"Two wasn't enough. This is the third and last! Leave Flume Valley!"
There was silence for a moment, and then Bud, crushing the scrawled warning in his hand, cried:
"I'd like to see 'em drive me out!"
"That's th' way to talk!" shouted Yellin' Kid. "We'll stick!"
They gathered about, discussing the sinister warning that had been sent to them in such a sensational manner. There was no clue to tell where it had come from, for no one had noticed the direction whence the arrow had been shot. The message itself was written, or, rather, printed on a piece torn from a paper bag, and the writing was in pencil. The paper was common enough in those parts, and the use of printing, in place of handwriting, would, it seemed, preclude any tracing.
"We'd better keep a double watch to-night," suggested Bud, when a hasty inspection in the vicinity of the camp had revealed no one.
"We shore will!" asserted Old Billee.
The night hours passed, a double guard watching with keen eyes for any sign of strangers approaching the reservoir or the cattle. But, in spite of all precautions, the half-expected happened.
It was toward morning, when Nort and Dick had turned out of warm beds to relieve Pocut Pete and Snake Purdee that a confused noise at the extreme end of the valley gave notice that something was wrong.
"What's that?" asked Bud, who had ridden into camp at the conclusion of his tour of duty.
As if in answer came distant shots, the howls of coyotes and the snorting of cattle, mingled with a rush which told its own story.
"Stampede!" yelled Bud. "They're trying to stampede our herd and drive 'em off! Come on, fellows!"
And all within the sound of his voice rallied to repel the night attack, for such it proved to be.
Leaping into their saddles, Nort and Dick followed Bud toward the scene of the disturbance. They saw the cattle running to and fro, and in the slivers of light that leaped from the muzzles of guns which were shot off at intervals, they descried figures swiftly riding backward and forward, evidently trying to cut out bunches of cattle.
Action had followed rapidly on the heels of the sinister arrow warning.
"Come on, boys! Come on!" shouted Bud, as he spurred off in the darkness, followed by Nort and Dick. "They're trying to drive 'em off through the lower end of the valley! We've got to stop 'em!"
"You said it!" shouted Dick.
"Who are they?" yelled Nort
Bud had no time to answer. What was needed, then, was quick action to prevent his own and his cousins', as well as his father's stock from the Square M ranch, being driven off by unscrupulous rustlers.
For that this night attack was made by these marauders of the plains was not to be doubted.
"Ride hard, boys! Ride hard!" shouted Old Billee as he galloped up beside the boy ranchers.
And they were riding hard—all of them, including the cow punchers who had come in from their night's duties, expecting to be relieved. It was at this favorable—for them—moment that the rascals had made their attack.
It was so dark that only, indistinctly, could the forms of raiders be made out. But there were several of them, leaning low over the necks of their galloping steeds, and endeavoring to create a panic among the cattle so that a stampede would result. Once this started it would be a comparatively easy matter for them to "cut out" as many choice specimens as possible, driving them to some secret place. There the brands could be "blurred," or changed, and Diamond X Second would be out several thousands of dollars.
"There they are!" yelled Bud, as, riding between Nort and Dick, he saw a group of men swinging their big hats and heard them shouting to frighten the already thoroughly roused cattle.
But though Bud thus indicated the presence of the rustlers it was not a very clear sight of them that he or his companions had. Only for the fact that those of Flume Valley rode together, and saw the indistinct forms ahead of them, could it be made certain that the unknown ones were the enemy.
"Crack!"
Bud's gun shot out a menacing warning, for he had fired high in the air, above the heads of the rustlers. He had borne in mind his father's injunction never to shoot at a human being unless vital necessity required it.
"And I'd rather lose all my cattle than kill anyone," Bud said afterward. "Unless I had to do it to save my life."
It was for this reason that he had fired high, and his example was followed by his cousins.
But that this consideration on the part of our friends was not appreciated, was made plain, a moment later, when Old Billee exclaimed:
"That was a close one!"
His words followed the whining song of a bullet as it zipped through the air, too close to the heads of himself and the boy ranchers to be comfortable.
"I'm goin' t' give 'em some of th' same medicine!" shouted Yellin' Kid, and his gun spat fire, but straight out, and not at a high angle.
Following it, almost instantly, was a yell of pain from one of the rustlers—which one could not be told because of the mix-up and the darkness, but it was a yell nevertheless.
"You winged one!" cried Snake Purdee.
"I meant to!" was the Kid's grim answer.
"Fire high, boys!" cried Bud. "If we can scare 'em off, so much the better!"
"Don't reckon they're th' kind that scares easy," objected Old Billee. "But we've got 'em on the run!" he exclaimed, a moment or two later, when Bud and his party had ridden around some intervening bunches of cattle, and were headed straight for the night attackers.
This seemed to describe the situation. So promptly had the boys of Flume Valley ridden out to repell the raid that the rustlers had no time to stampede the cattle, and cut out some to drive away. Now it seemed there must be a clash—a coming together of the two forces.
But the rustlers, unscrupulous as they were, evidently knew when discretion was the better part of valor. They fired several more shots, one of which scratched Old Billee while another gave an ugly wound to Snake Purdee.
Then, with yells of defiance, and before our boys could come close enough to recognize any of the raiders, the rustlers galloped off, not having succeeded in driving away any cattle.
But their attack had not been without damage to Flume Valley stock. For two valuable steers had been shot, and so wounded that they had to be killed, while several calves were trampled on and crushed into shapeless masses.
This, together with two wounded men, Old Billee and Snake, made up the sum total of the casualties on the part of the Diamond X Second outfit.
"But they're marked!" shouted Yellin' Kid as he and the others rode back to camp. "I got one, I'm sure!"
"I fired low, after I saw they were doing the same, and I saw one nearly slump out of his saddle," declared old Billee.
"I'd like to know if they were any of the Hank Fisher or Del Pinzo gang," said Bud.
"I wouldn't put it past them," asserted Snake. "We'll ride over t' Hank's place, casual like, t'-day, an' see if any of his men are hurt."
Snake spoke rightly of "to-day," for it was getting sunrise-light when the battle was over, and the party returned to the tents near the flume reservoir.
The night of excitement, following the mysterious warning sent by the Indian arrow, had ended, and everyone welcomed the hot, fragrant coffee made by Buck Tooth.
When Snake's wound and Billee's scratch had been bandaged, the dead calves buried and the best part of the killed steers cut off for fresh beef, Bud and his friends took what might be termed an accounting.
The boy ranchers, with Old Billee, rode back over the ground covered in the attack of the night. The veteran cow puncher pointed out where the rustlers had ridden into the valley, over a pass that crossed a low mountain range, which connected, in a fashion, Buffalo Ridge and Snake Mountain. This ridge formed the lower boundary of Bud's range, and once the cattle had been driven over this they could easily have been hazed to Hank Fisher's Double Z ranch.
"Well, there's nothing to make sure it was any of Del Pinzo's gang, except general suspicion," remarked Bud, as they were about to ride back to camp. "What's the matter?" he asked, for, with an exclamation, Nort had leaped from his saddle. The eastern lad was picking up something from the ground that had been so lately trampled by steers and horses.
"Look!" exclaimed Nort, and he held up a branding iron.
"One of ours?" asked Bud, in rather a commonplace voice.
"Not exactly," Nort answered. "It's marked with a double Z!"
What effect this announcement had on Dick and Bud can easily be imagined. Both leaped from their saddles, as Nort had done, and gathered close to him as he held the branding iron in his hand.
It was of the usual type, an iron plate, which had been cast in a mould, so that the device—two Z letters—formed a depression in the smooth surface of the iron plate. On the outer edge was a circle, so that when the brand was heated, and pressed on the hide of a steer, calf or maverick it would burn the impression of a double Z inside a ring—the mark of Hank Fisher's cattle.
"Whew!" exclaimed Dick. "This makes it look bad for them, Bud!"
"Oh, not necessarily, though I'm glad we found it," spoke the western lad.
"Why isn't it suspicious?" asked Nort, whose high hopes had been rather dashed by Bud's somewhat cool reception of Dick's statement.
"Oh, it'ssuspiciousall right!" Bud hastened to say, "and don't imagine I'm making light of you finding this, Nort! I'm mighty glad you did! Only we can't make it look bad for Hank Fisher, or the Double Z crowd unless we can fasten this on them."
"You mean we can't prove they dropped it here during the raid last night?" asked Nort, as he vaulted into the saddle.
"That's it," spoke Bud. "It does look suspicious, I'll admit. But you see while this is our range, we couldn't make a fuss just because some cowboy from Double Z rode over it. That wouldn't be right. And what's to hinder this having been dropped by some cowboy who was merely riding over our range?"
"That's possible," admitted Dick.
"But I don't believe it," asserted Nort.
"Nor I," chimed in Bud. "But you got to go slow in making accusations out west, unless you're ready to back your opinion up with a gun; and we don't want to do that."
"No," Nort admitted. "But Old Billee and Snake said they were going to ride over to Double Z to-day, to sort of size up the situation. So what's to prevent 'em taking this branding iron along and asking, casual like, if they don't want it back?"
"Nothing to stop that," said Bud with a grin. "In fact that's just what we'll do. Come on, we'll hit the trail for the camp and make a sort of raid on Double Z—only we'll make it to-morrow instead of to-day, as it's too late for a long ride."
There were murmurs of surprise and excitement at the camp, when the boys rode in with the Double Z branding iron that Nort had picked up at the scene of the raid.
"They dropped that last night, sure as horned toads!" cried Snake Purdee, whose wound was excuse enough for not being out on duty.
"I reckon," agreed Pocut Pete, who likewise was off duty. "Let's see that," and he reached for the iron which had a wooden handle to enable a cowboy to manipulate the marker when the branding end was hot.
Bud, so Nort and Dick thought, looked rather curiously at Pocut Pete while the latter was examining the iron. And when the strange cowboy—strange in the sense that he had not been long in Mr. Merkel's service—took out his knife and began whittling away at the wooden handle, Bud uttered a sharp cry of:
"Stop!"
"What's the matter?" asked Pocut Pete, with an assumption of innocence, which was so plainly an assumption that Nort and Dick exchanged rapid glances.
"Don't cut off those initials!" went on Bud. "Maybe by them we can tell who owns the iron."
"Initials!" exclaimed Pocut Pete. "I don't see any initials!"
"There they are," and Bud pointed to some, rather faintly cut, on a flat place in the handle. "E. C. are the letters, though I don't know anybody with them at Double Z."
"I don't, either," said Pocut Pete. "In fact, I didn't see them letters, Bud. I was just whittling the handle to see what kind of wood it was. Thought maybe I could tell by that."
"All right," spoke Bud, as he again assumed charge of the branding iron. And Pocut Pete, with a sharp look at the young rancher, went out to the corral where the spare ponies were kept.
"Was he really trying to cut out those initials?" asked Nort, as the three boy ranchers passed on to the grub tent, for it was the joyful time to eat—one of the three joyful times that came each day.
"I wouldn't say he was doing itdeliberately," spoke Bud, "but he certainlywaswhittling near those letters. And if he had cut them off the owner of the branding iron could easily claim it wasn't his."
"That was queer," declared Dick.
"Very," assented Bud. "In fact Pocut Pete has acted queer ever since he's been here. I don't like him, and as soon as dad has another puncher to spare I'm going to ask for a change."
The remainder of that day and the night passed quietly. There was no other alarm, and riding herd was an easy task. Nor was there any stoppage of the water, which ran freely out through the pipe from the underground tunnel as though there had never been any interruption of its very necessary service.
"Well, let's go!" exclaimed Bud next day, as he and his cousins saddled their ponies, and Old Billee called for Yellin' Kid to help catch a rather frisky pinto that the old cowboy was going to ride.
"Over to Double Z?" asked Nort.
"Yes, we'll take a sort of a look around their place, and hand back this iron," went on Bud, as he slung the implement to his saddle by a loop of his lariat.
The ride to Double Z was pleasant enough, for soon the boys and Old Billee struck the hill trail, where it was cooler than down in the valley.
But if they hoped to discover any incriminating evidence at Hank Fisher's place they were disappointed.
There was no sign of Del Pinzo—in fact that wily Mexican half-breed was seldom at the ranch proper. Nor was Hank at home. But his foreman met the boys and Old Billee.
"Hear about the racket over at our place?" asked Bud, easily enough, but with a beating heart. He and his cousins looked around for any signs of wounded men, but saw none.
"What racket?" asked Ike Johnson, the foreman.
"Rustlers," put in Old Billee. "They scratched me, shot up Snake Purdee and dropped this—or at least we found this after the mix-up when we'd druv 'em off!" and he took the branding iron from Bud's saddle loop.
"You don't mean to say——" began Ike, with an ugly tone to his voice.
"Don't mean t' say nawthin'!" drawled Old Billee. "That's one of your irons, I take it."
"Yes, it is," growled the foreman slowly. "But that don't mean——"
"Course it don't!" pleasantly interrupted the old cowboy, giving the young ranchers a slight signal to let him do the talking. "One of your boys dropped it, likely, ridin' short-cut across our place, Ike."
"Yes, I remember now, Ed Carr said he lost his. This is it," and the foreman of Double Z pointed to the initials.
"Well, tell Ed—is he here now?" asked Billee, interrupting himself.
For an instant—and for an instant only—Ike Johnson hesitated. Then he answered:
"No, Ed's ridin' line. I'll give him this when he comes in."
"All right," spoke Billee, with a smile. "We was just passin' and stopped with it. How's things, Ike?" he asked with an effort to be friendly.
"Oh, so-so! Might be wuss, an' might be a hull lot better."
"I reckon it's that way all over," Billee made answer. "Well, boys," he resumed, "might as well ride back. You gittin' all the water you can use from Pocut River, ain't you, Ike?" he asked, turning in his saddle.
"Better ask th' boss about that," was the sullen retort. "I reckon he'll have suthin' t' say, soon, that you Diamond X folks won't like!"
"Is that a threat?" asked Bud quickly.
"Easy, son, easy!" cautioned Old Billee.
"You can make anythin' yo' like of it!" sneered the Double Z foreman.
And then the boy ranchers and Old Billee rode off.
"Well, we didn't find out much," said Nort, when they were on the homeward trail.
"No, but we let 'em know we found that branding iron, and that we knew where it belonged," spoke Bud. "That's something!"
They were rather late getting back to camp, for Dick's pony went lame, and the others accommodated their pace to his. It was dusk when the little party hit the borders of Diamond X Second, and saw the grazing cattle.
Bud saw something else, for as he rode ahead he called:
"What's he doing?"
"Who?" asked Nort.
"Pocut Pete," replied Bud. "Looks like he was trying to brand one of our cattle with his knife! Look! That's mighty queer!"
Pocut Pete did not become aware of the approach of the boy ranchers and Old Billee until they were almost upon him. He was either so intent on what he was doing, or else the fact that the ponies were on a grassy footing made their advance practically noiseless, that, seemingly, he heard nothing.
However it was, the cowboy, about whom Bud entertained suspicious, kept on with what he was doing—something strange to one of the milder-tempered steers. Something "mighty queer," as Bud had said in a whisper to his chums. Which whisper accounted for the fact that Pocut Pete had not heard the voice.
So it was not until their shadows, mingling with those of the descending night, fell athwart him that the cowboy looked up with a start.
"Oh!" exclaimed Pocut Pete, and then Bud and the others saw that he had a knife in his hand, and something else. Something that glistened when Old Billee struck a match to light his pipe. For the old cowboy had, long ago, passed up the inevitable paper cigaret, and used the more sedate form of the weed.
"What's the idea?" asked Bud, and his question seemed to give Pocut Pete a chance to pull himself together, to answer with more coolness than he had exhibited by his first exclamation.
"This steer had some sort of a growth on his shoulder—like a wart," explained the cowboy. "I was just seeing if I could cut it off."
"You'd better be careful!" warned Old Billee.
"Why?" asked Pocut Pete so quickly that the other's remark might have well carried a threat, which, in the tone Billee used it, did not.
"You may get horned," went on the veteran cow puncher. For many of the cattle on the range of Bud and his cousins "wore their horns long," so to speak. Gradually the dehorning system was spreading through the west, but such an innovation, found to be most practical from all standpoints, took time to grow.
"Oh, this chap isn't dangerous," went on Pocut Pete with a laugh, closing his rather large pocket knife with a snap. "All the same, if you don't want me to snip off that wart I won't."
"I wouldn't," said Bud. "Not but what I'm glad to have you take an interest in the cattle," he went on, "but cutting one with a knife might bring on blood poisoning."
"Yes, an' jabbin' a knife into one might set it wild, an' it would rush off an' start a stampede," said Billee.
"I realized that," admitted Pocut Pete, "so that's why I didn't do it until I got this steer off by himself."
He spoke this truly enough, for the lone animal he had been "operating" on was some distance from the main herd.
"I never saw a wart on a steer," spoke Bud, as he urged his pony nearer to where the strange cowboy stood on the ground close to the beef animal. "It's queer——"
There was a sudden movement. Pocut Pete leaped back and the steer, as though taking fright at Bud's advance, lowered its head, and, with a loud bellow, sprang away.
"I told you so!" called out Old Billee. "You might 'a' got horned, Pete!"
"Oh, I was watching," came the answer. "Yes, warts do, sometimes, come on cattle," he went on. "I've cut off lots of 'em. Some beef men won't pass 'em if they have any. I thought I was doing you a favor." He spoke in an injured tone of voice.
"Well, maybe you were," admitted Bud. "First I thought you were someone else."
"One of the Double Z bunch?" asked Pocut Pete with a laugh. "Did you find out anything over there?" he inquired as he caught his pony, which had been standing near-by, and leaped into the saddle.
"Nary a thing," voiced Old Billee.
And then, as the group, Pocut Pete included, headed back for camp, the old cowboy broke into song, roaring out:
"Send me a letter, kid,Write it yo'self!Put in some news of th' city.For it's lonesome out here,'Neath th' blue, starry sky,An' cowboys don't get any pity!"
"What's struck you?" laughed Bud.
"Oh, I feel sorter so-so," affirmed Old Billee. "We're in for a storm, I reckon."
"And that's your weather indication!" chuckled Nort.
"Yeppy," agreed the veteran, and he broke into another verse of the interminable song—one of the series that cowboys love to warble.
"What do you think of Pocut Pete?" asked Dick of Bud in the seclusion of their own tent that night.
"Oh, I don't know what to think," was the answer. "I did have him down for a drinker, or a doper, but he doesn't seem to be either, and he does his work well. Only I don't know what to make of his actions to-night. Warts! On a steer! That sounded fishy to me!"
"Same here!" agreed Dick.
But as several days passed, and nothing more suspicious occurred, the action of Pocut Pete was rather forgotten. Nor was there any further trouble with the rustlers, or the lack of water. In spite of the warnings and veiled threats that had been received, the black pipe still spouted into the reservoir.
And then, like lightning out of a clear sky, came a bolt that gave the boy ranchers a shock.
Old Billee riding in from off the distant range one day, called to Bud who was opening some of the reservoir gates to let water run to a distant trough for the cattle.
"Bad business, Bud!" exclaimed the veteran.
"What's that?" asked the lad, with an instinctive glance at the black pipe, whence the water spouted. His first thought was of that.
"There's five of your steers dead, over near the last water trough!" was the answer.
"Steers dead!" gasped Bud. "Rustlers?" he asked, quickly.
"Don't 'pear to be," Billee answered. "There isn't a mark on 'em. Maybe it's glanders. Better get Doc. Tunison right over."
Which Bud did, by telephone.
The veterinarian, who looked after the health of cattle in that vicinity, appeared in due season. Bud, with his cousins and Old Billee went out to where the dead cattle lay, now stiff and stark. Some buzzards flopped heavily off as the party approached.
"Hum!" mused Dr. Tunison as he began his examination. It did not take him long to complete it. "I thought so," he remarked, as he looked at Bud.
"What is it?"
"Germs!" was the answer. "The epidemic's struck you, Bud!"
Like a blow struck came that announcement to Bud Merkel. And to his chums and partners in their first small venture as boy ranchers on their own responsibility, the announcement of the veterinarian was staggering.
"Germs!" exclaimed Nort.
"Epidemic!" voiced Dick.
"Has it really struck here—the same disease that was among dad's cattle?" asked Bud, as though hoping there might be some mistake.
"It's here all right," went on Dr. Tunison, rising from his stooping position beside a dead steer. He looked about for a puddle of water in which to wash his hands, and, having completed the operation, using a disinfectant from a bottle he produced, he added: "Better fence off this puddle, Bud. If any of your other cattle happen to drink here they'll get the disease, too, and bump off."
That was his way of saying that the steers would die.
"I'll do that!" declared Bud. "We can cut the water off from this part of the range. But what causes the epidemic, Doc? Dad was careful not to send me any of his infected cattle from Square M, and he said you'd examined all that came, and they didn't have any of the trouble."
"They didn't," declared the veterinarian. "I examined them all, and nothing was wrong with them. But this epidemic is a germ disease, Bud, and we don't exactly know how the germs are carried. It may be something the cattle eat; the bunch grass or other fodder, in the water; or it may come out of the air. All we know is that certain germs, in some, as yet unknown, way, enter into the system of the steer. They get into the blood through the mouth or nostril, or perhaps from a scratch or cut. And once the germs are there, so rapid is the action that the animals die over night—as yours have done, and as your father's did."
"Has dad lost any more?" asked Bud.
"Not that I've heard of. In fact I thought by his action, in sending the healthy animals of his Square M herd here, and to his other ranches, that he'd gotten the best of it. But now the epidemic breaks out here. I can't understand it!"
The veterinarian stood looking down at the dead animal, while the buzzards patiently waited nearby for the feast they knew belonged to them. Evidently they were not fearful of germs.
"What's that funny smell?" suddenly asked Nort.
"That? Oh, it's the smell characteristic of the disease," replied Dr. Tunison. "Not very pleasant. I got some of the pus on my hands—that's why I washed and disinfected them. Well, Bud, I'm afraid you're in for it!"
"You mean the epidemic may run through all my stock?" asked the boy rancher, anxiously.
"It may, and that's the reason I'm putting you on your guard. But let's hope for the best. We'll act promptly. Fence this place off, or don't let any more water here, where other cattle can drink from the pool, that must, of necessity, be contaminated, now that I washed my hands in it, if for no other reason. Also separate the other cattle into as many herds as you can handle. In this way, if the epidemic gets among one bunch, you don't stand to lose so many. This is about all you can do."
"No preventative measures?" asked Bud.
"No. If the cattle remain healthy they may resist the germs. Nature sometimes provides her own remedies. She'll have to, in a case like this, where so little is known about this malady that no cure is yet available to science."
"That sure is a funny smell—I don't like it!" said Nort again.
"No, it isn't very pleasant," agreed the veterinarian.
And then Bud, who had been in a serious, brown study seemed, for the first time, to become aware of the evil odor.
"That smell! That smell!" he cried. "I've smelled it before!"
"Not unless you came in contact with the germs," spoke Dr. Tunison. "Where did you smell it, Bud?"
But, as suddenly as he had spoken, Bud Merkel became silent. He seemed to be thinking deeply, and as he turned aside he said:
"Oh, maybe it was when Old Billee rode in to tell me he had seen these dead steers."
"Possibly," admitted the veterinarian. "The smell is very characteristic, as I said. But you'd better arrange to bury these animals, Bud."
"There isn't any danger—I mean to humans; is there?" Bud asked. "If there is we'll let 'em stay here. The buzzards will make short work of 'em."
"No, there's no danger to man, even in directly handling the germs. That has been proved," said Dr. Tunison. "But if you let the cattle lie here, and the buzzards eat 'em, in some manner the disease may be carried to your other cattle. Best bury 'em, and fence off this water-hole."
Which was done. So the evil-looking buzzards were deprived of a feast, and flapped mournfully away.
There were anxious days that followed the appearance of the epidemic among the cattle of the boy ranchers. I speak of the cattle as their own, and they were, in a sense. For though, of course, Mr. Merkel really owned Flume Valley, and put up the cash to start the boys in business, he had determined that they should run the place as though it was their own. They must stand or fall by what happened. It was the only real way to start them in the way of becoming cattlemen, he decided.
So, though the boys were young, possibly the youngest ranchers in that part of the west, they were in earnest and accepted all the responsibilities that went with the venture.
Bud was very thoughtful those anxious days. There was hard work for all, since dividing the doubled herds into small units meant that each cowboy, including Bud, Nort and Dick, had to look after a certain number day and night. But no one shirked, even Buck Tooth working unusually hard in addition to doing the cooking. Though Indian braves are constitutionally opposed to labor, Buck Tooth made an ideal herdsman.
Not as much time was spent in camp as had formerly been the case, as the boy ranchers and their older helpers were more often out riding herd. But occasionally many of them gathered at the tents to compare notes and "feed up," as Snake put it. His wound, received in the fight with the rustlers, had healed.
"Some day we'll have regular ranch houses here instead of just a camp," Bud said, as he was riding back one day to look after the herd he had assigned to himself.
"Oh, this isn't so bad," spoke Nort.
"Real jolly, I call it!" added Dick.
"If only the water supply keeps up, and no more epidemic comes, we'll be all right," Bud announced. "At the same time I can't be sure of either."
This was true. Though the water flowed merrily on since the time the lads had penetrated the length of the tunnel, there was always an uneasy feeling, on the part of the boy ranchers and their friends, that it might stop at any time.
"And when it dries up again," Bud declared, "I'm not going to be satisfied until I find out what makes it quit flowing!"
"That's the idea!" added Nort. "We'll solve the mystery!"
As the days passed, and no more cattle were found ill or dead from the epidemic, the hopes of the boy ranchers began to rise. Had they caught the malady in time? Could it be stamped out by the burial of the five steers? Time alone—and a longer time than had so far elapsed—could tell.
Bud, Nort and Dick each had charge of a herd, the three bunches of cattle being pastured on adjoining areas of rich grass.
But the distances separating them were not so great but that Bud and his cousins could exchange visits. And it was on one of these occasions that there occurred something which cleared up, in part at least, the mystery hanging over Flume Valley.
The boy ranchers were about to part for the evening, having spent the afternoon together over "grub," cooking at an open fire; and Nort and Dick were preparing to ride back to their herds, Bud being on the ground, so to speak, where he would "bunk" for the night.
As they rode down into a little swale amid the gathering shadows of the night, a bunch of cattle moved uneasily along ahead of them, and as the steers parted there was disclosed in their midst the forms of a man and a horse.
"Who's that?" suddenly asked Dick.
"It isn't one of our boys," declared Nort.
Bud suddenly sat upright in his saddle. He breathed deeply, and then quickly spurred forward. His cousins saw him swinging his lariat around his head.
In an instant it went swishing through the air, and, a moment later, as the coils settled about the figure of a man who started to leap for his pony, Bud let out a yell, shouting:
"Roped! Roped, by Zip Foster!"
There was a confusion of rope and man. Sock, Bud's pony, braced his feet, including the white one that gave him his name, and the lariat tightened. There was a scurrying among the cattle, and the lone pony, without a rider, galloped off.
Nort and Dick, taken by surprise, had reined their steeds to a stop when they saw Bud lassoing the unknown man, but now they spurred up to their cousin.
"What is it?" demanded Nort.
"Who is he?" Dick wanted to know.
At that instant a shot cracked, and the fast-gathering darkness was cut by a sliver of flame.
"Trying that, are you!" angrily shouted Bud, and he backed his pony quickly, pulling the roped man along the ground, until the prostrate figure let out a yell.
"My hands are up!" came desperately out of the darkness.
"They'd better be!" retorted Bud. "Can you get off and tie him, Nort?" the boy rancher called to his cousin. "Get out your gun, Dick, and cover him! He's going to be a bad actor, I'm saying!"
"I'm through!" came the sullen response from the man on the ground. "My gun went off by accident."
"Suchaccidentsaren't healthy around here," grimly spoke Bud. "Get at him, fellows!"
"Who is he?" asked Nort, as he slipped from his pony, throwing the reins forward and on the ground as notice that the animal was to stand.
"And what's that funny smell?" asked Dick. "It's like—like the time we found the five dead steers!"
"Yes, and there'll be more dead steers as the result of this!" said Bud, and there was a choking in his voice.
A moment later Dick and Nort were standing over the prostrate figure of Pocut Pete. His arms were bound firmly to his sides by the tight coil of the lariat, held taut by Bud, and the other boys could see that the cowboy's gun had slipped from its holster and lay some distance away from him. Nort picked up the gun, and then, with quick motions, he and Dick bound some coils of Bud's rope around the rascal's feet.
All the fight seemed taken out of him. Without his gun, down on the ground and his pony out of reach—he lacked all the prime requisites of a cowboy. There was no escape, covered as he was by Bud, who had drawn his own .45, and Pocut Pete "jest natcherly caved in," as Old Billee described it later.
"Caught you at it, just as I thought I would!" said Bud, when Pete was bound and hoisted up on his horse by the boys.
"Go on! Get it over with," was the grim answer. "I know when the game is played out, and it was a dirty game from the start. I'd never have opened it only I was desperate for money, and he offered me a lot."
"I know who you mean," said Bud. "It sure was a dirty game; and the worst of it is that it isn't over yet. That epidemic may spread all through our stock!"
Pocut Pete returned no answer as the boys started with him in the direction of the camp.
"What was he doing—trying to cut more warts off your cattle?" asked Dick.
"Warts!" cried Bud indignantly. "He was infecting them with the germs of that disease! Don't you smell the rotten stuff?"
"Oh!" exclaimed Nort. "Sothat'sthe game?"
"Yes," spoke Bud bitterly. "I wish I'd acted sooner, when I began to suspect him! But I didn't think any one would play a trick like this—especially on some one who never had harmed him."
"Has he been infecting your cattle?" asked Nort.
"Sure!" answered Bud. "I've got the goods on him! He had some thin glass bottles, with some sort of germ-dope in them. He cut, or scratched, the cattle and poured this stuff in the sore. That's how my steers got it, and not from being infected by those dad sent over. Oh, it sure is a rotten game, just when we were starting, too!"
"He ought to be shot!" indignantly voiced Nort.
"Or strung up!" added Dick.
"I don't care what they do to him!" said Bud. "I'm going to turn him over to Old Billee and the boys!"
"Don't do that!" begged the bound figure of Pocut Pete. "They—they may lynch me. Take me right to the sheriff!"
"Too far," said Bud shortly. "I don't care what the boys do to you! I'm through!"
The prisoner vainly struggled with his bonds, but they held firm.
It need not be written that there was a surprised bunch of cow punchers who gathered in the camp of the boy ranchers a little later, when Pocut Pete was delivered to them. Indignant voices and looks were noted on all sides as his crime was recounted by Bud.
In brief it was this:
From the time of Pocut Pete's arrival Bud had taken a dislike to him, and had suspected him, wrongly it appeared now, of being an addict to some form of drug, slangily termed "dope." For he had found fragments of thin-glass bottles, and had discovered in part of a broken phial, the same evil-smelling mixture that, later, was associated with the diseased cattle.
Then Bud did not know enough of the danger to act promptly, and even when Pocut Pete was discovered, "cutting a wart off a steer," as he falsely said, Bud did not know what to make of that. An older person might have been suspicious enough to have acted with more promptness, but Bud, naturally, had lots to learn.
However, as appeared later, Pocut Pete had secured from some of the disease-killed cattle some pus, filled with millions of germs. This unpleasant mixture he kept in tiny phials.
How he learned that to inject some of this pus under the hide of a steer would infect the animal, not only causing it to die of the disease, but to transmit it to others, is not vital to the story. Sufficient that Pocut Pete did know this.
And he put his evil knowledge to evil use. He was caught by Bud, Nort and Dick in the very act of infecting some of Bud's steers. For when search was made in the morning, at the scene of the capture, broken bits of phials were discovered, some with that vile, yellow substance on them. And an inspection of the cattle showed several with cuts on their flanks, into which cuts, it was assumed, the germs had been injected, or rubbed.
These animals were at once isolated, to determine what would happen to them. The ground near where Pocut Pete had carried on his nefarious operations was sprayed with disinfectants, and the cattle that had been with those he inoculated were also herded by themselves.
These were all the precautions that could be taken, and then Pocut Pete was hurried off to the nearest jail, there to await trial.
"But what set him up to such vile work?" asked Nort, when the prisoner had been taken from camp.
"What else but the desire of Hank Fisher to see our stock-raising experiment fail?" countered Bud. "This is the doing of those scoundrels at Double Z. I only wonder that Del Pinzo wasn't in on the game."
"He may be yet," said Dick.
"Well, we'll be on the watch from now on—doubly on the watch," asserted Bud. "They won't put anything like this over on us again!"
"Not if we know it!" joined in his cousins.
It could not be determined, for several days, what the turn would be in the case of the cattle into which Pocut Pete had injected germs of the disease. Dr. Tunison was sent for, but said he could do nothing more than had been done.
"You'll just have to wait and see how many will die," he told Bud. "You've done all you could by isolation. And there's one thing in your favor. No more of your cattle have been infected by those five that first died. We caught that outbreak in time. And if it proves that Pocut Pete is the sole source of infection on your ranch, it means that only those he managed to cut in his last operation will die."
But it took time to determine this, and while waiting for the outcome something else happened which, though it seemed to involve tragedy at the time, really resulted in clearing up the mystery and ending the water fight at Diamond X.
One morning, about a week after the roping of Pocut Pete, when the boy ranchers and their friends were assembled in camp, preparatory to starting out on their rounds of riding herd, Buck Tooth, who had gone to the reservoir to fish, came running down to the tents much excited.
"He must have caught a big one!" commented Old Billee.
But it was not fish that had aroused the old Indian.
"Water stop! Water him stop all time!" he yelled.
"What's that?" shouted Bud. "Isn't the pipe running?"
"No run!" answered Buck Tooth briefly. "All gone!"
"More trouble!" commented Bud. And then, with a grim tightening of his lips, he added: "This time we'll get to the bottom of the mystery!"
There was no doubt about the fact that the water had stopped running. As they all raced up the sloping side of the reservoir they saw only a few drops trickling from the pipe.
"The third time—I'm going to make it the last if it's possible," declared Bud.
"What yo' aimin' t' do?" asked Old Billee.
"Go through the tunnel from end to end, and both sides, and see where the water vanished to," was the answer. "We'll get up a regular expedition this time, and maybe take a boat. We'll find out what it all means."
"I believe you're right," asserted Snake Purdee. "There's no use trying to work Flume Valley if the water supply is goin' to be cut off without notice. I'm with you, Bud!"
"So 'm I!" shouted Yellin' Kid. "Whoop-ee! I'm a lone wolf an' this is my turn for makin' a noise! Whoopee!"
"Let's find out, first, if the water is coming into the pipe from the river," suggested Nort.
"You call up," begged Bud. "I'm going to get ready for this expedition. We'll have to start in the dark," he went on, referring to the black tunnel that stretched under Snake Mountain. "But we may come out into the light. Anyhow, we're going in!"