sked Ruth. "Where's daddy?"

"Here I am," answered Mr. DeVere.

"It's all right!" yelled Baldy, capering about, and vainly clicking his
revolvers, for he had fired all the cartridges in the cylinders. "It's
the boys from Rocky Ranch! They saw my signal and came to the rescue!"

"That you, Baldy?" shouted a voice out of the cloud of powder smoke that
hid, for a moment, the cowboys from view.

"That's who it is, Bow!" was the answer. "Could you read my smoke?"

"I sure could, and we come a-runnin'. Are the girls safe?"

"Everybody's safe. But look out for yourself, these Indians are sort of
riled at us."

From the group of Indians who had left their ceremonies, to rush toward
the huts of their erstwhile captives at the sound of the shots and
cheers, came deep-voiced mutterings. They were gathered in a group
around their chief, Jumping Horse.

"Look out for 'em!" yelled Baldy.

"Don't worry," advised Pete Batso. "They haven't any weapons."

"Just my luck," groaned Russ, setting up his camera.

"What's the matter?" asked Alice, who now felt no alarm.

"Too dark to get a picture, and I had a little bit of film left on a
reel. I might have got a dandy rescue scene; but now it's all up. Too
bad!"

"Never mind, you got some good ones," Ruth comforted him.

"Yes, but that would have completed the picture--'Captured By the
Indians.' However, it can't be helped. Maybe after all this excitement
is over we can get the Indians to pose for us. I'll tell Mr. Pertell
about it."

The rescuing cowboys had drawn rein in front of the lined-up Indians,
near the huts of the captives. There was a goodly squad of cow
punchers, and they seemed delighted to have been of some service to the
picture players. Some of them were reloading their big revolvers, for
they, like Baldy, in the excess of their spirits, had fired off every
chamber. But no one had been hurt, for they merely shot in the air.

"Well, you got here, boys, I see," remarked Baldy.

"That's what we did!" cried Necktie Harry, who was flecking some dust
off the end of his gaudy scarf.

"We saw your smoke talk about an hour ago," explained Bow. "First I was
sort of puzzled over it. I thought maybe it was the Indians, for I
calculate it was about time for them to be at their high jinks.

"Then I caught the private signal you and me made up, and I says: 'By
Heck! Baldy's in trouble! Wasn't that what I said, Pete?" and he
appealed to the foreman.

"That's what it w