“Well,” observed the one addressed, “what else would you expect to find in a living place that had been used for hundreds and hundreds of years by these people, and those who went before them? But you admit that it’s all mighty interesting, don’t you, Billie?”
“That’s what it is, Adrian,” heartily replied the other, “and from the way these other visitors are prowling around every-which-way, seems to me they think just the same as we do. Several look like cowboys; you don’t happen to know any of the same, I suppose, Donald?”
“No,” Donald answered, after taking a good survey of the parties in question; “never ran across them before; but that isn’t queer, when you come to think how many ranches there are in this Southwest country; and how seldom punchers go outside of the limits of their own range.”
“Then there’s a bunch of real tourists,” continued Billie; “father, mother and two half-grown children, people of means, they must be, for they look like it; and they’ve got three guides along with ’em too, so’s not to get lost on the desert, like some sillies have a habit of doing. Chances are these Zunis will get considerable graft from that free-and-easy crowd.”
“Among the balance of the strangers in town
there’s one man I’ve been watching, and he somehow gives me a bad feeling,” remarked Adrian.
“P’raps, now, I might pick him out, and then not half try,” added Donald; “just because I felt the same way about him. See here, Ad, is he that tall, domineering man, with the inky-black mustache, who looks about like the frisky gambler you see in the moving pictures of this Western country?”
“Hit it the first guess, Donald; but I took the trouble to ask a few questions about him from that smart looking young brave you saw me talking with a bit ago; and it seems that his name is Mark Braddon; and he’s some sort of showman.”
“Oh! you mean a circus proprietor, out here in the Wild and Woolly West to pick up novel attractions for his outfit in the East, is that it?” demanded Donald, quickly.
“That’s what he claims; and the youngster told me Braddon was trying to induce the chief to take a big party of braves, squaws and papooses, and go with him to exhibit this same rattlesnake dance in his circus. Says it would be the biggest card ever put before the public, and insure him crowded houses all through the winter in Chicago.”