“Oh! all right, just as you say about it, boys!” he declared, cheerily; “but I’m hardly myself after my late terrible experience; and it might save time and bother if one of you took charge of the return trip. Not but that I’m able to do the thing, if it seemed really necessary—you understand that, of course.” Neither of his comrades made any remark, though able to read between the lines, and judge for themselves just how capable Billie might prove. “Looks quite different in here to what it was out on the sand desert, don’t it, boys?” Adrian remarked, after they had started away from the cliff. “I should say it did,” replied Billie, “with the trees around, and these bushes too. Ain’t that a hazel bush, Donald, and this one, say, didn’t you call it a rattlesnake weed once, when we were on the ranch?” “Yes, but it doesn’t get the name from being eaten by the crawlers, Billie. And here’s another bush you ought to know,” Donald told him. “Buffalo berries, as sure as shooting,” said the stout chum, eager to show that his memory was good. “I hid in a patch of the same that time I tried to coax an antelope up close enough to nail him, by waving my red bandana every little while. And he did come trotting along, now retreating, and then getting closer, till I just couldn’t stand it any longer, and blazed away; but somehow I didn’t get my game, though I thought I hit him, all right.” “But you could do much better than that now, Billie,” said Adrian, soothingly; “because you’ve had ever so much experience since that try. Yes, and brought down game worth talking about, too.” “Thank you, Adrian; it’s kind of you to say that, and I won’t forget it soon, either!” declared Billie, as he turned his head to take one last look at the beetling cliff before they passed out of sight of it. Immediately they heard him give an exclamation. “Well, I declare!” “What is it?” asked Donald, also whirling around. “Why, he must have been watchin’ us all the time, fellows; just think of the cunning of the old rascal!” continued the fat boy, whose face was filled with a mixture of surprise and alarm. They did not have to question him any farther, because both of the others had by now made the same discovery that had arrested the attention of Billie when he turned to say good-bye to the mysterious cliff. There, about three-fifths of the way to the top they sighted an object marked plainly on the white face of the wall. It was indeed the old medicine man, dressed in all his panoply of feathers and skins and colored beads until he looked like a gay advertising sign. “Whew! he’s staring right at us,” said Billie, uneasily; “just like he knew we had gone and follered him here, and wanted to ask us what business it was of ours if he chose to sneak away and talk with the Manitou of his people?”