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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Boy Ranchers, by Willard F. Baker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Boy Ranchers
+       or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X
+
+Author: Willard F. Baker
+
+Release Date: October 29, 2008 [EBook #27093]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY RANCHERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: missing from book]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+BOY RANCHERS
+
+
+OR
+
+_Solving the Mystery at Diamond X_
+
+
+
+By
+
+WILLARD F. BAKER
+
+
+Author of "The Boy Ranchers in Camp,"
+"The Boy Ranchers on the Trail," etc.
+
+
+
+_ILLUSTRATED_
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+THE BOY RANCHERS SERIES
+
+By WILLARD F. BAKER
+
+12mo. Cloth. Frontispiece
+
+
+THE BOY RANCHERS
+  or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X
+
+THE BOY RANCHERS IN CAMP
+  or The Water Fight at Diamond X
+
+THE BOY RANCHERS ON THE TRAIL
+  or The Diamond X After Cattle Rustlers
+
+_Other Volumes in Preparation_
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, New York
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
+
+COPPLES & LEON COMPANY
+
+THE BOY RANCHERS
+
+
+
+Printed in U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+     I  "SOME RIDIN'!"
+    II  A CALL FOB HELP
+   III  A MYSTERIOUS SEARCH
+    IV  SUSPICIONS
+     V  HITTING THE TRAIL
+    VI  THE RUSTLERS
+   VII  A CRY IN THE NIGHT
+  VIII  "THE PROFESSOR'"
+    IX  "WHAT DOES IT MEAN?"
+     X  DEL PINZO
+    XI  BAD BUSINESS
+   XII  RIDING HERD
+  XIII  THE ATTEMPT FOILED
+   XIV  THE STAMPEDE
+    XV  LOST
+   XVI  THE VISION
+  XVII  THE NIGHT CAMP
+ XVIII  QUEER OPERATIONS
+   XIX  PRISONERS
+    XX  THE DIAMOND X BRAND
+   XXI  THE ESCAPE
+  XXII  BACK TO THE RANCH
+ XXIII  CLOSING IN
+  XXIV  THE FIGHT
+   XXV  THE TRICERATOPS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BOY RANCHERS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+"SOME RIDIN'!"
+
+Two riders slumped comfortably in their saddles as the ponies slowly
+ambled along.  The sun was hot, and the dust stifling, a cloud of it
+forming a floating screen about the horsemen and progressing with them
+down the trail.
+
+One of the riders, a tall, lanky and weather-beaten cowboy, taking a
+long breath, raised his voice in what he doubtless intended to be a
+song.
+
+It was, however, more a cry of anguish as he bellowed forth:
+
+  "Leave me alone with a rope an' a saddle,
+  Fold my spurs under my haid!
+  Give me a can of them sweet, yaller peaches,
+  'Cause why?  My true-love is daid!"
+
+
+"Bad as all that; is it, Slim?" asked the other, who, now that he had
+partly emerged from the cloud of dust, could be seen as a lad of about
+sixteen.  He, like the other, older rider, was attired cowboy fashion.
+
+"Eh?  What's that, Bud?" inquired the lanky one, seeming to arouse as
+if from a day dream.  "See suthin'?"
+
+"Nope.  I was just sort of remarking about that sad song, and----"
+
+"Oh, shucks!  _That_ wa'n't sad!" declared Slim Degnan, foreman of the
+Diamond X ranch.  "Guess I wa'n't really payin' much attention to what
+I was singin', but if you want a real sad lament----"
+
+"No, I don't!" laughed Bud Merkel, whose father was the owner of
+Diamond X ranch.  "Not that I blame you for feeling sort of down and
+out," he added.
+
+"Oh, I don't feel _bad_, Bud!" came the hasty rejoinder.  "We did have
+more'n a ride than I figgered on, but I don't aim to put up no kick.
+It's all in the day's work.  You don't seem to mind it."
+
+"I should say not!  We had a bully time.  I'd spend another night out
+in the open if we had to.  I like it!"
+
+"Yes, you seem to take to it like a duck does to water," added Slim.
+"But it's a shame to mention ducks in the same chapter with this
+atmosphere!  Zow hippy!  But it's hot an' dusty an' thirsty!  Come
+along there, you old hunk of jerked beef!" he added to his pony, giving
+a gentle reminder with the spurs and pulling on the reins.  The pony
+made a feeble attempt to increase its gait, but it was no more than an
+attempt.
+
+The animal that was ridden by Bud--a pinto--started to follow the
+example of the other.
+
+"Regular mud-turtle gallop," commented the foreman.
+
+"They'll go faster when they top the rise, and see the corral,"
+commented Bud.
+
+"An' smell water!  That's what I want, a long, sizzling, sozzling drink
+of water!" cried Slim, whose name fitted him better than did his
+clothes.  Then he broke forth again with:
+
+"Oh, leave me alone with a rope an' a saddle----"
+
+Slowly the riders plodded along.  The sun seemed to grow more hot and
+the dust more thick.  As they approached a hill, beyond which lay the
+corral and ranch buildings of Diamond X, Bud drew rein, thus halting
+his pony.
+
+"Let's give 'em a breather before we hit the hill," he suggested to the
+foreman.
+
+"I'm agreeable, son," was the foreman's easy comment as he slung one
+leg over the saddle and sat sideways.
+
+Slim Degnan and Bud had ridden off to look for a break in one of the
+many long lines of wire fences that kept the stock of Diamond X
+somewhat within bounds, and it had taken longer to locate and repair
+the break than they had counted on.
+
+They had been obliged to remain out all night--not that this was
+unusual, only they had not exactly prepared for it--and, in
+consequence, did not have all the ordinary comforts.  But, as Bud had
+said, he had not minded it.  However, the ponies were rather used up,
+and the riders in the same condition, and it was with equal feelings of
+relief that they came within sight of the last hill that lay between
+them and the ranch.
+
+"Well, might as well mosey along," spoke Slim, at length.  "Sooner we
+get some water inside us, an' th' ponies, th' better we'll all be."
+
+"I reckon," agreed Bud.  "But I don't believe Zip Foster could have
+done the job any quicker than we did."
+
+"Who?" queried Slim, with a quizzical look at his companion.
+
+"Zip Foster," answered Bud.
+
+"Never heard of him.  What outfit does he ride for?" asked the foreman,
+but he saved Bud the embarrassment of answer by suddenly rising in his
+saddle and looking off in the distance.
+
+Bud had his own reasons for not answering that seemingly natural
+question, and he was glad of the diversion, though he was not at once
+aware of what had caused it.  But he followed the direction of the
+foreman's gaze, and, like him, saw arising in the still air, about two
+miles away, a thin thread of smoke--a mere wisp, as though it had
+dangled down from some fleecy cloud.  But the smoke was ascending and
+was not the beginning of a fog descending.
+
+"Can't be any of our boys," murmured Slim.  "They aren't out on
+round-up yet.  An' it's too early for grub."
+
+"Indians?" questioned Bud.  Sometimes the bucks from a neighboring
+reservation felt the call of the wild, and slipped out to have a
+forbidden feast on some cattleman's stock, only to be brought up with a
+round turn by the government soldiers.
+
+"Don't think so," remarked Slim.  "They don't have much chance t'
+practice their wiles, but, with all that, they know enough not t' make
+a fire that smokes.  Must be some strangers.  If it's any of them
+ornery sheep men," he exclaimed, "I'd feel like----"
+
+"They wouldn't dare!" exclaimed Bud, for being the son of a
+cattle-ranchman he had come to dislike and despise the sheep herders,
+whose flocks ate so closely as to ruin the feeding range for steers.
+The sheep would crop grass down to the very roots, setting back its
+growth for many months.
+
+"No, I don't reckon it would be sheepers," murmured Slim.  "Wa'al,
+mebby they know at the ranch.  We'll be headin' home now, I guess.
+Come on there, you old tumble-bug!" he called to his horse, and then he
+raised his voice and roared:
+
+  "Leave me alone with a rope an' a saddle,
+  Fold my spurs under my haid!
+  Give me a can of them sweet, yaller peaches,
+  'Cause why?  My true-love is daid!"
+
+
+Slim's horse started off on a lope, freshened by the rest, and Bud's
+followed.  They topped the rise, and, then as the animals came within
+sight and smell of their stables, and caught the whiff of ever-welcome
+water, they dashed down the slope toward the green valley in which
+nestled the corral and buildings of Diamond X ranch.
+
+"If I wasn't so doggoned tired," said Slim to Bud as they prepared to
+pull up on reaching the corral, "I'd ride over after supper, and see
+what that smoke was.  I don't perzactly like it."
+
+"Maybe I'll go," offered Bud.  "If it _should_ happen to be sheepers,
+dad'll want to know it."
+
+"He shore will, son.  But--Zow hippy!  What's going on here?" cried
+Slim.  He pointed toward the corral of the ranch--a fenced-off field
+where the cowboys kept their string of ponies when the animals were not
+in use.  Here, too, spare animals were held against the time of need.
+
+Just now a crowd of cowboys surrounded this corral.  Some were perched
+on the rails of the fence, and others leaned over.  Some were swinging
+their hats as though in encouragement, and one was rapidly emptying his
+gun on the defenseless air, which was further torn and shattered by
+wild yells.
+
+As the two wayfarers neared the corral, there dashed from among the
+cattle punchers surrounding it an exceedingly fat cowboy, whose face,
+wreathed in smiles, was also wet with perspiration.  He swung his hat
+around in a circle and yelled shrilly:
+
+"Some ridin', boys!  Some ridin'!  Go to it!"
+
+"What's the matter, Babe?" asked Slim, of his assistant who had thus
+given vent to his feelings.
+
+"Go look!  It's so good I don't want to spoil it!" laughed the fat one.
+"Two tenderfoots--Oh, my--Hole me up, somebody!" he begged.  "Some
+ridin'!"
+
+Bud had a glimpse, in the corral, of a youth about his own age, flying
+rapidly around the enclosure on the back of a bucking bronco.  The lad
+was holding on with both arms around the horn of the saddle.
+
+"Get him off!" cried Bud in a high pitched voice, as he recognized the
+pony to which the strange lad was clinging.  "Tartar will kill him!
+Get him off!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A CALL FOR HELP
+
+Without waiting for his pony to come to a stop, Bud fairly flung
+himself out of the saddle, and with his rope, or lariat, coiled on his
+arm he ran toward the corral.
+
+"What's matter?" demanded Babe Milton, the assistant foreman, pausing
+in his repeated exclamations of:
+
+"Some ridin'!  Some ridin'!"
+
+"Don't you fellows know any better than to let a tenderfoot ride
+Tartar?" cried Bud.  "That horse is next door to an outlaw, and you
+wouldn't get on him yourself, Babe!"
+
+"You said an earful!" came the quick response.  "I wouldn't!"
+
+"Then how'd you come to let this fellow on?  Who is he, anyhow?" cried
+Bud, as he slipped through a hunch of cowboys who opened to let him
+pass.
+
+"Fresh tenderfoot," some one said.
+
+"He would ride!" added another.
+
+"Says he's your cousin," added a third ranch hand.
+
+"My _cousin_!" cried Bud.  Then he did not stop to do any more talking.
+He leaped the fence of the corral, and, as he did so he became aware of
+another stranger--a tenderfoot like the lad on Tartar--standing within
+the fenced-off place.  This lad, who bore all the marks of a
+newly-arrived Easterner, was rather short and stout--not to say fat.
+He stood beside an ancient and venerable cow pony, which was never
+ridden when there was anything else in the corral to throw a saddle on.
+And this lad was gazing with fear-widened eyes at the figure of the
+other lad.
+
+"Get off, Nort!  Get off!" cried this stout lad.
+
+"Don't tell him to do that!" ordered Bud sharply.  "He'll break his
+neck sure!  Stick, and I'll rope Tartar!" he shouted, trying to make
+his voice heard above the thunder of the feet of the half-maddened
+horse, and the now somewhat subdued shouts of the cowboys.
+
+Bud Merkel knew his business.  He had not lived all his sixteen years
+on his father's ranch not to learn how to throw a skillful rope, and he
+now took his position just within the corral, and at a place where he
+could intercept the dashing outlaw, Tartar, as the animal came around
+again with the flapping lad clinging to his back.
+
+"Can you manage, Bud?" called Slim, from his cross seat in his saddle,
+where he was looking on.
+
+"I'll get him!" was the grim answer.
+
+Many thoughts were shooting through the mind of Bud Merkel, not the
+least of which was the remark of Babe Milton to the effect that the lad
+on Tartar was Bud's cousin.
+
+"Then the other must be, too," thought Bud as he swung his rope and
+directed a quick glance at the fat lad now hugging the inner rails of
+the corral fence.  "But how'd they get here, and what made him try that
+outlaw?"
+
+However, this was no time to spend in asking oneself questions.  There
+was need of action, and it came a moment later.
+
+Hissing and swishing through the air, the coils of Bud's lariat fell
+around the neck of the plunging, rearing, running Tartar.  In another
+instant Bud had taken a turn or two around a post, and, by carefully
+applying a snubbing pressure, the pony was brought to a stop.
+
+"Get down--quick!" ordered Bud when the horse was quiet enough to
+permit of this.  And as the other lad obeyed, and shook himself
+together, limping over toward Bud the latter asked: "Are you hurt?"
+
+"Not a bit," was the laughing answer.  "I could 'a' stuck on.  He
+couldn't throw me."
+
+"Don't you fool yourself!" exclaimed Bud, while some of the cowboys
+went into the corral and loosened his lariat from the neck of the now
+subdued animal.  Tartar, once the offending stranger was no longer on
+his back, seemed normal.  "Don't you fool yourself!  You couldn't have
+stayed on a second longer."
+
+"Betcher I could!" came the quick response.  "If you'll rope him
+again----"
+
+"Cut it out, Nort!" came from the fat lad, who looked enough like the
+daring rider to be his brother, as, indeed, he was.
+
+"Oh, let me alone, Dick!" snapped the other.  "I can ride!"
+
+"Some ridin'!  Oh, boy, some ridin'!" murmured the fat assistant
+foreman of Diamond X, while his companions grinned.
+
+"You may know how to ride an ordinary horse," admitted Bud with a
+smile, as he coiled the rope which one of the men handed to him.  "But
+Tartar isn't a regular pony.  He's an outlaw, and even Del Pinzo won't
+take a chance on him.  I don't see how they come to let you," he added,
+gazing somewhat reproachfully at the assembled cowboys.
+
+They had begun to slink away, for they recognized the pseudo-authority
+held by the son of the ranch owner.  Still they could justify their
+action, somewhat.
+
+"He _wanted_ to ride," declared Babe Milton.  "Would have it so, and we
+roped Tartar for him.  I told him your pa wouldn't like it if he was
+here, but----"
+
+"I reckon you thought you'd see some fun," said Bud, half smiling, for
+though he realized that the strange lad had been in some danger, he
+also realized that the cowboys, fond as they were of fun and practical
+jokes, would not have allowed the matter to go too far.
+
+"It's up to me!" declared the slim lad, trying to brush some of the
+dust and horse hair from his clothes.  "'Tisn't their fault at all."
+
+"Good kid," murmured some of the cowboys, glad to be thus vindicated.
+
+"I told him to keep off," said the fat lad, following Bud and the
+daring rider from the corral.  "I told him to pick a quiet horse, but
+he said he wanted a bucker."
+
+"He shore got it," chuckled Slim Degnan, as he ambled along.  "He shore
+did!"
+
+"Well, I'm glad you're not hurt," exclaimed Bud.  "I guess you're my
+cousins; aren't you?" he asked, holding out his brown, muscular hand to
+grasp the rather thinner and whiter palm of the lad who had been on
+Tartar.
+
+"Yes, I'm Nort," was the response.  "This is Dick, my brother.  We're
+going to stay all summer--if you'll keep us," he added, with a
+whimsical smile.  "And after this I'll let you pick my horses for me."
+
+"It'll be safer, until you learn to ride," said Bud.  "I mean learn to
+ride western cow ponies," he added quickly, for he did not want to
+assume this other lad could not ride.
+
+"I guess I don't know so much as I thought I did," confessed Nort.
+"Though I did ride a lot at the Academy."
+
+"Well, come on to the house," invited Bud.  "Dad's away, but mother's
+there.  Have you met her?"
+
+"No," answered Nort.  "We just got here.  You see we came ahead of
+time.  Happened to meet one of your wagons over at the depot, and rode
+out here in it.  I sort of lost my head when I struck the ranch and
+wanted a ride right off the bat.  I had it, too!" he added with a smile.
+
+"Dad said something about you moseying out this way before snow flew,"
+spoke Bud, as he walked with his cousins toward the main ranch house,
+which stood in the midst of a number of low red buildings, itself of
+the same structure and color.  "But I didn't expect you so soon, or I'd
+'a' been over to the station."
+
+"It was all right--we didn't want any fussing," said Nort.  "And, as I
+say, we started sooner than we expected.  Didn't even write."
+
+"No, I guess you didn't," admitted Bud.  "Dad sort of mentioned, casual
+like, that you'd be along sooner or later, but he didn't get any word
+from you recently."
+
+"Well, we're here, anyhow," spoke Dick, the fat youth, with a sigh of
+evident relief, as he looked back toward the corral.
+
+"I just got in myself," said Bud.  "Been away two days mending fence.
+Had to sleep out one night, and we weren't exactly prepared for it.
+But I'm mighty glad you've come!  We can have some corking times.  I'll
+get you ponies that'll be--er--better to ride than Tartar," he said,
+substituting the word "better" for that of "safer" which, at first, he
+had intended to use.
+
+"That's good!" exclaimed Dick.  "I don't claim to be any rider, though
+I can stick to the saddle once I land there," and he shot a side glance
+at his more impulsive brother.
+
+"Oh, I could 'a' stuck if there'd been a _saddle_," declared Nort.
+"That was the trouble.  I'll ride Tartar yet!" he cried.
+
+"Better go slow," advised Bud.  "But there's mother in the door now,
+and I can smell grub.  She'll be surprised to see you."
+
+"Who's that girl?" asked Dick, as he noticed one standing beside the
+stout, motherly-looking woman in the doorway of the ranch house.
+
+"That's my sister Nell," remarked Bud.
+
+"Nell!  Say, she has grown!" cried Nort.  "I didn't know she was that
+big!"
+
+"Oh, this is a good country for growing up in!" laughed Bud.  "Here's
+Nort and Dick, Mother!" he called.
+
+"Well, land sakes!  I never expected to see _you_ two!" cried Mrs.
+Merkel, hastily wiping off her mouth with the corner of her apron,
+preparatory to kissing her nephews.  "Land!  But you've grown!"
+
+"Not any more than Nell!" declared Dick, as he kissed his aunt and girl
+cousin, an example gladly followed by Nort.  For once the fat lad had
+beaten his slim brother to it.
+
+"Why didn't you write?  We didn't know you were coming for a month yet!
+Where's your trunks?  How'd you get here?  Come in and wash up and
+we'll have supper!"
+
+All this Mrs. Merkel showered on the two "tenderfeet" in a breath, at
+the same time fairly "shooing" them into the house as a motherly hen
+might direct her chickens toward the feeding coop.
+
+"Oh, we just pulled up stakes and lit out," laughed Nort.  "We got
+tired of the East.  Oh, but it's great here!" he exclaimed, as he
+looked back before entering the house, and saw, through the clear air,
+the wonderful blue sky, and, in the distance, a range of mountains.
+"It's just what I dreamed it would be," he softly murmured.
+
+"Glad you like it!  We'll have some swell times!" voiced Bud.  "But you
+want to get those duds off," he added, as he glanced at his cousin's
+clothes.
+
+"We sure do!" declared Nick.  "We've got outfits in our trunks.
+They're in the wagon.  Maybe they aren't just the proper clothes for a
+ranch, but they're old things----"
+
+"The older the better!" interrupted Bud, and he was about to follow his
+cousins inside when Nell exclaimed:
+
+"Some one is coming!  Look!"
+
+They all turned to observe a solitary horseman riding at top speed for
+the group of ranch buildings.  He came from the direction where Bud and
+the foreman had seen the slim wisp of smoke about an hour before, and
+as he rode, the man shouted above the thundering thuds of his horse's
+hoofs:
+
+"Help!  Help!  Can't you send help!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A MYSTERIOUS SEARCH
+
+Nort and Dick Shannon, Bud's "city cousins," seemed to realize, as did
+the young rancher, his mother and sister, that something was wrong.
+Prepared as Nort and Dick were for strange and sensational happenings
+in the west, they sensed that this was out of the ordinary.
+
+The solitary rider had also attracted the attention of the cowboys who,
+the excitement at the corral being over, had turned toward their bunk
+house to prepare for the evening meal.  Slim Degnan, the foreman, Babe,
+his assistant, and one or two others started forward as if to intercept
+the horseman.  But a cowboy on foot is like a sailor off the deck--out
+of his element.  They wore high-heeled shoes--boots made especially for
+the use of spurs, and they were not capable of rapid progress except on
+their steeds.
+
+The lone rider was past them in a flash, turning into the lane that led
+toward the ranch house, where Bud and the others could not be seen,
+having turned at the call for help.
+
+"What's the matter of him--locoed?" asked Babe.
+
+"Looks that way," murmured Slim.  "But Ma Merkel will know how to
+handle him, and Bud has his gun.  Still, I don't know but we'd better
+mosey up that way, so as to sort of back the boy up, as long as his
+dad's away."
+
+"My idea coincides," murmured Babe.  "We'll prospect along up there,"
+he called to the other cowboys, some of whom seemed to show a desire to
+rush to a possible rescue.  "It'll be all right."
+
+By the time the foreman and his assistant had reached the porch on
+which stood the two tenderfeet eastern lads, with Bud, his mother and
+sister, the lone horseman had dismounted, not with any degree of skill,
+however, but slipping off as though greatly fatigued, or rendered limp
+from fright.
+
+"Can you send help to him?" he gasped, pointing back in the direction
+whence he had come.  "If you don't they may kill him!  Oh, such men!
+Such men!"
+
+"Kill who?  What's the matter?  What sort of help do you need?" asked
+Bud quickly, while Nort and Dick looked at the excited man.  He bore
+none of the marks of the west.  His garb was of the East as his riding
+had been, though he sat a fairly good saddle, or he never could have
+ridden at the speed he did.  But he had a good horse.  Even Dick and
+Nort knew enough about animals to tell that.  The pony, his sides
+heaving and his nostrils distended, gave this not altogether mute
+evidence of his race against time.
+
+"It's Professor Wright," came the panting answer.  "He's off
+there--with his prospecting party.  I'm his assistant!"
+
+"I thought he looked like a professor," murmured Dick to Nort.
+
+"Keep still!" sharply commanded Nort.
+
+"I am Professor J. Elwell Blair," went on the still greatly excited
+rider, "an assistant to Professor Wright.  We are camped about three
+miles from here, over there," and he waved his hand toward where Bud
+and Slim, on their homeward ride, had seen the wisp of smoke.  "Some
+Mexicans threaten to attack us," went on the man who called himself
+Professor Blair.  "In fact they had already started when Professor
+Wright bade me ride for help.  We knew there was a ranch over in this
+direction.  Can you send us help?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"Sure!" exclaimed Bud.
+
+"Oh, if your father were only here!" murmured Mrs. Merkel.
+
+"Our boys are enough!" declared Nell, with sparkling eyes.  "I wish I
+might go!" she added.  "Can't I?"
+
+"No indeed!" declared her mother.  "The idea!  You must take Slim with
+you!" she called after Bud, for he was already half way down the lane
+leading to the corral, calling on Professor Blair to follow, and
+shouting to Nort and Dick:
+
+"Come on, if you want to see some lively doings!" Bud invited.
+
+"We sure do!" yelled Nort.
+
+"Hadn't we better change our clothes?" asked the slower Dick.
+
+"Change nothin'!" cried Nort.  "Leave your coat off if you want to!
+I'm going to shed mine!" and shed it he did, dropping it on the ground
+as he leaped forward.
+
+"What is it, Bud?" asked Slim Degnan, as he and Babe, on their way to
+the house, met the fleeing young rancher, who had even distanced
+Professor Blair, though the latter had again mounted his tired horse.
+
+"Don't know--exactly," came the answer.  "He's a stranger," and he
+jerked his thumb over his shoulder back toward the professor.  "He and
+a party are camped over in the hills--where we saw the smoke a while
+back," he explained further.  "He says a bunch of Greasers are trying
+to do up his boss.  Wants help!"
+
+"Wa'al, he come to th' right place," remarked Babe Milton briefly, as,
+with more speed than you would have believed he possessed, he ran
+toward the corral.
+
+Already several cowboys, sensing that something was wrong, had begun to
+catch and saddle enough ponies to provide mounts for Bud, the foreman
+and his fat helper.
+
+"Give my cousins Baldy and Gimp!" cried Bud to one of the cowboys who
+were in the corral.  "You can ride those, even if you haven't got your
+old clothes on," he added.
+
+"Lively now!" cried the foreman, assuming, as was his right, command of
+the little cavalcade.  In less time than it takes to tell it, they were
+riding along the trail, directed by Professor Blair, whose horse
+seemed, somehow, to have recovered its wind sufficiently to keep pace
+with the fresher steeds.
+
+"Are you all right, fellows?" Bud called back to his cousins, as he,
+himself, spurred ahead alongside Slim and Babe.  Nort and Dick formed
+the rear guard with the professor.
+
+"Sure!" declared Nort.  "Oh, boy!  A fight the first day we get here,
+Dick!" he yelled to his brother.
+
+"Don't be too sure," called hack Bud.  "These Greasers may hit the
+trail as soon as we head into sight."
+
+"Greasers are Mexicans, aren't they?" asked Dick.
+
+"Yes," answered Professor Blair, who rode between the two easterners.
+"We had to engage some, and I believe a few Indians, also, in our
+prospecting work.  Our own men are all right, but we were attacked by
+some strange Mexicans and Indians--or we were about to be attacked,
+when I rode off for help."
+
+"What started the row?" asked Bud.
+
+The question seemed to embarrass Professor Blair.
+
+"The Mexicans seem to think we have something of value, or at least
+know where valuables may be," he answered.  "I believe they think we
+are after desert gold, and though we have found some----"
+
+"You have found _gold_!" cried Bud.
+
+"No!  No!  It is a false rumor!" hastily declared the professor.  "But
+Professor Wright has been obliged to keep secret the object of his
+search, and perhaps the mystery surrounding it has been misconstrued by
+the ignorant men.  They declare we are after gold, but it is something
+far more valuable, though I am not allowed to disclose what----"
+
+He was interrupted by the sound of distant shooting, followed by faint
+yells.  Bud Merkel clapped spurs to his horse and shot forward, while
+Professor Blair excitedly exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, they are killing him!  They are killing him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+SUSPICIONS
+
+With distinct feelings of joy, and no alarm whatever, Nort and Dick
+watched the hands of Slim and Babe slide toward their holsters, where
+nestled their .45 guns.  Bud had taken his off, on reaching the house,
+and his two "city" cousins found themselves wishing that they wore
+those ugly but effective weapons.
+
+It was not that Bud was a "gun man," nor was either the ranch foreman
+or his fat assistant.  But as the classical saying has it:
+
+"You don't always need a gun out West, but when you do need it you need
+it mighty bad, and mighty sudden!"
+
+The guns, by which are meant revolvers of heavy calibre, were used for
+many other purposes than shooting at human beings.  They were almost a
+necessity for a lone rider to signal for help, or indicate the need of
+certain action, and more than one cowboy owed his life to his gun,
+either in turning aside a stampede of steers, or against some human or
+animal enemy.
+
+It had been the hope of Norton, and Richard Shannon, as soon they
+learned they were to spend some time at their uncle's ranch, to "pack a
+gun," but their advent and arrival had been so sudden, and their time
+so crowded since reaching Diamond X, that they had to dispense with
+these luxuries, or necessities, according to the way you regard them.
+
+But the two eastern lads grinned happily at one another as they
+galloped along, and saw the foreman and his fat helper with their heavy
+weapons out of their holsters.
+
+"Left mine home!" muttered Bud, as his hand, too, instinctively sought
+the leather sheath.  Professor Blair, as he had called himself, did not
+seemed to be armed.
+
+"They shore is some row going on!" exclaimed Slim, as he clapped spurs
+to his already well-doing horse, and shot ahead of the others.  "How
+many in your bunch?" he called to the professor.
+
+"There are four of us--Professor Wright, myself and two helpers, Edward
+Newton and Silas Thorpe," was the answer.  "But the other day we
+engaged some Mexicans and burros, so our party is now about eight."
+
+"And how many are trying to rush you?" asked the foreman, slightly
+checking his horse to accommodate its pace to the slower gait of the
+professor's animal.
+
+"I don't know.  There seemed about a dozen who were threatening
+Professor Wright when he told me to go for help."
+
+"Not such bad odds," murmured Bud.
+
+"Is it a real fight?" asked Nort, his eyes sparkling.
+
+"Sounds like it," commented the western ranch lad.  "But we'll have to
+lay low.  No guns," he added regretfully.
+
+Dick turned to look back toward the ranch buildings, now out of sight
+owing to the uneven nature of the country.  He might have been
+calculating whether it would be possible to go back and get weapons.
+
+But he said nothing on this score, though he did let out an exclamation:
+
+"There's another bunch coming along the path."
+
+"Don't say _path_--it's a _trail_," corrected Bud with a smile.  "And
+that's some of our bunch," he added.  "Cowboys from Diamond X.  Guess
+mother sent them after us, thinking we'd tackled too big a job alone."
+
+"And it does sound like a lively fracas," observed Babe Milton, wiping
+his wet and glistening face with the big handkerchief that adorned his
+neck, and the neck of every cowboy that Nort and Dick had so far
+observed since coming to the "cow country."
+
+These sometimes gaudy handkerchiefs were not mere ornaments.  They
+served the same purpose to which Babe was then devoting his, and as the
+eastern lads learned later, the silk or cotton squares formed very
+effective protection to nose and mouth while riding range in the thick,
+heavy dust stirred up by the feet of thousands of cattle.  So, like the
+"chaps," the high-heeled boots, the handkerchiefs and the guns, each
+part of the equipment of a cowboy, has its use.
+
+"Hi!  They's some shootin'!" cried Slim, as he spurred forward again,
+having learned what he wished of the professor.
+
+"Oh, don't let them kill him!" begged the scientist.  "It is all a
+mistake--thinking we are after gold--but they'll make any excuse to try
+to rob us and get the secret."
+
+"What secret?" asked Bud, but just then a renewed outburst of shots,
+punctured by shrill yells, told of the need of action as against words.
+
+"They'll kill him!  They'll kill him!" moaned Professor Blair.
+
+"'Tain't all one sided!" declared Slim Degnan to Bud, Nort and Dick, as
+the three boys managed to get their ponies on a line with the sturdy
+beast of the foreman.  "There's two sets of shootin' goin' on there!"
+
+The sound of fighting, and yells, whether of defiance or fear,
+increased in volume now, and came from a little glade at the base of
+the wooded foothills, which formed a sort of stepping stone to the grim
+mountains behind them, along the base of which flowed a river.  These
+hills, or part of them, marked one of the limits of Diamond X ranch,
+though at another point the holdings of Bud's father extended well to
+the summit of one of the mountains.
+
+Urging on their horses by heels and voices, the little party swept into
+the glade, following a path, or "trail," as it should be called.  This
+trail had been worn by countless cattle going to the river to drink,
+and the feet of the ponies now clattered along it.
+
+A moment later, swinging around a little clump of trees, greasewoods
+and sagebush, Bud and his cousins saw a sight which thrilled them
+through and though, though perhaps Bud was more accustomed to such
+stirring scenes than were the city lads.
+
+In the midst of an encampment of tents, several men were kneeling down,
+using packs and baggage as a barricade.  They were firing over this
+line of defense at objects unseen, but which, as the white puffs of
+smoke showed every now and then, were easily guessed to be humans, with
+more or less sinister motives.
+
+There was a regular fusillade, as the party of cowboys approached, and
+in addition a series of sharp and wild yells which, now that the scene
+was reached, could be heard as arising from the underbrush outside the
+camp.
+
+The attackers of Professor Wright, for he later proved to be the owner
+of the camp, were using their voices as well as their weapons to
+intimidate the defenders.
+
+"Greasers and some Indians!" cried Slim, as he swept on along the
+trail.  "Come on, boys!" he yelled and instantly his gun was in action,
+as was that of Babe Milton.
+
+"Oh, why didn't I bring mine?" mourned Bud.
+
+"Tough luck!" exclaimed Nort.
+
+The advent of the rescue party had an instant effect.  No sooner had
+Slim and Babe begun firing than there was silence on the part of the
+attackers.  A few scattering shots were fired, one or two more wild
+yells smote the air and then there was more silence.
+
+"That settles 'em," grimly observed Slim, as he began to reload his
+weapon, an example followed by Babe.  At the same time those in the
+little camp, who had had their backs turned toward the rescue party,
+swung about with evident signs of relief on their faces.
+
+A tall, slim man, with prematurely gray hair, stepped forward, resting
+the butt of his rifle on the ground as he surveyed the newcomers.  Then
+his eyes sought those of Professor Blair.
+
+"I see that you found help," he remarked quietly.  "And just in time,
+too.  They were about to rush us, I fear."
+
+"I'm glad we came in time," the other scientist remarked.  "I don't
+know your names, gentlemen," he went on, turning to Bud and the others,
+"but this is my chief, Professor Hendryx Wright."
+
+"I shall take some other occasion to thank you," spoke Professor
+Wright, with a smile that included all the rescuers from Slim to Dick.
+"But just now one of my men, possibly two, need attention from a
+doctor.  They have been shot."
+
+"Better let me have a look at 'em," suggested Slim.  "I'm not a doctor,
+but that brand isn't plenty out here.  If they're too bad, we can take
+your men to the ranch.  Where are they?"
+
+Professor Wright waved his hand toward one of the tents, and while Slim
+dismounted to make his way there, Bud and his cousins had time to look
+about them.
+
+In addition to four white men, which included the two professors, and
+two who were apparently assistants, there were several Mexicans or
+half-breeds.  These were all armed and had, in common with their white
+employers, been firing at the attacking party.  Of the latter no
+glimpse had been had.  They seemed to have vanished into the forest
+with the approach of the rescuers.
+
+"Do you have things like this happen every day, Bud?" asked Nort, with
+sparkling eyes, as the foreman disappeared into the tent where the
+wounded men lay.
+
+"No, indeed.  This is as much a surprise to me as it is to you fellows.
+I didn't even know this camp was here."
+
+"What do you reckon it is?" asked Dick.
+
+"Give it up," answered Bud.  "I reckon even Zip Foster couldn't make
+anything of this."
+
+"Who's Zip Foster?" asked Nort.
+
+"That's what a lot of us would give a deal to know, son," chuckled
+Babe, who was rapidly making a survey of the camp.  "He's a secret
+friend of Bud's, an'----"
+
+"Oh, cut it out!" exclaimed Bud, and even his tan did not altogether
+hide the blood that surged into his face.
+
+While the two professors were conversing together in low tones, and
+their helpers, including two white men (evidently the Ed Newton and
+Silas Thorp spoken of by Professor Blair) were putting to rights the
+somewhat disrupted camp, Slim, the foreman, came from the tent.
+
+"They're not much hurt," he declared.  "Only flesh wounds, but they
+ought to be treated with some dope I've got at the ranch house.  They
+can ride over, and I'll fix 'em up as best I can," he offered.
+
+"You are very kind," murmured Professor Wright.  "But it might be
+dangerous for them to do so."
+
+"Dangerous!" exclaimed Slim.
+
+"Yes, I mean it might inflame their wounds."
+
+"Oh!  Yes, it might," agreed the foreman after a moment of thought.
+"Wa'al, I can send one of the boys back for the medicine.  Here they
+come now," he added, as, with whoops of delight at the prospect of a
+fight, a troop of other cowboys from the Diamond X ranch rode up.  As
+Bud had surmised, his mother had sent them after the advance party.
+
+"What's the row?" cried "Yellin' Kid" Watson, as he unlimbered his gun.
+It needed but one utterance of his to establish his nickname.  He
+shouted almost every word he used.
+
+"All over," said Slim, succinctly.  "Don't know just what it's about,
+but it's all over."
+
+The newcomers rode their horses into the camp, and Yellin' Kid, whose
+animal was a bit restive, nearly brought down one of the small tents.
+As it swayed, a flap opening because of the breaking of one of the
+ropes, Professor Wright sprang forward with a sharp cry.
+
+"Don't go in there!  No one must enter that tent!" sharply commanded
+the scientist.
+
+"I wasn't aimin' to," remarked Yellin' Kid somewhat tartly and in
+rather grieved tones.  "Come out of that, you soap footer!" he cried to
+his steed.  "What do you mean, slippin' all over creation?"
+
+He backed his animal away, but Professor Wright, summoning to his side
+Professor Blair, quickly fastened the tent shut again, paying no heed
+during this operation, to the cowboys.
+
+"Seems mighty much afraid we'll see something we hadn't a right to,"
+commented Bud to his cousins.
+
+"Yes, he does act queer," agreed Dick.
+
+"Suspicious, I call it!" whispered Nort.  He was impulsive, and much
+more prone, than was his brother, to ascribe motives to others.
+"Maybe, after all, they have gold in there!" he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HITTING THE TRAIL
+
+Bud Merkel shook his head as Nort Shannon offered this possible
+explanation of the action of Professor Wright.
+
+"Never's been any gold found in these regions all the years I've lived
+here," he said.
+
+"There's always a first time," countered Nort, while the cowboys gazed
+about them, talking in low voices.
+
+"It must be something else," said Bud.  "This is a prospecting bunch,
+it's easy to see that, but they're not after gold.  These two
+professors are from some eastern college, I take it," he went on.
+"They may be after specimens of plants, or stones.  Using their
+vacation this way.  I've heard of it being done."
+
+"That's right!" chimed in Dick.  "Two of the professors from our
+Academy spent all one summer in the Adirondacks, getting material for a
+new geology book they were writing.  Maybe that's what these professors
+are doing," he suggested.
+
+"Then why are they keeping so blamed secret about it for?" asked Nort,
+impulsively.  "There's no crime in getting rock specimens, or in making
+up a new geology, only I wouldn't want to do it," he finished with a
+grin.  "I get enough of study all winter.  We came out here to have
+fun!"
+
+"And we've started in right!" declared his brother.  "Fun and
+excitement."
+
+"I reckon we'll have to let these fellows have their way," murmured
+Bud.  "They aren't on our ranch, and this is a free country.  They may
+have permission from the Double Z people to look for specimens here."
+
+"Is this Double Z land?" asked Dick.
+
+"Right about here is," answered Bud.  "Our line runs over there, and
+back where we came from," and he motioned toward the ranch buildings.
+"Better be hitting the home trail too, soon," he commented.  "It'll be
+dark in no time, and I'm as hungry as they make 'em!"
+
+"You said something then!" declared Babe.  "I don't see that we can do
+anything more here--they don't appear to want us overly much," he added.
+
+Perhaps Professor Wright was aware that a little feeling had arisen
+over his hasty warning to Yellin' Kid, for he hastened toward the
+foreman and said:
+
+"I shall be most grateful to you if you will send over something for
+the two wounded men.  I don't like to let them go to your place, hurt
+as they are, and I don't like to deplete my force.  Those rascals may
+return."
+
+"That's right," agreed Slim.  "Wa'al, I reckon we can accommodate you.
+I'll send one of the boys back with a bottle of antiseptic stuff right
+after grub.  Wash out the wounds, pour some of this stuff on and bind
+'em up.  The men'll be all right.  Greasers don't mind a little thing
+like a bullet through the arm or leg.  You know 'em?"
+
+"No, I only hired them three days ago to help with our camp outfit.
+Some of my men deserted, and I have reason to believe it was some of
+them who led the attack on us."
+
+"Any special reason why they should shoot you up?" asked Slim.  "That
+is if it isn't askin' a personal question," he added, mindful of the
+reception accorded Yellin' Kid.
+
+"It is all due to a foolish mistake," said Professor Wright, with a
+quick glance at his assistant, Professor Blair.  "We are here on a
+scientific mission, as perhaps Professor Blair told you, and a few of
+the deluded men I engaged to help me make some excavations imagine I am
+after gold.  That is far from the truth, for----"
+
+"It is far more valuable than gold!" exclaimed Professor Blair.
+
+"Eh--well, yes, in a way," said the chief, as Bud caught a look of
+warning flashed at the man who had ridden for help.  "But that is
+neither here nor there," went on Professor Wright.  "The point of the
+matter is that I had to discharge the leader of my uneducated helpers
+because he persisted in trying to find out what we were after.  He took
+some of the men with him, necessitating the hiring of others.  Then the
+climax came this afternoon, when, unexpectedly, we were attacked.  In
+my wanderings I had seen your ranch buildings, and I ventured to hope
+you would send us help when I dispatched my assistant to you."
+
+"Wa'al, we did what we could," said Slim.  "Of course you know your own
+business best, but I wouldn't take any chances with Greasers.  They may
+come back, if you have any valuables here."
+
+"We have," said Professor Wright, with a glance at the tent, the flaps
+of which he had tightly closed.  "But I do not fancy they will again
+attack us soon.  We wounded some of them before you came, and we shall
+now be on our guard.  If I can have the antiseptics for those two men,
+I shall be grateful."
+
+"I'll send 'em over later," promised Slim, and then he called to the
+cowboys: "Don't 'pear to be much further need of us, boys.  Let's mosey
+back!"
+
+And while the cavalcade was on the trail leading to Diamond X ranch,
+Bud's cousins had a chance to tell him how it was they had come West so
+unexpectedly.
+
+They had long been promised by their parents that they might spend a
+summer in the great open, but, for one reason or another, the visit had
+been postponed from time to time.
+
+But about a week back Mr. Shannon found that his business called him to
+South America.  He decided to take his wife with him, and this would
+break up their home for the time being.
+
+"So he decided to let us hit the train for here," explained Nort, whose
+name, as you may have guessed, was Norton.  "We didn't take time to
+write--just packed up and came on," he added.
+
+"We did telegraph," said Dick.  "But we knew we could find you, whether
+you met us or not, Bud."
+
+"I never got your message, and I don't believe dad did, either,"
+remarked the young rancher.  "But he may have for all that.  He's been
+terrible busy lately, arranging for a big shipment of steers, and our
+telephone has been out of order, so maybe they tried to 'phone the
+message to us and could not raise us, and it got laid aside.  But I'm
+sure glad you're here now."
+
+"So are we!" exclaimed Dick.
+
+"Do you mean to say you have a telephone?" asked Nort, with something
+of disappointment in his voice.
+
+"Of course!" laughed Bud.  "This is a big ranch, and we couldn't get
+along without a 'phone.  We're hooked up with other ranches, and we
+have a private line of our own from one ranch to the other.  We're on
+the long distance, too.  Oh, we couldn't manage without the wire."
+
+"It doesn't seem like the wild west, if you have a _'phone_,"
+complained Nort.
+
+"Oh, you will find it wild enough!" declared Bud.  "Didn't you get your
+fill on Tartar, and haven't you seen a real man-fight first crack out
+of the box?"
+
+"Yes, I had all I wanted on Tartar," confessed Nort with a smile.  "I
+hope your dad won't think I was too fresh, getting on one of his horses
+without having permission," he said.
+
+"Tartar was the one who was fresh," laughed Bud.  "But the boys
+shouldn't have allowed you on him."
+
+"That was my fault," confessed impulsive Nort.  "As I told you, Dick
+and I arrived at the station without being expected by you, as it now
+turns out.  We scouted around, and found one of your wagon outfits
+there, and of course the driver was decent enough to bring us in.
+
+"I saw that corral full of ponies first shot, and as I can ride--a
+little----" he quickly qualified his statement, "I just hopped aboard
+the liveliest pinto in the pack."
+
+"You sure did pick a lively one!" chuckled Bud.  "I don't see how you
+stayed on as long as you did.  Tartar is next door to an outlaw.  He's
+a bucker and a roller, and they do say he killed a man once.  I don't
+see why dad keeps him.  There aren't two men around here who can ride
+him."
+
+"Well, I'm not going to qualify," declared Nort.  "But, as I said, when
+Dick and I arrived we didn't stop to do any thinking.  We hit the
+corral, and though some of the men did warn me, I was foolish enough to
+try and stick on that wild colt.  You came along just in time."
+
+"Yes, there might have been trouble," agreed Bud.  "You'll have all the
+riding you want if you stick around here.  We don't know what walking
+means on Diamond X, though dad does talk of getting a flivver.  I wish
+he would."
+
+"There's lots of level country around here," observed Dick.
+
+"Plenty, and the other kind too," added Bud nodding toward the hills at
+their backs.  "Well, we sure will have good times."
+
+"We want work, too," declared Nort.  "We want to learn to be ranchers."
+
+"You'll have that chance, too," declared his western cousin.  "But now
+let's lope along a little faster.  If we don't get to the table the
+same time as the boys there won't be a smell left.  Supper's going to
+be late to-night."
+
+For a time the pace forbade conversation.  The only sounds were the
+beating of hoofs on the ground, the clatter of buckles and the squeak
+of damp leather.  Then the cowboys, and the young ranchers, trotted
+down the slope that led to the corral, and Nort and Dick had a glimpse,
+in the doorway of the ranch house, of their aunt.
+
+A quick survey of the party told Mrs. Merkel that there had been no
+casualties, and, with a satisfied sigh, she went back in the house, and
+began to put the supper on the table, with the assistance of Nell and
+two women workers.
+
+"The boys'll eat us out of house and home to-night," she remarked to
+Nell.
+
+"It's lucky we have plenty," commented Bud's pretty sister.
+
+And plenty there was, as Dick and Nort amply testified to a little
+later, as they drew chairs to a long table at which they sat with the
+ranch hands, who had made hasty toilets after their fast ride.
+
+For a time there was heard only the rattle of table utensils, but, with
+the sharp edge of appetites dulled, talk and joking retort ran about
+the board.  Bud took his part, but the two easterners were silent,
+preferring to listen and learn.  And they picked up many a gem of slang
+from the repartee that flashed forth.
+
+"Any of you boys ever see that outfit before?" asked Bud's mother, when
+an account of the professor's camp had been given.
+
+No one had, but "Snake" Purdee, so called because of his deadly fear of
+rattlers that were occasionally met with, remarked, after disposing of
+a mouthful of biscuit:
+
+"Some of the Double Z boys was tellin' me of a locoed tenderfoot who
+was grubbin' for diamonds, or suthin' like that, an' I reckon this is
+him."
+
+"Shouldn't wonder," commented Mrs. Merkel.  "You say you're going to
+send over some liniment?" she asked the foreman.
+
+"I was aimin' to do it," he answered.  "That is if you----"
+
+"Oh, of course!" interrupted Mrs. Merkel.  "One of the boys can ride
+over this evening.  I don't want anybody to suffer when I can help."
+
+Nort nudged Bud under the table.
+
+"Can't we go, too?" asked the city lad.
+
+Bud hesitated a moment and then answered:
+
+"Why, yes, I reckon so."  To his mother he said: "I'll ride over, too,
+with Nort and Dick."
+
+"Will it be safe?" asked Mrs. Merkel, with a quick look at the foreman.
+"I wish Mr. Merkel would come."
+
+"Oh, it'll be _safe_ enough," the foreman answered.  "Those Greasers
+won't come back, especially after dark.  They'll lay low.  I'll send
+Babe over with the boys."
+
+"Oh, joy!" murmured Nort, and the eyes of Dick sparkled.  This was
+living life as they had dreamed it--a night ride to a camp that had
+been attacked by savage men!
+
+"Get on some other clothes," suggested Bud to his cousins, as they left
+the table.  "You'll spoil those in no time, on a horse."
+
+"All right," agreed Dick, and soon he and his brother had made the
+change.  If not exactly attired as were the cowboys, their outfits were
+sufficiently practical for the time being.
+
+"Can't we have guns?" asked Nort, while some of the ranch hands were
+saddling ponies for the little party that was to take the antiseptics
+to the wounded men.
+
+"Know how to shoot?" asked Babe, who felt his responsibility at taking
+two tenderfeet on the trail at night.
+
+"A little," admitted Nort, and Dick nodded in agreement.
+
+"Wa'al, I don't reckon you'll have any use for 'em," said the assistant
+foreman, "but it's just as well to pack 'em.  I'll get you a couple
+guns," and he started toward the bunk house while Bud and his cousins
+mounted their ponies and prepared to take the trail.
+
+"They'll do," Babe said to Bud in a low voice, after passing to Dick
+and Nort the guns.  "Lots to learn, but they've got the grit, and they
+ain't too much set up.  They'll do."
+
+Then they hit the trail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE RUSTLERS
+
+Diamond X ranch was one of the largest in that part of the country.
+Mr. Merkel's holdings were in one of our western states, not far from
+the Mexican border, which fact was not altogether pleasing to him.  It
+made it too easy for cattle thieves to operate, and more than once
+Diamond X had suffered from depredations of the "rustlers," as they
+were called, doubtless from the fact that they "rustled" or "hustled"
+cattle that were not their own, off lawful ranges.
+
+But it was all part of the day's work, and Mr. Merkel's ranches were
+too valuable to be disposed of easily, even though their proximity to
+Mexico, the home of lawless "Greasers" and half breeds, was too close
+for ease of mind.
+
+Diamond X, like many other western ranches, took its name from the
+brand used to mark the cattle that fed on its succulent grass and drank
+its abundant water.  The brand was a diamond with the letter X in the
+centre, a mark easily recognized, even at a distance.  Other marks were
+used on other and adjoining ranches, Mr. Merkel owning two others, one
+of which went by the name Square M, from the fact that the
+distinguishing brand was a square with the letter M inside.  The
+other's mark was a triangle with a B in it, that ranch being known
+among the cowboys as the Triangle B.
+
+Double Z was a ranch adjoining that of the Diamond X on the north, Hank
+Fisher being the proprietor, while to the west was the Circle T ranch,
+its cattle being marked with a large circle, in which the letter T
+appeared, it being owned by Thomas Ogden, a friend of Mr. Merkel.
+
+"Gosh!  But your father has a lot of cows!" exclaimed Nort, as he and
+his brother rode along through the early evening, beside Bud.  "Must be
+a million of 'em," added the city youth as, from a rise, he caught a
+glimpse of many herds, some restrained from wandering by fenced ranges,
+and others being slowly driven along by cowboys, who waved to Babe,
+Bud, and the city lads.
+
+"Not quite a million!" laughed Bud.  "And we don't call 'em _cows_,
+though some of 'em are, of course.  They're cattle, or steers.  Mother
+keeps a cow or two for the sake of the milk, and of course our men are
+called cowboys, or punchers, and this is cow country.  But we don't
+speak of 'em as herds of cows."
+
+"Glad you told me," murmured Nort.  "I'm going to be a ranchman some
+day, and I want to learn all I can."
+
+"Same here!" commented his brother.
+
+It was a wondrously beautiful night, calm and clear, with the stars
+shining overhead more brightly than Nort and Dick had ever before seen
+them.  It is the clearness of the atmosphere in the West that renders
+objects so plain at a distance, that brings out the beauty of the stars
+and which also enables such wonderful moving pictures to be made.  In
+the East the day is rare when there is not some haze.  It is just the
+reverse in the West.
+
+Through the silent night rode the boy ranchers, for Nort and Dick were
+beginning to think of themselves in that class.  The cousins rode
+together, with Babe in the rear, lugging the bottles of antiseptics
+that were destined for the injured men.
+
+"What are those cowboys riding around the cattle for?" asked Nort, as
+they turned aside from a large herd restlessly moving amid a constant
+dull rumble.
+
+"They're driving 'em over to the railroad, to be shipped," explained
+Bud.  "That's what dad raises cattle for--ships 'em away for beef.
+This bunch has been fattened up on a range we keep specially for that.
+This is a good time to sell now, prices are high, so we're disposing of
+as many as we can.
+
+"The cowboys will drive 'em to the railroad, taking their time, so as
+not to run all the fat off the steers.  The heavier they are the more
+money we get for 'em.  I guess they won't go much farther to-night,
+though," he added, with a look back at the herd they had passed.  "This
+is the first day they've been driven, and we always go a bit slow at
+first."
+
+"Say, but it's great!  Wonderful!" exclaimed Nort, half rising in his
+stirrups and breathing deep of the pure, keen air, for it was now
+chilly.
+
+"You said an earful!" commented his brother.  "I wouldn't have missed
+this for anything!"
+
+"Glad you like it," murmured Bud.
+
+"What's that--a wolf?  A prairie wolf?" asked Nort, suddenly as a sort
+of whine broke the silence of the night, punctuated otherwise only by
+the soft footfalls of the horses.
+
+"Wolf?  No!" chuckled Bud.  "Don't let Babe hear you say that.  It's
+him--singing!  Lots of the men do it."
+
+As Bud's whisper died away, the assistant foreman let his voice soar
+from a whine into a more or less of a roar, as he intoned:
+
+  "Oh, sing to me not of the joys of a city
+  Where innocent cowboys are left in a trance.
+  Give me a hoss, an' some room to do ridin',
+  When I am daid bring me back to the ranch!"
+
+
+"Does he get that way often?" asked Dick in a whisper, as the cowboy
+began on the second verse of what promised to be a lengthy song.
+
+"More or less!" answered Bud.  "The cowboys sing a lot, and some
+haven't half bad voices.  The songs, too, are corkers, some of 'em.
+They sing 'cause it's lonesome ridin' line, and then, too, it seems to
+sort of soothe the cattle.  Dad has told us, lots of times, where a
+stampede has been stopped just by the bunch singing songs."
+
+"Good idea," commented Nort.  "Oh, but this is the life for me!" he
+chanted.
+
+"Only this ride isn't lasting long enough," said Dick.  "That's the
+camp, down in there; isn't it?" he asked his cousin, pointing ahead
+toward where, in the light of the newly risen moon, could be observed
+some white objects.
+
+"Those are the professors' tents," declared Bud.  "We got here sooner
+than I expected.  Talking to you chaps made the time pass quickly."
+
+"What do you think of those fellows, anyhow?" asked Nort, in a low
+voice of his cousin.  It was evident he referred to the two scientists
+who had been attacked that afternoon.
+
+"I don't know what to think," admitted Bud, frankly.  "I never heard of
+anything in this part of the country, more valuable than gold, that was
+worth prospecting after.  There hasn't even any gold been found, as far
+as I know, though there were rumors that once a prospector made a lucky
+strike about ten miles from here.  But these men do seem to have
+something they're afraid will be taken from them."
+
+"Well, it needn't worry us," commented Dick.  "We're going to be cow
+punchers--not miners."
+
+"You said it!" declared Nort.
+
+By this time they were within the range of several fires gleaming in
+the midst of the camp of the scientists, and a moment later Professor
+Blair emerged from the tent that had been so jealously guarded during
+the day.
+
+"Oh, it's you; is it?" he asked as he recognized the boys and Babe.
+"It is very kind of you, to take this trouble."
+
+"'Sall right," remarked the assistant foreman, as he handed over the
+bottles of medicine.  "Tell th' boss to use it just as it is--don't
+need any dilutin' with water."
+
+"Oh, you mean Professor Wright," said the other, so translating the
+cowboy's use of the word "boss."
+
+"Yep," answered Babe.  "Tell the boss to use it straight."
+
+"Well, he isn't here just now," said the other.  "The men who were shot
+seem to be doing well, however.  I'll attend to them myself.  Thank you
+again."
+
+His voice was cultured and his manner pleasant.  But it was evident
+that he invited no confidences.
+
+Little could be made out, even in the moonlight and the gleam of the
+fire, save the usual scattered camp outfits, and the white tents.
+
+The boy ranchers and Babe had done what they set out to do--deliver the
+medicine, and no incident had marked their trip, unless the singing of
+the assistant foreman can be called such.
+
+"Some of us'll ride over to-morrow," promised Babe, as he and the boys
+turned to take the trail back to the ranch.
+
+"Thank you, but we may not be here," remarked Professor Blair.  "We may
+move on.  But thank you, just the same."
+
+"Don't mention it," begged Babe, slightly sarcastic of the other's
+cultured accent and words.  "We aim to please, an' be neighborly."
+
+"Of which you have given ample evidence," was the rejoinder.
+
+"Guess that'll hold him for a while," murmured Bud to his cousins.
+
+"Good-nights" were called and the outfit from Diamond X ranch was on
+its way again.  Nort and Dick were eagerly questioning Bud about
+western matters, learning to their delight that there would be chances
+to go hunting and fishing after the big round-up, and Babe was
+beginning on about the forty-seventh verse of his favorite song, when
+Bud suddenly stopped in the midst of telling some incident, and gazed
+intently across the rolling range.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Dick in a whisper, for the silence of the
+night, and the strangeness of their surroundings, seemed to call for
+whispers.
+
+"I thought I saw cattle moving," said Bud.  "Yes, I do!" he went on,
+quickly.  "Look, Babe!"
+
+Babe broke off his song at a point where a dying cowboy was begging to
+be "toted back to the chuck house," and looked to where the boy rancher
+pointed.
+
+"That's it, shore as rattlers!" the assistant foreman said.  "It's
+about time they tried suthin' like this!  Got your guns, boys?"
+
+"What for?" asked Nort, a thrill of excitement leaping through his
+veins.  "What is there to shoot?"
+
+"Rustlers!" said Bud, grimly.  "Somebody--Greasers, likely--are trying
+to run off some of our fat steers!  Come on, we'll ride 'em down!"  He
+clapped spurs to his horse, an example followed by Nort and Dick, but,
+quick as they were, Babe had shot ahead of them, and in the moonlight
+the city lads caught the gleam of his gun as he pulled it from the
+holster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A CRY IN THE NIGHT
+
+Needless to say that Nort and Dick were thrilled through and through.
+Having lived in a city nearly all of their lives, though with the usual
+city lad's dreamings of adventures in the open, of camps, of desperate
+measures against desperate men, they had never hoped for this.
+
+"Crickity!  Think of it!" hoarsely whispered Nort to his brother as
+they galloped along side by side.  "We haven't been here a day yet, and
+we're run into cattle rustlers!"
+
+"Great!" commented Dick.  "Oh, boy!"
+
+"We haven't run into 'em yet, that's the trouble," spoke Bud grimly, as
+his pony worked in between the two brothers.  "But we will in a little
+while--Babe'll fix 'em."
+
+"Can't we take a hand?" asked Nort eagerly, as his hand sought the
+weapon at his side.
+
+"We may have to," Bud admitted, "but dad doesn't think I'm old enough,
+yet, to mix up in a man-sized fight.  Maybe he's right, but he always
+tells me to hold back until I'm needed."
+
+"We can take a hand _then_, can't we?" asked Nort eagerly.
+
+"Sure thing!" exclaimed Bud.  "But there may not be any need of a
+scrap.  These rustlers know they're caught now, and they may run for
+it.  They can't get away with the steers, anyhow, without a fight.  Of
+course if they get Babe covered--and us--they'll make their getaway,
+but he may bluff 'em off."
+
+"What does it all mean, anyhow?" asked Dick, as the assistant foreman
+spurred off through the night, following the trail of the now running
+steers.  If there were rustlers driving the cattle away the men
+themselves gave no sign, but remained hidden.
+
+"It means cattle rustlers--that's all," explained Bud, as he led the
+way for his cousins to follow, since the young representative of the
+Diamond X ranch knew the trail.  "Rustlers are just men who take other
+folk's cattle, drive 'em off, change the brands and sell 'em wherever
+they can.  Sometimes they get away with it and sometimes they don't!"
+
+"And are they running off your dad's cattle now?" asked Nort.
+
+"Looks that way," admitted Bud, "though I haven't seen any of the men
+doing it.  You know some of our cowboys drove in a bunch of fat steers
+from one of dad's distant ranches the other day.  They're being taken
+over to the railroad to be shipped.  Not the station where you fellows
+came in, but another, about two days' trip from here.  It's a bunch of
+these cattle that's being hazed away from us, I reckon."
+
+"I didn't know they hazed steers, like they do college Freshmen,"
+ventured Dick.
+
+"Hazing cattle means to sort of work 'em along easy like--drive 'em
+where you want to go," explained Bud.  "We have to do a lot of hazing
+when we have the round-up--that's when the cattle owners send their
+cowboys to collect the animals that have been feeding on the open range
+during the year.  Each man separates into a bunch the cattle with his
+brands, and also the little calves, or the mavericks, and hazes them
+toward his corrals."
+
+"What's mavericks?" asked Nort.  He could not forbear the question,
+even though considerable excitement seemed just in the offing.  He
+wanted to learn all he could about ranch life.
+
+"A maverick gets its name from an old Texas ranchman named Sam
+Maverick," answered Bud.  "He didn't brand his cattle, and one day,
+during a stampede, his steers mixed in with a lot more that were
+branded.  He and his men cut them out and hazed over to his range all
+cattle that weren't branded.  Every cow, calf or steer that didn't have
+a brand on was called one of Maverick's, and so we call, now, any
+unbranded animal a 'maverick.'  Anybody who finds it can brand it and
+claim it as his, though; in some places all the mavericks are bunched
+together and divided.  But say, I wonder what Babe's doing, anyhow?  I
+haven't heard a shot, and he must be up to that bunch of rustlers now,
+if that's what they were."
+
+"What else could they be?" asked Nort.
+
+"I don't know," Bud replied.  "Anyhow, here's some of the cattle.  Look
+out you don't run into 'em!" he called sharply, as he pulled in his
+pony.
+
+He spoke just in time to warn Nort and Dick, for, in another instant,
+they found themselves among the tail-enders of a bunch of cattle that
+had run from them at first.
+
+No men were in sight--not even Babe--and there was a haze of clouds
+over the moon now, and a sort of fog close to the ground, that
+prevented clear vision.
+
+"Are these your cattle?" asked Dick.
+
+"Tell you in a minute," responded the young cattleman.  He rode up
+alongside one of the animals and focused on its rump the gleam from an
+electric flash light.  Bud carried one of these mighty handy pocket
+articles, which are much more effective than matches for making
+observations at night.  In the bright gleam of the little light the boy
+ranchers saw, plainly branded in the hide of the animal, a large
+diamond, with the letter X in the centre.
+
+"Dad's stock--all of 'em, I reckon!" exclaimed Bud, as he flashed his
+torch on others in the bunch, revealing more of the Diamond X brand.
+
+"But where are the rustlers?" asked Nort, in a tense whisper, and his
+hand sought the holster where his newly-acquired weapon rested.
+
+"I don't know," began Bud.  "They may have ridden off, or it may be
+that----"
+
+He stopped suddenly and listened.  Dick and Nort heard, as did Bud, the
+rapid approach of a horseman.  In an instant Bud had switched off his
+pocket electric light, and then in the half hazy light of the partly
+obscured moon he and his cousins peered forward.  Nort and Dick had
+drawn their guns, an example set them by Bud.
+
+"Don't do any shooting until you hear me," ordered Bud.  "There may be
+no need of it!"
+
+The rider, unseen as yet, was coming nearer and nearer, the thud of his
+horse's feet pounding hard on the turf.  He seemed to be approaching
+from the direction in which Babe had disappeared.
+
+In another instant the rider was pulling his horse to a quick stop
+beside Bud's animal, and when a beam of misty moonlight flashed out
+from beneath a cloud it was seen that the assistant foreman of Diamond
+X ranch had returned.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Nort, and there was almost a note of disappointment in
+his voice because the rider did not develop into a cattle rustler.
+
+"Did you see any of 'em?" asked Bud eagerly.
+
+"Not a hair," answered Babe Milton, who proved that he could be active
+enough when occasion called for it, in spite of his size and weight.
+"But I heard some one riding off down the gully, and if it was any of
+our boys, or any of the fellows around here, they wouldn't have run.
+Besides, these steers belong to the bunch Happy Day is hazin' over to
+the railroad.  They didn't get cut out by themselves."
+
+"Not much," agreed Bud, while Nort and Dick listened eagerly.
+
+"So I'm going on a little farther," said Babe.  "You fellows stay here,
+and if I don't get back in an hour--well, you'll know something
+happened."
+
+"Can't we come?" asked Dick, eagerly.
+
+"You'd better stay here," advised Babe.  "Somebody'll have to ride herd
+on these steers, and I can deal with those rascals better'n you
+boys--though I may need your help later.  Anyhow, Bud, you stay here,
+and herd 'em in till I get back--if I do."
+
+"And if you don't?" asked Bud.  There was a world of meaning in those
+few words, for cattle rustlers were desperate men.
+
+"If I don't, ride back to the ranch an' tell the boss," spoke Babe
+simply, as if it was all in the day's work--or night's.
+
+"All right," agreed Bud.  He realized that though he was the son of the
+owner of Diamond X ranch, in this case the word of Babe exceeded even
+his heritage.
+
+Turning his horse quickly, after a brief examination of his saddle
+girths, Babe spurred away into the haze of the cloudy moonlight,
+leaving the boy ranchers to guard the cattle.  The animals, after their
+run, were content to remain quiet now, moving about a bit uneasily, and
+rumbling as if in protest now and then.  They were all full-grown
+beasts, ready for the market, and valuable.
+
+"S'pose he'll get any of 'em?" whispered Nort.
+
+"Can't say," answered Bud, briefly.  "Babe generally does get what he
+goes after, though."  This was significant.
+
+In silence, broken only by the occasional lowing of the cattle, the boy
+ranchers waited--waited for they knew not what.  And then, as suddenly
+as an explosion, came a cry in the night--and such a cry!
+
+An unearthly noise of long drawn out howling notes, mingled with roars,
+the crescendo effect ending in a peal of weird yells that were like the
+cries of a laughing hyena, mingled with the sardonic wails of a baboon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+"THE PROFESSOR!"
+
+Loud and long drawn out was that weird cry of the night.  It sent
+shivers down the spines of Nort and Dick, and they both confessed,
+afterward, that if they had not been wearing the heavy range hats,
+supplied them by Bud, that their hair would surely have risen and stood
+up straight.
+
+Then, as suddenly as it had come to them out of the half darkness, the
+fiendish noise ceased, dying away in what seemed to be sobbing, insane
+laughter.  With a swallow or two, to wet his parched lips and
+fear-dried throat, Dick asked in a whisper:
+
+"What--what was that?"
+
+Like an echo came his brother's question:
+
+"Was somebody killed?"
+
+Bud's hearty laugh relieved the tension.
+
+"It was only a coyote," said the boy from the ranch.
+
+"A _coyote_!" repeated Nort and Dick in unison.
+
+"Yes; you'll see plenty of 'em, and you must have heard of 'em.  Little
+animals, sort of half wolf, half dog.  They hang about for something to
+eat, and they sure can howl!"
+
+"_Howl!_" exclaimed Nort.  "If that's a _howl_ I want to know it!  Of
+all the infernal noises----"
+
+"You said it!" exclaimed his brother.  "Was that his death cry, Bud?
+Did Babe shoot one?"
+
+"No, of course not.  It isn't as easy to shoot one of the pesky coyotes
+as you'd think, and it isn't much use.  They don't do any particular
+harm around here.  Besides, you didn't hear any shooting; did you?"
+
+Dick was forced to admit that he had not, and he reproved himself for
+not using his faculties to better advantage.  He was beginning to
+realize that if he was to be a westerner, an outdoor lad and a rancher,
+he must learn to observe, something that Bud had already acquired in
+large measure.
+
+"Do they always howl that way?" asked Nort, as he shoved back into his
+holster the gun he had half drawn again.
+
+"Not always--lots of times it's worse!" chuckled Bud.
+
+"_Worse!_" cried Dick.  "I don't see how it could be.  What do they do
+it for?" he asked, as, once again, that strange cry welled forth on the
+night.
+
+"Oh, just to keep each other company, I reckon," answered Bud.  "Same
+as dogs bark.  This may be a lone coyote calling to his mate; or he may
+be summoning the pack to feed on a dead calf, or something like that.
+I reckon they always howl pretty free on moonlight nights.  We're used
+to 'em."
+
+"Don't believe I'd get used to that if I lived here a hundred years,"
+commented Dick, as, for the third time, the cry rose and fell, even
+louder and more horrible than before.
+
+"The cattle don't mind 'em," said Bud.  "In fact it seems to sort of
+soothe 'em.  Look, some of the steers are lying down."
+
+This was so.  In the clearer moonlight which prevailed for a few
+moments, the lads from the city saw numbers of the bunch of cattle
+resting easily on the grass.  They were either tired out from the rapid
+pace at which they had been driven, or had concluded that they were to
+stay there for the night.
+
+"Come on," suggested Bud, a moment later, as he urged his horse
+forward.  "Hit it up!"
+
+"Where?" asked Dick.
+
+"We'll ride herd for a few minutes, to make sure none of 'em stray off.
+I can't see just how many there are in this bunch, the light is so
+uncertain."
+
+Nort and Dick followed their cousin, slowly circling the bunch of
+cattle on which an attempt had been made to drive off.  There were
+about fifty, as Bud roughly estimated, when he and his cousins had
+completed the circuit, thus "riding herd," as it is called, to
+distinguish it from "riding line," when the cowboys move slowly up and
+down along the line of fences that enclose the more modern ranches.
+
+Diamond X ranch consisted of both sorts.  Mr. Merkel owned a number of
+large expanses of land, completely fenced in, and on these grazed
+thousands of cattle.
+
+He also took advantage of the open range, letting some of his animals
+mingle on those vast expanses in common with steers and cows from other
+ranches.  Some of the open range was richer in grass than the fenced-in
+portions, but there was a certain amount of additional work attached to
+the use of the open range.  It meant round-ups twice a year, and the
+branding of cattle which were claimed as the property of the different
+owners.
+
+In places where there were no fences to keep the animals from straying
+it was often necessary to "ride herd."  That is, the cowboys, night and
+day, rode slowly around the bunch of steers, keeping them from straying
+or stampeding.  At times they were "hazed," or driven to other feeding
+places, or to water, until such time as they were collected and driven
+to the railroad to be shipped.
+
+Where stout wire fences held the cattle within bounds the work of the
+cowboys was easier, but even here "riding line" was necessary, as one
+could never tell when a break might be made in the fence, or when
+rustlers might cut the wire, to enable them to drive off a choice herd,
+or part of it.
+
+So the boy ranchers rode herd, in a fashion, the two city lads gazing
+off through the half darkness, across the rolling prairies where, for
+all they knew, Babe might be trailing the rustlers or engaged in a
+desperate fight with them.
+
+"Though I reckon he didn't come up to 'em," ventured Bud, after a wait
+of half an hour, during which no sign or sound had come from the
+assistant foreman.
+
+"Will he come back here?' asked Nort.
+
+"Sure--if he can," answered Bud, significantly.
+
+"How long'll we wait?" asked Dick.
+
+"Can't say--exactly," answered Bud.  "But say, I forgot about you
+fellows," he went on, quickly.  "You've traveled all day, and must be
+tired.  It isn't far back to the ranch, and I can start you on the
+plain trail.  I don't mind staying here alone--I've done it before."
+
+"Go back?  I guess not!" exclaimed Nort.
+
+"Forget it!" advised Dick.  "This is just what we want!"
+
+"Well, if you like it," began Bud, "I s'pose----"
+
+"Like it?" cried the two city lads in unison.  "It's just what we came
+out for," added Nort.
+
+"Well, morning'll come, sooner or later, though I expect Babe'll be
+back long before then," Bud went on.  "Those rustlers have probably
+given him the slip, and----"
+
+"Hark!" suddenly whispered Nort.  "I hear some one coming."
+
+The noise of an approaching horse could be made out.  It was
+approaching slowly, seeming to stumble now and then.  There was an
+uneasy movement among the cattle, and the boys peered eagerly forward,
+their hands on the butts of their guns in the holsters.
+
+"Is it Babe?" whispered Dick.
+
+"I don't know," answered Bud.  "Doesn't ride like him, but----"
+
+A moment later, from out of the shadow cast by the cattle, a solitary
+horseman rode, almost stumbling along.  At first he could not clearly
+be made out but suddenly the haze cleared from the moon, and with
+startled eyes the boys recognized the rider.
+
+"The professor!" gasped Bud, and Nort and Dick knew the horseman for
+the scientist from the mysterious camp they had recently
+left--Professor Hendryx Wright!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+"WHAT DOES IT MEAN?"
+
+Mutual recognition, followed by half suppressed and surprised
+exclamations, followed the advent of Professor Wright on the scene.  He
+had been pursuing his way, whether peaceful or otherwise the boy
+ranchers could not determine, until he unexpectedly stumbled on Bud,
+Nort and Dick riding herd--said herd being the bunch of Diamond X
+cattle some one had tried to haze away.
+
+"Oh!" murmured Professor Wright, as the growing illumination, caused by
+the moon coming out more clearly, revealed him to the boys and them to
+him.  "Were you--er--looking for me?" he asked in his usual cultured
+tones.
+
+"Not exactly," replied Bud.  "We were just over to your camp, to leave
+the stuff for the men, and you weren't there."
+
+"No, I had to leave," said the professor, smoothly.  "I am going back
+now.  I am sorry I missed you."
+
+"You didn't!" Bud said grimly to himself.  And then the scientist
+seemed to realize this for he added:
+
+"I mean I am sorry I was not there to thank you.  It was very kind of
+you to help the men.  I'm sorry this trouble occurred."
+
+"Oh, we're always glad to help," spoke Bud.  "Out west you never know
+when you're going to need help yourself, so it's always a good plan to
+have a balance in your favor."
+
+"Yes, I should say that was so," spoke the professor thoughtfully.
+"You found everything all right, at my camp?" he asked, rather than
+stated.
+
+"All right--yes," answered Bud.  "We left the stuff with Professor
+Blair.  He said you were out."
+
+"Yes, I had to make a little trip.  But aren't you off your road?" he
+asked the boys.  "I mean doesn't your ranch lie over there?" and he
+pointed in the proper direction.
+
+"It does," assented Bud.  "But we've got to look out for these cattle."
+
+"Oh, I see.  You are 'riding herd,' as I believe it is called."
+
+"In a way--yes," spoke Bud and then he went on boldly: "Some rustlers
+tried to haze this bunch over the river, but we caught 'em!"
+
+"Caught them?" repeated the professor quickly.
+
+"Well, our assistant foreman is after 'em now," Bud explained.  "We're
+waiting here for him to come back.  We thought you were Babe as you
+came along, but as soon as I heard your horse I knew it couldn't be
+him.  He doesn't ride--er--just that way."
+
+"I realize that I shall never become a horseman," said the professor
+dryly, and with a little half smile, visible in the moonlight.  "But I
+can ride enough for my purpose."
+
+Bud, as well as Nort and Dick, found themselves wondering just what the
+professor's "purpose" was.  However he did not seem inclined to
+disclose it, for he pulled up his horse, which was idly cropping the
+grass, and said:
+
+"Well, I must be going.  Thank you, again, for your kindness.  I hope
+we may meet again.  Good-night!"
+
+He urged his animal onward, and a moment later was lost in the
+darkness, as a thicker cloud than any that had yet obscured it, covered
+the moon.
+
+For several seconds the three boy ranchers remained, looking off in the
+gloom which had swallowed up the mysterious scientist.  For that he was
+mysterious none of the lads could deny.
+
+"Wonder where he had been?" mused Bud in a low voice, for in that
+silent, dark open place voices carried almost as clearly as across
+water, and he was cautious.
+
+"Search me!" declared Nort.
+
+"Guess he didn't expect to see us," added Dick.
+
+"Say!" suddenly exclaimed Nort, urging his horse against Bud's in his
+eagerness and excitement, "maybe he was one of the cattle rustlers,
+Bud!  He circled around and rode back after he found he couldn't get
+away with the steers, and that Babe was on his trail.  That's what it
+is!"
+
+"No," spoke Bud, quietly.  "There's something queer about that
+man--Professor Wright as he calls himself--but he isn't the kind that
+rustles cattle.  Cattle thieves don't make a permanent camp.  They're
+wanderers--mostly Greasers, Indians and half breeds, with a bad white
+man mixing in--and they don't stay long in one place."
+
+"Don't you think he had anything to do with trying to drive off your
+cattle?" asked Nort.
+
+"Well, you can't be altogether sure of anything in this world," half
+drawled Bud, "but it doesn't seem reasonable."
+
+"But he came from the direction to where those men ran that were
+driving away the cattle," said Dick.  "Wonder if he met Babe?"
+
+"You can ask him," said Bud.  "Here comes Babe now."
+
+The two other lads were not aware of the approach of the assistant
+foreman of Diamond X, but Bud's quick ears had caught the faint sound
+of the horse's feet approaching, and in another moment Babe rode up
+from a little clump of greasewood shrubs, which growth, to the eastern
+lads, had resembled sumac at first.
+
+"Find 'em, Babe?" asked Bud in a low voice.
+
+"Nope!  They razzled off 'fore I could get up to 'em.  All right here?"
+he asked, though a look convinced him there had been no serious
+trouble, at least.
+
+"All serene," answered Bud.  "Did you meet the professor?" he inquired.
+
+"The professor?"  Babe's tone of voice, indicating surprise, was answer
+enough.  But Bud went into particulars, telling how the scientist had
+ridden up on them a little while before.
+
+"No, he didn't come nigh me!" declared Babe.  "Mighty funny, too," he
+went on.
+
+"Could he be one of the rustlers?" asked Nort, eagerly.
+
+"Oh, he _could_, I reckon," admitted Babe.  "But it doesn't seem
+reasonable.  Guess he wouldn't head back this way if he'd tried to run
+off some Diamond X stock.  I'd like to know where those fellows slipped
+to," he said, musingly.
+
+"Well, they didn't get anything, anyhow," declared Nort.
+
+"Not much, that's a fact, son," drawled Babe, as he eased himself down
+off his pony, for he wanted to stretch his legs.  "Course I don't know
+how many there ought to be in this bunch," and he looked over the small
+herd that had now settled quietly for the night.  "But they didn't get
+away with much.  You fellows might as well ride on back, and send out
+some of the boys," he added.  "Your ma'll be wondering about you, Bud."
+
+"Yes, I reckon she will, 'specially as I have some tenderfeet with me,"
+and he laughed good-naturedly.
+
+"Don't go back on our account!" exclaimed Nort.  "We can camp out here
+all right."
+
+"It'll be pretty dry camping," chuckled Babe, "an' there's no need of
+it.  Slim will be wanting to know how we made out, and he may get a
+report on the rustlers, not knowing that we headed 'em off.  So it's
+just as well for you lads to go back.  You can send out some of the
+night men, and I'll follow you as soon as I'm relieved," he added.
+
+This seemed the best plan and back toward the ranch headquarters rode
+Bud, Dick and Nort, leaving Babe in charge of the small herd, a task
+easy to fulfill now, as the animals were quiet.
+
+The weird howls of the coyotes followed the lads almost to the ranch
+houses, and the advent of the three, with the story they told, created
+no little excitement.  Cattle rustling was not common enough to be a
+regular part of the day's work.
+
+"Zing zowie!" exclaimed Slim Degnan as he heard the particulars.  "You
+fellows landed feet first right into some doin's!" he added, looking at
+Nort and Dick.
+
+"We sure did!" exclaimed the city lads, much pleased in spite of being
+weary.
+
+A little later, while Bud and his cousins were eating what might be
+called a midnight lunch that Mrs. Merkel set out for them in the cozy
+living-room of the ranch house, two cowboys rode off to relieve Babe.
+
+"And now it's time for you tenderfeet to turn in," said Mrs. Merkel to
+Nort and Dick.  "I told your mother I'd look after you as I would Bud,
+if she'd let you come out, and, now you're here, I'm going to keep my
+word.  Turn in, all three of you!"
+
+And, for once in their lives, the boys were glad to go to bed without
+arguing, for the tenderfeet, at least, were dog tired.
+
+No further trace of the cattle rustlers was discovered, if indeed there
+had been any.  All the evidence there was lay in the sight Bud and the
+others had caught of a stray bunch of steers being hazed over toward
+the river, across which lay open range.  The cowboys who relieved Babe
+reported nothing out of the ordinary as having happened during their
+night vigil.
+
+Mr. Merkel came home that day, the second of the eastern boys' stay at
+Diamond X ranch, and the cattleman warmly welcomed his nephews.
+
+"We'll fit you out to be regular ranchers!" he declared, and in less
+than a week Nort and Dick felt that they were, indeed, on their way to
+this enviable goal.
+
+They were provided with sheepskin chaps, such as Bud and the other
+cowboys wore--chaps being in the nature of overalls, and affording much
+needed protection to the legs when riding amid a bunch of milling
+steers.
+
+The eastern lads were given complete outfits, from the rather awkward
+high-heeled boots to the broad-brimmed range hats, and they wore their
+handkerchiefs, or "neckerchiefs," most proudly.
+
+These neckerchiefs were more than ornaments.  In the choking dust,
+often strongly alkali, the squares, pulled up over nose and mouth, gave
+needed relief and protection.
+
+"Suppose we ride over and see if there's been any more trouble at the
+professor's camp?" suggested Nort to Bud one day.
+
+"Good idea!" declared Dick.
+
+"All right, if you want to," assented Bud.  "Dad was sort of mentioning
+that he'd like to hear how the shot men were getting on.  We can make
+it easy before supper."
+
+Together the boy ranchers trotted over the gently rolling land toward
+the foothills, in the midst of which the camp lay.  As they drew near
+Bud scanned the horizon for a sign of smoke, such as he and Slim had
+observed once before.  But there was no trace.
+
+"Shouldn't wonder but what they'd vamoosed," he said.
+
+"Lit out, you mean?" asked Nort.
+
+"Yeppie!  There doesn't seem to be any signs of life."
+
+And as they rode into the site of the camp the reason for this became
+plain.  The camp was deserted.  The tents were down, and all that
+remained were emptied tin cans, broken boxes and the cold ashes of the
+fires.  But over on the side of the hill, where there was an
+outcropping of red sandstone, curious marks showed.  They were the
+marks of digging and excavating on rather a large scale, and as Bud
+caught sight of these mute evidences of operations he uttered a low
+whistle of surprise.
+
+"What does it mean?" asked Nort.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DEL PINZO
+
+Characteristic it was of Bud Merkel not to answer at once the sharp and
+excited question of his cousin.  Living all his life in the West, as he
+had done, and most of it having been spent on his father's ranches, Bud
+had unconsciously acquired the valuable habit of observation--and quiet
+observation at that.  He wanted to look about and notice the "sign"
+before he gave his opinion.  In this he was like the Indians, whence,
+doubtless, our own plainsmen developed the habit of looking twice
+before they spoke once.
+
+I don't mean to say that Bud was not a regular fellow, or that he was
+not at times almost as impulsive as Nort.  He was like the majority of
+boys, but on this occasion, when it appeared that something unusual was
+afoot, Bud held back his opinion for a moment.
+
+"Well, what do you think of it?" asked Nort again, as eagerly as
+before.  "Doesn't this look like they'd been digging for gold?"
+
+"I should say it did!" cried Dick, no less eager, now, than his
+brother.  "Those professors saying they weren't after the yellow boys
+was all bunk and bluff!  They did it to throw us off the track, so we
+wouldn't try to have a hand in it.  They've been mining here, Bud, as
+sure as guns!"
+
+Bud slowly shook his head.
+
+"Why not?" asked Nort, seeing his cousin's denial of the theory that
+fitted in so well with his own ideas.
+
+"Well, they don't mine this way--that is, I've never seen any done in
+this fashion, and I've been in several mining localities," spoke Bud.
+"This looks more like they'd been prospecting for water, digging here,
+there and everywhere.  But there wasn't any need of that, for here's a
+good spring of water, and the river isn't so far away.  This is a good
+watered country, and that's what makes it so valuable for
+cattle--you've got to have grass and water and we've got that on
+Diamond X."
+
+"But what do you s'pose this all means?" asked Nort again, as he
+slipped from his saddle, and, by pulling the reins forward, over his
+pony's head, thus gave that animal the universal sign of the plains
+that it was not to wander.
+
+"I don't know," Bud was frank to say, as he shook his head.  "They sure
+have been tearing up the ground," he added, as he noticed on the side
+hill, where there was an outcropping of red sandstone, that many
+excavations had been made.
+
+"If it isn't gold maybe it's silver," suggested Dick, willing to accept
+a theory of less valuable metal.  "Or diamonds!" and his eyes gleamed
+as he overmatched his brother's guess.
+
+"Nothing doin!" laughed Bud.  "Of course there are silver mines not far
+from here, down Mexico way, and diamonds have been found in the United
+States, but not around this locality."
+
+"Well, what's your theory?" asked Nort of the more experienced boy
+rancher.  "Here we've been gassing along, saying what we thought, and
+we don't know any of the ins and outs of the matter.  You're right on
+the ground, and you've lived here all your life, so you ought to have
+some idea of what it all means."
+
+"But I don't!" exclaimed Bud.  "Wish I did," he added, as he joined his
+cousins on foot, walking about the debris of the camp, while the ponies
+sniffed, here and there, sometimes finding a choice morsel which they
+daintily lipped before eating.
+
+"You'd say they were hunting for something, wouldn't you?" asked Nort.
+
+"Yes, I'd go that far," admitted Bud.
+
+"And they didn't find it," put in Dick.
+
+"What makes you think so?" asked the young rancher quickly.
+
+"Well, there isn't any hole, or any excavation, where they could have
+taken out a treasure chest, or bags of hidden gold; not to say mined
+gold," went on Dick.  "In all the stories of recovered treasure I ever
+read, they always left a hole where they took out the stuff.  There
+isn't any hole like that here, though there's enough to show that
+plenty of digging went on."
+
+"I don't believe they've been after any gold, or anything like that,"
+declared Bud.  "That professor man said so, but----"
+
+"But was he telling the truth?" asked Nort.  "That's what we got to
+figure on."
+
+"I s'pose," agreed Bud.  "And from what I know of the country and
+sizing up this outfit, I'd say he was--they aren't after gold."
+
+"What then?" asked Dick.  "A man--two men like Professor Blair and
+Professor Wright don't hire an outfit such as they had, and prospect
+for nothing!"
+
+"You are right," quietly agreed Bud.  "They're after something, but I
+reckon it's something we don't know anything about."
+
+"Maybe they were trying to run off some of your cattle, or some steers
+from the Circle T," suggested Nort.  "Cattle rustlers; eh, Bud?"
+
+"If they're cattle rustlers they're a new kind," said the ranch boy.
+"But of course it's possible.  It may be they've gone into cattle
+rustling on a new scale, to throw everybody off the track, and finding
+out we were on to their curves, or maybe on account of having a fight
+among themselves, they couldn't turn the trick."
+
+"That's right!" exclaimed Nort, in his impulsive way.  "Maybe instead
+of being attacked by Greasers and Indians, who thought they could get
+some gold, the professor's bunch had a fight among themselves, and
+that's how those two men got hurt."
+
+"It's possible," admitted Bud.  "But, as Zip Foster would say, I don't
+believe that's the right of it either."
+
+"Would Zip Foster know what all this meant?" asked Dick, waving his
+hand toward the deserted camp.
+
+"Maybe," murmured Bud, turning quickly aside.  "But there's no use
+staying here any longer.  We can't learn anything here.  Might as well
+get back to the ranch.  If you fellows are ever going to learn to throw
+a rope, you've got to do some practicing."
+
+"What's the matter with doing it here?" asked Dick.  "We've got ropes
+with us."
+
+To each saddle was looped the cowboy's most dependable friend aside
+from his horse and his gun--the ever-present lariat.  Bud was an
+accomplished swinger of the rope, and Dick and Nort had been practicing
+hard since coming to Diamond X.
+
+"Yes, we can try a few throws here," said Bud, as he walked toward his
+horse.  "I'll sit up here and watch you two," he went on, as he leaped
+to his saddle, and pulled up his pony which had, as was usual, started
+off the moment he felt a weight on his back.  "I can see you better up
+here," Bud went on.  "Try it standing first.  Tackle some of those
+stumps, and for cat's sake remember to keep your palms up when you
+shoot the rope out.  You'll never be accurate until you do."
+
+The brothers tried, one after the other, and Bud encouraged them by
+saying that they were improving.
+
+"Now you show us," begged Nort, when his arm began to ache, for
+throwing a long coiled rope is no easy task.
+
+"All right," agreed Bud.  "But I'll try it from the saddle.  It comes
+more natural to me that way, and nine times out of ten you do all your
+roping from the saddle.  Of course this isn't regular, for you don't
+generally rope standing objects," he went on.  "Sock isn't used to
+that, and he expects a pull on the rope after I fling it.  But I'll try
+for that stump you fellows have been mistreating," and Bud laughed.
+
+He rode Sock, his pinto pony, off a little way, coiling his rope in
+readiness as he did so.  Then, wheeling quickly, and with a wild,
+inspiring "Yip-yippi!" the young rancher came riding fast toward a low,
+broad stump the two other lads had, more or less successfully, been
+trying to rope.
+
+His right hand shot out, palm up, his cousins noticed, and the rope
+went twisting and turning through the air, lengthening out like a long,
+thin snake, and almost hissing like one.  Instinctively, as though
+roping a steer, Bud prepared himself for the pull that always followed.
+
+Sock, the intelligent pony, braced his feet to hold back as soon as he
+sensed that Bud had thrown the rope.  For Sock had been taught that he
+must always do this when a steer was being roped, and though he could
+distinguish between a stump and an animal, Bud's action seemed to call
+for co-operation on Sock's part.
+
+The coils of the lariat whirled through the air, and, just as they were
+about to settle over the stump, there was a sudden movement in a
+leaf-filled hole beside the remains of what had once been a big tree.
+
+Up out of this burrow, or hole, where he had been lying asleep among
+dried leaves and grass that concealed him from the boys, rose a human
+figure.  He was so close to the stump and he rose up in such a manner
+leaning slightly over, as if dazed from too sudden awakening from a
+sound slumber, that he received the noose of Bud's rope fairly about
+his shoulders!
+
+So suddenly did the man appear, popping out of the hole beside the
+stump like a Jack in the Box, that Sock was startled, and pranced back,
+exactly as he would have done in order to drag a refractory steer off
+its feet.  And this was just what took place with the man.
+
+The noose tightened about his middle and he was dragged over the flat
+top of the stump, yelling and shouting in protest.
+
+Nort and Dick did not know what to think--whether it was an accident,
+or a bit of play arranged for their benefit by their cousin.  But a
+look at Bud's face was enough to convince them that he was as much
+surprised as were they.
+
+There was a series of shrill yells of protest from the roped
+man--shrill language which Nort and Dick recognized as Mexican-Spanish,
+and then, as Bud stopped his pony, and the rope loosened, the man stood
+up.  He scowled at the boys--a menacing figure of a Greaser, dirty and
+unkempt.
+
+"Del Pinzo!" gasped Bud, as he recognized the fellow.  "Del Pinzo!  I
+didn't know you were near that stump!"
+
+The man's answer was a deeper scowl, and his hand went toward the
+holster at his hip--a holster that Nort and Dick noted with relief was
+empty.  For Del Pinzo's gun had fallen out as he was dragged by Bud's
+lasso from the hole beside the stump where he had been hiding.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BAD BUSINESS
+
+"My mistake, Del Pinzo!  My mistake!" exclaimed Bud, smiling as
+good-naturedly as possible under the circumstances.  The young rancher
+leaped from Sock (so called because he had one white foot that looked
+exactly as if he had on a sock) and approached the Mexican, who had
+begun to loosen the lariat from around his body.
+
+"I sure didn't know you were there, Del Pinzo," went on Bud,
+soothingly.  "I was just showing these tenderfeet how to throw a rope,
+_pronto_,--when up you sprout, and get the benefit of it.  Hope I
+didn't ruffle you any?" asked Bud.
+
+"Hum!  Too much _pronto_!" muttered the man, but his face lost some of
+its scowl as he realized it had been an accident.
+
+"What's _pronto_?" whispered Dick to Nort, noting that his brother had
+half drawn his gun, though there was no need of this action.
+
+"Means quick," translated Bud, who overheard the question.  "I was a
+little too quick with my rope.  But I didn't know anybody was behind
+that stump."
+
+"Nor I," said Dick, while Bud began gathering in the length of his
+lariat.
+
+"I--sleep!" said the Mexican; with some of the gutturalness of the
+Indian.  "No got a right to sleep?" he asked, half sarcastically, as he
+recovered his gun from where it had slipped from its holster.
+
+"Sure you got a right to sleep," admitted Bud cheerfully.  "This isn't
+Diamond X land, nor yet Double Z," he added, with a quick glance
+around.  "Not that you wouldn't have a right to take a snooze if it
+_was_ Diamond X," Bud went on.  "Well, I reckon we'll mosey along," he
+said slowly, making a sign to Dick and Nort to mount their ponies.
+"Got to get back to the ranch."
+
+"Um!" was all the remark Del Pinzo made as he brushed himself off.
+Bather a useless proceeding it would appear, for he was always dirty
+and unkempt to the last degree.
+
+"Who is he?" asked Dick of Bud as the three boy ranchers rode along the
+homeward trail, now out of earshot of the man Bud had so
+unceremoniously roped.
+
+"Oh, he's a sort of Mexican half breed," was the answer.  "Not very
+safe to have on the range during round-up."
+
+"Why not?" asked Nort, as he turned to catch a last glimpse of the
+Mexican slinking off amid the foothills.
+
+"Well, he and his kind don't stop to look at the brand on a steer if
+they happen to feel hungry," explained Bud.  "They'll cut one out of
+the herd, or appropriate a maverick, or an unbranded calf, and feast up
+on it.  They'll skin it, salt down the hide after they blur the brand,
+and get away with it."
+
+"What's blurring a brand?" asked Dick.
+
+"Putting a hot iron on it over the brand that's already there,"
+explained Bud.  "Some brands can be changed from one to another without
+much trouble, but when this can't be done a cattle thief will simply
+make a botch of the brand, and it's a pretty slick ranchman who will
+swear, out of hundreds of steers and calves, that any particular one is
+his, if he can't make out the brand or earmarks clearly."
+
+"Earmarks?" questioned Nort.
+
+"Sometimes we clip a piece out of a calf's ear," explained Bud, "as
+well as branding 'em.  Each ranchman has his own particular earmark for
+his cattle.  But either may be botched or blurred by a thief if he's
+cute enough."
+
+"And does this Del Pinzo do that?" asked Nort, a little thrilled at
+having been in such close association with a cattle thief.
+
+"I wouldn't put it past him, and the gang he hangs out with," Bud
+answered.  "Maybe that's what he was up to when I roped him."
+
+"Where does he hang out?" asked Dick.
+
+"He's supposed to work on the Double Z ranch--Hank Fisher's place," was
+the reply.  "And Hank doesn't bear any too good a reputation around
+here."
+
+"Maybe he was one of the men the professors hired, and who afterward
+turned against them," suggested Dick.
+
+"Maybe," assented Bud.  "I'd like to know what that camp meant," he
+murmured as he rode on with his cousins.
+
+"If they aren't after gold, they're after something, and they're making
+a secret of it," declared Nort.  "And meeting Professor Wright the
+night an attempt was made to steal some of your cattle, Bud, makes it
+look as if the whole outfit might be trying to rustle off stock."
+
+"Yes, it might, and again it might not," said the western lad.  "I'd
+hate to think two decent-looking men, like Professor Blair and
+Professor Wright, would be cattle thieves.  But you never can tell.
+Their learned appearance may be all bluff.  I'd sooner think it was Del
+Pinzo and his gang.  But he may be working with the professors.
+Anyhow, they haven't got away with anything yet, and they won't if
+dad's boys keep their eyes open.  Only I would like to solve the
+mystery of that camp," and he looked back toward the deserted one,
+where some strange excavations had been made.
+
+"Maybe we can trail 'em and find where they've gone," suggested Dick.
+
+"Oh, we could find 'em if we wanted to," said Bud.  "An outfit like
+that can't travel along in a ranch country and not leave a trail like
+an old buffalo wallow.  But will it be worth while--that's the
+question?  We'll soon be busy with the round-up at Diamond X, and no
+time for trailing mysteries."
+
+"Well, the round-up won't last forever," said Nort, "and when it's over
+we can see what all this means.  It'll be a pack of fun!"
+
+"It sure will!" agreed his brother, "and we can stay here till snow
+flies."
+
+"And then you'll want to hit the trail for home," laughed Bud.  "Though
+we don't get as severe storms as they do farther north, nor do they
+come so early.  But it's bad enough, sometimes."
+
+"What's that?" suddenly asked Dick, rising in his stirrups and pointing
+to two or three figures of horsemen, down in a little swale, or valley.
+They were evidently engaged in some lively occupation, for they were
+riding rapidly to and fro, and from a fire, about which knelt three
+figures, a curl of smoke arose.
+
+"They're stealing some of your cattle now!" cried Nort.  "Come on!
+We'll capture 'em!"
+
+He spurred his horse forward, an act instinctively followed by his
+brother.  Bud, too, rode after them at a fast pace, but there was a
+smile on his countenance.
+
+"Keep your shirts on, fellows!" he advised.  "That's only some of the
+Diamond X outfit branding stray calves they come across.  But it'll
+give you a chance to see how it's done."
+
+Riding rapidly across the open plains, where, here and there as they
+topped little hills the boys could see cattle grazing, the boy ranchers
+approached the group in the swale.  After a quick inspection of the
+oncomers, the cowboys about the fire went on with what they were doing.
+
+Two of them held down on the ground a struggling calf, while the
+cow-mother of the little beast, lowing and shaking her head, endeavored
+to break past two other cowboys who were heading her away from the
+scene of the branding operations.
+
+For that is what was going on.  Some of the Diamond X cowboys had come
+upon an unbranded calf with its mother as they rode across the
+prairies.  As they were on their employer's land they knew the unmarked
+animal must belong to him, and it ought to be at once permanently
+identified as Mr. Merkel's property.
+
+It was the work of but a moment for one of the cowboys to lasso the
+little bawling creature, and drag it to where he wanted it.
+
+While some of the cowboys held the calf, not taking the time to "hog
+tie" the creature, others headed off the frantic cow-mother.  Then a
+fire was made of greasewood twigs, and the branding iron, which one of
+the cowboys carried at his saddle, was put in the flames to heat.  When
+hot enough it was pressed on the flank of the calf, burning into the
+hair and slightly into the hide, the diamond with the X in the
+centre--the mark of Bud's father's cattle.
+
+As the men released the calf, it staggered to its feet, uttered a
+feeble bawl or two, and ran to its mother, who at once began to lick
+with her tongue the branded place.
+
+"Where you headin', Bud?" asked Yellin' Kid Watson, one of the cowboys
+who had been engaged in the impromptu branding operations.
+
+"Headin' home," answered the rancher's son.
+
+"Then you haven't heard the news?" asked Snake Purdee.
+
+"What news?" asked Bud, while Nort and Dick listened eagerly.
+
+"Bad business," went on Yellin' Kid.  "A lot of your dad's choice stock
+was run off from the far range a while ago.  Tar Blake just rode in and
+give notice.  Bad business!"
+
+"I should say so!" agreed Bud.  "Who did it; Greasers or some of that
+outfit?" and he motioned back to the camp he and his cousins had just
+left.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+RIDING HERD
+
+Yellin' Kid, Snake and the other cowboys stamped out the brands of the
+grease-wood fire, coiled their lariats and mounted their ponies before
+anyone answered Bud's question.  He did not repeat it, knowing the
+character of the men to whom he was speaking.  Then, as Old Billie
+Dobb, who might have been a foreman a dozen times over if he had only
+proved more reliable, spoke up and said:
+
+"We don't know who did it, Bud; an' your paw don't neither!  Tar just
+rid in with th' news, as we rid out to do some fence mendin'.  We
+wanted to stop an' hear th' particulars, but your paw said for us to
+mosey over this way, an' we done so.  He said if we seen you boys to
+send you home."
+
+"We're heading that way," Bud answered.  "We were just over to the camp
+where they had trouble the other night, but they've vamoosed."
+
+"Can't see what they ever come here for," spoke Yellin' Kid.  "An' it
+wouldn't s'prise me a bit if them fellers proved to be the cattle
+rustlers."
+
+"Nor me," declared Nort, impulsively, thus drawing attention to himself.
+
+"Well, you know all we do, Bud," spoke Billie Dobb.  "Maybe your paw'll
+have more news by th' time you get there.  Tell him you met us an' that
+we'll be back as soon as we find th' break an' fix it.  It's a big
+bust, the report has it, an' he don't want th' cattle to stampede out."
+
+"All right, we're going," declared Bud.  "Come on, fellows," he called
+to his cousins, and they galloped away toward the ranch headquarters,
+while the cowboys rode on their way, Yellin' Kid singing at the top of
+his voice.  The boy ranchers passed the newly branded calf, its mother
+still licking the burned place, but the little creature did not seem
+much to mind what had happened, for it was eating grass.
+
+"Who broke the fence?" asked Nort, as he and Dick rode along on either
+side of Bud, whose horsemanship they were trying to imitate.
+
+"Hard to say," was the answer.  "Sometimes it's Greasers, and again
+Indians, who hope to get a few cattle in the confusion if a herd gets
+out.  Then again something may have frightened the cattle themselves,
+and in a rush they may have broken through.  Generally it's the cattle
+themselves, and then we have to rush a bunch of cowboys to mend the
+break, some of 'em stringing new wire while others keep the steers,
+cows and calves from coming out on the open range."
+
+"Say, there's been a lot of excitement since we came here!" declared
+Nort, his eyes shining in delight at the prospect of more.
+
+"Oh, there's always more or less going on like this," said Bud.  "If it
+isn't one thing it's another, though I must say we haven't had anything
+like those queer professors in some time."
+
+"I'd like to know what their game really is," remarked Dick.
+
+"So would I!" exclaimed his more impulsive brother.  "And I'd like to
+catch 'em at it when I had my gun loaded," and he tapped significantly
+the .45 on his hip.
+
+"Don't be too fast with gun play," advised Bud calmly.  "You'll find,
+if you ever become a rancher, that you'll use more powder on coyotes,
+rattlers and in driving cattle the way you want 'em to go, than you
+will on humans.  There isn't so much shooting out here as the writers
+of some books would make out."
+
+"Well, if there's only a little, I'll be satisfied," said Nort.
+
+They reached the headquarters of Diamond X ranch without mishap, save
+that Dick's pony stepped into a prairie dog's hole, and threw his rider
+over his head.  But Dick was rather stout, and cushioned with flesh as
+he was, a severe shaking-up was all the harm he suffered.
+
+"They're nasty things at night--prairie dogs' burrows," said Bud.  "But
+mostly a pony can see 'em in time to side-step.  Yours just
+didn't--that's all."
+
+"Yes, he--didn't!" laughed Dick, as he climbed back into the saddle.
+
+There was enough excitement at Diamond X ranch to please even excitable
+Nort.  As the other cowboys had said, one of Mr. Merkel's men from a
+distant ranch--Square M, to be exact--had ridden in to report that
+during the early morning hours several head of choice steers, that were
+being gotten ready for a rising market, had been driven off by
+rustlers.  Leaving his companions in charge of the remaining cattle,
+Tar Blake--who got his name from his very black whiskers--had ridden to
+headquarters to give the alarm.
+
+"Well, we'll see if we can trail these scoundrels!" declared Mr.
+Merkel, as Bud and his cousins rode up.
+
+"Can't we go, dad?" asked Bud, as eagerly as Nort would have spoken.
+"Maybe it's the bunch from the queer professors' camp.  Let us trail
+along!"
+
+"Nope!" was the short answer from Mr. Merkel.  "I've got other plans
+for you," he added quickly, and in a tone that took the sting out of
+his refusal.  "You'll have plenty of excitement," he went on, "so don't
+look so down in the mouth, son.  Get something to eat, and then pack
+your outfit for a few days.  You've got to ride herd, while I pull in
+as many men as I can spare to trail these rustlers."
+
+"What herd, dad?" asked Bud.  "Over by Square M?" and he named the
+ranch where the thieving had taken place that morning.
+
+"No, I want you to help haze that bunch from Triangle B over to the
+railroad yard.  They've been showing signs of uneasiness, and I don't
+want 'em to bolt when they're on the last stretch.  You'll find 'em
+over by the bend.  Ride there, and tell Charlie Smith and Hen Wagner to
+come in.  You'll relieve them.  Dirk Blanchard will be with you, and so
+will Chot Ramsey, and you three ought to be able to bed 'em down
+to-night.  Drive 'em along easy.  Dirk knows how to do it, and there's
+plenty of water along the way.  Don't hurry 'em; if you do they'll work
+off all their fat, and beef is too high now to waste it by running it
+off the hoof.  Mosey along now!" and the ranchman turned from Bud to
+give other orders.
+
+Nort and Dick, with one accord, started forward, but their cousin
+anticipated their appeal.
+
+"Can't Nort and Dick come with me, dad?" asked Bud.
+
+"Sure thing--if they want to," answered Mr. Merkel.
+
+"As if we wouldn't want to!" murmured Nort.  "Oh, boy!"
+
+"Say!  It'll be great--riding herd!" exclaimed Dick.
+
+Several hours later found the boy ranchers within sight of the four
+hundred or more steers and cows they were to guard, and gradually head
+over to the railroad stock yards, whence they would be shipped to a
+distant city, there to be sold to the profit of Mr. Merkel.
+
+"Whoop-ee!" came a distant hail from one of the cowboys left to guard
+the Triangle B cattle.
+
+"Zip-sippy!" yelled Bud in answer, and a little later he was
+introducing his cousins to the cowboys.
+
+"Oh, boy!  Rustlers!" cried Charlie Smith, when informed that he and
+Hen Wagner were to form part of the pursuing posse.
+
+"Just my rotten luck, I have to stay here!" complained Dirk, while
+Chot, to voice his disapproval of having to remain behind, slapped his
+pony with his hat and rode off over the prairie, only to return as fast
+as he went.  It was his way of letting off steam.
+
+The two cowboys, who were to join the bunch from Diamond X ranch,
+departed in haste, and then Bud and his cousins made preparations for
+spending several nights and days in the open, riding herd and hazing
+the cattle to their destination.
+
+It was the season of warm nights, as well as days, though there was a
+certain coolness after dark.  No tents were set up.  Each man, or boy,
+was provided with a canvas tarpaulin, which was all the protection
+needed.  The prairie itself would be their beds, their saddles their
+pillows and the grass a combination mattress and spring.  They had
+packed enough food with them, and, if needed, a calf could be killed
+and eaten.  There were water holes in plenty--in fact, they could live
+off the land.
+
+Over a fire of greasewood, while the hobbled ponies rolled on the
+ground, the bacon was soon sizzling and the coffee brewing.
+
+"Gosh, but I'm hungry!" cried Nort.
+
+"You said something!" declared his brother, while Bud and the others
+smiled at the fresh enthusiasm of the easterners.
+
+There was really not much to do after darkness had settled down, for
+the cattle were comparatively quiet, and after a full day of eating the
+sweet grass, having drunk their fill of water, they were content to lie
+under the silent stars.
+
+But in order that none of the steers might start to stray away, and
+start a stampede, also in order that no thieves might sneak up in the
+darkness and "cut out" choice cattle, by this very operation also
+starting a panic, it was necessary to "ride herd."
+
+That is, the cowboys, of whom Nort and Dick now counted themselves two,
+took turns in slowly riding around the bunched cattle during the night
+hours.  As the early hours were always the ones when it was most likely
+trouble would happen, the two veteran cowboys volunteered for this
+service, leaving Bud and his cousins to make their beds, such as they
+were, near the little fire.  The boy ranchers would relieve the others
+after midnight.
+
+So, wrapped in their tarpaulins, their heads resting on their saddles,
+and their feet to the fire, the three boys looked up at the silent
+stars.  They talked in low voices at first, for the voice of man is
+soothing to cattle.  Now and then some cow lowed, or a steer snorted or
+bellowed.  But, in the main, the animals were silent.  And to this
+state Bud and his cousins soon came, for they were tired with their
+rather long ride late that afternoon.
+
+"I wonder if any rustlers will come here?" spoke Dick to his brother,
+when Bud's regular breathing told that he had fallen asleep.
+
+"Don't know--wish they would," Nort answered, half drowsily.
+
+"Well, I'm ready for 'em," murmured Dick, as he felt of his gun where
+it lay in its holster at his side, though he had loosened his belt to
+lie down.
+
+The night became more silent and colder.  The two other cowboys were on
+the far side of the herd now, working around in opposite circles,
+meeting and passing one another.  It would soon be time for them to
+turn in, and Bud and his cousins to turn out.
+
+Nort was turning over to get into a more comfortable position, when he
+heard something hiss through the air with a swishing sound.  For an
+instant he thought of rattlesnakes, but almost at once it was borne to
+his mind that he had heard this sound before--the swish of a lariat
+through the air.
+
+He sat up quickly, straining his eyes in the direction of the sound.
+Just then a piece of the greasewood burned up brightly, and revealed to
+Nort this sight.
+
+From somewhere in the darkness, beyond the circle of light, a lariat
+had coiled in among the lads.  And as Nort looked, the coils settled
+over the head of his brother Dick.  Before Nort could cry a warning, or
+scramble from under his tarpaulin, the rope tightened and Dick was
+pulled from his resting place near the fire out into the darkness, his
+frightened yells awakening the echoes, and startling the cattle into
+uneasy action.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE ATTEMPT FOILED
+
+It was only a moment that surprise held Nort motionless, sitting up
+there by the small fire of greasewood twigs, with the bunch of cattle
+moving uneasily in the darkness.  Then, with a yell that had in it both
+warning and encouragement, Nort scrambled to his feet and made a grab
+for Dick, who was being dragged off in the loop of a lariat, the other
+end being manipulated by some one unseen.
+
+"Hold it, Dick!  Hold it!" cried Nort, as, many a time he had thus
+shouted encouragement to his brother on the football field.  "Hold it!"
+
+But Dick was unable to do this.  Taken at a disadvantage, awakened from
+a half-sleep as he was, and dragged from a fairly comfortable bed, he
+was puzzled and confused, not to say frightened.
+
+But he was capable of yelling, and this he did to the best of his
+ability.
+
+"Here!  Quit that!  Let up!  What you doing?" shouted Dick, for, as he
+said afterward, he thought it was one of the cowboys playing a trick on
+him, hazing a tenderfoot, perhaps, though Dick proudly imagined that he
+was fast graduating from that class.
+
+The yells of the two brothers naturally awakened Bud who, being more
+used to sleeping in the open than were his cousins, had almost at once
+gone soundly to sleep.  But it did not take the young rancher long to
+rouse himself.
+
+"What's the matter?  What's going on?" shouted Bud, and Nort had a
+glimpse of his cousin with his gun in his hand.  This reminded Nort
+that he had left his weapon under his tarpaulin, and he made a dash to
+get it, mentally blaming himself for not proving more true to his idea
+of the traditions of the West, and having his revolver always with him.
+
+With a quick motion of his foot, Bud shoved some unburned sticks of
+greasewood into the blaze.  They flared up, and the young ranchman
+wheeled quickly, and tried to pierce the gloom into which Dick had been
+dragged.
+
+But that lad had not been idle during this strenuous time.  He had felt
+the lariat tightening about the upper part of his body, and he had let
+out a frightened yell.  But he had done more than yell.  He had grasped
+the rope with both hands, in a quick, upward motion, and had succeeded
+in slipping it off, over his head, a task he would have been unable to
+perform had his enemy had daylight in his favor.  But, as it was, Dick
+succeeded in escaping the noose.
+
+"Who is it?  Who did that?" yelled Dick, as he managed to get to his
+feet, and staggered back toward his tarpaulin, evidently with the
+intention of seeking his gun.
+
+But there came no answer out of the gloom.
+
+Bud and Nort hurried over to Dick, who was rather dazed and ruffled up
+from the experience he had undergone.
+
+"Hurt?" asked Nort, quickly.
+
+"Not to speak of," answered Dick.  "Was that one of the boys?" he
+asked, turning to Bud.
+
+"One of our cowboys?  No, they don't do such things," was the answer.
+"It must have been----"
+
+He was interrupted by the rapid thuds of hoofs and, an instant later,
+there dashed into the circle of light Dirk and Chot, two of the men who
+had been left when the others rode away to get on the trail of the
+rustlers.
+
+"What's the matter?" exclaimed Dirk, reining in his pony so suddenly
+that the animal slid with his forefeet almost in the embers of the fire.
+
+"Somebody tried to rope Dick," answered Bud.  "I didn't see it, but I
+had a glimpse of him being dragged off on the end of a lariat."
+
+"I saw it come shooting in from out there," and Nort waved his hand
+toward the darkness.
+
+"I _felt_ it!" grimly declared Dick.  "I just managed to slip it off in
+time."
+
+"You were lucky," commented Chot.  "Let's see who it was," he added.
+"Couldn't have been any of our lads," he said in a low voice.  "I've
+known 'em to do such tricks, but not at a time like this.  Might have
+been some fresh puncher from Double Z, but if it was----"
+
+"Come on!" interrupted Dirk, satisfied from a glance that no harm had
+befallen Dick.  Dirk wheeled his horse and rode off into the darkness,
+in the direction where the end of the lariat had disappeared, when the
+unseen thrower had pulled it to him after Dick's escape.
+
+The two cowboys, who had been on the far side of the herd, had ridden
+hurriedly in on hearing the cries of the startled boys.  And now they
+rushed off in the darkness, trying to find out who it was that had
+displayed such evil intentions.
+
+For it was a desperate thing to do.  A little higher up and the rope
+would have encircled Dick's neck, and it would have taken only a short
+time of pulling him across the ground to have choked him.  He, himself,
+did not realize his danger until later.
+
+For a few moments, after the arrival of Dirk and Chot from the far side
+of the resting herd, and their subsequent dash off into the darkness,
+Bud, Nort and Dick did nothing.  They stood there around the greasewood
+fire, trying to understand clearly what had happened.
+
+Then, from the herd of cattle came unmistakable signs of some
+disturbance.  There were snorts and bellows, the mooing of cows and the
+stamping of hoofs.  At the same time, from the far side, whence Dirk
+and Chot had ridden in, there came the murmur of voices.
+
+"Rustlers!" cried Bud, understanding at once what it all meant now.
+"Dirk!  Chot!  Come on back!  The rustlers are here!  It's a trick!
+Come on back!"
+
+"Rustlers!" exclaimed Nort.
+
+"Yes!" shouted Bud.  "That's their game!  They tried to scare us so
+they could work in from the other side, and run off a bunch of steers.
+Dirk!  Chot!" he cried again, making a megaphone of his hands, and
+sending his cry out into the night.
+
+"Whoo-oop!" came faintly back to the boys, and then the thud of rapidly
+moving hoofs mingled with the movement of the cattle.  For the steers
+and cows that were being hazed to the railroad yard were now in motion.
+
+"Put some more wood on!" cried Bud.  "If they stampede this way it may
+hold 'em back!"
+
+"Will they stampede?" asked Dick.
+
+"No telling.  Somebody's in among 'em, over on that side, trying to cut
+out a bunch.  We've got to held 'em in if we can!  Get on your ponies!"
+
+It was the work of but a few seconds to do this.  The ponies had been
+staked out not far from the fire, which was now burning brightly from
+the amount of greasewood piled on it.  Bud was first in the saddle, but
+his cousins were not far behind him.
+
+And, as they mounted, and started to ride around the herd, to hold the
+now frightened and uneasy animals in check, Dirk and Chot galloped in
+out of the distant darkness.
+
+"What's the matter?" shouted Dirk.
+
+"Rustlers!" yelled Bud.  "They tried that lasso stunt to draw you in
+from the far side, and now they're over there trying to cut out some
+steers."
+
+"Well, I guess we'll have something to say about that!" grimly observed
+Chot.  "Come on!"
+
+Clapping spurs to his pony, he and Dirk began the work of milling the
+cattle--that is, getting them to move around in a circle rather than
+dash off in a straight line stampede.  This turning of the herd, into a
+circular instead of a straight movement, is the only way to save the
+lives of the animals, or prevent them from being driven off by thieves.
+
+Dick and Nort had been on Diamond X ranch long enough to understand
+what was being attempted, and they joined with Bud in the work.  As
+Chot and Dirk rode back to take the stations they had left, firing
+their guns and shouting to turn the leaders, Bud and his cousins did
+the same in their locality.
+
+As yet they had caught no sight of the rustlers, but it was very
+evident that these unscrupulous men were at work, trying to drive off
+some of the valuable animals, all fattened and ready for market.
+Confused shouts came from the direction where Chot and Dirk had ridden.
+
+"Lively, boys!  Lively!" cried Bud to the two easterners, and he fired
+his gun in the air as he rode toward the cattle that seemed inclined to
+dash past the circle of firelight.
+
+Following their cousin, Dick and Nort dashed in, also firing, and the
+five cowboys--for Dick and Nort were now entitled to be called
+that--finally succeeded in milling the cattle, and preventing the
+stampede.
+
+But it was hard work and it was nearly morning before the steers were
+quieted down after the excitement.  The attempt of the rustlers had
+been foiled, for that time at least.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE STAMPEDE
+
+"Well, what do you make of it?" asked Bud of Dirk and Chot, when all
+five had the first moment of respite from the strenuous work of
+quieting the excited cattle.  They had met near the fire, which was
+only glowing dully, now that its flame was not needed to head off the
+steers.
+
+"Don't just know what to say," answered the older cowboy.  "It all came
+so sudden."
+
+"There must be two bands of rustlers around here," observed Chot.
+"That is, unless those your dad is after, Bud, gave him the slip and
+tried to operate here."
+
+"Maybe there's only one gang, divided up for the night," suggested Nort.
+
+"Well, of course it's only guesswork," stated Bud, "but I think this
+was an altogether different gang trying to put one over on us.  And
+another thing--it was a Greaser who roped Dick."
+
+"A Greaser!" cried Chot.  "What makes you think so?"
+
+"I had a glimpse of the noose," said Bud.  "It wasn't tied the way any
+cow puncher ties his.  It was a Greaser or I'll never speak to Zip
+Foster again!"
+
+"Oh, you and your Zip Foster!" scoffed Chot.  "But it may be that it
+was a sneakin' Mex trying his hand with the rope.  You didn't see him,
+did you?" and he turned to Dick.
+
+"No.  The first I knew I was being snaked off, and I was mighty scared."
+
+"Naturally," said Dirk dryly.  He wanted to let the tenderfoot know
+that it was not considered unmanly to show signs of fear under the
+circumstances.
+
+"Did you get a look at 'em, Chot?" asked Bud, turning to the cowboys.
+"I mean when you rode out there just before they tried to stampede us."
+
+"Didn't see hide nor hair of 'em," was the answer.
+
+"Well, they didn't get away with what they started after," declared
+Dirk.  "And now, since it's so near morning, there isn't much use
+turning in until we have something to eat."
+
+"I'll make coffee and sizzle some bacon," offered Bud, for he realized
+that he and his cousins had had some rest during the fore part of the
+night, while the cowboys were riding herd before the disturbance
+happened.
+
+"And can't we circle around the cattle?" asked Nort.
+
+"We could keep 'em quiet while you ate," suggested Dick.
+
+"They seem to be fairly quiet now," remarked Dirk, "but it wouldn't do
+any harm to circle around 'em.  If you have trouble, though," he added
+quickly, "fire your guns."
+
+"We will!" exclaimed Nort, as he and Dick sprang for their horses.  The
+boy ranchers were eager thus to take their first tour of duty alone,
+and they were much disappointed when nothing happened.  The steers were
+quiet, after their tiresome racing around in a circle.  But that was
+better than having them stampede, with the possible killing of many.
+
+Slowly the light grew in the east, turning from pale gray to rose
+tints, and then the sun came up, making the dew-laden grass sparkle
+brightly.  The cattle, many of which had been lying down, got up, rear
+ends first, which is what always distinguishes the manner of a "cow
+critter" arising from that of a horse.
+
+Across the range blew wisps of smoke from the greasewood camp fire, and
+then came the smell of bacon and coffee, than which there is no aroma
+more to be desired in the world.
+
+"Um!" murmured Nort, sniffing the air.
+
+"Isn't that great?" cried his brother.
+
+"It will be, if we can get some," said Nort, chuckling.
+
+But he need not have worried, for, a few minutes later, there floated
+to the ears of the boy ranchers the call of Bud:
+
+"Come an' get it!"
+
+The cattle, around which they had been slowly riding, needed no
+attention now, and in a short time the five cowboys--for Nort and Dick
+could truly be called by this name now--were eating an early breakfast.
+
+"One good thing came out of this fracas, anyhow," observed Chot, as he
+passed his plate for more flapjacks and bacon, and replenished his tin
+cup with coffee.
+
+"What's that?" asked Dick, feeling his neck where the rough rope had
+broken the skin slightly.
+
+"Well, we'll get an early start," answered the cowboy, "and that's a
+lot when you're hazing steers to the railroad.  Every pound counts for
+the boss, and you can easily run off a thousand dollars by driving 'em
+along during the heat of the day.  We can let 'em rest at noon if we
+start now."
+
+"That's the idea," said Bud.
+
+A little later, the remains of the camp fire having been carefully
+stamped out, to prevent dry grass from catching, packs were slung up
+behind the saddles--said packs consisting of sleeping canvas, a few
+utensils and grub--and the start was made.
+
+The cattle were gradually headed in the direction it was desired that
+they should take--the shortest route to the railroad.  Nort rode up
+ahead with Chot, while Dick, Bud and Dirk kept to the rear to haze
+along the stragglers.
+
+There was not much trouble.  The cattle had been watered and fed, and
+were in prime condition.  At noon a halt was made to save the animals
+during the excessive heat, but toward evening they started off once
+more, and traveled until darkness fell.  Camp was made again out in the
+open.
+
+During the day no signs were seen of any rustlers, or other suspicious
+characters, and at night the young ranchers and the older cowboys took
+turns riding herd and standing guard.
+
+But nothing of moment occurred, the only sounds, aside from those made
+by the cattle themselves, being the unearthly yells and howls of the
+coyotes.
+
+In less than three days the bunch of cattle was safely delivered at the
+yards, where the responsibility of Bud and his companions ended, the
+buyer taking charge of them for shipment.
+
+"Did you get the rustlers, Dad?" asked Bud as he and his cousins, with
+Dirk and Chot, rode up to the ranch buildings after their successful
+trip.
+
+"No," answered Mr. Merkel, who was out waiting for his son and the
+others.  "They got clean away."
+
+"Did you see who they were?" asked Dirk.
+
+"Well, I have my suspicions," answered the ranchman.  "And I'm not
+through yet.  How'd you make out, boys?"
+
+They told him of the night scare and Dick's narrow escape, and the eyes
+of Bud's father glinted in anger.
+
+"Up to tricks like that, are they?" he exclaimed.  "Well, I'd like to
+catch 'em at it!"
+
+"Do you know what I think?" exclaimed Bud with energy.
+
+"Well, son, I can't say I do," spoke his father.  "You generally skip
+around so like a Jack rabbit, it's hard telling where you are.  But
+shoot!  What's your trouble?"
+
+"My trouble is," said Bud slowly, "that I don't know enough about those
+professors and their gang!"
+
+"The professors!" exclaimed Nort and Dick.
+
+"That's what I said," went on Bud.  "I think their pretended search for
+something is only a bluff.  They're high-grade cattle rustlers, that's
+what I think!"
+
+No one said anything for a few moments, and then Mr. Merkel remarked:
+
+"Well, maybe you're right, Bud.  Stranger things have happened.  It
+might pay us to trail these fellows.  Certainly there was something
+queer about them."
+
+"Mighty queer," agreed Bud.  "I began to suspect them after they tried
+to lasso Dick."
+
+"Do you think one of those men--Professor Wright or Professor
+Blair--tried to snake me off?" asked Dick.
+
+"Well, no, not one of them, personally," admitted Bud.  "They couldn't
+throw a rope over a molasses barrel.  But they set some one up to it,
+I'll say!"
+
+"Maybe," spoke Mr. Merkel musingly.  "We'll have a look at their trail,
+if we can pick it up.  But we've got a lot else to do first."
+
+Indeed Diamond X ranch was a busy place in those days.  Dick and Nort
+could not have come at a better time, and they were such apt pupils
+that they soon acquired many of the ways of the cowboys, who were
+willing and anxious to teach them.  In a comparatively short time the
+two "tenderfeet" were no longer called that.  They could shoot fairly
+well, though they were not "quick on the draw," and they were becoming
+more and more expert with the rope every day.
+
+It was about two weeks after their experience with the unknown user of
+the lariat that Bud and his cousins were sent to ride herd at the
+Square M ranch, which was one of Mr. Merkel's holdings.  He was
+planning to get a bunch of steers there ready for shipment, and a buyer
+was to come and look them over when they had been headed in from the
+open range to a large corral.  Bud and his cousins were to help drive
+the animals in.
+
+Square M ranch, so called because the brand was the letter M in a
+square, was a good two days' ride from Diamond X.  But the boys had a
+fine time going, and found plenty to do when they arrived.  Gradually
+the cattle were gathered up, and worked toward the corral.
+
+They were within a day's ride of this haven, when, one afternoon, as
+Bud, Dick and Nort were moving on ahead of the bunch, which was driven
+by several cowboys, Bud looked back and let out a yell.
+
+"What's the matter?" cried Nort.
+
+"Stampede!" was the answer, "Oh, boy!  Now look out for trouble!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+LOST
+
+Nort and Dick had heard and read so much about a cattle stampede, and
+heard such a calamity discussed at the ranch house so often, that they
+rather welcomed, than otherwise, the announcement that one was being
+staged near them.  This was before they realized the full import of it,
+and saw the danger.
+
+It was like a prairie fire--they had not realized it could be so
+terrible and menacing until they actually saw it.  And see it they did.
+
+There was needed but a quick backward glance to show that a great fear,
+or rage, which is almost the same, had entered into the three hundred
+steers (more or less) that were being driven onward.
+
+At one moment the cattle had been progressing in what might be termed
+orderly fashion.  Now and then a steer would try to break out of the
+line of march, only to be quickly hazed in again by one of the cowboys,
+or one of the trio of boy ranchers.  But now the whole herd had
+suddenly been galvanized into action, and that action took the form of
+running forward at top speed.
+
+It would not have been so bad, perhaps, if the stampede had started
+from in front.  If the forward ranks of cattle had begun to race
+onward, those behind would simply have followed, and there would
+gradually have been a slackening up.  Of course then there would have
+been some danger, for the front steers might have slowed down first,
+while those at the rear still came on, trampling under their sharp
+hoofs those who were unlucky enough to fall.
+
+But, as it happened, the fright had first seized on the rear bunches of
+cattle and these had started to run, charging in upon those in front of
+them, who, in turn, were hurled forward until now, a few seconds after
+Bud had shouted the alarm, the whole herd was in wild motion.
+
+"Come on!" yelled Bud.  "Ride for it!  Oh, zowie, boy!  Ride for it!
+Ride like Zip Foster would!" and with voice, reins and spurs he urged
+his pony forward.
+
+"What do you aim to do?" shouted Dick in his cousin's ear as the two
+thudded along side by side.
+
+"We've got to get far enough ahead so we can try to turn 'em!" yelled
+Bud.  "It's our only chance.  Ride straight ahead!"
+
+Nort spurred up alongside of his cousin and brother, and, as he did so
+he yelled:
+
+"What you s'pose started 'em off, Bud?"
+
+"Haven't any time to do any s'posin' now!" was the grim answer.  "Ride
+on and say your prayers that your pony doesn't step in a prairie dog's
+hole.  If he does--and you fall--good night!"
+
+The recent tenderfeet knew, without being told, what was meant.  To go
+down before a herd of wild cattle, infuriated because they were
+frightened, would mean sure death and in horrible form.
+
+As Nort looked back, to see what distance lay between himself and
+comrades, and the foremost of the herd, he saw several figures on
+horseback at one side of the running animals.  At first he imagined
+these were Diamond X cowboys who had been in the rear of the steers,
+and he thought they had ridden up to help the boy ranchers turn the
+stampeded animals.  But another look showed him the men who had been in
+the rear still in those positions, though they were spurring forward at
+top speed.
+
+"Look, Bud!" cried Nort.  He pointed to the four figures--there were no
+more than that--at the left of the galloping herd.
+
+"Rustlers--Greasers!" shouted Bud.  "They started this stampede!"
+
+"What for?" Dick wanted to know.  "They can't hope to run off any under
+our eyes, can they?"
+
+"They're doing it to get fresh meat!" declared Bud, who never ceased,
+all this while, to urge his pony forward, an example followed by his
+cousins with their horses.  "They think some steer, or maybe half a
+dozen, will fall and be trampled to death.  Then they'll have all the
+beef they can eat--for nothing.  They started this stampede, or I'll
+never speak to Zip Foster again."
+
+By this time, knowing Bud as they did, Nort and Dick had ceased to ask
+about the mysterious Zip Foster.  But Nort could not forego the
+question:
+
+"How'd they do it?"
+
+"Do what?" grunted Bud, as he skillfully turned his pony away from a
+prairie dog's hole.
+
+"Start this stampede."
+
+"Hanged if I know.  They might have been lying in wait for us to come
+along--hidden out on the range, and they may have all jumped up with
+whoops, waving their hats, and setting the steers off that way, when we
+didn't happen to be looking.  But that's where the disturbance came
+from all right!"
+
+With snorts, bellows and heavy breathing the steers came on.  Some were
+old Texas longhorns, but many of the cattle on the Diamond X ranch, and
+the adjacent possessions of Mr. Merkel, had been dehorned.  It was
+found that more animals could be packed in a car when they had no
+interfering horns, and the practice is becoming general of taking the
+horns off western stock.
+
+But even though some were without horns, this herd was sufficiently
+dangerous.  The first thought of Bud and his cousins was to put all the
+distance possible between them and the foremost of the steers.  This
+they had now done.  And it was becoming evident that unless some of the
+leaders tripped and went down, there was to be no disastrous piling up
+of animals one on the other.  The leaders ran well, and the others
+followed.
+
+The rustlers, if such they were, seemed to realize that their desperate
+plan had failed, for, so far, not a beef had fallen.  And the Greasers,
+off to one side, dared not try to cut out, and run off, any animals.
+To have ventured into the midst of that charging herd would have been
+madness.
+
+"Come on!  Let's see if we can turn 'em!" urged Bud, drawing his gun,
+an example followed by Nort and Dick.  Led by the son of the owner of
+Diamond X, the boy ranchers charged down on the oncoming herd, from
+which they had just ridden away.  But now they had the advantage.  They
+stood a better chance.  If they could turn the leaders, sending them in
+a circle, the other animals would follow, and soon the whole bunch
+would be "milling," which is the most desired way to stop a stampede.
+
+"Come on!  Come a ridin'!  Whoop-ee!" shrilly cried Bud, yelling,
+waving his hat in one hand and firing in the air with his gun.  Nort
+and Dick did likewise.  Straight at the cattle they rode.
+
+It was a desperate chance, but one that had to be taken.  Bud knew, if
+the others did not, that about a mile beyond lay a gully, led up to by
+a cliff, and if the steers and cows reached this, the leaders unable to
+stop, while the rear ranks pushed on, there would be a mass of
+piled-up, dead cattle to tell the story.
+
+"We've got to stop 'em!" shouted Bud.
+
+And stop them, or, rather, turn them, the boy ranchers did.  Just when
+it seemed that the wild animals would rush over, and trample down the
+three lads, the foremost of the steers turned at a sharp angle, their
+hoofs skidding in the soil, and swung around.
+
+"Now we've got 'em!" cried Bud.  "Make 'em mill!  Make 'em mill!"
+
+And this is what the cattle did.  Around and around they ran, in a big,
+dusty circle, while the other Diamond X cowboys rode up.
+
+"That was touch and go," said one of the older riders, when the herd
+was comparatively quiet.  "What started 'em off, Bud?"
+
+"Didn't you see that bunch of Greasers?" asked the rancher's son.
+
+The cowboys had not, it developed, and now, when the three boys tried
+to point out the rascals the quartette was not in sight.  However,
+something else took the attention of Bud and the older cowboys.  This
+something was a small bunch of steers, galloping off by themselves, but
+not being hazed by any riders.
+
+"We can't lose them!" shouted Bud.  "They belong to dad!  Got to get
+'em back!"
+
+"We'll go after 'em," offered Nort and Dick.  "We can bring 'em back."
+
+"Yes, I reckon you can, while we ride herd on these," said Bud.  "I
+don't want to take any more chances with 'em.  Haze the outlaws back
+this way, fellows!"
+
+Eager to have this responsibility, and to do something "on their own,"
+Dick and his brother spurred away.  And before they realized it, Nort
+and Dick found themselves down in a depression, whence they could catch
+sight neither of the small knot of cattle they had started out to haze
+back, nor the main herd.
+
+"Say, where are we?" asked Dick, slowing up his pony, and looking about
+him.  He and Nort were down in a green valley, with hills all around,
+but no sign of life--animal or human.  "Where are we?"
+
+Nort paused a moment before replying.  Then, as he drew rein and
+listened, he said:
+
+"Lost, I reckon!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE VISION
+
+Though Nort spoke with an appearance of calmness, there was something
+in his voice that made Dick catch his breath.  It was not that the
+younger lad was exactly afraid, but he was on the verge of becoming so.
+
+"Lost, eh?" repeated Dick.  Then, as he saw a half smile on Nort's
+face, and looked about on what was really a beautiful scene, his little
+worry seemed to vanish as mists roll away in the sun.  "Well, if we're
+lost it isn't such a bad place to be in, and I reckon we can easily
+find our way back.  'Tisn't like being lost in the woods, as we once
+were."
+
+"No," agreed Nort, "it isn't."  They had gone camping once, with their
+father, and had wandered off in a forest, being "lost" all night,
+though, as it developed later, not far from their own folks.
+
+"And I don't see why we can't easily ride back the way we came," went
+on Dick.
+
+"We can, if we find the way," agreed Nort.  "But I seem all turned
+around.  And I don't like to go back without those cattle.  We offered
+to ride off after 'em and bring 'em back, and we ought to do it."
+
+"But where are they?" asked Dick, "and where's the main herd?  That
+isn't so small that you could hide it in one of these valleys!"
+
+They were, as I have said, in the midst of a rolling country, where
+swales or valleys were interspersed with hills.  One moment they had
+held in view the small bunch of steers that had wandered away from the
+main herd, but, in another instant, there was no sign of them.
+
+"Listen, and see if you can hear anything," suggested Nort.
+
+Quietly the boy ranchers sat on their horses; the only sounds being the
+creaking of the damp saddle and stirrup leathers as the animals moved
+slightly.  But there was no sound of lowing cows or snorting steers,
+and there came to the ears of Nort and Dick no distant shouts of Bud
+and the cowboys, though the main herd, with the men in charge, could
+not have been more than two miles away.  But, for all that, our heroes
+were as completely isolated as though a hundred miles distant from
+civilization.
+
+"I can't understand it!" murmured Dick.
+
+"Nor I," said Nort, "It's just as if those cattle had dropped out of
+sight in a hole in the ground.  Maybe they did, Dick."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked his brother.
+
+"I mean maybe those mysterious professors have been digging big mining
+holes around here, and that bunch of steers we were chasing just
+naturally slipped into one.  We'd better look out, or we'll drop out of
+sight ourselves!"
+
+Though he spoke half jokingly, there was some seriousness in Nort's
+voice, and Dick realized it.
+
+"Those professors sure are queer, with their digging operations," Dick
+agreed.  "I'd like to know what they are after, and why they're hanging
+around Diamond X."
+
+"Well, I'd like to know that, too," said Nort, "but first of all I'd
+like to know our way out of this place.  There must be some way out, as
+we didn't have any trouble finding a way in."
+
+"Of course we can get out," Dick answered.  "There aren't any trees to
+amount to anything, and we aren't fenced in.  We can ride in any
+direction we like, and I say let's ride somewhere."
+
+"I'm with you," spoke his brother.  "But the only trouble is we might
+be riding farther and farther away from Bud and the rest of the
+fellows.  Why not try to locate that bunch of cattle we're after?
+They'll be heading directly away from the main herd, I take it, and if
+we locate them all we'll have to do will be to drive them right about
+face, and we'll get back where we belong."
+
+"All right, let's find the steers," assented Dick.
+
+They started their ponies, which, doubtless, had been glad of the
+little breathing spell.  But it was one thing to say find the missing
+steers, and another to do it.  One swale seemed to so melt in with an
+adjoining one, and one hill to merge with its mate, that they all
+looked alike to the boys, who, as it developed afterward, kept working
+their way farther and farther off from their friends.
+
+"Hang those steers!  Where are they, anyhow?" exclaimed Nort after half
+an hour of search, during which no signs had been seen.
+
+"Let's try over this way," suggested Dick, turning to the left.
+
+Though it might seem that in a fairly open country, composed of hills
+and vales, it would be hard to hide a bunch of cattle, still Nort and
+Dick, to their chagrin, did not find it difficult.  They were
+completely baffled, and the longer they searched the more puzzled they
+were.
+
+"Well, there's one thing about it," remarked Dick, when they drew rein,
+"we shan't starve right away, and if we have to stay out all night we
+have the same accommodations we have had before," and he tapped the
+tarpaulin which formed part of his saddle pack.
+
+"Oh, yes, we can camp out if we have to," agreed Nort, "and I shan't
+mind that.  But it's our failure to do the first job we tackled 'on our
+own' that gets my goat.  Bud will sure think we're tenderfeet for fair!"
+
+"Yes, that is bad," agreed Dick.  "But it can't be helped.  I never did
+see anything like the sudden way those cattle disappeared, and how we
+got lost."
+
+For that they were now completely lost, amid the low hills, was an
+accepted fact to the boys.  They had ridden here and there, until, in
+mercy to their ponies, they pulled reins.  Yet they had gotten no
+farther on their way, nor had they seen sign of the cattle.  It was
+growing late, too, and they realized that soon they must find a camping
+place for the night, unless they located the homeward trail.
+
+Of course to Bud, or any of the older cowboys of Diamond X ranch, the
+problem that puzzled Nort and Dick would have been easy to solve.
+Knowing the country as they did, the cowboys could easily have sensed
+which way to ride, even though the bunch of cattle might have eluded
+them.
+
+But the two easterners did not even know which way to head to get back
+to their friends.  They were completely lost and turned about, and
+their situation was growing more desperate.
+
+I say "desperate," yet that word is used only in a comparative sense.
+They were in no immediate danger, for they were in the clean, open
+country, and not in a tangled forest or jungle.  There were no wild
+beasts near, only peaceful cows and steers.  They had coverings for the
+night, and greasewood shrubs, as well as a tree here and there amid the
+foothills, offered fuel for a fire.  They had a small amount of "grub"
+with them, and they had passed several springs of water, so they would
+not thirst, and they had the means of making coffee, though no milk was
+at hand.  So, all in all, their situation was not at all "desperate,"
+though it was perhaps annoying.
+
+"Let's fire our guns!" exclaimed Nort suddenly.  "We forgot all about
+them.  Bud told us they were mainly used for signaling out here, and we
+might let him and the rest know where we are by firing a few shots."
+
+"Sure!  Go to it!" agreed Dick.  "But don't fire too many cartridges,"
+he added.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well, there's no telling when we may want the shells, and we haven't
+any too many."
+
+"That's so," agreed Nort.  "Well, we'll each fire two, at intervals."
+
+This they did, but such echoes were aroused amid the hills by the
+reverberations of the reports that the lads doubted whether Bud and the
+other cowboys could accurately determine whence the sound of the firing
+came.
+
+"We've done our best," said Nort, after the fourth shot had gone
+echoing among the hills.  "Now let's ride on a little, and if we don't
+get out, or find those cattle, we'll pick a good place to camp for the
+night."
+
+This struck Dick as being the best thing to do and they urged their
+tired ponies forward.  Dick was casting his looks about, seeking for a
+suitable place to make the night camp, when he was attracted by a shout
+from Nort, who was off to one side.
+
+"Did you find 'em?" cried Dick, eagerly.  "The cattle or our cowboys?"
+
+"No, but look!" yelled Nort.  "We're coming to a city!"
+
+He pointed toward the east and there, on the far side of a green
+valley, amid green hills, was the vision of a small city, on the banks
+of a good-sized river.  As the boys watched they saw a steamer come up
+to a dock and stop, though the scene was too far away to give them more
+details.
+
+"Now we're all right!" yelled Dick.
+
+But, even as he spoke the vision faded from the eyes of the startled
+boys.  It melted from sight as do some moving pictures, when the "fade
+out" is used.  It was as though a veil of mist came between the vision
+and the boys, or as if some giant hand had wiped it from a great slate
+with a damp sponge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE NIGHT CAMP
+
+"Well, what do you know about that?" exclaimed Nort, as he turned to
+look at his brother, when the vision of the city on the river bank had
+disappeared.
+
+"Were we dreaming, or did we really see something?" asked Dick, passing
+his hand over his eyes in dazed fashion.
+
+"We saw something all right," asserted Nort, "and I'm wondering if I
+saw the same thing you did--a city--the steamer and----"
+
+"I saw it, too," declared Dick, interrupting his brother's recital.
+"But where did it go?  A fog must have rolled up between us and it.
+But now we know which way to ride.  I don't know what town that was,
+but they can tell us how to get back to Diamond X ranch."
+
+"It's queer," murmured Nort, as Dick urged his horse in the direction
+of the vision they had just beheld.
+
+"What's queer?" asked Dick.
+
+"Seeing that town," his brother went on.  "Bud never said anything
+about the ranch being so near a place where they had a river steamer.
+There isn't a boat of that size on the river around here."
+
+"No," assented Dick.  "This must be farther down.  Anyhow, let's hit
+the trail for there.  We aren't lost any more, I reckon."
+
+"Doesn't seem," murmured Nort.  But, even as the two brothers urged
+their tired, broncos forward, another strange thing happened.  In the
+very same place where they had seen the vision of the town and the
+steamer, only to witness it vanish, there appeared in sharp detail a
+large ranch, with its corrals, its bunk house and main buildings.
+
+"There!  Look!" cried Dick.  "There's Diamond X!"
+
+Nort shaded his eyes with his hands, and peered long and earnestly.
+
+"Diamond X!" he murmured.  "That isn't our ranch!  Our bunk house isn't
+so near the corral, and, besides----"
+
+Then, even as he spoke, this vision vanished as had the other, being
+wiped out of sight; fading slowly as if some unseen operator in a movie
+booth had cut off his light.
+
+The brothers turned and stared at one another.  Suddenly the truth
+dawned upon them.
+
+"A _mirage_!" exclaimed Nort.
+
+"That's what!" assented Dick.  "Two mirages!  We saw one after the
+other, a city and a ranch in the same place!"
+
+And that is what the visions had been--mirages, those strange phenomena
+of the west--of desert places--natural occurrences in localities where
+the air is abnormally clear, and where conditions combine to transpose
+distant scenes.
+
+Of course the explanation is simple enough.  Of the mirage the
+dictionary says it is "an optical illusion arising from an unequal
+refraction in the lower strata of the atmosphere, causing images of
+remote objects to be seen double, distorted or inverted as if reflected
+in a mirror, or to appear as if suspended in the air."
+
+The word comes from a Latin one, meaning "to look at," and that is
+about all you can do to a mirage--look at it.  It is as unsubstantial
+as the air in which it is formed.
+
+There are many varieties of mirages seen in the West, and if the boys
+had seen a double one, or had the vision of the city and ranch been
+inverted, they might have sooner guessed the secret of it.  But the
+particular mirages they had viewed had, through some trick of air
+refraction, been imposed on their eyesight rightside up, and
+wonderfully clear.
+
+I do not suppose all the stories that have been written of mirages are
+true, but it is certain that many strange tricks have been played on
+the eyesight of observers by these phenomena, and more than one
+luckless prospector, or cattleman, has followed these visions, only to
+be tantalized in the end by finding, just as Nort and Dick did, that
+they merely vanished, dissolving into nothing.
+
+Telling of their experiences afterward, Nort and Dick declared that
+when they had visualized the steamer moving up to her dock, they had
+actually seen figures disembarking.
+
+"That _couldn't_ be!" declared Bud.  "Your eyes must have been blinking
+and you _thought_ you saw figures.  I've been fooled by mirages myself,
+but though you might make out something as large as a steamer moving, I
+never yet saw one of these visions clear enough so that you could make
+out people moving about.  You can see a town, or a ranch, sometimes
+right side up, and sometimes upside down, but you can't make out
+people.  I won't say that it is impossible, but I've never seen it, nor
+heard of anyone who has," the boy rancher concluded.
+
+"Well, it was wonderful enough as it was," declared Nort, and even
+those who have seen many mirages will agree with this, I think.
+
+"Well, that sure was queer!" exclaimed Nort, rubbing his eyes again.
+"And to think we might have ridden off, and tried to get to that ranch,
+or city."
+
+"I thought sure it was Diamond X," declared Dick.
+
+"Well, I knew it wasn't, as soon as I saw how the buildings were
+located.  But I thought it was some ranch.  Bud told me about these
+mirages, though I never thought they were as plain as that."
+
+"They sure do fool you!" laughed Dick.  "And now, before we get led
+astray by any more, let's get settled for the night.  It looks as if
+we'd have to stay here."
+
+"Yes, it does," agreed Nort.  He looked in the direction where the
+strange images had appeared in the air, seemingly suspended between the
+heaven and the earth.  There were no more of the visions, the declining
+sun doubtless being in such a position as no longer to produce the
+necessary refraction, or bending of the light rays.
+
+"Here's water," spoke Nort, pointing to a spring bubbling out of the
+side of the hill.  "We'll make a fire, and cook what we have."
+
+"But not all of it," stipulated Dick.  "We've got to save some for
+to-morrow.  No telling how long we may be out on our own."
+
+"That's right," agreed Nort.  "Though when our bacon and flour give out
+we can get one of those fellows--maybe," and he pointed to a big jack
+rabbit, almost as large as a dog, loping away.
+
+"Yes, Bud says they're good eating," assented Dick.  "The only thing
+is, can we knock one over with our guns?"
+
+"I'm not much of a shot, yet, but then a fellow ought to hit one of
+those jacks--when he isn't running," qualified Nort, for the speed of
+these rabbits of the plains is almost beyond belief.  Indeed they put
+the speediest horse on his mettle, and a greyhound, or a similar breed
+of dog, is the only canine that can compete with them.
+
+"Yes, no use shooting when they start racing," agreed Dick.
+
+The lads slipped from their ponies, taking off the saddles which,
+later, they would use as pillows.  And immediately the cow horses were
+relieved of their back burdens, they started to roll.  This is the
+ideal recreation for the steeds of ranch or plain, for they get little
+of the rubbing down or care bestowed on other horses.  Their daily roll
+in the grass and dust keeps their coat in good condition.
+
+The ponies were pegged out by means of the lariats, which allowed them
+to graze or roll as they pleased.  They were tied near a water hole,
+formed below the spring, so the animals had the three most desirable
+requisites--food, water and a place to disport themselves.
+
+Nort and Dick proceeded to make their camp.  It was a simple operation.
+All they had to do was to gather some greasewood for the fire, and
+start to cook.  Later they would roll in their tarpaulins, with their
+heads on the saddles, and get what rest they could.
+
+Fortunately the two boys had with them some cooking utensils, and also
+some bacon and flour with a supply of coffee.  The flour was of the
+"prepared" variety.  Mixing it with water gave them batter for
+flapjacks, which were baked in the same skillet in which the bacon had
+first been fried.  Water for the coffee was at hand, and they had sugar
+for that beverage, though no milk, which might seem strange so near a
+ranch on which were many cattle.  But ranches are for the raising of
+beef, and are not dairies, so milkless coffee was no hardship to the
+boys, though at Diamond X milk was plentiful enough.
+
+The smell of the burning greasewood, the aroma of the bacon and coffee,
+not to mention that of the flapjacks, added zest to the appetites of
+the boys, if zest were needed, and soon they were eagerly eating.
+
+Then, as night settled down they gathered a quantity of wood for the
+fire, looked to the fastenings of their ponies and stretched out under
+the light of the bright stars.  They were--except for their
+ponies--alone amid the foothills, how far from Diamond X ranch they
+could only guess.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+QUEER OPERATIONS
+
+"Feel sleepy?" asked Nort of Dick when they had stretched out under
+their canvas blankets, which might keep off the dew, but which were not
+very comfortable.
+
+"Not specially," answered Dick.  "I'm thinking too much of all that's
+happened lately."
+
+"So 'm I.  But I'm not worried because we're here; are you?"
+
+"Not a bit of it!  This is only fun!  We wanted to see real western
+life and we're seeing it," Dick went on.  "This is what we came out
+here for.  It isn't like anything else we ever did, and it only makes
+me all the more want to be a rancher."
+
+"You said it.  Only there are one or two things I'd like to know more
+about."
+
+"Such as what, for instance?" asked the younger lad.
+
+"Well, I'd like to know who it was that tried to snake you away with a
+lasso.  I'd like to do the same to him.  And I'd like to know more
+about those two strange professors, and what they're after."
+
+"I'm with you there," spoke Dick, as he raised on one elbow to look
+toward where he had tethered his horse, the animal seeming to be
+suddenly excited about something.
+
+"Only a coyote," remarked Nort, as he caught sight of a slinking figure
+under the light of the stars.  The boys had become used to these
+creatures which acted as scavengers of the plains.
+
+"I wonder if, after all, those professors can be hunting gold?" mused
+Dick, when his horse had quieted down and resumed grazing.
+
+"According to what Bud says there isn't any gold here and never has
+been," declared Nort.  "But there is a mystery about them and I'd give
+a lot to solve it.  You see we tenderfeet don't count for much out on a
+ranch--that is, yet.  We don't know much about roping or shooting or
+riding herd.  Of course we're learning, and Bud and the others are as
+nice about it as they can be, but I can see they don't think overly
+much about our abilities; and I don't blame them.
+
+"But if we could solve this mystery about those professors, and maybe
+connect 'em up with some of the cattle rustling, why it would show Bud
+we easterners amounted to something after all.  I sure would like to
+get on the track of this mystery!"
+
+The time was to come, and soon, when Nort and Dick vividly recalled
+these words.
+
+"Well, we're here--not that we know where it is--but we're here, and
+not in such bad shape," spoke Dick.  "We're lost, but I reckon Bud will
+find us in the morning, or we'll come across the cattle we're looking
+for, or else Diamond X ranch.
+
+"I hope so," mused Nort.  "I'd like to show these cowboys that we can
+pull off a trick or two ourselves."
+
+"Well, I'm with you," and Dick's voice took on a drowsy note.  In spite
+of the fact that he had said he was thinking of many things, the riding
+of the day soon began to tell on both lads.
+
+"What's that?" suddenly called Dick to Nort, when they had, perhaps,
+been sleeping two or three hours.  A wild, weird cry had echoed out in
+the silent night.
+
+"Coyote," was the answer, sleepily given.
+
+"Howlin' in a new way," murmured Dick.
+
+Indeed, accustomed as the boys were becoming to the voices of these
+animals, part fox, part dog and part wolf, there were always new
+elements seeming to enter into their cries.
+
+Again the strange call was repeated, to be answered by the mate of the
+coyote farther off, and then came a perfect chorus of wild yells.  The
+horses snorted, as if in contempt and the boys covered themselves with
+their tarpaulins and tried to slumber.  But it was some little time
+before the echoes died away and quiet reigned.
+
+Nort and Dick did not awaken again that night, but their eyes opened
+when the sun shone on them, and, rather lame and stiff, they arose to
+get a frugal breakfast.
+
+Their first look was to their horses, for to be without a mount in the
+vast distances of the West is almost a tragedy.  But Blaze and Blackie,
+the two favorite steeds of Nort and Dick, were safely tethered.
+
+Cowboys, on range or ranch, usually have a "string" of ponies, or
+broncos.  This is needful, as there is such hard riding necessary at
+times (particularly at the round-up) that one horse could not stand the
+pace.  So at the beginning of work several horses are assigned to each
+cow-puncher.  Of course he may own a horse of his own, and usually
+does, in fact, and this horse is his favorite.  But he has several
+others to pick from.
+
+When Nort and Dick declared that they were going to be regular
+ranchers, or cowboys as a start, they were given a string of horses to
+pick from.  But of these Blaze, so called from a white streak down his
+head, was the favorite of Nort.  Blackie was Dick's choice, and the
+selection of the name was due to the color of the horse, it being
+almost perfect black.
+
+Blaze and Blackie were safe at the ends of their tether ropes--the
+lariats the boys carried coiled on their saddle horns during the day.
+
+Breakfast over--and it was not a very substantial meal--the boys
+saddled their steeds and then looked at one another.
+
+"What are we going to do?" asked Dick.
+
+"Hit the trail--for somewhere," answered Nort.
+
+"The trouble is there doesn't seem to be any trail to hit," spoke Dick,
+rather grimly.  "It would be easy, if there was only a cow path, to
+ride along it until we came to some place.  But here, as soon as we
+ride out of one swale we're in another, and we don't get a sight of Bud
+or the cattle we set out to haze back."
+
+"I wonder what he thinks of us?" mused Nort.
+
+"Oh, he must have sized up the situation, and so knows what has
+happened to us," declared Dick.  "He's probably out now, with some of
+the cowboys, looking for us."
+
+"I hope they bring something to eat," spoke Nort.  "We'll be on mighty
+short rations at noon, unless we can eat grass, the way the ponies do."
+
+"Or knock over a jack," added Dick.  "They seem to be plentiful."
+
+As he spoke, one of the long-legged and longer-eared rabbits shot past,
+having paused to look at the strangers, who, doubtless in his mind,
+were usurping his land.
+
+"Tell you what we ought to do," suggested Nort as they mounted, having
+made fast their packs and trampled out the fire.
+
+"What?" asked Dick.
+
+"We ought to ride to the top of the highest hill, and take a look.
+That ought to show something besides a mirage.  I s'pose, if we had our
+wits about us, we'd know whether we ought to ride north, south, east or
+west," Nort went on.  "But, as it is, I don't know which way Diamond X
+lies."
+
+They urged Blaze and Blackie up the slope of what they judged to be the
+highest hill in their vicinity.  And as they gained the summit, and
+looked down into a valley on the other side, they saw something that
+caused them to both exclaim in surprise.
+
+"Look!" cried Nort.  "There's some of our bunch!"  He pointed to men
+and horses in a camp, of which white tents formed a part.
+
+"That isn't our crowd!" exclaimed Dick.  "That's the outfit of the two
+professors, and they're up to some mighty queer doings!"
+
+"Digging for gold!" declared Nort.
+
+But, as he spoke, there was a loud report down near the valley camp.
+Men were seen running, as if from danger, and as the boys looked they
+saw a cloud of smoke roll up, and part of a side hill slide down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+PRISONERS
+
+"Would you look at that!" shouted Nort, pointing down into the valley.
+"They must be under bombardment!  It's a battle, Dick!"
+
+"Nonsense!" cried the younger lad, not as impulsive as his brother.
+"They're blasting; that's what they're doing!  Trying to locate a
+pocket of gold, I reckon.  But now we're all right, Nort.  They'll tell
+us how to get back to Diamond X, even if they can't put us on the trail
+of the cattle we so stupidly missed."
+
+"Well, maybe they can, and then again, maybe they can't," said Nort
+slowly.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Dick.
+
+"Well, they may be able to tell us the way to Diamond X, but maybe they
+won't want to tell us where the missing cattle are."
+
+"You mean they may have taken 'em _themselves_?" asked Dick, and there
+was surprise in his voice.
+
+"It's possible," declared Nort.  "But we can't find out much by staying
+up here.  Let's ride down and see what's going on.  I reckon it's as
+you say--they have been blasting."
+
+At first no one paid any attention to the approach of Dick and Nort.
+The men who had run away as the blast let loose, now hurried back to
+peer into the excavation made by the explosion.  And among those who
+thus eagerly sought to see the inner secrets of the earth, our heroes
+recognized Professors Blair and Wright.  These two scientists were
+foremost among the men standing on the edge of the hole that had been
+torn in the earth.
+
+"No success!" Dick and Nort heard Professor Wright say as he turned
+aside from the hole.  "We must try lower down."
+
+"Higher up, I should say," spoke Professor Blair.
+
+"Oh, no.  You must remember that the deposits are weighty, and would be
+brought lower and lower each year by gravity, as well as by the sliding
+action of the hill under the influence of erosion."
+
+"Yes, you are correct, Professor," admitted Mr. Blair, and then the two
+turned and beheld Dick and Nort at hand.
+
+Surprise, and no very pleased surprise at that, was manifest on the
+faces of the two scientists as they viewed the boys.  Grouped around
+the professors were several Mexicans, or Greasers, a Chinese, evidently
+the cook of the "outfit," and a number of workmen, unmistakably
+American.  These last looked at the boys with scowling faces, though
+the two professors tried to force smiles to their lips.
+
+"Oh, you are from Circle T ranch, are you not?" asked Professor Blair
+of Dick and Nort.  "You are the boys who were so kind as to bring the
+antiseptics for the wounded men, who, thanks to that treatment, are now
+doing well."
+
+"Glad to hear it," said Nort.  "Only we're not from Circle T.  We hail
+from Diamond X."
+
+"Strange names," murmured Professor Wright.  "I don't see how you
+remember them, though I do recall, now, that Diamond X is the proper
+term.  We--er--I hardly expected to see you again," he said, haltingly.
+
+"Nor we you," spoke Nort, who seemed to be doing the talking for his
+brother and himself.  "We started after some cattle, but they got away
+from us and we lost ourselves.  You haven't seen them; have you?  A
+bunch of steers with the Square M brand on."
+
+"And if you've seen anything of Diamond X ranch itself, up among these
+hills, I wish you'd tell us how to get to it," added Dick, with a
+whimsical smile.
+
+"Cattle!  Of why should we know of your cattle!" exclaimed a harsh
+voice behind the boys, and Dick and Nort, turning in their saddles, saw
+fairly glaring at them Del Pinzo, the unprepossessing Mexican half
+breed.
+
+"Do you think we have your steers--that we are _rustlers_?" demanded
+Del Pinzo fiercely.
+
+"No," said Nort, seeing into what error he might be drawn.  "I was only
+asking."
+
+"Well, we haven't seen any of your cattle!" declared the Mexican, or
+half breed, to give his correct title.  "And we don't want you around
+here when we're----"
+
+"Just a moment, Del Pinzo," interposed Professor Wright, and Dick
+noticed a peculiar look pass between the two scientists.  "You must
+excuse the zeal of one of our helpers," went on Mr. Wright.  "He is
+doubtless afraid that you might get hurt in a blast."
+
+"Yes!  Yes!  Blasts are dangerous!" said the half breed quickly, and it
+seemed as if he spoke in answer to a signal given by one of the
+scientists.  "We are going to set off another."
+
+"It is just some research work we are undertaking," said Professor
+Blair, as he saw Nort and Dick looking around.  "We have absented
+ourselves from our college to do some investigating, and it is
+necessary to blast, in some cases, to get at the lower deposits."
+
+Both Dick and Nort said to each other, afterwards, that they did not
+believe these statements.
+
+"Perhaps you boys had better come down to the tents," suggested
+Professor Wright.  "As Del Pinzo says, blasts are dangerous, and the
+men are going to set off another.  Come to the tents," and with a wave
+of his hand he indicated the camp site, a level place amid the little
+and big hills all about.
+
+"Thanks," murmured Nort.  "But are you going to be able to direct us
+how to find Diamond X ranch?"
+
+"Doubtless some of our men can tell you," said Mr. Wright.  "Have you
+eaten?" he asked.
+
+"We had a little," Dick replied.  "But----"
+
+"You can eat more, I have no doubt!" laughed Professor Blair, but his
+merriment seemed to be forced.  "Well, fortunately our larder is well
+stocked.  Come down and have something.  How are all your friends?"
+
+"Well, as far as we know, not having seen them since yesterday,"
+answered Dick.  "You see we're not regular ranchers or cowboys yet,
+we're just learning."
+
+"One need not be told _that_!" sneered Del Pinzo, who had followed our
+heroes and the two professors down the slope.
+
+Professor Blair turned and looked sharply at the half breed.  Then the
+scientist, speaking, said:
+
+"Del Pinzo, perhaps you had better return and watch that the next blast
+harms no one.  We would not want an accident."
+
+The half breed hesitated for a moment, and then murmured:
+
+"_Si, senor!_" ("Yes, sir!")
+
+He turned back up the hill, Dick and Nort continued down it toward the
+tents.
+
+"Picket your horses and come in," invited Professor Wright, as he held
+open the flap of what was, evidently, the private dining tent of
+himself and his college companion.  "I'll have Sing Wah fix you up a
+little feed."
+
+"This is mighty kind of you," murmured Dick, as he and his brother sat
+at the folding camp table and ate hungrily.
+
+"And now all we want is to be put on the trail to Diamond X," said
+Nort, as they finished.  "We'll let the cattle go, for the time being."
+
+He rose to leave the tent, followed by his brother, but, as the boys
+neared the flap a man, who, they remembered, had been called Silas
+Thorp, interposed his ugly bulk in front of them.
+
+"Don't be in a hurry to leave, boys," he sneered.
+
+"Why not?" hotly demanded Nort.
+
+"Because we'd like to keep you here a while," Thorp went on.  "I guess
+the professors would like to have you accept their hospitality a little
+longer."
+
+"Is this true?" cried Nort.  "Are we prisoners?"
+
+"Well, that is rather a harsh word to use," said Professor Wright.
+"But we feel we must detain you--at least for a while!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE DIAMOND X BRAND
+
+Nort and Dick admitted to one another, afterward, that at first they
+believed the two professors to be joking.  They imagined that the
+cultured scientists were merely indulging in a bit of fun, from much of
+which they were necessarily barred while in the class room.  But a
+sharp look at the faces of the men who were at the head of an
+expedition, conducting a mysterious search, showed the boys that
+earnestness was the keynote.
+
+"You--you're going to keep us here?" questioned Dick.
+
+"For a while, yes," said Professor Wright, and there was more snap and
+decision in his voice than before.
+
+"It is much your own fault," added Professor Blair.
+
+"_Our_ fault!" spluttered Nort, his temper rapidly rising.  "Why, what
+have we done except to help you when you needed it?  And now all we ask
+is that you put us in the way of getting back to Diamond X."
+
+"That is just it," said Professor Wright.  "We don't want you to go
+back to Diamond X at once."
+
+"Why not?" hotly demanded Nort.  "What right have you got to hold us
+here?  You can't!  We'll get away in spite of you!" and his hand, half
+unconsciously, perhaps, moved toward his holster.  But he was surprised
+to find his wrist seized in a firm grip, while he was violently swung
+around, his weapon being removed by some one who had come silently up
+behind him.  And this some one was Del Pinzo, into whose sneering,
+crafty, swarthy face Nort angrily gazed.
+
+Before he could say anything, Nort saw Silas Thorp slip up to Dick, and
+take that lad's weapon out of the holster.  Dick had no time to draw
+it, even if such had been his intention, which, the lad said later, it
+was not.
+
+"What do you mean?  What's this game anyhow?  What right have you to
+keep us prisoners here and take our guns?" shouted Nort.  He took a
+step toward Del Pinzo, but there was something so sinister in the
+attitude of the half breed, albeit he did not menace the boy with the
+weapon, that Nort shrank back.
+
+"I think you had better submit quietly," said Professor Blair.  "We
+intend absolutely no violence, or ill-treatment of you, unless you make
+that necessary.  We admit that perhaps we are acting illegally, and in
+an unusual manner, but, in a way, you brought this on yourselves, boys.
+You will not be detained long.  In fact, if our plans work out right,
+you may depart for your ranch this evening."
+
+"Acting illegally!" spluttered Nort.  "I should say you _were_!  We'll
+have you arrested for this, you--you--big----"
+
+Then Nort stopped, for he realized that, though he might apply some
+well-deserved slang names to the two professors, neither of them was
+"big."  They were small men--at least in stature.
+
+"But you haven't any right to hold us here prisoners!" declared Dick,
+feeling that he must back up his brother in a firm protest.  "We
+haven't done anything to you."
+
+"Except to turn up where you aren't wanted!" broke in Silas Thorp.  "If
+you'd minded your own business, and stayed away--let us alone--we
+wouldn't have to do this!"
+
+In surprise at such a statement, Nort and Dick looked at the two
+professors.
+
+Mr. Wright, with a wave of his hand toward his helper, to enjoin
+silence, made this statement:
+
+"Mr. Thorp has put the matter rather crudely, perhaps, but that is the
+state of the case.  Without going into details, boys, we are in this
+part of the country on a secret mission.  We have almost accomplished
+what we are after, and, on the verge of the discovery, we do not wish
+to be balked.  You happen to have stumbled upon us just when we are
+about to complete a wearisome search, which at least promises to be
+successful.
+
+"We have enemies who would be glad to frustrate our schemes, and it is
+to prevent these enemies from obtaining knowledge of our movements, of
+our location, and the location of that which we are seeking, that we
+are forced to detain you.  We hope soon to end our mission, and, once
+we have gained possession of what we are after, we shall be most happy
+to restore you to liberty."
+
+He took breath after this somewhat lengthy address, and Nort and Dick
+looked at one another, more puzzled than before.  What did it all mean?
+What was the queer secret of the professors, a secret that, somehow,
+seemed to involve Diamond X?
+
+"Do you mean that you're keeping us here because you're afraid we'll
+tell something about you?" burst out Nort.
+
+"Yes," answered Professor Blair.  "We simply must keep our secret safe,
+now that we are on the verge of discovery."
+
+"But we wouldn't tell!" declared Nort.  "In fact we don't know anything
+about you--except that we've seen you once or twice.  We don't know
+what your secret is--that is, we can only _guess_ at it."
+
+"That's just it!" interrupted Professor Wright.  "You are the sort of
+lads who would make a correct guess, and then, when word of it got out,
+we would lose the fruits of many weary years of research."
+
+"But we wouldn't tell anyone!" promised Dick.  "All we know about it is
+that you're supposed to be prospecting for gold.  There isn't any great
+crime, or secret, in that, unless you're trying to get gold off land
+that doesn't belong to you."
+
+"No, it isn't gold, nor anything like gold," spoke Professor Wright, in
+rather dreamy tones.  "It is much more valuable than gold.  I never
+would have endured the hardships I have for mere gold."
+
+"Nor I," said his partner, and then, for the first time the same
+thought came to Nort and Dick--that these men might be lunatics,
+obsessed with a strange idea, and that they were searching for
+something that might be likened to a fading mirage.
+
+The boy ranchers looked at one another.  If this was the explanation
+their position might be more dangerous than appeared.  To be held
+captives by men who were mentally irresponsible, aided by an
+unscrupulous gang, of which Del Pinzo was a fair specimen, was not at
+all a reassuring thought.  But Nort and Dick were not the ones to give
+up easily.
+
+"Just what are you going to do?" asked Nort, when it was evident that,
+unarmed as they were, resistance was out of the question for the time
+being.
+
+"Simply hold you here for a few days--not more than a week at most,"
+answered Professor Blair.
+
+"Suppose we don't stay?" asked Nort, sharply.
+
+"Well, if you refuse to promise not to try to escape, we shall be
+forced to detain you as best we can," was the calm reply.  "But we have
+no wish to use violence, and I think you will agree to submit quietly.
+Be our guests, so to speak."
+
+"What if our friends come to rescue us?" asked Dick.
+
+"Well, we have thought of that," spoke Professor Wright.  "If they come
+we shall have to do our best to--er--persuade them to go away
+again--that is unless we can bring our task to an end sooner than we
+expect, and that is possible.  If we can bring that about--make the
+discovery we hope for--you will be at liberty to depart at that moment.
+Otherwise you must stay here!"
+
+"Well, we won't promise not to try to escape," declared Nort, hotly.
+"We'll do our best, not only to get away, but to bring the police down
+on you, or bring whatever authority they have out here.  If you're
+going to act this way we'll be justified in doing our worst!"
+
+"Naturally," agreed Professor Wright, smoothly.  "Now that we have been
+made aware of your intentions we shall act accordingly.  We shall be
+obliged to keep you under guard, but I assure you that if you do not
+act roughly neither will our guards.  I am sorry you would not agree to
+our plan, and see matters in our light.  It would have been so much
+more comfortable.  And when we have explained, as we hope to do soon,
+you would appreciate our attitude."
+
+"Well, all I can say now is that we _don't_ appreciate it!" snapped
+Nort, "and we'll leave at the first opportunity!"
+
+"Then we'll see that you get no opportunities!" sneered Silas.  "Let's
+take 'em out, Del!"
+
+As it was evident that the two professors meant what they said, and
+that the boys would be roughly handled if they did not submit quietly,
+they followed their captors out of the dining tent, in answer to
+signals from Silas and the half breed that this was what was wanted.
+
+"Here's going to be your stopping place," said Silas, with another
+sneer, as he stopped in front of a small tent.  "And let me tell you it
+will be best for you to take it easy.  You may get into trouble if you
+try to leave!"
+
+To this Nort and Dick answered nothing.  They were too angry to know
+what to say, but that they intended to submit quietly to this indignity
+was not in their natures.  They cast quick glances about the camp
+before entering the tent, the flap of which Del Pinzo pulled back.  The
+tent contained two cots and some small packing boxes for tables and
+chairs.
+
+"All right!" said Nort, as he sized up the situation, and glanced back
+at the men who were his own and his brother's guards for the time
+being.  "You can do your best to keep us here, and we'll do our best to
+get away.  It'll be a fifty-fifty proposition!"
+
+Nort was startled by an exclamation from Dick.  The latter was gazing
+at some commotion on the far side of the camp.  Looking out from the
+opened tent Nort saw being driven, along the bank of a small brook that
+ran through the swale, several big steers.  They were being hazed along
+by Greasers on horses, and as the cattle splashed into the water,
+stopping to drink thirstily, the boy ranchers caught sight of the
+brands on their flanks.
+
+It was the mark of the Diamond X ranch!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE ESCAPE
+
+"Get inside, you fellows, now!" roughly commanded Silas Thorp.  "If
+you're going to act nasty we can do the same.  You can make it easy or
+hard for yourselves, just as you choose."
+
+"We'll make it hard for you, before we finish!" threatened Nort.
+
+At the sight of the steers bearing the Diamond X brand, Del Pinzo had
+stepped out of the tent, but his place as guard, if such he might be
+called, was taken by another Greaser, even less prepossessing in
+appearance, and apparently of less intelligence, but with as evil
+intentions.  He scowled at the boys, and squatted down at the entrance
+to the canvas shelter.
+
+"Here's where you're going to stay, though you can have the freedom of
+the camp if you promise not to try to leave," said Silas.
+
+"We won't promise!" declared Nort.
+
+"Not on your life!" added Dick, warmly.
+
+"Then stay here, and there'll be trouble if you try to leave,"
+threatened the man, who seemed to be a dried-up specimen of a museum
+attendant, which character, so Nort said afterward, he forcibly called
+to mind.
+
+He spoke something, evidently in Spanish, or the Mexican variety of
+that language, to the fellow who had replaced Del Pinzo, and the man,
+who was making himself comfortable at the entrance of the tent,
+murmured:
+
+"_Si, senor_!"
+
+"Which means he'll do as he was told," spoke Nort to Dick in a low
+voice as Silas passed out.  "Stick us with his knife or jab the
+business end of his gun in the small of our backs."
+
+"We mustn't give him the chance," spoke Dick.
+
+"I should say not!  We'll get away before he knows it."
+
+The brothers spoke together in low tones, but loudly enough for the
+guard to hear.  However he showed no interest in what they said, from
+which they concluded he either understood no English, or pretended not
+to.
+
+"But we won't take a chance," decided Nort.  "We won't discuss anything
+we don't want him to overhear.  It's likely they thought they could
+fool us by putting in a man we would evidently think couldn't
+understand our talk."
+
+"I get you," said Dick, briefly.  "But what do you think of those
+cattle?" and he nodded toward where could be heard the noise made by
+camp attendants driving the Diamond X steers whither they were wanted
+to go.
+
+"Just what I've been thinking all along," declared Nort.  "This outfit
+is a bunch of high-class cattle thieves!"
+
+He shot the words out forcibly, and looked keenly at the Greaser guard
+to see if they made any impression on him.  However, the Mexican was
+either a perfect actor, or he did not understand what was said, for he
+gave no sign, and appeared to be in a brown study as he sat hunched up
+on the ground at the flap of the tent.
+
+"Wonder what's going on?" mused Dick, as the noise increased, the
+shouts of men mingling with the snorting and bellowing of cattle.  "I'm
+going to take a look."
+
+He stepped forward to part the flaps of the tent, they having fallen
+together, but as he did so the Greaser ripped out something fiercely in
+his own tongue, and his hand went toward a sheathed knife at his belt.
+
+"Oh, keep your shirt on!" burst out Dick.  "I'm not going to run
+away--not just now," he added as a qualifying phrase.
+
+Whether the man understood the words, or guessed that Dick had no
+intention of escaping, was not made clear, but he offered no further
+objection to the act of the boys in pulling aside the flaps of the tent
+and looking out.
+
+They saw that the cattle which had been taken from the Diamond X
+ranch--stolen as Dick and Nort believed--were being driven into a
+small, and evidently hastily-constructed corral, where they could get
+to the stream to drink.
+
+"They've got a regular system," remarked Nort, as he saw the cattle
+being quieted down, once they were inside the improvised pen.
+
+"Making a business of it," agreed Dick.  "But you wouldn't think such
+men as these two professors would frame it up to be cattle rustlers;
+would you?"
+
+"That isn't all they are," said Nort.  "That digging and blasting means
+something!"
+
+He pointed to where, on the side hill at the scene of the first
+explosion, the two scientists were evidently directing operations
+looking to another blast.  Professor Wright and his aide seemed to pay
+no attention to the cattle that had been brought in.
+
+"This is a queer sort of game," said Dick to his brother, as they went
+back in the tent and sat down on boxes at the heads of their cots.  "I
+can't see to the bottom of it."
+
+"Nor I, except that these fellows are doing something they don't want
+known.  Rustling cattle isn't all of it, by any means, but if the other
+isn't digging for gold, or something valuable, I give up."
+
+"But if they were after gold, why would they deny it?" asked Dick.
+
+"You've got me!" admitted Nort.  "It sure is queer.  But I wonder if
+they're going to starve us; and what's become of our ponies?"
+
+The last question was answered first, for Dick pointed to where, off to
+one side, Blaze and Blackie were contentedly grazing, being pegged out,
+as were a number of other horses.
+
+And, an hour or so later, came the answer to the other question, for a
+man, who evidently acted as camp cook, came to the tent with a pot of
+coffee, some tin cups, and the head of a barrel used as a tray, on
+which was piled some food.
+
+Had the viands been most uninviting, Dick and Nort would have eagerly
+welcomed them, for the boys were hungry.  But, as a matter of fact, the
+food was clean, and well cooked.  The two professors, whatever might be
+their game, evidently insisted on adequate culinary operations.
+
+"Sail in!" exclaimed Nort, as he smelled the appetizing odor of the hot
+coffee, and what appeared to be some Mexican dish, cooked with plenty
+of beans, and more red peppers than the boys cared for.
+
+But, as I have said, they were hungry, and this is the best sauce in
+the world.  None of the condiments so freely used by the Mexicans was
+needed, and soon there was silence in the prisoners' tent, broken only
+by the clatter of knives and forks on the tin camp dishes.
+
+Once or twice the Greaser guard looked at the boys in what Dick and
+Nort both agreed, later, was a hungry style.  The pot of coffee was
+much more than the boys needed, though they ate up all the food.  And
+it was while feeling in his pockets for a toothpick that Nort's fingers
+touched something which played a very prominent part in subsequent
+events.
+
+Slowly Nort drew forth a small bottle, and held it up so Dick could see
+it, but so that it was concealed from the Greaser at the tent entrance.
+And then Dick noted that Nort held up a four ounce flask of paregoric.
+Nort had been suffering from toothache the past few days, though for
+some reason it had not bothered him since he and Dick had become
+"lost."  Perhaps the excitement following that incident quieted the
+nerves.  At any rate Nort carried the bottle of paregoric with him, for
+one of the cowboys had recommended that this household mixture of
+opium, rubbed on the gums, would give relief.
+
+Nort found that it did, and since then he had carried the bottle with
+him, pending the time he expected to visit a dentist.  He now held this
+phial of paregoric up so Dick could see, at the same time pointing
+first to the Greaser and then to the coffee pot.
+
+"Now?" asked Dick, in reply to Nort's obvious statement that he
+intended to administer some of the soporific to their guard.
+
+"To-night," was Nort's answer, and then he put the bottle back in his
+pocket.
+
+Dick's eyes lighted up.  He knew the effect of a large dose of
+paregoric, comparatively harmless as it is in small quantities, or as
+Nort used it.
+
+Now a way seemed opened for the boys.  If only they could command the
+other elements necessary for success.
+
+Nort made sure of one, by pouring out a cup of coffee, liberally
+sweetening it with sugar from the barrel head tray, and setting the
+beverage to one side on the ground under his cot.
+
+The camp cook came to carry away what the boys had left--which was not
+much--and if he missed one cup he said nothing about it.  Perhaps this
+was because, just then, some of the cattle tried to break out of the
+corral, and there was a shout raised for help--to which the cook
+responded.  But the Greaser guard did not leave his place.  Evidently
+his orders were imperative.
+
+"When are you going to try it?" whispered Dick to Nort, as the shadows
+began to lengthen, and night settled down on the camp.
+
+"Not until after dark--say about ten," replied Nort in a low voice.
+"It will take about two hours for him to fall asleep, and then we can
+get out, get aboard our ponies and trust to luck."
+
+"If he only goes to sleep," sighed Dick.
+
+"I'll give half the bottle full," whispered Nort.
+
+The Greaser paid no attention to their talk, but sat immobile at the
+tent flaps.  During the time the boys had been held prisoners no one
+had come to their canvas shelter save the cook, who brought them a
+plentiful supper, and also another barrel-head tray for the guard.  The
+day had passed with several blasts having been set off, though the
+effect of them, and the object, was concealed from the boy ranchers.
+
+In accordance with their plan, Nort and Dick dawdled over their night
+meal, having consumed only part of it when the cook, at about eight
+o'clock, came to remove the dishes.
+
+"Git 'em mornin'," he said, as he turned to go out, evidently meaning
+that he was going to turn in, and the boys could keep what they had
+until the next day.  This exactly suited them, and just before they
+were ready to lie down, pretending to be sleepy, Nort produced the cup
+of coffee he had saved out.  Quickly he emptied into it half of the
+bottle of paregoric, and, stirring it to mix the opium concoction well
+with the beverage, offered it to the Greaser.
+
+If the latter had suspicions he made no show of them, but, with a grunt
+accepted the unexpected refreshment, and drained the coffee at one tilt
+of his head.  Then he passed the empty cup back to Nort, and proceeded
+to smoke another cigarette, an occupation that had been pretty much his
+whole task that day.
+
+"Well, I'm going to turn in," said Nort in a loud voice, pretending to
+yawn.
+
+"Same here," remarked Dick.  Without undressing, they stretched out on
+the cots, not being afraid of soiling white sheets with their big
+boots, for there were no sheets to soil.  Blankets alone formed the
+coverings, and these the boys drew over them.
+
+There was no lantern in the tent, but the moon sent a stream of light
+in a little later, and by its gleam, in less than an hour after the
+dose had been administered, Nort and Dick saw the Greaser's head bent
+forward, while he had slumped down in a heap at the foot of the front
+tent pole.
+
+Nort coughed loudly, two or three times, but the guard did not stir.
+
+"Dead to the world!" whispered Dick gleefully.  "We could walk all over
+him."  He arose from the cot slowly, to silence as much as possible the
+rattle and squeak, and started for the front of the tent.
+
+"The back way!" whispered Nort.  "We'll cut the canvas!  If we go out
+in front some one may see us.  The back way!"
+
+Dick comprehended, and turned around, picking up his range hat, an
+example followed by Nort.  The latter had opened his pocket knife,
+which contained a large, keen blade, and, a moment later, a
+right-angled cut was made in the back wall of the canvas house.
+
+Before emerging, Nort looked carefully through the opening he had made.
+The moon gave good light, but, fortunately, the tent was in the shadow
+of some trees and the way of escape seemed clear.
+
+"Come on!" whispered Nort to his brother.  They paused a moment,
+listening to the heavy breathing of the opium-stupefied Greaser and
+then stepped out of the opening.
+
+An instant later they stood beneath the starry canopy of the sky,
+having accomplished the first part of their escape from the camp of
+mystery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+BACK TO THE RANCH
+
+Perhaps, after all, it was due to the peculiar natures of the two
+professors that Nort and Dick were enabled to make their escape as
+easily as the lads did.  Primarily Professor Wright and Professor Blair
+were scientists, whatever else our heroes accused them of in their own
+minds.  And though the men surrounding the mysterious prospectors might
+be scoundrels, in a sense, they did not have orders to be extra
+vigilant after Dick and Nort had been placed in the tent; so no general
+guard was kept over the camp.
+
+Thus it was, that as soon as the lads stepped out of the cut tent, they
+found no one to oppose their progress.  Too much dependence had been
+placed on the Greaser guard.  Who would have supposed that Nort carried
+a bottle of paregoric?
+
+Or, granting that it was known he had it, would you have imagined that
+he would use it as he did?  The whole affair was so ridiculously simple
+that perhaps this offered a reason for its success.
+
+For it did succeed.
+
+Stepping softly over the rough ground back of the tent, the boys made
+their way some little distance from it before they hardly dared breathe
+freely.  Then as they were aware of the silence of the night, wrapping
+everything in its somber robe, slashed here and there with insertions
+of gleaming moonbeams, their hearts beat higher with hope.
+
+They looked toward the other tents where, doubtless, the professors and
+their helpers were sleeping.  Then Nort and Dick caught the snorting of
+the cattle in the improvised corral--Diamond X cattle unlawfully taken.
+
+"Wish we could let 'em out--stampede 'em," whispered Nort.
+
+"Don't think of it!" cautioned Dick to his more impulsive brother.  "If
+we can get our horses away without raising a racket we'll be mighty
+lucky."
+
+The boys had, earlier in the evening, noted where Blaze and Blackie
+were tethered, and now they paused long enough to get their bearings,
+and then made off in the direction of their ponies.  They dared not
+stop to look for their saddles or bridles.  If they got away at all
+they must ride bareback, and with only the loop of a lariat around the
+necks of their steeds.
+
+Fortunately Blackie and Blaze were gentle ponies--not too gentle--but,
+in comparison with a bucking bronco, they were as carriage horses to a
+racer.  The boys knew they could manage their mounts once they were on
+their backs.
+
+Step by step, moving cautiously, hardly daring to breathe, Dick and
+Nort made their way to the ponies.
+
+"Take it easy at first," cautioned Nort to Dick, as he slid his hand
+along the lariat, intending to follow it up until he reached the peg,
+which he could pull out.
+
+"Which way you going to ride?" asked Dick.
+
+"North," was the answer, for Nort had sensed that point of the compass.
+"After we get some distance away we can figure out which trail we ought
+to take."
+
+"Anything to get away," murmured Dick.
+
+Working quickly and silently, the boy ranchers soon released their
+ponies from the tethering ropes and managed to mount them, though it
+was not easy, owing to the lack of stirrups.  But eventually they were
+on the backs of their mounts, and, looping a bight of the rope around
+the heads of Blaze and Blackie, made a sort of bridle.
+
+Luckily the animals were not hard to guide, and a little later Dick and
+Nort were urging them along on the grass-covered ground, which provided
+so soft a cushion for their feet that scarcely a sound resulted.
+
+"I think we're going to make it!" whispered Dick to Nort as they moved
+along, the horses climbing up out of the swale in which the mysterious
+camp was located.  The moonlight gleamed down on the white tents,
+including the one from which the boys had cut their way.
+
+"Don't be too sure--don't crow--we're not out on the open range yet,"
+cautioned Nort, this time less inclined to haste than was Dick.
+
+But their departure did not seem to be noticed.  Any noise the horses
+made must have been covered by the lowing, snorting and occasional
+bellowing of the cattle in the corral.
+
+And so it came about that Dick and Nort, by the exercise of their wits,
+with which our American youth are so richly endowed, had outwitted
+their enemies.  Though why they should have been detained as prisoners
+they could not fathom.
+
+"Guess we can take it a little faster now, can't we?" asked Dick, as
+they came to a fairly level, open place.  The mysterious camp was now
+out of sight, though not out of mind.
+
+"Yes, we can chance it, though without a saddle and bridle we are
+taking a chance."
+
+The boys were never so glad as now that they knew fairly well how to
+ride, and that their steeds were not like many of the wilder western
+horses.  Blaze and Blackie seemed to know that their young masters were
+at a disadvantage, and they trotted along as though under full guidance.
+
+"I wonder what it all means--back there?" voiced Dick, as he rode along
+beside his brother.  Nort did not have to ask what Dick referred to--it
+was the mystery camp.
+
+"I don't know," Nort answered.  "But I'm sure of one thing.  As soon as
+we can get back to Diamond X we'll organize a raid on that outfit.
+It's the headquarters of the rustlers--or one gang of 'em--I'm
+positive."
+
+"Looks so," agreed Dick.
+
+They rode on at good speed now, though they were totally at a loss to
+know whether or not they were proceeding in the right direction to
+bring them to Diamond X ranch.  Nort found himself regretting the
+capture of his gun, when Dick, who was a little ahead, suddenly pulled
+up his horse, as best he could with the improvised reins, and called:
+
+"Hark!"
+
+Nort stopped and listened.  To the ears of the boy ranchers was borne
+the unmistakable sound of galloping horses.
+
+"If they're coming after us!" said Dick sharply, "I'm going to----"
+
+"It can't be that bunch," interrupted Nort, evidently referring to the
+professor's camp.  "They're behind us.  This sound comes from in front."
+
+"Maybe it's Bud looking for us!" exclaimed Dick, and before his brother
+could comment, they both saw riding toward them in the moonlight, up
+from a little valley, several cowboys.  The form of more than one was
+familiar to Dick and Nort, but as they saw their cousin in the front
+rank they cried out:
+
+"Bud!"
+
+"There they are!" yelled Bud in answer, and a moment later our heroes
+were among their friends.
+
+"Where have you been?  What happened?  Are you hurt?"
+
+These were only a few questions fired at the escaped prisoners, and as
+they managed to tell their story there were ominous growls and comments
+from the cowboys with Bud.
+
+"The scoundrels!  Rustling our cattle!" cried Bud.  "We'll fix 'em!"
+
+"They're doing something else besides rustling your cattle," declared
+Nort.  "Let's go back to Diamond X and organize a crowd to raid this
+camp!  We haven't enough men here, and Dick and I haven't any guns," he
+added.
+
+"All right," assented Bud, after a moment's thought.  "We can do better
+in daylight, anyhow.  Back to the ranch it is!"
+
+And as the rescue squad turned to go back Nort and Dick rode with them,
+their thoughts busy with many topics.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CLOSING IN
+
+"Now let's have the whole yarn," urged Bud Merkel.
+
+The rescue party of cowboys had returned to Diamond X ranch, after
+meeting Nort and Dick who were riding their saddleless horses on their
+way of escape from the mysterious camp.
+
+Thereupon the two brothers told everything that had happened since they
+rode off together two days before, to haze back the bunch of wild
+steers.
+
+"Hum!  That's quite a yarn," commented Bud's father who, with Slim
+Degnan, Babe Milton and several of the cowboys, had listened to the
+lads' story.
+
+"Did they harm you at all?" asked motherly Mrs. Merkel.
+
+"No, they were very polite about it," answered Nort.  "But of course we
+weren't going to stay with them on that account."
+
+"I should say not!" chuckled Bud.  "So you put paregoric in the
+Greaser's coffee!  That was rich!  Even Zip Poster couldn't have done
+better!"
+
+"Oh, Zip!  He'd 'a' drugged the whole camp, and brought 'em away one at
+a time on his shoulder," said Slim, with a wink at the others.
+
+"Hum!  You know a lot--don't you?" murmured Bud, but it was easy to see
+he did not like any fun poked at Zip Foster, a very mysterious
+personage, it appeared.
+
+"How'd you come to find us?" asked Nort, when his own tale, and that of
+his brother, had been sufficiently told.
+
+"Well, it was mainly luck, in a way," Bud answered.  "After you two
+rode off that time, we didn't pay much attention to you for a while, as
+we had our hands full with the cattle.  Then we didn't worry, even when
+it began to get dark, for we figured that the steers had given you more
+of a run than usual.  We didn't worry, for I told dad that you were
+getting to be real ranchers."
+
+Nort and Dick smiled proudly at this tribute.
+
+"But," resumed Bud, "when you fellows didn't come back in the early
+hours of the morning, we did begin to get a little leery.  And then we
+started off to look for you as soon as it was light.  We needn't say we
+didn't find you.  But we kept on hunting, and we were just about to
+give up again, and ride off in another direction, when we saw you
+heading for us."
+
+"That camp of the professors' is pretty well hidden," spoke Nort.  "I
+wonder if we can find it again?"
+
+"Bet your boots!" cried Bud.  "I could find it in the dark, but we
+won't wait until then to close in on the rustlers!"
+
+"That's what they are!" cried Nort "They're cattle rustlers, and
+something else!  Why, they had the nerve to drive some of our Diamond X
+branded cattle right in under our noses, and they never even
+apologized!"
+
+"Such fellows don't generally beg your pardon," commented Mr. Merkel,
+dryly.  "But have you any idea what their game is, boys?" he asked the
+two brothers.
+
+"They're digging, blasting and excavating for something that's hidden
+in the ground," answered Nort.  "Whether it's gold or diamonds I don't
+know."
+
+"I don't see how it can be either," said Bud, with a shake of his head.
+"Nothing like that has ever been found around here."
+
+"There's always a first time," said Mrs. Merkel, with a smile.  "And
+wouldn't it be wonderful if there should be a diamond mine on our
+ranch?  I'd rather it would be diamonds than gold," she went on, "as it
+doesn't take so many diamonds to amount to a fortune."
+
+"Well, all I've got to say is that if those rascals rustle off enough
+of my steers they'll be making a fortune that I ought to have,"
+commented the head of Diamond X ranch.  "I think it's time we closed in
+on 'em, boys!" he added sharply.  "Up to now we didn't have any direct
+evidence.  But if Nort and Dick saw some of our cattle driven into
+their camp, and held there, that's proof enough of what they are."
+
+"That's what I say!" cried Bud.  "Let's get after the rustlers, Del
+Pinzo and the rest!  I always did suspect that slick Greaser, and now
+we've got the goods on him.  Shouldn't wonder but what that Double Z
+outfit was mixed up in this, too."
+
+"Don't go jumping too fast," counseled his father.  "Zip Foster
+wouldn't like it!"
+
+"Oh--er--well, you'll see if I'm not right!" said Bud, somewhat
+confused.
+
+It was planned, in the light of what Nort and Bud had seen and heard,
+to close in and raid the mysterious camp of the professors' the next
+day.  This talk had taken place during the night and early morning
+hours, following the meeting of the refugees with the rescue party.
+
+"Maybe we ought to close in on 'em this morning," suggested Bud, as the
+conference broke up, when the first streaks of dawn were coming in the
+ranch house windows.
+
+"No," decided his father.  "Nort and Dick want to get a little sleep,
+and we want them with us when we close in.  Then, too, I want to
+circulate the word around a bit, and have some deputies from the
+sheriff's office on hand to see that everything is done regular.  Of
+course I'd have a right to go in there, right off the reel, and take my
+cattle.  But I'd rather do it regular."
+
+So it was planned.  Nort and Dick, indeed, were glad to get some sleep
+and rest, for they had had a hard time during the last two days.  But
+they were hardy, healthy lads, and their life almost continually in the
+open since coming to Diamond X ranch had made them able to endure
+hardships they could not, otherwise, have stood.  So, after a short
+rest and sleep, they were as eager as Bud and the cowboys to start on a
+raid.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Merkel had not been idle.  He had sent word of what had
+happened to several adjoining ranches, being careful, however, not to
+let news of what was afoot trickle through to Hank Fisher, owner of the
+Double Z.  As a matter of fact, while there was no evidence to directly
+connect Hank with the mysterious operations at the professors' camp,
+this man was believed to have been involved in more than one cattle
+rustling operation.
+
+It was hinted that he branded more mavericks than were rightfully his,
+and on several occasions cattle with "blurred brands" had been found on
+his ranch.  But he always managed to explain matters, though his
+association with Del Pinzo, who gave it out that he was officially
+attached to Double Z, did not raise the value of Hank Fisher's
+reputation.  So it was thought best not to include him or his cowboys
+in the raid.
+
+But others from adjoining' ranches assembled at Diamond X on the
+morning selected for the start, and by this time saddles and bridles
+had been provided for Blaze and Blackie, and Nort and Dick sported new
+guns in their holsters.
+
+"Now do be careful, won't you?" pleaded Mrs. Merkel, as the cavalcade
+started off, with none of the usual whooping and yelling that marked
+many cowboy affairs.  This was thought too serious to be decorated with
+horse play.
+
+"We'll be careful," promised her husband.  "But I don't imagine
+there'll be any serious trouble.  We'll surround the place and if those
+fellows have any sense they'll give up and take what's coming to them."
+
+"Look out for the boys!" she said in a lower voice, nodding toward her
+own son, and Nort and Dick.
+
+"I will," promised Mr. Merkel.  "But from what I've seen," he added,
+with a twinkle in his eyes, "they're middlin' well able to look after
+themselves.  Paregoric for that Greaser!  That's pretty good!" and he
+chuckled as he rode off with the others.
+
+The plans had been carefully made and each cowboy knew what he was to
+do.  The idea was to surround the camp, if possible without arousing
+the suspicions of the inmates, and then make a sudden rush on it from
+all sides.  This would be comparatively easy to do, since the camp was
+in the valley, with hills all around it.  It was simple enough to
+follow the trail to the point where Nort and Dick had been met with as
+they were escaping.  And when this point was reached, it was left to
+the two young ranchers themselves to say which way to go, since the
+camp was not in sight, nor were there any known trails leading to it.
+
+"Well, as near as I can tell this is the way we came," said Nort, after
+studying over the matter a bit, and consulting with Dick.
+
+"All right," decided Mr. Merkel.  "You lead a party that way, and I'll
+take Dick, and bear off more to the south.  It may be you haven't just
+hit it, and this will give us two shots at it.  We'll keep within sight
+of one another as long as we can, and the first one who sights the
+right trail, leading in, will build a fire and send up smoke puffs."
+
+This much settled, two parties rode off, Nort leading one and Dick the
+other.
+
+They were closing in on the mysterious camp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE FIGHT
+
+The boy ranchers, meaning this time Nort and Dick, as distinguished
+from Bud, felt that they were on their mettle--that they were being put
+to a severe test.  They had ridden out from the mysterious camp of the
+professors, and now they were to ride back to it, leading the raiding
+party.  True, they had come out at night, and under the stress of
+excitement, so that it was not easy to determine the trail back.
+
+But as the boys rode alone, each at the head of a cavalcade that was
+beginning to diverge, they felt the full measure of responsibility.
+One of them must make good--must pick up the obscure trail leading to
+the rendezvous of the cattle rustlers.
+
+It was Dick who proved the lucky one this time.  The party led by Nort
+was out of sight among the many hills and swales, when Dick, riding
+past a water hole, stopped suddenly.
+
+"The trail goes in that way," he said.  "I'm sure of it.  Blackie
+stopped here when we were riding out, to get a drink."
+
+"Are you sure he stopped here?" asked Babe, who was with Dick's party.
+
+"Positive!  He stopped in such a hurry that I slid off and fell, and
+this excited him so I had quite a job holding him."
+
+In an instant one of the cowboys was out of his saddle and looking
+carefully at the ground.
+
+"The kid's right!" he exclaimed.  "There's been some sort of a fracas
+here."
+
+In that country, where rains were infrequent, and travel light, marks
+remained for a long time on the dry ground.
+
+"I'm sure it was here," declared Dick, "and we came out that way."  He
+pointed toward some distant hills.
+
+"Well, we'll take a chance on it," said Babe.  "Light a fire, fellows."
+
+In a few minutes a column of smoke was ascending, and two of the
+cowboys, holding a blanket over it, moved the cloth to one side at
+intervals, so that puffs of the dark vapor arose and floated upward.
+
+"That'll call 'em," observed Babe, who sat on his horse directing
+operations, at the same time scanning the horizon for answering signals
+from Nort's party.
+
+"Won't the rustlers see these and skip out?" asked Dick, as the smoke
+puffs went up thick and fast.
+
+"Don't believe so," spoke Babe.  "If they do see 'em they'll only think
+they're camp fires, or round-up blazes."
+
+"We'll do the rounding-up," grimly commented Snake Purdee.  "But of
+course these fellows may be on the lookout.  Can't hardly expect much
+else after they come to know that their prisoners have skipped, and the
+Greaser has gone back to his baby days, eating paregoric!  Oh, my
+spurs!  That was slick!"
+
+"There they are!" suddenly cried Dick, as he descried other smoke
+signals going up, about three miles away.  And in a short time there
+rode up to the waiting ones the members of the other party.
+
+"Dick says this is the trail in," remarked Babe, detailing our hero's
+reasons for his statement.
+
+"Yes, he's right," assented Nort.  "We did come this way."
+
+"All right then!  Go to it, boys!" commanded Mr. Merkel, and the party
+rode off.
+
+As they advanced, the configuration of the ground became more and more
+familiar to the two boys.  They passed places which they had ridden
+over in approaching the half-hidden valley, before they fairly stumbled
+on it and were captured.
+
+"I reckon we're getting warm," decided Mr. Merkel, after several hours
+of cautious riding.  "Some of you fellows better take it on foot for
+half a mile or so, and see what you can locate.  We'll wait for you
+here."
+
+Two cowboys, leaving their horses rather reluctantly, formed an advance
+scouting party, and the others waited down in a little swale.  In less
+than half an hour the two scouts had returned, and their manner showed
+suppressed excitement.
+
+"We located 'em," said one.  "They're in the next valley.'
+
+"What are they doing?" asked Bud.
+
+"We didn't stop to see that," was the answer.  "As soon as we saw the
+white tents we came back."
+
+"All right," said Mr. Merkel grimly, "now we've got 'em!  Spread out,
+boys, and don't do any shooting unless it's absolutely necessary.  We
+just want to capture the rascals.  But be sure your guns are in working
+order."
+
+Most of the cowboys knew this without looking, but Bud, Nort and Dick
+made a careful inspection of their weapons.
+
+Proceeding cautiously, the cavalcade approached.  Some had been sent on
+in advance, to circle about and approach the valley from the far side,
+thus enabling it to be surrounded.
+
+Two shots, fired at a brief interval, was to be a signal from the
+advance party, led by Slim, that they were in place, and ready to
+attack.
+
+"There!  One shot!" suddenly cried Bud, as a sharp report cut the air.
+
+It was followed, almost immediately, by another.
+
+"Come on, boys!" cried Mr. Merkel, and there was a general leaping to
+saddles.  Bud and his cousins were not a bit behind the cowboys and a
+little later, amid shouts, the two parties rode at a fast clip down the
+slopes toward the mysterious camp.
+
+"Look!  There are your cattle!" cried Nort to Mr. Merkel, as several
+steers were seen, standing in a bunch near some queer piece of
+apparatus that looked like a derrick.
+
+"That's right!" shouted the cattleman, for he had caught sight of the
+animals bearing the Diamond X brand.  "But what in the name of sour
+dough biscuits are they doing?" he asked.  "If these are rustlers
+they're the queerest ones I ever saw!"
+
+"Well, they're rustlers all right!" yelled several of the cowboys.
+"Come on, fellows!  Let's get at 'em!"
+
+"Right you are, Buddy!" rang out savage, exultant yells on all sides.
+The cowboys wished for nothing better than to come to hand grips with
+lawless men who stole the fruit of others' labor.  "Treat 'em rough!"
+
+"Sit tight and ride hard!" called Bud to Nort and Dick.  "There's going
+to be some hot work!" and he spoke to his pony, which leaped forward as
+if he, too, wanted to get into the fight.
+
+"Will we need our guns?" asked Dick.
+
+"Better have 'em handy!" advised Nort, as his hand went to the leather
+holster at his hip.
+
+"Look at 'em!" shouted Bud.  "They're going to fight us all right!"
+
+Indeed, it did appear that the party in the camp established by the
+professors, taken by surprise as they were, meant to resist to the
+utmost.  Men could be seen running back to the tents, whence some
+reappeared with guns or big .45s.  Others, including the two professors
+themselves, remained at the scene where some of the Diamond X cattle
+were attached by ropes to the apparatus that looked like the derrick.
+
+"Are they trying to brand your cattle over again, Bud?" asked Dick as
+he and his cousin rode alongside of the young rancher.
+
+"I don't know," was the answer.  "If they are, they're going about it
+in a new way.  I wonder what they are up to, anyhow?"
+
+Well might he ask that, for as the raiding party made its rush into the
+valley several men near the professors, were urging forward the steers
+that were harnessed, or yoked together in some manner, to cause them to
+act as a lifting force.  By means of ropes rigged over the derrick-like
+structure, something heavy was being hoisted from a great hole in the
+ground.
+
+The steers, unused to this work, for which gentle oxen might have been
+admirably fitted, were acting wildly, and the Greasers, and other
+campers, were having their hands full.  This with the shouts of the
+attacking party, the thud of the feet of many galloping horses and the
+firing of shots into the air by the wildly enthusiastic cowboys from
+Diamond X, made the place one of great confusion.
+
+"Rout 'em out, boys!"
+
+"Haze 'em into the brook!"
+
+"Cut out our cattle!"
+
+"Rope 'em an' hog-tie 'em!"
+
+These were only a few of the many directions that were yelled at the
+tops of voices as the boy ranchers and their friends swept onward down
+the valley, converging on the band of men they believed to be cattle
+rustlers, if not something worse.
+
+"Hands up, there!"
+
+"Drop those guns!"
+
+These commands came sternly from Mr. Merkel, Babe and Slim, while Dick
+and Nort, riding beside Bud, felt a wild thrill as they realized that
+they were to have a part in this strenuous fight.  To possible danger
+they gave not a thought.
+
+But if the attacking party thought everything was to be easy, it was
+not long before this idea vanished.  After the first surprise, the
+Greasers, and other rough characters in the camp of the professors,
+regained their nerve, and prepared to fight.  There were shouts in
+hissing Spanish, and Del Pinzo was observed to be rallying his
+followers.
+
+Bud and his cousins had a glimpse of this wily Mexican leaping on his
+horse, and, surrounded by a number of evil-looking men, riding straight
+for the invaders.
+
+"They're coming!" cried Nort.
+
+"I see 'em!" muttered Dick.
+
+"Keep together!" advised Bud in a wild cry.  "Stay with me, and we'll
+ride right through 'em!"
+
+Several weapons popped, and two or three saddles were emptied, one on
+the side of the Diamond X forces.  Nort and Dick heard bullets
+whistling in the air over their heads, and though they may have ducked,
+instinctively, they did not after the first two or three of these
+nerve-racking experiences.
+
+"Come on!  Come on!" yelled Bud to his cousins, as they saw Del Pinzo
+and his gang of Greasers spurring toward them.
+
+Nort and Dick touched their horses lightly, and the spirited ponies
+sprang forward.  Dick had a glimpse of the two professors, and one or
+two other men, standing by the derrick structure as though dazed at the
+sudden turn in affairs.  Some of the helpers were endeavoring to quiet
+the harnessed cattle.
+
+"Ride 'em down, boys!  Ride 'em down!" yelled Mr. Merkel.
+
+"You said it!" shouted Slim Degnan, and Babe added his voice to the
+din, the while starting one of the verses of his cowboys' song.
+
+"Crack!"
+
+That was a gun going off close to the ear of Dick.  He leaned over
+slightly in his saddle, fearing he had been hit.  But in another
+instant he realized that Bud had fired, with a pistol held so close to
+the eastern lad's ear as nearly to deafen him.
+
+"Well, I got him, anyhow!" yelled Bud, and Dick saw a man who had been
+riding at Del Pinzo's side drop his gun and clasp his right hand in his
+left.  "That's what I wanted to do--disarm him.  No need to shoot to
+kill!" Bud went on.
+
+Dick saw a Mexican riding straight at him, and the boy endeavored to
+bring his weapon to bear as Bud had done.  But just as the boy rancher
+was going to pull the trigger something else happened.  He felt himself
+flying over the head of his pony, and the next moment came heavily to
+the ground, while blackness closed his eyes.  Dick was out of the fight.
+
+The battle between the cowboys and the Greasers now waged hotly.  Guns
+cracked on both sides and more than one saddle was emptied.  This
+before the two forces actually came together.  And come together they
+did, with the thud of horses and men meeting, as when two rival
+football elevens clash on the gridiron.  Only this was more desperate.
+
+Nort had a glimpse of Dick being unhorsed and left behind in a silent,
+huddled heap on the ground.  A wave of sorrow, and then a wild feeling
+of revenge, swept through Nort's heart.  He sent his pony ahead with a
+rush, endeavoring to wheel him to attack the man at whom Dick had been
+riding when unseated.
+
+"Look out!" Bud yelled.
+
+Nort turned in time to see Del Pinzo himself bearing down on him
+astride of a powerful black horse.  The Greaser was yelling and waving
+his gun, from the muzzle of which smoke floated.
+
+"I'll get him!" yelled Nort, savagely.  He swerved his own weapon,
+bringing it to bear on the evilly smiling Mexican, and Nort's own face
+lit up in a grim smile, for he thought to revenge Dick.
+
+But the next instant he felt a burning, stinging pain across his
+forehead and a second later his eyes saw nothing, while he was
+conscious that they were filled with blood that streamed from his wound.
+
+"I'm shot!" was the thought that flashed through Nort's mind.
+
+He endeavored to pull up his pony, conscious that he was losing control
+over the animal.  He wanted his eyes to see where he was heading.
+
+By a great effort of will Nort caught up his gun in his bridle hand,
+and with his right wiped away as much of the blood as he could from his
+eyes.  A great emotion of thankfulness passed over him as he found that
+he could still see, though dimly.
+
+He caught sight of Del Pinzo still spurring toward him, but the next
+moment a curious change took place.
+
+"Let me have him!" Nort heard Bud yell, seemingly from a great
+distance, though, in reality from a position directly behind him.  Then
+as his vision dimmed again, Nort caught a fleeting sight of a lasso
+whirling and writhing through the air toward the Greaser.
+
+Del Pinzo tried in vain to dodge it, but his horse was traveling too
+fast.  Then, as darkness again closed down on poor Nort he had a vision
+of the Greaser, covered with blood, shouting and wildly jerking his
+arms and legs, being pulled from the saddle to the ground, his gun
+going off harmlessly as he was yanked along.
+
+"Bud got him!" was the thought that flashed through Nort's mind, and
+then all became black, and he felt some one helping him down out of his
+saddle.
+
+"Where's Dick?  I'm not much hurt!" Nort heard himself murmuring,
+though, to tell the truth, he did not know for certain whether he was
+mortally wounded or not.  "Look after Dick!  Are they beating us?" he
+asked, though he could not see to whom he was talking.
+
+"Dick's all right," answered a voice that Nort recognized as that of
+Babe.  "It's you we're worried about."
+
+"Nothing much the matter with me," spoke Nort, as his hand again went
+to his head.  Then he found that a bullet had creased its way across
+his forehead, cutting a long gash, but making a wound that was only
+superficial, though it bled profusely.
+
+"Are we getting licked?" demanded Nort anxiously, as more shots
+resounded in the valley, and he could hear the yells of cowboys, the
+clashing of bodies one against the other and the lowing of the cattle.
+
+"No, we've got 'em on the run!" exulted Babe.  "Come on, till I lead
+you to water, and you can wash off that blood.  You look bad that way,
+even if you aren't hurt much!"
+
+"Are you sure Dick's all right?" Nort asked.
+
+"Sure!  His horse stumbled and threw him.  He's limping over this way
+now."
+
+"Good!" murmured Nort, and his heart felt better.
+
+But the fighting was not over yet.  Driven partly from the valley at
+the first rush of the boy ranchers and their friends from Diamond X,
+the Greasers and Mexican cowboys returned with a rush.  This took place
+when Nort was trying to rid himself of some of the blood that had
+flowed freely from the gash on his head.
+
+"There goes Yellin' Kid!" cried Babe, as he darted away from Nort's
+side.
+
+"Killed?" asked the boy, who could not see just then, as some water got
+in his eyes.
+
+"Killed?  Shucks, no!" yelled Babe exultantly.  "He rode into one
+Greaser and knocked him seven ways from Sunday, and roped another,
+yankin' him out of the saddle!  Oh, boy!" and with a yell Babe ran to
+join in the fray.
+
+Nort cleared his face of blood and water long enough to see Snake
+Purdee keel over out of his saddle as a bullet struck him, though it
+afterward developed that the cowboy was not badly hurt.
+
+Slim was slightly wounded, and Mr. Merkel had a narrow escape.  But
+though the Diamond X bunch took hard knocks they gave harder ones.  Nor
+did the professors escape scathless, for Mr. Wright was grazed by a
+spent bullet, and his helper was horned by one of the wild steers.
+
+"There they go!  We've made 'em run for cover!" shrilly cried Yellin'
+Kid as he spurred after the last of the lawless men.  "Yip!  Yippy!
+There they go!"
+
+And go the rascals did--that is, those who were not wounded or captured.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE TRICERATOPS
+
+Diamond X cowboys were in complete possession of the mysterious camp of
+the two professors.  The fight had been won by the Merkel forces, and
+at no very great sacrifices on their part.  One or two of the cowboys
+had been wounded, but not seriously, though two horses had been killed,
+and also one steer.  On the other hand, the enemy, as represented by
+the Greasers and some cowboys who were in the pay of the two
+professors, were in need of hospital treatment in several cases; one
+serious.  But they had brought the trouble on themselves by their
+lawless acts.
+
+Babe helped Nort tie a bandage around the bullet-cut on his forehead,
+and then, with his eyes cleared of the blood, Nort was able to see that
+victory had come to Diamond X.
+
+Bud's quick act, in lassoing Del Pinzo, just as the latter was about to
+ride down Nort, had been one of the turning points in the fight.  When
+the Greasers saw their leader pulled from his saddle they turned and
+would have fled, but for the cowboys who surrounded them, compelling
+them to surrender with the grim words:
+
+"Hands up!"
+
+Nort saw Del Pinzo, and several of the others, being roped and tied on
+ponies, and then his attention was attracted to Dick, who came limping
+up with a rueful face.
+
+"Hurt?" asked Nort of his brother.
+
+"No, but wasn't it rotten that my horse had to stumble just as I was
+going to pot one of 'em?"
+
+"Yes, but _you_ might have been potted instead!  We're well out of it,
+I think."
+
+"They got you, though!" said Dick, a bit anxiously.
+
+"Only a scratch," Nort answered, though his whole face was beginning to
+feel stiff from the effects of the bullet wound.
+
+"Well, we seem to have made a clean sweep," remarked Mr. Merkel as he
+rode up, with Bud and some of the cowboys, to where Nort and Dick
+stood.  "You boys all right?" he asked quickly.
+
+"Sure!" exclaimed Nort.  "But have you found out what it's all about?"
+
+"We're going to," said Bud's father, grimly.  "The two professors, as
+they call themselves, didn't take any part in the fight.  They're over
+near that hole in the ground, with some of my steers yoked up to that
+derrick.  I'm going to find out what it means.  Keep those fellows well
+tied, boys!" he commanded his cowboys who had charge of Del Pinzo and
+his followers.
+
+"Don't worry," drawled Babe, as he rolled a cigarette.  "We've hog-tied
+'em!"
+
+Indeed, it did seem impossible for Del Pinzo or any of the Greasers to
+get loose, but their bonds were looked to again, while some of the
+cowboys busied themselves with the wounded.  Then Mr. Merkel, followed
+by his foreman and the boy ranchers, approached the little knoll on
+which stood the two professors and the uneasy cattle.  The animals had
+been prevented from stampeding during the fight because of the ropes
+that bound them to the derrick.
+
+Riding up to the scientists, who seemed dazed by what had taken place,
+Mr. Merkel sternly demanded:
+
+"What does this mean?"
+
+He pointed to the harnessed cattle--his own Diamond X steers, which
+were now more quiet.
+
+"I might ask you the same," retorted Professor Wright, and there was
+considerable excitement in his voice and manner.  "By what authority do
+you ride into our camp, attacking our men, and interfering with our
+work which we have permission from the United States government to
+carry out?"
+
+"I don't know anything about _that_," said Mr. Merkel, "but I do know
+that you have some of my cattle, and even the permission of the
+government doesn't cover the rustling of animals from the Diamond X
+ranch."
+
+"_Cattle rustling?_" murmured Professor Blair.
+
+"Your cattle?" added Professor Wright, falteringly.
+
+"Yes!" was the snapped-out answer.  "Those are my steers you have
+hitched to that derrick.
+
+"Oh--those!" exclaimed Professor Blair, with an air of relief.  "We
+merely borrowed them.  They will be returned to you soon."
+
+"But what are you after, anyhow?" burst out Bud, unable longer to
+restrain his curiosity.  "What are you pulling out of that hole?"
+
+The two professors turned toward it as the boy rancher pointed, and
+Nort and Dick, forgetting the pain of their wounds and bruises,
+followed their gaze to the excavation.
+
+"We are pulling out ten million years," answered Professor Wright,
+slowly, in rather solemn tones.  "Ten million years!  We are pulling
+out a creature that walked the earth ten million years ago!"
+
+There was a gasp from the listening cowboys, and Babe murmured:
+
+"His brain sure is cracked!"
+
+"Ten million years!" murmured Mr. Merkel.  "But what has that to do
+with rustling Diamond X cattle?"
+
+Before anyone could answer, there was some movement at the far end of
+the valley camp, and into it came rushing several more steers bearing
+the Merkel brand.  They were being driven by several Mexican Greasers,
+who seemed very much surprised at the scene that met their gaze.  In
+vain did Del Pinzo attempt to signal them to retreat.
+
+It was too late.  On they came, and with yells the Diamond X cowboys
+rushed for these latest arrivals.
+
+"More rustling!" cried Bud.  "We've caught 'em right at their game!"
+
+"Go get 'em, boys!" commanded his father.
+
+And in a few minutes, after the exchange of a few shots, the other
+Mexicans were captured, with the exception of one or two at the rear of
+the bunch of steers.  They managed to ride off in the confusion.
+
+"Oh, boy!" murmured Bud, as he threw his hat up in the air.  "This is
+great!  Even Zip Foster couldn't beat this!"
+
+"He'll not get the chance, I guess!" murmured Nort, laughing.
+
+"Looks like we'd corraled the whole bunch," said Slim.  "Now let's take
+a look at this ten million year old creature the professors seem to
+have bagged."
+
+The prisoners were now secured and the boy ranchers, with Bud's father
+and his cowboys, drew near the great hole in the ground--the hole over
+which leaned an improvised derrick.  From this derrick ran a long rope,
+rigged over pulleys, and it was to the pulling end of this cable that
+the Diamond X steers were hitched.  The lifting end of the rope
+extended down into the excavation.
+
+"Just what sort of game is going on here?" demanded Mr. Merkel, and But
+knew when his father spoke in this tone that there was likely to be
+trouble for some one.  "What does it all mean?"
+
+"The explanation is a long one," began Professor Wright, "but----"
+
+"It doesn't take very long to size up that you've been rustling our
+cattle!" said Slim, sharply.
+
+"Rustling!" murmured the professor.  "Rustling?  Oh, I see, a western
+term for borrowing."
+
+"_Borrowing_!  Oh, Zip Foster!" murmured Bud, but his father motioned
+for him to remain quiet.
+
+But Professor Wright had caught Bud's remark, and it seemed to give a
+new light to the scientist.  He stepped forward, having seen to it that
+the rope, by which something, "ten million years old," was being
+hoisted from the earth, was made fast.  The steers, which had been
+straining to lift the weight, were now comparatively quiet, and the
+second bunch, driven in by Del Pinzo's men, were cropping grass near
+the stream.
+
+"There seems to have been some mistake," said Professor Wright.  "We
+intended to pay you for the use of your cattle, Mr. Merkel, as I
+understand your name to be.  And, now that we have almost accomplished
+our search, we shall have no further need of your beasts.  I don't know
+why my helper sent after more, for those we have are amply able to lift
+out the fossils.  We shall be through with your animals in a few hours,
+and will then pay anything in reason for their borrowed use."
+
+A light seemed also to break over Bud's father, and the boy ranchers
+looked at one another with a new understanding.
+
+"Do you mean to say," began the owner of the Diamond X ranch, "that you
+only wanted to use my cattle as you might use oxen--as draft animals?"
+
+"Of course," said Professor Blair.  "That is all we wanted them for.
+Did you think we intended to _keep_ them?"
+
+"Well--er--you'll excuse me saying so, but we certainly _did_!"
+declared Bud's father.  "Rustling, we call it here, and it means
+driving off another man's branded stock.  It isn't all clear to me yet.
+What are you after, anyhow?  What's down in that hole, and what is it
+that is ten million years old?"
+
+"A Triceratops," answered Professor Wright.  "We have been on the track
+of one for a long time, and now we have found it.  Almost the only
+complete remains of the most perfect Triceratops it has ever been the
+fortune of anyone to discover!  If you will only have a little
+patience, and grant us the use of your steers a short time longer,
+until we hoist from its ancient bed the remains, you may soon look upon
+one of nature's wonders--a Triceratops!"
+
+"Triceratops!" murmured Babe Milton.  "Is that one of them slidin'
+_horns_ you blow your lungs out on?"
+
+"You're thinkin' of a trombone," said Snake Purdee, laughing.
+
+"Or a saxophone," said Bud.
+
+"No," said Dick, "I remember now.  A Triceratops is one of the ancient
+Dinosaurs, or lizard animals, that roamed the earth millions of years
+ago.  We studied a little about them in the Academy."
+
+"You are right, young man, a Triceratops is one of the most wonderful
+of Dinosaurs," said Professor Wright.  "For many years I have been
+seeking a perfect specimen, and now I have found it.  In a little while
+you may gaze upon its skeleton remains, or at least most of them.  Have
+I your permission to continue the use of your cattle as a hoisting
+medium?" he asked Mr. Merkel.
+
+"Shucks!  Yes!" exclaimed the ranchman.  "I don't know what you're
+driving at, except that it's something scientific, but you're more than
+welcome, and I'm sorry there was all this fuss over it.  If we had only
+known what you were after we could have helped."
+
+"I did not dare let the object of my expedition become known, until I
+was sure of success," said Professor Wright.  "A rival college has sent
+some of its scientists into this same field, and only by strategy have
+we been able to elude them and reach our wonderful success."
+
+"Oh, so that's what all the secret was about!" exclaimed the ranchman.
+"Well, was he in the secret, too?" he asked, pointing to the bound and
+scowling Del Pinzo.
+
+"He knew we were after something of this sort; yes," answered the
+scientist, "but he has no comprehension, of course, of what a
+Triceratops is.  I believe he told his Mexican and Indian helpers, who
+assisted us from time to time, that we were after _gold_."
+
+"Oh, so that's how that rumor got abroad," murmured Mr. Merkel.
+
+"Did you send Del Pinzo's men off to get more of our cattle just now?"
+asked Slim, pointing to the second batch of Diamond X steers.
+
+"No, and we never sent him, or them, to any special place to get
+animals to use on our pulley ropes," said Professor Wright.  "We left
+that to him, merely stipulating that he was to hire animals, and we
+would pay for their use."
+
+"Then I see his game!" cried the foreman of the ranch.  "He took this
+chance to rustle some cattle on his own account, thinking you wouldn't
+know the difference, and that you'd be blamed for it.  You slick
+Greaser!" he cried, shaking his fist at Del Pinzo.  "This makes it all
+clear, now!"
+
+"We certainly never intended to do more than hire a few of your
+powerful steers, to use as oxen," said Professor Wright.  "But I can
+see, now, that we should have made this clear from the first, and not
+have left it to one who, evidently, does not bear a good reputation
+with you."
+
+"You got off an earfull that time," commented Babe Milton, dryly.
+
+"But why were my two nephews held as prisoners in your camp?" asked Mr.
+Merkel.  "There doesn't seem to have been any excuse for that."
+
+"Only our zeal to avoid discovery, and to keep our plans secret from a
+rival college expedition," said Professor Wright.  "For this I must
+apologize to the boys.  They stumbled in on our camp just when we had
+located the bones of the Triceratops, and we feared they had come from
+our rivals.  I offered them all the freedom possible, if they would
+give me their parole, but they saw fit not to, and I thought the end
+justified the means.
+
+"I see, now, that I made a mistake in trying to keep the boys
+prisoners, though it would have been only for a short time.  But they
+got away."
+
+"They sure did--with _paregoric_!" chuckled Bud.
+
+"Well, no great harm was done," said Professor Wright.  "And now that
+explanations have been made, and the guilty caught," and he looked at
+Del Pinzo, "we will proceed to lift out the Triceratops."
+
+"Ten million years old!" murmured Slim.  "Whew!"
+
+"And perhaps older," said Professor Blair.
+
+"Get ready, men!" he called to those in charge of the harnessed steers.
+
+Then began a strange scene.  The powerful animals from Diamond X ranch,
+acting for the time being as beasts of burden, leaned forward in the
+improvised yokes.  There was the creaking of pulleys, the straining of
+ropes and the squeak of wood under pressure.
+
+Then from the great hole that had been dug, and blasted, in the earth,
+there arose a mass of bones, imbedded in rock--part of the skeleton of
+an ancient and prehistoric Triceratops.
+
+This fragment of an animal--one of the Dinosaurs that roamed the
+western part of America from ten to twenty-five million years
+ago--before the Rocky Mountains were even formed--this fragment gave
+little idea of the weird beast itself.
+
+I have not time, or space, to tell you more about it than can be
+sketched in a few words.  But those of you who have seen the
+restoration of these monsters, in museums, will bear me out when I say
+that they must have been among the wonders of the ancient world.
+
+The Triceratops resembled a rhinoceros as much as anything else, but
+was much larger.  He had comparatively short legs, a short heavy tail
+and, doubtless, a very thick skin.
+
+His skull was his most remarkable feature.  On top were three horns,
+the one directly over the end of his snout being short, the middle one
+long and the rear slightly shorter.  Back of the last horn extended a
+huge, bony plate, not unlike the back shield on the helmet of a
+fireman, and over each eye was another protective plate of bone,
+doubtless intended, as was the rear one, to guard vital organs.
+
+The Triceratops was the largest animal of his kind, more than
+twenty-five feet long, and while he may not have matched the
+Brontosaurus, or Thunder Lizard, which was from forty to sixty feet
+long, from ten to fourteen feet high, with thigh bones measuring six
+feet in length (the largest single bones known to science)--while, I
+say, the Triceratops may not have been a match for the Thunder Lizard,
+he was a Dinosaur to be reckoned with.
+
+And as the remains of this prehistoric monster, that had lived, walked,
+eaten and fought on earth from ten to twenty-five million years ago,
+rose out of the pit, even the workaday cowboys could not repress a
+cheer.
+
+"That's the idea, boys!" cried Professor Wright, who was quite a
+different person, now that his work was crowned with success.  "I feel
+like cheering also!  This is the culmination of my life's ambition, and
+that of my helper, Professor Blair!"
+
+When the wounded had been cared for and the prisoners had been sent to
+the nearest jail, the remains of the skeleton of the Triceratops, part
+of the bones imbedded in rock, were carefully hoisted out and laid to
+one side.  When I tell you that the skull, alone, of one of these
+monsters, imbedded in rock, weighed, when boxed for shipment to a
+museum, over three tons, you may form some idea of the magnitude of
+this sort of relic collecting, and understand why many powerful steers
+were needed, with tackle, to raise specimens out of a deep pit.
+
+That the boy ranchers were intensely interested in the remaining work
+of restoring to science the lost Triceratops, goes without saying.
+When it was made plain that the two professors and their men were not
+cattle rustlers, Mr. Merkel gave them every assistance in his power,
+assigning some of his cowboys to help with the labor of excavating the
+remaining bones, not all of which could be found.
+
+For it is rare that a complete skeleton of these monster Dinosaurs is
+recovered.  While our western states, in certain places, are rich in
+fossil remains, there is very seldom a complete skeleton unearthed.  At
+best there are but a few bones, or the impressions of bones, in the
+sandstone rocks or shale.  But from these bones, from the impressions
+of those that have been eaten by time, and by their knowledge of what
+sort of anatomy was needed to keep these wonderful creatures on earth,
+it is possible for scientists to almost completely and perfectly
+restore them, in some medium like papier-maché.
+
+"We shall be the envy of all our colleagues!" declared Professor
+Wright, as the work progressed from day to day, the boy ranchers
+becoming eager helpers.  Professor Wright and Professor Blair labored
+with their men, and as hard.
+
+There was one exception to this--Silas Thorp.  He of the sour face and
+hangdog manner, it was discovered, had acted with Del Pinzo in stealing
+cattle, intending to sell them for their own profit, after they had
+"borrowed" the animals from Diamond X ranch, letting the two professors
+think the steers had legitimately been "hired."
+
+Silas made his escape during the fight, but Del Pinzo and most of his
+men were captured.  Not all of the professors' employees were
+confederates of the Greasers, Del Pinzo and Silas Thorp.  Some were as
+ignorant as the scientists themselves that anything wrong was going on.
+These men were soon freed, and helped in the work of excavating the
+Triceratops.
+
+There really were some cattle rustlers engaged in operations around
+Diamond Z ranch when Nort and Dick happened to come on their visit.
+This fact was discovered later when some of the cattlemen organized a
+posse, and after a fight, in which several on both sides were slain,
+arrested a notorious gang.
+
+It was Del Pinzo who had tried to rope Dick that night, hoping, it was
+surmised, that in the confusion, he might be able to steal some steers.
+
+But the mission of the professor, that same night, was perfectly
+legitimate.  He had heard that some rival scientists were "on his
+trail," and he rode off alone to see if this might be true.  He found
+nothing, however, but his suspicions were ever on the alert.  As a
+matter of fact he learned, later, that his rivals had never been near
+him.  But he took all precautions, some needless, as it afterward
+developed.
+
+That some of the Double Z outfit, and perhaps even the owner of that
+ranch, Hank Fisher himself, were involved in cattle rustling, was
+suspected, but not proved--at least for some time.
+
+With the discovery that the professors were really scientists, and not
+cattle rustlers, all suspicion of them vanished.  They had come west to
+hunt for the fossil relics and bones of the Triceratops.  The reason
+they headed for Diamond X ranch was because, some time previous,
+another scientist, connected with the same college to which Professor
+Wright and Professor Blair were attached, had been given, by a Mexican
+guide, a bone from that strange monster--the Triceratops.
+
+By dint of much questioning this professor learned that the bone had
+been found on land near Diamond X ranch.  Professors Blair and Wright
+secured government permission to prospect on unclaimed land, and thus
+began a search for the complete skeleton, a search that ended so
+dramatically.
+
+The two professors had hired an outfit, and planned to spend the entire
+summer looking for the remains of the prehistoric monster Dinosaur.
+Their actions were misunderstood by some of the Mexicans and Indians
+they hired, these ignorant men thinking gold was the object of the
+search.  Hence the attack on the camp at the time Bud and his friends
+warded it off.
+
+On the occasion when Ridin' Kid rode his horse against the tent, which
+seemed to conceal something valuable, there was, inside the canvas
+shelter, some bones that, later, proved to be part of the very skeleton
+which Bud, Nort and Dick helped to raise from its ten-million-year-old
+bed.  The professors were afraid there would be a premature discovery
+of what, to them, were valuable relics, so guarded the tent jealously.
+
+But eventually the bones and fossils were hoisted out of the hole,
+which had to be blasted larger to enable this work to go on, and the
+scientists departed for the East and their colleges, parting on the
+best of terms with the Diamond X outfit.
+
+"Saddle up, boys!" called Mr. Merkel to Bud, Nort and Dick one day,
+about a month after the fight in the valley camp.
+
+"What for--have we got to quiet a stampede?" asked Dick, who had
+recovered from his injuries, as had Nort.
+
+"No, we've got to ride in to town, to give evidence against Del Pinzo
+and his gang," answered Bud's father.  "Their trial comes off to-day.
+They've been in jail ever since we roped 'em!"
+
+"More excitement!" yelled Bud as he raced for the corral to saddle his
+pony, an example followed by Nort and Dick.
+
+The boy ranchers, with some of the older men, rode off over the
+prairies to the distant seat of the local government, where the trial
+of the cattle rustlers was to be held.
+
+And, as they rode into the small town, a typical western ranch
+settlement, they became aware of something exciting that was going on.
+
+Through the main street rode a number of cowboys, with drawn guns in
+their hands.  Several of these horsemen knew the Diamond X outfit, and
+when one man clattered past on his horse Mr. Merkel cried:
+
+"What's up?"
+
+"Jail delivery!" was the answer.  "Those cattle rustlers broke out just
+now!  We're after 'em!  Come on!"
+
+"Not Del Pinzo and his gang!" cried Bud.
+
+"You said it!" shouted the man--a deputy sheriff.  "A lot of Greasers
+rode in just now, started shootin' up promiscus like, and in the
+excitement Del Pinzo and his crowd managed to get out of the calaboose!
+We got to get a new one, I reckon!  But come on!  We may land 'em yet!"
+
+"Oh, Zip Foster!" yelled Bud, as he urged his horse forward.
+
+"More exciting fun!" commented Nort.  "Got your gun, Dick?"
+
+"Sure!" was the answer.
+
+Through the main street of the town rode the boy ranchers, following
+the trail of the posse of officers and men who were trailing the
+escaped prisoners.
+
+As they turned into a cross thoroughfare the sound of rapid firing came
+to the ears of Bud and his cousins.
+
+"Watch your step!" counseled Mr. Merkel.  "Wait a minute!"
+
+But the boys did not wait.  On they rushed, only to come into action at
+the tail end of the fight.  Some cowboys and members of the sheriff's
+hastily organized posse were shooting at some Greasers who had turned
+to make a stand.  But the Mexicans saw that they were outnumbered, and
+fled off in disorder, firing and being fired at.
+
+However, there were no casualties, and when one of the deputies
+explained that this "bunch" was not Del Pinzo and the escaping men, but
+some others, Bud and his friends rode back.
+
+"They tried to draw us off the trail of that slick Greaser," explained
+one of the deputies.
+
+"Can't we join the posse?" asked Nort of Mr. Merkel.
+
+The ranchman shook his head.
+
+"There's enough after 'em without you," he said.  "And as long as Del
+Pinzo has taken matters into his own hands, and succeeded in postponing
+his trial, we might as well get back to Diamond X."
+
+Bud, Nort and Dick rather regretted this, but when they learned, later,
+that the sheriff and his men rode hard all night after the prisoners,
+only to lose them among the hills near the Mexican border, our heroes
+decided it was just as well they had not gone.
+
+"So Del Pinzo got away after all, did he?" asked Babe, when the boy
+ranchers rode back to put their ponies in the corral.  "That Greaser
+sure is a bad one!  He'll make trouble yet!"
+
+And Del Pinzo did.  He was of a vindictive nature, and he associated
+much of his trouble with Diamond X ranch.  So, naturally, he watched
+his chance to be revenged on those connected with it, including Nort
+and Dick.
+
+But for the details of this I must refer you to the succeeding volume
+of this series.
+
+"Well, fellows, are you satisfied with what you saw and what you did,
+for a start?" asked Bud of his cousins, two or three days after the
+escape of Del Pinzo.
+
+"We sure have had some summer!" exclaimed Nort.
+
+"Never one like it!" agreed Dick.  "It's a shame to have to go back to
+school!"
+
+"Well, you wouldn't like it out here in winter as much as you have this
+summer," spoke Bud.  "It's pretty fierce, sometimes.  But can't you
+come out next year?"
+
+"You said it!" cried Nort.  "From now on we're going to be ranchers in
+the summer, and students in the winter.  And the summer can't come any
+too soon for me!"
+
+"Well, just at present, grub can't come any too soon for me!" laughed
+Bud, as he urged his pony onward.  The boys had been out on a last
+ride, mending a broken fence.  For, by this time, Nort and Bud were
+almost as expert cowboys as was their western cousin.
+
+"I made a pie for you!" called Nell, Bud's pretty sister, as they rode
+up to the corral, and turned their horses in.  "I hope you'll like it!"
+
+"Couldn't help it!" said Nort, gallantly.  "Pie!  Yum!  Yum!  Where
+have I heard that word before?"
+
+"It does seem to savor of happy days," remarked Dick.
+
+"Oh, cut out the poetry!" advised Bud with a laugh.  "Let's figure how
+long it will be before you can come back."
+
+For Nort and Dick did come back to Diamond X ranch.  Their further
+doings will be told of in the next volume of this series to be called
+"Boy Ranchers in Camp, or the Diamond X Fight for Water."  In that you
+may learn what Bud, Dick and Nort did, and more about mysterious Zip
+Foster and the wily Del Pinzo.
+
+As Bud, Nort and Dick entered the house, escorted by the smiling Nell,
+who was well pleased at the tribute to her pie-making, there was a
+rattle of hoofs, and a bunch of the cowboys clattered in, having been
+out riding herd.
+
+"Grub ready?" cried Babe, as he slumped off his weary pony--Babe was
+heavy enough to make almost any pony weary.
+
+"Come on!" cried Mother Merkel.
+
+"Don't tell them about the pie!" whispered Nort to Nell.
+
+"Oh, there's enough for all of them--mother and the women baked a lot,
+but I made one specially for you boys," Nell answered.
+
+And what the boy ranchers said I leave you to guess.
+
+Up the lane leading from the corral to the house came the hungry cow
+punchers, to wash the dust and grime from hands and faces, and then to
+eat with appetites that even a Triceratops might envy.  And as they
+splashed at the washing bench, Slim raised his voice in what,
+doubtless, he intended for song and warbled:
+
+  "Leave me alone with a rope an' tobaccy,
+  Then let the rattlers sting!
+  Give me a sweet, juicy apple to chaw on,
+  Then when I'm sad I will sing."
+
+
+There was a rattle of tin wash-basins, the swish of water as it was
+heaved at the singer, and then a howl of dismay from Slim.
+
+"Take that soap out o' my mouth!" he bawled, and amid a chorus of
+laughter he ran around the corner of the porch, to escape the
+attentions of his jolly friends.
+
+"Come on to grub!" sang out Bud, and no second invitation was needed.
+And while the boy ranchers are thus insured of at least temporary
+happiness, we will say, with the Spaniards:
+
+"_Adios!_"
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BOYS OUTING LIBRARY
+
+
+THE SADDLE BOYS SERIES
+
+By Capt. James Carson
+
+  The Saddle Boys of the Rockies
+  The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon
+  The Saddle Boys on the Plains
+  The Saddle Boys at Circle Ranch
+  The Saddle Boys on Mexican Trails
+
+
+THE DAVE DASHAWAY SERIES
+
+by Roy Rockwood
+
+  Dave Dashaway the Young Aviator
+  Dave Dashaway and His Hydroplane
+  Dave Dashaway and His Giant Airship
+  Dave Dashaway Around the World
+  Dave Dashaway: Air Champion
+
+
+THE SPEEDWELL BOYS SERIES
+
+by Roy Rockwood
+
+  The Speedwell Boys on Motorcycles
+  The Speedwell Boys and Their Racing Auto
+  The Speedwell Boys and Their Power Launch
+  The Speedwell Boys in a Submarine
+  The Speedwell Boys and Their Ice Racer
+
+
+THE TOM FAIRFIELD SERIES
+
+by Allen Chapman
+
+  Tom Fairfield's School Days
+  Tom Fairfield at Sea
+  Tom Fairfield in Camp
+  Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck
+  Tom Fairfield's Hunting Trip
+
+
+THE FRED FENTON ATHLETIC SERIES
+
+by Allen Chapman
+
+  Fred Fenton the Pitcher
+  Fred Fenton in the Line
+  Fred Fenton on the Crew
+  Fred Fenton on the Track
+  Fred Fenton: Marathon Runner
+
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Boy Ranchers, by Willard F. Baker
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