ody down in the bottom of
the ravine.

"It's an--an ambush, Rose!" cried Russ excitedly. "Oh! There's a man
with a machine----"

In fact he saw two men with boxes on tripods, standing side-by-side and
not many yards away in the trail. The men were turning cranks on the
sides of the boxes.

Another man turned and saw the Bunker children apparently riding nearer.
He started back toward them, shouted and waved his arms.

"Oh, dear me!" shrieked Rose. "It's--it's dynamite! They are going to
blow up something! Come, Russ!"

She twitched at Pinky's bridle, and the pony swerved about and plunged
away at such a fast pace that poor Rose could only cling to the bridle
and saddle and cry. But Russ remained where he was. He was greatly
amazed, but slowly a comprehension of the whole thing was forming in the
boy's mind.

"It's--it's only make-believe," Russ Bunker told himself. "They are not
doing anything dangerous. It's a--a play, that's what it is. Why, those
men have got moving picture cameras!

"Oh, I know what the surprise is now--Mr. Cowboy Jack's surprise! It's a
moving picture company!" said Russ Bunker aloud. "They are make-believe
soldiers, even if Black Bear and his people are real Indians. They are
making moving pictures--that is what they are doing, Rose."

But when he turned in his saddle to look for Rose, the girl and Pinky
had completely disappeared.

"My goodness!" said Russ, somewhat alarmed, "she's so frightened that
she has run back home. Maybe she will fall off the pony."

Much as he would have liked to remain to watch the actors and the
Indians make the picture on which they were at work, Russ felt it his
duty to see that Rose was all right. If anything happened to Rose daddy
and mother might blame Russ, because he was the oldest.

The pinto pony cantered away with Russ at quite a fast pace. He kept to
the wagon-trail that led back to Cowboy Jack's ranch house. And at every
turn Russ expected to see Pinky and Rose ahead.

But he did not see his sister on Laddie's pony. He came in sight of the
big house, and even then he did not see her. So, when the pinto stopped
before the big veranda and Mother Bunker and the other children
appeared, Russ could scarcely find voice enough to ask:

"Oh, Mother! have you seen Rose? Did she come back alone?"

"Rose? I have not seen her since you both rode away together. Do you
mean to say----" Then Mother Bunker saw that Russ was having hard work
to keep back t