Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tiffany Vergon, Charles

Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.

THE BOY RANCHERS ON THE TRAIL

OR

The Diamond X After Cattle Rustlers

By WILLARD F. BAKER

CONTENTS

I THE ROUND-UP

II A CURIOUS INSTRUMENT

III STARTLING NEWS

IV THE SCRATCHED SAFE

V THE BROKEN BOTTLE

VI MISSING STEERS

VII FOUR EYES

VIII THROWING THE ROPE

IX THE FIRE

X SERIOUS QUESTIONS

XI THE WATCH TOWER

XII IN SPITE OF ALL

XIII THE SIGNAL

XIV FOUR EYES-NO EYES

XV A BIG RAID

XVI ON THE TRAIL

XVII WILD COUNTRY

XVIII THE BOILING SPRING

XIX IN A MAZE

XX A SURPRISE

XXI IN PURSUIT

XXII BUD'S DISCOVERY

XXIII THE FIGHT

XXIV A DESPERATE CHANCE

XXV LIEUTENANT WAYNE

THE BOY RANCHERS ON THE TRAIL

CHAPTER I

THE ROUND-UP

"Come on, Nort! It's your turn to cut out the next one!"

"S'pose I make a mux of it, Bud!"

"Shucks! You won't do that! You've roped a calf before!"

"Yes, but not at a big round-up like this. If I make a fizzle the fellows will give me the laugh!"

"What if they do? Everybody knows you haven't been at it long, and you've got to make a start. Besides, anybody's likely to make a mistake. That's why they put rubbers on the ends of pencils. Ride in now and snake out the next one, Nort!"

"All right, Bud! Here goes!"

Blaze, the pony Nort Shannon was riding toward the bunch of cattle gathered at Diamond X ranch for the big, spring round-up, leaped forward at the sound of his master's voice, and in response to the little jerk of the reins and the clap of heels against his sides. Into the herd of milling, turning and twisting cattle the intelligent animal made his way, needing hardly any guidance from Nort. The lad, by a mere touch, corrected the course of Blaze slightly, and in a moment he was heading for a calf which bawled loudly.

"Get him, Nort!" cried a voice from among the cowboys looking on.

"Don't get me fussed, Dick!" Nort shouted back to his brother, who sat astride his pony near Bud Merkle. "It'll be your turn next!"

Into the herd he wormed his way on Blaze, dodging here and there, but with his eyes ever on the calf he hoped to cut out so it could be branded. Nort leaned forward in his saddle, and then his cousin and brother, eagerly watching from outside the herd, saw the boy rancher's hand shoot up.

Through the air the rope went, turning, twisting, writhing and uncoiling like a snake. In an instant it had flipped around the hind legs of a calf.

"Good!" yelled Dick.

"Even Babe couldn't 'a' done better!" complimented Bud, enthusiastically.

"'Tisn't over yet!" gasped Nort, for he had hard work ahead of him, and the dust raised by thousands of hoofs was choking. "Wait 'till I get it to the branding corral!"

He leaned over in his other stirrup, causing the lariat to pull taut and, the next instant the calf flopped on its side.

"Snake him out, Blaze!" cried Nort to his pony, and the animal turned and dragged the prostrate calf along over the ground, an operation not as cruel as it sounds as the surface was inches thick in soft dust, like flour.

"That's the boy, Nort!" called his cousin Bud. "I knew you could do it! Now then, Dick! Let's see how you'll make out!"

"I can't throw a rope as good as Nort," answered the stouter lad, as he urged his pony, Blackie, into the herd. "But here goes!"

Meanwhile Nort had dragged the calf he had cut out to the corral where the branding was going on. Two cowboys, stationed there for the purpose, leaped forward and threw the calf over on its side, for it had managed to struggle to its feet when Nort ceased dragging it. One man twisted a front leg of the struggling creature back in a hammerlock and knelt on its neck. The other took hold of the upper hind leg, and with this hold prevented the calf from sprawling along on the ground.

"Sit on him!" called Mr. Merkel, owner of Diamond X and other ranches. He was superintending the round-up of his herds and those entrusted to Bud, Nort and Dick in the first business venture of the boy ranchers. "Sit on him!" yelled Bud's father.

Accordingly the men sat on the calf, thus, with the holds they had secured, keeping it under restraint with the least possible pain to the small creature.

"Branding iron!" sang out Slim Degnan, foreman of the ranch.

A little blaze was flickering on the ground, not far from where the calf Nort had cut out was thrown and held. In a moment the fire-tender had seized the branding iron, and, a second or two later, it was being pressed on the calf's flank.

The creature bawled loudly, and kicked out, thereby nearly throwing off the men who were sitting on it. But the branding was all over in a moment, and the men leaped up, releasing the animal.

The calf stood, dazed for the time being, after it had scrambled to its feet, and then trotted out of the corral, lashing its side with its little tail. Plainly branded on it now, never to be completely effaced, was the mark of the ownership of Mr. Merkel—an X inside a diamond.

"Next!" called the branders:

"Here comes Dick!" shouted Bud, as Nort rode up beside him. "And he got his calf!"

"Good!" exclaimed the brother. "I guess we're learning the business!"

"Surest thing you know!" asserted the son of the owner of Diamond X. "I told you it wasn't so hard, and you've done the same thing before."

"But not at such a big round-up," remarked Nort, as he prepared to ride in again and cut out another calf.

"Yes, it is big," admitted Bud, as he made ready for his share in the affair—his task being the same as that of his cousins—to cut out the calves for branding purposes. "It sure is a big round-up."

It had been in progress for days. Twice a year on the big, western ranches, the cattle are driven in from the outlying ranges, to be tallied, inspected, marked and shipped away. The spring and fall round-ups are always busy seasons at any ranch.

During the times between round-ups the new calves attained their growth, but they needed to have branded into their hides the marks of their owners. Then, too, some yearlings escaped branding at times, either by remaining out of sight at the round-up, or in the attending confusion.

Unbranded calves who had partly attained their growth, were termed "mavericks," and when the herds of different owners mingled, there was, usually, a division of the mavericks, since it could not be accurately told who owned them.

The title maverick was derived from a stock man of that name, whose practice was to claim all unbranded calves in a herd. His cowboys would ride about, cutting out the unmarked animals, with the cool statement:

"That's a maverick," meaning that it belonged to their "boss."

And so the name has commonly become associated with any half-grown, unbranded calf.

Mr. Merkel was the owner of several ranches, Square M, Triangle B and Diamond X, not to mention Diamond X Second, or Flume Valley, of which his son Bud, and the latter's cousins, Norton and Richard Shannon, were the nominal proprietors.

The cattle from Flume Valley, or "Happy Valley" as Bud called it after the mystery of the underground water was solved, were in the round-up with the others from his father's ranches.

For days preceding the lively doings I have just described, the cowboys, called in from distant ranges, had driven the cattle toward the central assembling point—the corrals at Diamond X.

Slowly the longhorns, the shorthorns and cattle with no horns at all, had been "hazed" in from their feeding grounds toward Diamond X. The cow punchers had galloped hard all day, and they had ridden herd at night, to keep the animals from straying. At night this was not so hard, for the animals were glad to rest during the darkness.

But during the day there was always some steer—often more than one—that wanted to run away from the herd. As this might start a stampede it was necessary to drive the "striker" back, and this was, often enough, a difficult task.

Bud, Nort and Dick had borne their share of this difficult round-up task, and now, when the thousand or more of steers, calves and mavericks had been gathered at Diamond X, the work of tallying them, branding those that were without marks and shipping away the best was well under way.

In and out of the herd rode the boy ranchers, doing their best alongside of more seasoned "punchers." Calves were cut out, thrown and branded, to be quickly released and again mingle with the herd.

"Oh, I'm Captain Jinks,
Of the Horse Marines!"

One of the cowboys, wiping the dust and sweat from his face, with his big, red silk handkerchief, or, rather, neckerchief, started this song. It was taken up by half a score of loud voices.

"Yi-yippy!" came in stentorian tones from Yellin' Kid. "This is the life!"

But as, just then, his pony slipped and he missed the throw he made for a calf, it is doubtful if Yellin' Kid felt as gay as he sounded.

"Hot work; eh, boys?" asked Mr. Merkel, when Dick, Nort and Bud rode past to get drinks of water.

"But it's great, all the same!" answered Dick, with shining eyes—eyes that gleamed amid a face dark with the tan of the western sun and grimy with the dust of the western plains.

"Glad you like it!" commented the proprietor of Diamond X as he kept on with his tallying. "How they coming, Slim?" he asked his foreman.

"Couldn't be better! Old Buck Tooth is doing a heap sight more than I ever dreamed a Zuni could."

"Bud said that his old Indian helper was up to snuff!" commented Mr. Merkel. "I'm glad to know it. Heard anything from Double Z?" he asked, and there was an anxious note in his voice.

"No, Hank and his gang seem to have quieted down after what I told 'em!"

"Well, I hope he doesn't make trouble for Bud and the boys.
They're going back to Happy Valley to-night."

"So I understand. Oh, shucks! Don't worry about Hank! He's all talk—he and that blustery foreman of his, Ike Johnson!"

There had been a dispute between the cowboys of Diamond X and those of Double Z, a ranch owned by the notorious Hank Fisher, a few days before the round-up, the subject of dispute being the ownership of certain mavericks. It had ended with the triumph of Slim Degnan, foreman of Mr. Merkel's holdings.

And so the round-up went on, the heat, the dust, the noise and confusion increasing as calf after calf, maverick after maverick, was branded, and the steers to be shipped were cut out, to be hazed over to the railroad stock yards.

And yet, with all the seeming confusion, there was order and system in the work.

"Well, I guess this is the last," remarked Mr. Merkel to his son, as Bud, with his cousins, rode slowly up to the ranch house, when the final calf had been cut out and the tally made. "You boys going back after grub?"

"Yep," answered Bud, but there was no enthusiasm in his voice. He, like his cousins, was too tired. For the day had been a grueling one, with the heat and hard work.

"You sure did make out a whole lot better than I ever thought you would," said Mr. Merkel, as he rode along with his son and nephew's. "Putting water into that valley made a big difference."

"I should say so!" exclaimed Bud. "Our stock will lay over anything you will ship from any of your three ranches, Dad!"

"I wouldn't wonder but what you are right, Bud! Well, let's wash up and eat."

One by one the cowboys drifted in, some singing ranch songs in spite of their weariness. Bud and his cousins were through with their meal first, and, having persuaded his sister, Nell, to pack a basket of doughnuts, pie and cheese for him, Bud signalled to his cousins to join him out at the pony corral.

"Let's get an early start back to Happy Valley," he urged. "It's a long enough ride, anyhow."

"You said it!" commented Nort.

"Well, there's one thing we don't have to worry about, and that is not finding any water running into the reservoir," added Dick, as he slipped in through the gate and caught one of his ponies—not Blackie, who was tired out from the round-up. Each cow puncher, including the boy ranchers, had several animals in his "string."

"No, I guess, since we solved the mystery of the water supply, we'll have no more trouble," agreed Bud.

The boy ranchers rode over the trail to their own camp—it was actually a camp, for permanent ranch buildings had not yet been erected in Happy Valley, though some were projected. Tents formed the abiding place of our heroes, and as they were only there during the summer months the canvas shelters served very well, indeed.

The moon rose, shining down from a starlit sky, as the rough but faithful and sturdy cow ponies ambled along. Now the boy ranchers would be down in some swale, or valley, and again topping one of the foothills which led to Buffalo Ridge or Snake Mountain, between which elevations lay Happy Valley, where the cattle of Diamond X Second were quartered.

"There she is—the old camp," murmured Dick, as they started down the slope which led to the collection of tents erected against the earthen and stone bank of the reservoir.

"And maybe I won't hit the hay!" exclaimed Bud, with a yawn. "We don't have to get up to-morrow until we're ready."

"Oh, boy!" cried Nort in delight.

They rode forward, and were almost at their camp when Bud, who had trotted ahead, pulled his pony to a sudden stop and cried out:

"Hold on there! Who are you and where are you going?"

At the same moment his cousins saw the moon gleaming on the .45 gun which Bud drew from his holster.

CHAPTER II

A CURIOUS INSTRUMENT

"What's the matter, Bud?" asked Dick, as he urged his animal forward in a jump, until he was beside his cousin.

"Some one's up there around the tunnel entrance," responded Bud Merkel. "I saw 'em dodge back out of the light." Then, raising his voice, he cried: "Come on, now! None of your tricks! I've got you covered!"

"I don't see any one," spoke Nort.

"They're there, all right," asserted Bud. "Come on, fellows," he exclaimed, "we'll have to look into this. There was trouble enough with getting water to stay in Happy Valley, without letting some Greaser in to queer the works again! Come on!"

He and his cousins rode their horses up the rather steep and winding trail that led from the bottom of the reservoir to the top, where a big iron pipe, sticking out under the mountain like the head of some great serpent, brought from the distant Pocut River a stream, without which it would have been impossible to raise cattle in the valley the boy ranchers claimed as particularly their own.

"Who you reckon it is?" asked Nort, as his pony scrambled up between the animals of Dick and Bud.

"Oh, some prowler that may have been rustling our grub while we were over at the round-up," was the answer.

"They couldn't get any cattle, for there aren't any to get," observed Dick. This was true, as all the animals had been driven from Happy Valley over to Diamond X. Later such as were not shipped away, and many of the calves and mavericks would be returned to fatten up and grow in readiness for the spring tallying.

"I don't just like this!" murmured Bud, as he again urged his pony forward. "Have your guns ready, fellows!"

And while they are thus riding toward the place where a strange tunnel pierced Snake Mountain, I shall take this opportunity to present, more formally than I have yet had a chance to do, my new readers to the boy ranchers. For that is what Bud Merkel, and Nort and Dick Shannon called themselves, being that, in fact.

Bud was a western lad, the son of Henry Merkel, who had been a ranchman all his mature years. He lived at Diamond X ranch, with his wife and daughter Nell. Some time before this present story opens Bud's cousins from the east had come to spend the summer with him, while their father and his wife made a trip to South America.

Nort and Dick, though "tenderfeet" at the beginning, had quickly fallen into the ways of the west, and in the first volume of this series, "The Boy Ranchers," I was privileged to tell you how they helped solve a mystery that revolved around Diamond X.

This mystery had to do with two college professors, and a strange, ancient animal. But it would not be fair to my new readers to disclose, here, all the secrets of that book.

So successful was the first summer which Nort and Dick spent at their uncle's ranch, that they were allowed to repeat it the following season. But this time there was a change. As related in the second volume, "The Boy Ranchers in Camp," Mr. Merkel had, by utilizing an ancient underground water-course beneath Snake Mountain, and by making a dam in Pocut River, brought water to a distant valley he owned.

This valley was originally called Buffalo Wallow, the source of the name being obvious. But once water was brought through the underground course, and piped to a reservoir, whence it could be distributed to drinking troughs for the cattle, and also used to irrigate the land, it enabled a fine crop of fodder to be grown. With the bringing of the water to Buffalo Wallow, or Flume Valley, as Bud called the place, it was possible to do what had never been done before—raise cattle there. Bud's father let him take this valley ranch as his own, and Nort and Dick were boy partners associated with their western cousin, Mr. Shannon putting up part of the needed capital to make the start for his sons.

All would have gone well except for the mysterious stoppage of the flow of water, which stoppage, if continued, would mean disaster.

How the water fight at Diamond X Second (as the valley ranch was sometimes called) ended, and how the strange mystery was solved, is the story in the second volume, and I absolutely refuse to go into more details about it here. It would not be playing the game square.

At any rate the water was finally turned back into the underground tunnel, and then, in order to better guard this vital necessity, Mr. Merkel had the entrance to the tunnel boarded up—egress being possible only when heavy doors, at either end, were unlocked.

I might say that while the tunnel was the old water-course of a vanished river, the shaft under the mountain appeared, in. ancient times, to have been used by the Aztecs, or some Mexican tribes, for hiding their store of gold away from the Spaniards. There were secret passages and rooms in the tunnel, to say nothing of hidden water gates.

Who had constructed these, and what actual use had been made of them was, of course, lost in the dim and ancient past. But that it was the Aztecs, or some allied race, was the statement of learned men who examined the tunnel.

After the water fight at Diamond X Second had terminated in favor of the boy ranchers, and great copper levers that operated the hidden water gates had been removed, the tunnel was boarded up, and was now seldom entered.

But now, as Bud and his cousins rode back from the big round-up, and the western lad had, as he thought, seen some one sneaking about the forbidden gate, there was a feeling of apprehension in the hearts of himself and cousins.

They had now reached the top level of the reservoir which held a storage supply of water. The reservoir was a great semi-circular bank of earth and atones, wide enough on top for two to ride abreast.

"I don't see any one," remarked Nort, straining his eyes to pierce the gloom and shadows into which the face of the tunnel and the locked gate were thrown by the moonlight and clouds.

"Nor I," added Dick.

"Well, I saw some one!" insisted Bud. "It was a man, as sure as snakes, and he seemed to be trying to open the big gate."

This gate was made of heavy bolted planks and was set on hinges in a jamb of other planks and boards that closed the reservoir end of the tunnel water-course. A similar barrier and big door was at the Pocut River end.

"Well, if he was here, he seems to be gone," observed Nort "Maybe it was a sheep herder, Bud."

"Well, if any of that gentry think they can drive their flock over here, and water their woolies at my expense, they're mistaken," declared Bud with emphasis. "Sheep men have to be, I reckon, but they're out of place in a cow country. Hello, there!" he called, loudly. "Come on out and show yourself!"

But there was no answer, and the only sound, aside from the creaking of the damp saddle leathers, was the splashing of water as it flowed from the big pipe and into the reservoir.

"Guess he lit out," observed Bud, thrusting his gun back into the holster.

"Or else you didn't see him," chuckled Nort. "Maybe your eyes are full of dust, same as mine are, from that round-up."

"Oh, I saw somebody all right!" declared Bud. "Might 'a' been one of Buck Tooth's Indian friends making a call, but—"

He suddenly ceased speaking and leaned over in his saddle to gaze earnestly at something on the ground. It was something that glittered and shone in the mystic moonlight as Nort and Dick could see. "What's that?" inquired the latter.

In answer Bud slipped from his saddle and picked up the object which the moonlight had revealed.

"What in the world is this?" asked the boy rancher, as he held up a curious instrument. "Is this the start of another mystery!"

CHAPTER III

STARTLING NEWS

Leaping from their saddles, Nort and Dick hurried to the side of their cousin, chum and partner in the ranch venture. Eagerly they looked over his shoulder while he examined the strange object he had picked up, almost at the very door leading into the mysterious tunnel.

The instrument—for such it seemed to be—consisted of a shiny, nickeled part, which was what had reflected the moonlight, thus attracting Bud's attention to it. In addition there were two flexible tubes, of soft rubber, joining into one where they met the shiny metal.

The two tubes each terminated in hard rubber ends, pierced with a tiny hole, and on the end of the single tube was a bright metal disk. The whole formed a strange object, picked up as it was from the ground, and especially when the boy ranchers feared they had some cause for alarm.

"What in the world is it?" asked Bud, as he dangled it in front of his cousins. "I never saw anything like it before. Wait! I have it! Yellin' Kid said he was going to send to Kansas City for a flute he could play on. This must be part of it! He dropped it here; though that couldn't 'a' been him sneaking around the tunnel. But this is Yellin' Kid's musical instrument all right! Oh, won't I rag him, though! I wonder which end you blow in?"

"That isn't a musical instrument!" declared Nort, taking it from
Bud's hand.

"Not What is it then?" asked the western ranch lad.

"It's a stethoscope," declared Nort.

"Whew! x I didn't know Yellin' Kid could play one of them!" exclaimed Bud. "He must be more musical than any of us thought!"

"'Tisn't musical, I tell you!" cried Nort, half laughing. "This is a stethoscope—it's what a doctor listens to your lungs or heart with when you're sick."

"He never listened to mine!" boasted Bud, "at least not since I can remember, for I've never been sick."

"Well, I have," admitted Nort, "and so has Dick. You remember Dr. Thompson using one of these, don't you?" he asked his stout brother.

"Sure I do! And there's some other name for it besides plain stethoscope," declared Dick. "It's a long word—bi—di—"

"Binaural stethoscope! That's it!" broke in Nort. "I remember, now. I thought I'd never be able to say those words, but they come back to me now. Binaural stethoscope."

"'Tisn't good to eat, or shoot with, is it!" asked Bud, as he again took the instrument and turned it over and over in his hands.

"Eat! Shoot!" laughed Nort. "No, I tell you it's to listen to your heart beats, or lungs. Binaural means, simply, that it's fixed so you can listen with both ears at the same time. And stethoscope comes from two Greek words, stethos, the breast, and skopen, to view. It means, literally, to view inside the chest, but of course the doctors who use the stethoscope don't really do that. They only listen through the ear pieces—these," and he held up the two rubber tubes ending in hard nipples, pierced with small holes.

"What's the other end for!" asked Bud, indicating the shiny disk of metal that dangled from the single tube.

"That's the part the doctor holds on your chest or over your heart," Dick answered. "Sometimes the doctor puts it to your back to listen to your breathing from that side."

"Well, who in the world would have a—a binaural stethoscope out here!" asked Bud. "Yon reckon Doc. Tunison dropped it!" he went on, referring to the local veterinarian. "Shucks no! Cow doctors don't use 'em, not that I ever heard of," declared Nort. "Though Doc. Tunison is up to date."

"He sure was in discovering that it was germs which caused the epidemic outbreak in our stock last year," remarked Bud.

"Yes, we got out of that mighty lucky," chimed in Dick. "What's become of Pocut Pete?" he asked, referring to a scoundrel of a cowboy.

"Oh, Del Pinzo and Hank Fisher had pull enough to get him out of jail, after he'd served only part of his term for infecting our stock," said Bud. He had reference to something which is explained in the volume immediately preceding this. Del Pinzo was a notorious Mexican half-breed who, more than once, had made trouble for the boy ranchers. Hank Fisher was the owner of Double Z ranch, adjoining that of Square M, one of Mr. Merkel's, and also adjoining Happy Valley. Pocut Pete was believed to be a tool of these two unscrupulous men, and Del Pinzo had at his command Several Greasers who slipped back and forth over the Mexican border, not far from which were located the holdings of Mr. Merkel and the boy ranchers.

"Well, this is a stethoscope all right," went on Nort, as Bud turned toward his pony, with the evident intention of mounting.

"And I'd give a lot to know what it's doing here, and who dropped it," spoke Bud. "Let's look around a little more. I'm not at all satisfied with this. I sure saw, some one here, and this proves it," and he stuffed the doctor's instrument into his pocket.

"It doesn't prove that the man you saw—or thought you just saw—sneaking around here dropped it," spoke Nort. "We've been away for a week, and it may have been dropped any day within that time."

"Yes," agreed Bud. "But who was monkeying around here as we rode back to camp? That's what I want to know!"

However, search as the boy ranchers did, they found no midnight visitor. All was quiet at their camp, save for the distant howl of a coyote, and the splash of the water into the reservoir. All the stock had been driven away from Happy Valley to the big round-up at Diamond X, but soon the fertile glade would again be dotted with hungry cattle.

"Well, I reckon we'll have to give up," said Bud, when a thorough search had been made, and no one discovered.

"The tunnel door doesn't show any signs of an attempt having been made to bust it; does it?" asked Dick.

"Not as far as I can see, in this light," Bud replied. "We'll take a stroll up here in the morning," he went on as he thrust the stethoscope into his pocket. "Now for a little grub, and then to hit the hay. Oh, boy! But I to tired!"

So were the others, and after rummaging among their camp stores, and eating some crackers and canned peaches, the boys, having picketed their horses, turned in, rolled up in their blankets, and were asleep almost as soon as their heads were on the pillows, which were, as a matter of fact, stuffed with hay.

An examination, next morning, disclosed nothing more in the neighborhood of the tunnel entrance than their own and, their ponies' feet marks, until Bud, with an exclamation, pointed to several cigarette stubs on the ground, and a number of half-burned matches.

"Some one was here last night—or yesterday!" he declared. "And they stood in this one spot for some time—either resting or spying."

"What would they be spying on!" asked Dick.

"Search me!" frankly admitted Bud. "But since we had that water fight I'm suspicious of everything. Those cigarette stubs are fresh, and were dropped last night, or yesterday. None of us use 'em, and though some of our cow punchers do they haven't been here lately enough to have left this fresh evidence. The stubs are new ones."

"Well, maybe there was some one here last night," said Dick.

"I'm positive of it!" declared Bud. "Let's take another look at the big door lock."

Even a close inspection, however, failed to disclose any signs of the great portal, or its heavy padlock having been tampered with. Nor were there any marks tending to show where an effort had been made to force boards off the frame in which the door was set.

"Well, we'll just have to wait," said Bud, as he turned to go back down to the tents. "Hello," he suddenly added, as he gazed off up the valley. "Here comes somebody, riding like all possessed, too!"

The boy ranchers watched the approach of the solitary horseman, and, as he drew nearer Bud exclaimed:

"It's Buck Tooth!"

It was, in fact, that same Zuni Indian, who had been engaged as a sort of camp cook and ranch hand by Bud's father, later being transferred to Bud's service. Buck Tooth was devoted to the boy ranchers.

"What's matter, Buck! What for you ride so pronto fashion!" asked Bud as the Indian, a superb horseman, drew rein close to the boy ranchers. "You race, maybe, Buck Tooth!"

"Yep—race tell you bad news!" half-grunted the Zuni.

"Bad news!" faltered Bud. "Is it my mother—dad—-"

"Them all well," said Buck Tooth. "But got bad news all same. You see anybody out here?" and he slipped from his saddle to rest his almost winded steed.

CHAPTER IV

THE SCRATCHED SAFE

Eagerly the boy ranchers gathered about Buck Tooth. The Indian, as if rather ashamed of the hurry and emotion that had possessed him, grew quieter as he threw the reins down over his pony's head, as an intimation to the animal not to stray. Then the Zuni turned toward Bud and his cousins.

"This is the second time you gave me bad news, Buck," remarked the western lad. "Remember?"

"How?" asked the Indian sharply.

"I say this is the second time you've brought news of something bad. You were the first to tell me about the water stopping in the reservoir. And from then on we had some rousing times; didn't we, fellows?" asked Bud, turning to his chums.

"That's right!" assented Nort.

"But what's going on now?" Dick wanted to know.

"You said it!" exclaimed Bud. "I should let Buck Tooth tell it, instead of keeping him gassing away about the past. What's the row, Buck?"

"Robbers!" was the Indian's answer.

"Robbers? At Diamond X?" cried Bud.

"Did they get anything?" Dick wanted to know.

"Anybody hurt?" asked Nort.

"Get some money—nobody hurt only Babe—him get broken leg," half-grunted the Indian.

"Babe has a broken leg in a fight with robbers?" gasped Bud. "Shoot it along a little faster, Buck! I'm sorry I didn't let you ride harder at first. How much did they get? Was it rustlers, and I'll bet a cookie with a raisin in that Del Pinzo and his gang had a hand in the fracas! Did Babe shoot any of 'em?"

"Babe him try—but too fat," said the Indian, with as near to a chuckle as ever he achieved, "Fall down—bust leg. Your padre no can tell how much money gone, but big iron box not opened."

"Oh, they didn't get to the safe, then!" exclaimed Bud with relief in his voice. For he knew, at this season of the spring round-up, that many thousands of dollars, from the sale of cattle, were often kept in his father's safe. "But go ahead, Buck! Tell us more about it. Step on her! Give her the gas! Open the throttle!"

"Hu?" grunted the Zuni, questioningly. "I step on somet'ing?" "You're only mixing him up!" declared Nort "Let him take his own time, Bud."

"If I do he'll be until noon giving us the facts. And if the robbers looted dad's office, even if they didn't get the safe open, they may have lit out with a tidy sum, and we ought to take the trail after 'em. That's what Buck came here for, likely! To get us on the chase from this end. Go ahead! Shoot!" he requested, meaning a verbal fire, not actual.

Whether Buck Tooth would have succeeded, under these confusing directions, in making a quick, dear statement of the matter is a question that was not settled. For, just as the Indian was about to resume, Dick looked off toward the distant hills, which lined the trail between Diamond X proper, and Happy Valley, and the lad exclaimed:

"Here comes one of the robbers now, riding like Sam Hill!"

Bud and Nort leaped to the side of their partner, their hands on their weapons, but, after a glimpse of the approaching horseman, having shaded his eyes with his hands, Bud cried:

"That isn't a robber! It's Yellin' Kid. I know his riding. I reckon he's come to give us the straight of it!"

Which proved to be the case.

"Buck outrode me," admitted Yellin' Kid as he drew rein, and his voice was not as loud as usual. "We started at th' same time, shortly after midnight when th' break was made, but that Indian's cayuse shore can step some! An' Buck can ride—let me tell you!"

"You shot a ringer that time!" asserted Bud. "But what happened!
And is Babe badly hurt!"

"No! He just twisted his ankle gettin' out of his bunk in a hurry t' take a pot shot at th' bunch that tried to hold us up. Doc. Tunison says he'll be all right in a week."

"But Tunison is a horse doctor!" objected Bud, for Babe, the fat assistant foreman of Diamond X, was a prime favorite with him and his cousins.

"Yes, shore he is! Why not? A horse doctor for a cow puncher!" chuckled Yellin' Kid. "But here's the yarn."

Thereupon, having turned his pony out to graze with the Indian's,
Yellin' Kid told the boys what had happened.

"We started some of the cattle from th' round-up brandin' over to th' railroad," the cowboy stated, "an' followin' th' usual preliminaries we all settled down for th' night, after you fellows rode off. An' let me tell you I was glad t' hit my bunk!

"Well, some time near midnight we, out in th' bunkhouse, was roused up by shootin' from your father's bungalow, Bud. Course that couldn't mean but one thing, an' we all got our guns an' rushed out, natcherally. But all we saw was a bunch ridin' off in th' darkness, your father firin' at 'em, Bud.

"Come t' find out, your mother had been woke up by a noise in th' office where th' safe was. She called your father an' he took a look, with his gun, of course. He saw a man in a mask tryin' t' open th' strong box, and your dad gave th' usual countersign.

"But th' burglar wheeled, an' popped one at your dad, not hittin' him I'm glad t' say, an' out th' winder he jumped, th' burglar, I mean. Then the rest of th' gang, which was waitin', rode off, shootin' some, as your dad was doin'.

"Come t' find out, they'd got a few hundred dollars from the desk where your dad left th' cash, Bud, but th' main part was in th' safe, an' that they couldn't get open. Course soon as we knowed what was up we organized a posse, an' started off—all but Babe. He fell—or rolled—out of his bunk an' twisted his leg, somehow.

"Anyhow, Buck an' I was told off t' ride this way, partly t' let you fellers know what had happened, an' partly t' see if there was any trace of th' skunks what robbed your dad down here in Happy Valley. How about it? Seen anybody?"

"Well, yes, we did see some one sneaking around here when we arrived last evening," Bud answered. "But that was long before the robbery."

"And tell him what we found!" urged Dick

"Oh, yes, a stethoscope," went on Bud. "But that has nothing to do with the matter. Maybe some doctor, or medical student, is out here for his health, and dropped it as he rode over our place."

"What's a slitherscope!" asked Yellin' Kid. "Anything like a
Triceratops?"

"No!" laughed Nort. "We'll show you. But say, what can we do toward getting these robbers?"

"We've got t' trail 'em," spoke the older cowboy, as he turned to go to the tents with the boy ranchers, Buck Tooth following with the two half-winded ponies. "Soon as I get my breath——"

"That's right!" interrupted Bud. "Come on up and sit down. I'll make you some coffee. I forgot you'd ridden all night."

"Half of it, anyhow," asserted Yellin' Kid. "An' I rode hard! But so did Buck Tooth, only you'd hardly know it. He sure can make his cayuse cover th' ground!"

Indeed the Indian showed little signs of the hard riding he had accomplished between midnight and dawn. And when he and Yellin' Kid were having a belated morning cup of coffee further details of the story were told.

Who the robbers were, and how many there were in the gang that attempted to force the safe at Diamond X, were matters left to further enlightenment. Mr. Merkel had only seen one in his office, bending over the safe, and this one had fled at the command of "hands up!" Then the others had raced away, amid a fusillade of shots which they returned.

It was so dark—the moon of the early night having been clouded over—that the direction taken by the robbers had not been ascertained.

"They probably scattered," declared Yellin' Kid. "It would be th' safest way—for them! But there's a chance some might 'a' come this way, so your dad wanted you t' be on the watch."

"We will!" declared Bud. "And when some of the boys come back on the job here, and we get our allotment of cattle so things settle down to normal, I'm going back to the ranch and have a talk with dad."

"'Twouldn't be a bad idea," agreed Yellin' Kid. "But where's that mouth organ you said you found?"

"A stethoscope," laughed Bud. "Here it is," and he exhibited the medical instrument.

"Hum!" mused the cowboy. "It might be a burglar tool for all I'd know the difference. But now, if it's agreeable t' you fellers, let's have a look around. Maybe some of them burglars got a chunk of lead in him and he's hidin' out around here."

However, a search in the vicinity of Happy Valley camp disclosed nothing, and then Bud and his cousins set about getting back into the routine that had been interrupted by the round-up.

"The first thing we've got to do," Bud declared, "is to mend that break in the telephone line. If that had been working last night you could have called us up, Kid, instead of you and Buck having to ride out here."

"Yes, we wished th' line was working" admitted the cowboy. "But it wouldn't have been of much use, it seems. Them burglars didn't come out this way. However, it's just as well t' have it fixed."

There was a system of telephones connecting Bud's camp with his father's main ranch and also the two branch ones, and the system was likewise hooked-up with the long distance. But a recent wind, just before the round-up, had blown down some poles in Happy Valley, putting Bud's line out of commission. This was why he and his chums could not be reached by wire from Diamond X.

The poles were set up in the next few days, when some cowboys arrived to again take up their duties with Bud, Nort and Dick; for the cattle not sold were again sent back to the valley range to fatten for the fall, and they needed to be looked after.

Meanwhile, a search of the surrounding country had failed to disclose any trace of the robbers, and their identity remained hidden. They had gotten away with about $500, missing a much larger sum in the safe. The authorities were notified, and a posse scoured the region, but fruitlessly.

"Let's have a look at the safe they tried to open, Dad," begged Bud, when he and his cousins had ridden over to pay a week-end visit to the home ranch. "Did they try to drill it for an explosive?"

"I don't believe so, son. In fact, I haven't looked at the safe very closely, except to notice that it was all right. And I took the money out of it over to the bank next day."

Bud and his cousins looked at the strong box in which Mr. Merkel kept his money and valuable papers. It was a large, old-fashioned safe, proof from any fire that might visit the ranch, and beyond the ability of ordinary burglars to open, without the use of explosives or special tools.

And as Bud leaned over to look at the heavy door he saw something that caused him to ask:

"Were these here before the attempted robbery, Dad?"

"What there, Bud?"

"These scratches on the front of the door. It does look as if they tried to drill the safe!"

Bud pointed to several parallel marks on the steel door. The scratches were deep in the paint, and seemed to radiate toward the shiny nickel dial of the combination. "Scratches!" repeated Mr. Merkel, coming over to look. "No, I never noticed them before. Why, she is clawed up some," he admitted. "But I can't say that they haven't been there since I got the safe, which was just before the round-up. Yes, she sure is clawed up some," and he spoke as if some mountain lion had done the damage to his strong box.

But here Bud's sister, Nell, took a hand in the proceedings.

"Those scratches are new ones—they were made by the burglar," declared the girl, whom Nort and Dick thought the prettiest they had ever seen. "I know, for I dusted your office, Dad, the day the round-up ended, and the door was as shiny then as a new penny."

"Then the burglar did it," decided Bud. "And it shows we have to deal with a regular gang of safe robbers, instead of just ordinary cattle rustlers!"

CHAPTER V

THE BROKEN BOTTLE

Bud's opinion, expressed with such conviction, coupled with the fact that Nell, his sister, was sure the safe had not been scratched the day before the robbery, made it look as though men practiced in the evil art of burglary had been at work.

"When I saw the fellow, bending over my safe," said Mr. Merkel, "it appeared to me he was only trying to work the combination. I have a hard job, myself, remembering how to do it, account of the safe being a new one. And I was so surprised, at first, that I just stood there, like a locoed steer, watching him. Then I let out a yell, told him to throw his hands up, and things began to happen."

"But, instead of just trying to open your safe, by working the combination, same as I've heard of burglars doing by filing down their fingers with sandpaper to make 'em sensitive, he was getting ready to blow it open," declared Bud.

"Does look so. She sure is clawed!" commented Mr. Merkel again.

"Mercy! It's a wonder we weren't all blown up in our sleep!" exclaimed Bud's mother. "You boys'll stay to dinner," she added, as if glad to change the subject.

"We aimed to," said Bud with a grin at his cousins. "We manage pretty well most times, with what we cook, and what Buck Tooth hands out in the grub line. But we sure do like a home-feed once in a while."

"Or twice!" added Nort, while Dick nodded his agreement.

But though it was evident that some professional burglar had endeavored to open the Merkel safe, that was all the conclusion which could be arrived at. No additional clues were found and, for a time, matters settled down into the ordinary run at Diamond X.

Summer was coming, with its heat, and Bud was glad there would be no interruption in the water supply that flowed into Happy Valley from the Pocut River, coming through the ancient underground passage.

"For we'll need plenty of water in hot weather," he told Jus cousins.

At Diamond X Second, as the outfit of the boy ranchers was often called, was now a goodly herd of animals eating the rich, Johnson grass and other fodder, getting fattened in readiness for sale in the fall, when there would be another round-up.

Besides Bud, Nort and Dick, there was now, at the camp in the valley, Buck Tooth the Zuni Indian, Yellin' Kid and Snake Purdee, two efficient and veteran cow punchers who had been transferred from Diamond X First, meaning by that the main ranch.

While Bud was a true son of the west, and while Nort and Dick had, some time ago, passed out of the tenderfoot class, still Mr. Merkel felt that his son and his nephews needed the aid and guidance of cattlemen older than themselves. So the "outfit," as the aggregation at a ranch is called, was quite a happy family.

"If we could only catch those burglars, and get back your dad's money, I'd feel better, though," declared Snake Purdee, as he rode in from the Diamond X ranch one day, to announce, among other news items, that Babe, the fat assistant foreman, was able to be about again.

"Yes," agreed Bud. "It isn't so much the money loss, as it is the knowledge that such a bunch of men is loose in a neighborhood. Del Pinzo and that Hank Fisher bunch are bad enough, but I don't believe they had a hand in this."

"I wouldn't put it past them!" stated Yellin' Kid in his usual, loud tones. "Th' skunks!"

"But dad said he didn't recognize the fellow he surprised at his safe," spoke Bud. "Of course he didn't have much chance. But if it had been Del Pinzo—"

"Don't worry!" broke in Snake Purdee. "That Greaser wouldn't do a job like that himself; or Hank Fisher, either. They'd get some one else to take the risk. However, what's th' use gassin' about it? I guess the money's gone for good. But I'm glad they didn't get th' safe open!"

"So'm I," chimed in Bud. "Some of our cash would have vanished then." For he and his cousins had a share in the money received from the sale of steers at round-up time.

So, following the robbery at Diamond X, matters quieted down. Bud still kept the stethoscope, and word of the finding of the strange instrument traveled to other ranches. It was called by such a variety of names (the cowboys having twisted the original and proper one) until the boy ranchers had difficulty, at times, in understanding the reference when they were asked about it.

But no one claimed it, and no trace was found of the person who, it was presumed, had dropped it the night our heroes saw some one disappear near the boarded-up entrance to the ancient tunnel.

"Come on, let's try a bit of shooting!" proposed Nort one evening, when grub had been served at the camp, and he and his brother were left with Buck Tooth. Snake and Yellin' Kid had ridden off on an all-night tour of duty, to a distant part of the ranch. A choice bunch of steers had started to wander farther off than Bud thought it was wise to let them. They were, evidently, in search of another variety of fodder, but that could not save them from some passing band of Greasers, or other cattle thieves.

"Haze 'em back this way," Bud had requested his two cowboys.
"They'll be safer over here."

So Yellin' Kid and Snake had ridden away as the early evening shadows were falling and, to pass the time until the hour for seeking their bunks, the boy ranchers sought some amusement. Shooting at a mark was one form, and Nort and Dick were endeavoring to become as expert as their western cousin in the use of the .45.

"Shooting suits me," agreed Bud. "I'll soon have to cut down my handicap if you fellows keep on the way you're going," for in the tests of skill Bud had always discounted his own ability in order to be fair.

"Well, don't scale it down too much," begged Dick. "Nort hasn't got me skinned, but I'm not up to you."

"Well, let's see how you'll do," suggested Bud.

As a mark a bottle was stuck on a stick which was thrust into the ground at the foot of the sloping bank which enclosed the reservoir. Shooting against this earthen bank insured that no wild bullets would injure any one.

"You go first, Bud," suggested Dick. "We want to get a line on you."

Accordingly Bud walked to the marked-off place, drew his heavy revolver, raised it and brought it down on the mark—the bottle on the stick. There was a sharp crack, followed instantly by the tinkle of glass, and that bottle was no more.

"Busted it clean!" cried Nort. "I wish I could do that!"

Another flask was provided, and Nort shot at this. His aim was fairly good, but he was allowed to go five feet nearer than Bud had stood, that distance being the western lad's handicap. But Nort only chipped away part of the bottom of the bottle with his first shot, and it took three to shatter it completely.