"Just my luck," groaned Russ, setting up his camera.
"What's the matter?" asked Alice, who now felt no alarm.
"Too dark to get a picture, and I had a little bit of film left on a reel. I might have got a dandy rescue scene; but now it's all up. Too bad!"
"Never mind, you got some good ones," Ruth comforted him.
"Yes, but that would have completed the picture—'Captured By the Indians.' However, it can't be helped. Maybe after all this excitement is over we can get the Indians to pose for us. I'll tell Mr. Pertell about it."
The rescuing cowboys had drawn rein in front of the lined-up Indians, near the huts of the captives. There was a goodly squad of cow punchers, and they seemed delighted to have been of some service to the picture players. Some of them were reloading their big revolvers, for they, like Baldy, in the excess of their spirits, had fired off every chamber. But no one had been hurt, for they merely shot in the air.
"Well, you got here, boys, I see," remarked Baldy.
"That's what we did!" cried Necktie Harry, who was flecking some dust off the end of his gaudy scarf.
"We saw your smoke talk about an hour ago," explained Bow. "First I was sort of puzzled over it. I thought maybe it was the Indians, for I calculate it was about time for them to be at their high jinks.
"Then I caught the private signal you and me made up, and I says: 'By Heck! Baldy's in trouble! Wasn't that what I said, Pete?" and he appealed to the foreman.