“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.