The Boy Ranchers on the Trail

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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.

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