remained at Cowboy Jack's.

Rose prattled a good deal to Daddy Bunker about the "lame dog" as they
all rode back to the ranch house. But Russ was more interested in
hearing about the moving picture company's camp and what they were
doing. Black Bear told the little boy some things he wished to know,
including the fact that the Indians and the other actors were making a
picture about olden times on the plains, and that it was called "A
Romance of the Santa Fe Trail."

"I should think it would be a lot of fun to make pictures," Russ said.
"Do you think we Bunkers could get a chance to act in it, Chief Black
Bear?"

"I don't know about that," laughed the Indian. "I shall have to ask Mr.
Habback, the director. Maybe he can use you children in the scene at the
old fort where the soldiers and frontiersmen are hemmed in by the
Indians. Of course, there were children in the fort at the time of the
attack."

"It--it isn't going to be a real fight, is it?" asked Russ, rather more
doubtfully.

"It has got to look like a real fight, or Mr. Habback will not be
satisfied, I can tell you."

"But suppose--suppose," stammered Russ, "your Indians should forget and
really turn savage?"

"Not a chance of that," laughed Black Bear. "I have hard enough work
making them take their parts seriously. They are more likely to think it
is funny and spoil the shot."

"Then they don't ever feel like turning savage and fighting the white
folks in earnest?" asked Russ.

"You don't feel like turning savage and fighting red men do you?" asked
Black Bear, with a serious face.

"Oh, no!" cried Russ, shaking his head.

"Then, why should we red people want to fight you? You will be perfectly
safe if you come down to see us make the fort scene," the Indian chief
assured him.

So Russ got back to the ranch house full to the lips with the idea of
acting in the moving picture. Rose's ankle had only been twisted a
little, and she was perfectly able to walk the next day. But Mother
Bunker would not hear to the children going far from the house after
that without daddy or herself being with them.

"I believe our six little Bunkers can get into more adventures than any
other hundred children," she said earnestly. "To think of that coyote
being there with Rose for hours!"

"If he had not been in the trap he would have run away from her fast
enough," returned Daddy Bunker.

Just the same he, too, felt that the children would better not get far
ou