“Yes siree, that was about the closest shave I ever knew; and you couldn’t have dropped in on us at a more fortunate minute, Donald, that’s what!”

Billie was saying this, as he had done half a dozen times before, while he himself and two chums were seated on the pile of rocks that overlooked the little plaza where the Zunis were preparing to go through the last ceremony of their yearly feast and tribal observances, the rattlesnake dance, weirdest of all scenes ever witnessed by the eyes of white men and women.

“Well,” remarked Donald, with one of his rare and engaging smiles, “I give you my solemn word, boys, I didn’t time our coming so as to make it seem dramatic, like a Frenchman might have done. Fact is, I urged the chief to hurry all I could, after I’d told him everything I knew, and given him the old belt that I had hidden, and which he was afraid to even touch at first.”

“But you were gone nearly a whole hour, Donald,” said Billie, reproachfully.

“That’s right, I was,” replied the other, “but I couldn’t help it, because you see, I was unable to find the chief, who had disappeared, and no one could tell me where he was. After all, it turned out that he had gone into some secret chamber back in the mountain to carry out some of the observances of the day. In the end I ran across him, and, well, it all came out right after all, you know.”

“So far as we’re concerned, it sure did,” agreed Billie; “but just think how Braddon and his two chums had to get out of here in a big hurry. Why, the Zunis just acted like they’d be glad to tear them to pieces, when they learned that one of them had snuck into the sacred lodge of their medicine man, and actually hooked that silly old belt.”

“A good riddance of bad rubbish, we all say,” declared Adrian.

“And,” added Donald, “if they know what’s good for them they’ll be mighty slow to stay anywhere within striking distance of this place; because the chief told them plainly that as soon as the ceremonies were all over, he would shut his eyes if several of his young and hot-blooded braves chose to go forth looking for game.”

“Ha! ha! guess Braddon knew only too well what that sort of game would be if he and his pards could be found!” exclaimed Billie, laughing at the thought. “Say, just to think of it, while we’re squatted here on this rock pile, waiting to see the blessed old rattlesnake dance they talk so much about, them fellows must be aheading away just as fast as their ponies’ll carry ’em; and chances are they’ll keep hitting up the hot pace half the night, for fear of being overtaken, and shot all to flinders. Things turned out all right for us; and it was sure the darkest just before dawn, as Adrian said.”

“Well, pay attention, now, to what’s doing in front,” interrupted Donald, “for unless the signs go wrong the bucks are getting in their togs to start this dance.”

There were little knots of observers scattered all around, and it might be noticed that where the lookers-on were whites they had been very careful to select their seats on some pile of rocks; though the Zuni women and children were massed here and there on the lower tiers, or the level ground itself.

There was a good reason for this. Rattlesnakes may be all very well in cages, with a strong sheet of glass separating them from you; but no ordinary person cares to run across them in the open, where they can suddenly throw themselves into a coil, and be ready to thrust out their venomous jaws at a nearby leg.

And it was generally understood that in the wonderful and thrilling ceremony about to take place as the wind-up to the yearly festival, the Zuni braves would introduce scores of the crawlers, so that there was always danger that one might break away, and wriggle in among the bystanders.

So the white visitors were not taking any chances that they could avoid, though eager enough to see all that would take place in the arena below.

The music of the native tomtoms and reed instruments was exceedingly doleful. Yet it must have possessed a peculiar significance for the people who gathered around, their dusky faces filled with the keenest appreciation. To them this dance meant the greatest religious frenzy, and was of deepest significance; while to the whites it stood only for a queer proceeding in which danger lurked in every dusky hand that gripped a serpent back of the neck.

Presently the ring began to form.

Those who have observed the dances of savage people in many far distant parts of the earth have noticed a strange similarity in the methods and customs of different nations. Men and women seem to dance pretty much the same, whether it be among the Zulus of South Africa, the Bontoc Igorottes of the Philippine Islands, the Hottentots of Darkest Africa, or the Indians of our own West. There is the same crouching attitude, the bending of the knees, a springy step like unto that of the tiger or panther, and very much the same monotonous chant that rises and falls in a thrilling cadence.

Donald was not so deeply interested as his two companions, for he had seen something very similar to this dance before. Billie squatted there, and his eyes grew as round as circles, while he stared, and noted many remarkable things in connection with the dusky dancers, carrying on their grotesque ceremony.

“Oh! look at that lanky fellow holding his rattler between his teeth!” he called out, as he pointed at the object of his discovery. “All the money on this same old earth couldn’t coax me to try that dodge, no siree bob!”

“But he knows just what he is doing,” said Donald; “and hasn’t the slightest idea that he’ll be struck. If he is, they have some sort of remedy, and in most cases they get over it. But you see how careful they are never to try and touch a rattler when he’s in coil; because they know how he can strike out like lightning, so that the quickest hand couldn’t draw back in time. They keep the reptile extended at as near full length as they can, for then he’s practically helpless to jab you, and the snake knows it too, so he seldom tries.”

“Yes, I know that all right,” affirmed Billie, “but no matter, I haven’t got any use for the species, let me tell you again. They make me have a funny shiver run up and down my spine, because, don’t you know, I get to thinking of how near I came to dropping down into that nest when we were on the road here. Ugh! for one I won’t be sorry when this same dance is over with.”

But Adrian did not echo these sentiments. He was finding a world of deep interest in everything that went on. The antics of the dancers, the wrapt attention paid them by the squatty women clustered here and there, and who never once took their eyes off the circle of braves passing round and round in endless procession; even the way the children were fascinated by the sight—all these things Adrian was taking note of, for he wished to tell of his experiences later on.

“Don’t forget that you’ve got a kodak along, Billie!” warned Donald, after the affair had been in progress so long that some of the dancers had fallen out of the circle utterly exhausted by the continuous movements, though others immediately took their places, just as the substitutes on a football team are injected into the game when injuries cause some of the players to drop out of the hot scrimmage.

At that Billie awoke from his trance with a jump.

“Oh! thank you for telling me about it, Donald!” he exclaimed; “whatever could I have been thinking about to forget that? And as I never expect to see another snake-dance in all my life, why, how could I have remedied the blunder? But thank goodness it ain’t too late yet.”

Accordingly he set diligently to work to repair his error, and for some time the clicking of the rapid shutter told that Billie was getting snapshots of the whole scene, and individual parts of the same, as fast as he could work it.

As the afternoon was now waning, the last act in the list of ceremonies bade fair to soon close in a blaze of glory.

The wild dancers, spurred on by the continued incantations of the weird-looking old medicine man, and their own desire to show off before their people, seemed to be vying with one another in the endeavor to excel in grotesque acts. They wrapped the writhing snakes around their necks, and held them between their teeth in seemingly reckless fashion, much to the horror of some of the white spectators, but adding greatly to the delight of the dusky horde that gathered there, and gaped, and admired, and applauded in their own fashion.

After all human nature is pretty much alike, when you come to take off the outward veneer that is given by different associations and methods of living. Adrian had seen just such sights as these, minus the rattlesnakes, and the weird dress of the participants, in many a gathering in the East, where thousands went fairly wild over a fiercely contested football game.

As the twilight began to fall the furious dance came to an end at the command of the medicine man, whose word was law with the Zunis. He knew it had now reached its proper conclusion, and that the warriors were almost at the point of utter exhaustion.

“All over but the shoutin’, and perhaps it’s safe for us to get down off this rock pile now,” remarked Billie, as the last of the dancers went staggering away, leaving the arena that had been the theater of their weird ceremony to the thronging squaws and boys and girls.

So they sought their tent, to prepare the evening meal. Of course their talk was mostly about the remarkable scene they had just witnessed, and which would never entirely fade from their minds.

“And if my pictures only come out good, as I reckon they ought,” Billie went on to remark, “I’ll be able to stagger some of the fellows at home, when I get there. But there’s one thing I’m ahoping, and that is that none of them wrigglers got away. I’d sure hate to wake up tonight from a jolly good snooze, to find a big old rattler perched on my chest, and ready to jab me with his business end if I so much as moved my little finger. Wow! it makes me creep just to think of it.”

And indeed, the subject was on Billie’s mind so much that he later on made sure to thoroughly examine every inch of space inside the canvas, shaking their blankets carefully, and finally getting Donald to again encircle the tent with that horse-hair lariat of his, over which he had said no snake would ever dare crawl.

And so ended the great day at the Zuni village, which the Indians looked forward to each year with the liveliest anticipations; and the three chums had reason to feel thankful that the bold plot of Braddon the showman had not resulted in their being expelled from the place without a chance to see the “circus,” as Billie called it.