going that far. And we want to
pump the kid dry before uncle Phaeton gets back; understand?"

Bruno gave a slight start at these words, but his eye-glow and
face-flush bore witness that the idea thus suggested had not been
unthought of in his own case.

"Then you really think--"

"That there's more ways than one of skinning a cat," oracularly observed
Waldo. "Without showing it too mighty plainly, one or the other of us
can always be ready and prepared to dump the laddy-buck, in case he
tries to come any of his didoes. And, at the same time, we can be
hugging up to him just as sweetly as though we knew he was on the dead
level. Understand?"

Possibly the programme might have been a little more elegantly
expressed, but Waldo, as a rule, cared more for substance than form, and
his speech possessed one merit, that of perspicuity.

Having reached this fair understanding, the brothers dropped their
aside, and moved nearer the young Aztec.

Ixtli gazed keenly into first one face, then the other, plainly enough
endeavouring to read the truth as might be expressed therein, as related
to himself. What he saw must have proved fairly satisfactory, since he
gave another bright smile, then spoke in really musical tones:

"Good,--brother, now! That more good, too!"

In spite of the suspicions, which seem inborn where people of the
red race are concerned, both Bruno and Waldo felt more and more drawn
towards this remarkable specimen of a still more remarkable tribe; and
not many more minutes had sped by ere the younger couple were chatting
together in amicable fashion, although finding some little difficulty in
Ixtli's rather limited vocabulary.

Not a little to his elder brother's impatience, Waldo apparently took
a deeper interest in the recent adventure than in the subject which
claimed his own busiest thoughts, but he hardly cared to crowd the
youngster, lest he make matters even worse.

Aided by the sort of freemasonry which naturally exists between lads
of an adventurous nature, Waldo readily succeeded in picking up
considerable information from the Aztec, even before broaching that
all-important matter.

Ixtli was the only son of a famed warrior and chieftain of the Aztecan
clans, by name Aztotl, or the Red Heron. He, in common with so many
of his people, had witnessed the approach and abrupt departure of the
strange bird in the air, and had hastened forth in quest of the monster.

He failed to see aught more of