-quan-to has the