“I can understand that plain enough,” remarked Adrian, soberly; “for when men get the prospecting fever well fixed on them, it’s got to be something mighty powerful that’s going to keep them from trying to squeeze a secret like this from a red, no matter whether he is a Witch Doctor or
not. Yes, our motto must be, ‘go slow.’ And at the same time we might keep our eyes and ears open, so that if anything out of the ordinary run happens, when we’re in that village, we’ll be ready to take a look into the same.”
Somehow Billie asked no more questions. Apparently what he had heard must have given the fat boy food for thought. He had a pretty lively imagination, and doubtless allowed this to have full swing now; so that he was picturing all sorts of astonishing things coming to pass presently.
They were just thinking of getting the horses, engaged in nibbling such grass as could be found near by, when Billie chanced to look earnestly far up the side of the mountain which formed one wall of the valley in which the panther had been met, as well as the feeding deer.
He seemed to be instantly galvanized into action.
“Looky there, fellows!” they heard him call out, his voice trembling with sudden excitement; “up yonder where that last cedar grows. Don’t you see a man and a pony as plain as day; and he’s sure been watching us lie around down here. Why, what if it was one of them young Apache bucks we scared off the other night; and say, couldn’t he just riddle us with lead, if he took a notion to shoot right now?”
Filled with this alarming idea Billie commenced to roll over and over; while the others stared up toward the spot indicated by their comrade.
[CHAPTER VIII.—THE MAN WHO VANISHED.]
“There! He’s gone again!” exclaimed Adrian, almost immediately afterwards. “He must have seen you pointing at him, Billie.”
“My! but he must be a kind of sensitive fellow, if that little thing’d make him sidle out of sight!” observed the stout chum, dejectedly. “One second he was there, all right, and the next he had vamosed the ranch. Now you see him, now you don’t. It’s mighty queer, I think.”