Before twenty minutes had come and gone they were proceeding to get the tent in position; at least Billie and Adrian set about accomplishing this task, after the horses had been staked out where they could nibble at the grass growing near the spring hole; while Donald arranged a fireplace out of convenient stones, hunter-fashion, it being wider in front for the frying-pan to set there, while the coffee-pot could straddle the narrow section in the rear. Billie was as happy as a lark; he always acted that way when a bustle in the way of getting ready to eat came along. “It’s hard for me to believe that, after dreaming about it for years, I’m going to actually set eyes on them queer Zunis in a couple of days,” he started to say; and then turning quickly on Donald, as though he had remembered something he may have intended asking, he went on: “didn’t you say that this was about the time of year when they had all their dances, and carried on such high jinks?” “I wouldn’t be surprised, from what Corse Tibbals told me, if we just happened to hit it about right for all the ceremonies they go through with every year,” Donald replied. “And I reckon, now, that you mean to try and get some snapshots while that native circus is going on, don’t you, Billie?” “Just what I’m thinking of trying,” admitted the other, naively. “Course I’ve got a heap of pictures of the Zunis and Hopis at home, but that ain’t the same as snapping ’em off all by yourself. I’d rather have a poor picture that I’d taken myself, than the finest any artist could produce. Ain’t that right, Adrian?” He always appealed to the other when making any statement of this sort; and as usual Adrian quickly backed him up. “Of course you would, and rightly too, Billie; because that shows you were on deck when the dancing was going on. For a fellow couldn’t very well take a picture of a thing unless he was there, could he?” “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.