“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.