“Sure he couldn’t, ’less he piked a copy from another picture,” Billie declared. “And I only hope I’ll get chances to use up a whole string of films, with the girls and their queer head-dresses showing like the Hopi Indians do, and p’raps the old medicine-man all dressed up in his togs adoing a two-step, while he shakes his gourds and rattles, and tinkles his little bells in great style. Oh! I’m cram full of the subject, let me tell you, boys; and I’ll never be happy till I see it all with my very eyes.”
“Well, what are we going to have for supper?” asked Donald, who knew very well that only in this way could the talkative Billie be made to branch off the subject that had begun to be wearisome to the rest of the little party.
The ruse succeeded, too, as it always did; and Billie was quickly at work undoing several of those mysterious packages which the grateful wives of the miners had made up for the trio of saddle pards.
His various exclamations of delight must have early convinced both Adrian and Donald that the fat boy had made numerous satisfactory discoveries. And later on, when that supper was cooked, and they sat around in easy attitudes, consuming the same, they voted that the women of the Red Spar camp were all “trumps” of the first water; because they knew what hungry boys liked most.
“Had we better keep any sort of watch tonight?” asked
Billie, yawning, a couple of hours after they had finished eating; the interval that had elapsed having been occupied with much talk along various interesting lines, during which Billie managed as usual to soak up a great deal of information.
“Well, of course the horses are about as good as a sentry,” admitted Donald, who had trained his pony, Wireless, to snort, and wake him up in case enemies came prowling around; “but all the same we’d better sleep with one eye open. It’s a mighty poor policy to wait till the horse is stolen before you lock the stable door, so my dad always says. And there might be some rustler in this section like, well, Billie’s good friend, Tod, you know; who just couldn’t keep from grabbing our mounts, no matter how hard he tried.”
“Yes,” added Adrian, as though to put a clincher in the assertion made by his chum, “and it’d be no joke for us to be left on foot away off here, hundreds of miles from home. We’ll keep our arms handy, and if any sneak gives us a call, why we can make him sorry he found us at home, that’s what.”
“Hark! listen to Wireless right now, would you?” exclaimed Donald, in a low, tense voice, as he half arose to his feet, quivering with sudden excitement.
Billie was the only one to snatch up a gun, which