CHAPTER VII.

THE WITCH DOCTOR.

"Well, it's a little tough, but all the same I like it," was Billie's opinion of the venison, after it had been cooked, and they sat around making a meal of it.

"You couldn't expect anything less," Donald went on to say; "because all meat is more juicy and tender from hanging several days, when the weather allows. Before we're done chewing on this maverick you'll agree that I'm right, for it'll get better with age."

"That's a cinch!" agreed Adrian.

As it was pretty hot around the middle of the day, none of them were very ambitious about making a fresh start, after they had finished eating. In fact, they lay around in easy positions, and waited for the sun to get started toward the west, so that its rays might not be so direct.

"Tell me some more about the Zunis, Donald," urged Billie, thinking that it was a good time to put forward such a plea; for long ago had he not learned that a wise fellow will wait to ask a favor of his father until after dinner, and not when he first comes home, tired and hungry?

"Oh! can't you just hold your horses a little longer, Billie?" observed the other, with a good-natured smile. "Because, you know we'll drop in on the copper colored gents tomorrow, with any decent sort of luck; and then you'll be able to see everything for youself."

"Yes, that's so, Donald," the fat boy went on in his wheedling, insinuating way; "but I've been told that whenever you expect to take a journey into any foreign country the first thing to do is to get guide books, and read up all you can about the people, their strange habits, and so-forth. In that way you can understand them much quicker than if you didn't know beans about the lot. And so, the more I can hear about these Hopi and Zuni Indians, who all belong to the family of cliff dwellers, and are so different from every other tribe that ever inhabited North America, why, the quicker I'll understand what a lot of queer things they do stand for."

Adrian pretended to clap his hands as if in applause.

"Seems as if he's got you there, Donald," he went on to remark. "A heap of sound sense in what Billie says."

"Oh!" remarked the fat boy, with a shrug of his broad shoulders, "I do have a bright thought once a year, you know. Of course it's only an accident, and couldn't be helped; but strike up, Donald, and tell me something about that old medicine man who is the queerest of the whole bunch I take it, from what I've read, and heard about him."

Donald looked sharply at the speaker. He did not underestimate Billie, and knew that many times the fat boy had proven to be far from being the numbskull he pretended he was.

"Well, whatever put that notion in your head," Donald observed, "it's as true as anything going. Remember that I've only run across a batch of these cliff-dwellers once, when dad took me to see the wonderful Colorado Canyon, where heaps of their rock homes can be seen high up in the walls of the biggest hole in all the world. So that what I know about these Zunis we're on the way to visit I've had only from the lips of others, generally cowboys who like to stretch things, you understand."

"All right; we'll make allowances for the exaggerations of Bunch, Si Ketcham, Corney, Skinny, Alkali or even the chink cook, Ah Chin Chin. Now start in, please, Donald."

"In the first place," began the other, thoughtfully, "the old chap who rattles the dry bones, and plays the part of medicine man to the Zunis has been known all over the country for many years as the sharpest of his kind. He's got a genuine Indian name, of course, which I couldn't pronounce even if I remembered it; but they tell me it stands for Witch Doctor, and that's what we'll have to call him, I reckon."

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," muttered Billie.

"I'm not going to try and describe the old fakir, because I never could do him justice," Donald went on. "Having seen one like him I could picture the Witch Doctor, after both Si Ketcham at the ranch, and Corse Tibbals at the mine had painted a word picture of him. Above all things you've got to snap him off, if you want a jim-dandy card for your exhibit, to stun the boys at home."

"Yes, sure I will, Donald. Ain't I carrying ten rolls of films in my pack right now, just for that same purpose?" Billie assured him.

"What I wanted to tell you most about, though, Billie, was something that's sort of excited my curiosity more'n a little."

"Oh! that sounds kind of interesting to be sure, Donald; so please keep right on, and let's hear all about it," the other pleaded.

"It seems," began the prairie boy, "that this old fellow has surrounded himself with a regular halo of the deepest mystery ever. All of his stripe like to make out that they're in direct communication with the Great Spirit or Manitou of the red man, you know; and this Witch Doctor has got the rest of the bunch beat to a frazzle, as Teddy would say."

"How so?" asked Adrian, as the narrator paused, possibly on purpose to let his strange words sink in, and arouse further curiosity on the part of his hearers.

"It's just this way, as near as I could make out," Donald presently continued. "Every little while the old medicine man disappears from the sight of his people, and always after conducting a series of cracker-jack ceremonies. They say he's gone into the mountain to talk with Manitou; and from time to time queer sounds are heard that set the Indians almost wild--strains of sweet music come out of cracks in the rocks, and then a strange voice like the rumbling of thunder follows. And at such times every Zuni will be sure to flatten himself, face downward, on the ground, listening with all his might, but not daring to look, for fear he might see too much, and be struck blind; because that's what the Witch Doctor has warned them might happen if they got too curious."

Billie was listening with open mouth, and eyes that were round with wonder.

"Oh, my country!" he said, slowly yet with apparent exultation; "then there's a real mystery for us to unravel, ain't there, Donald? What d'ye suppose makes that music; and who does the shouting now?"

"Ask me something easy," remarked the other, shaking his head as though he did not attempt to solve the problem. "That old fellow has them all locoed, is my opinion, and they believe whatever he tells them. Some people call it hypnotism; but I just reckon that they're a lot of fanatics, and ready to sneeze when the medicine man takes snuff. But there's another part of the thing that was a heap more interesting to Si Ketcham and Corse Tibbals."

"What was that?" asked Adrian.

"Why, it seems that on several occasions, when the old rascal has wanted something or other that the whites possessed, and it needed the ready cash to buy it, he's gone into his sacred teepee and come out again with a handful of crude gold. Why, being a miner, and experienced in those lines, Corse says that it looked like he'd just knocked a hunk off a ledge that must have been virgin gold!"

"Tell me that, will you?" gasped Billie. "No wonder, then, so many palefaces wander off this way to watch the Zunis carry on when the time comes along for their rattlesnake dance, and all that fuss and feathers. Say, chances are that the old chap knows of the richest deposit of precious metal ever discovered. And when he disappears inside the mountain to talk with the Great Spirit, why, that's the time he does his chipping of gold. Gee! now you've got me some excited, Donald."

"Well, you want to keep right cool, and not give the thing away," warned the one who was telling of these strange facts. "Whether the Witch Doctor has got a hidden treasure inside that mountain or not, it's certain that up to now nobody has found a chance to spy on him. He's too smart for that. And besides, these Zuni Indians have so many tricks up their sleeves, what with their hundreds of pet rattlesnakes and such, that white men don't care as a rule to make them angry. All sorts of stories have been told about dens of the reptiles into which they cast those who make enemies of them. I reckon these are only yarns, because there's been little, or no trouble between the whites and the Hopis and Zunis; but all the same there's something about the queer habits of these cliff-dwellers that makes miners, hungry for gold as they may be, keep their hands off. Nobody knows what a Zuni is carrying under his fancy blanket; and it may just be a rattler as well as not."

Billie turned pale, and drew a long breath. Of course he was instantly reminded of his recent terrible experience with snakes; and this took away in some measure from the pleasure he was anticipating when he started exploring the quaint village of the Zuni Indians, with the houses chiseled out of the solid rock in tiers, and each door reached by a narrow ledge that ascended at an angle of forty-five degrees.

"I'm only telling you these things," Donald went on to say, "because Billie has asked me to coach him about what we're likely to run across. And perhaps, it's just as well that all of us remember we haven't got any business to poke our noses into the private affairs of these people. If we do it we must take the risk; and that's what men like Corse Tibbals have always shrank back from up to now."

"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.