"How'd you happen to know about it?"

"I didn't. I just come over here on an errand. Your dad--"

He stopped in some confusion.

"That's all right, Pete," Dave said. "I'm going to call Mr. Carson dad until I find my real one--if I ever do. No matter what happens, even if I do find my real folks, I can't forget that he has been as good as a father to me."

"That's what he has, Dave," said the foreman, solemnly. "An' I hope you don't ever forget that. There's not many folks--not even a fellow's real ones--who can beat th' Old Man. He's th' real stuff an' twenty-four carats fine every time."

Together they urged the now quieted cattle toward the corral.

"As I was sayin'," resumed Focus Pete, "I come over here on a little errand for th' Old Man, an' I thought I'd take a run out here an' see about the prize bunch. It's good I did."

"I should say so!" Dave exclaimed, fervently.

"Wasn't there any one to help you?" asked Pocus Pete.

"Not a soul. I did see Len Molick riding off--sneaking away. I called to him, but he didn't answer."

"How did they break out?" Pete asked next.

"That's what's puzzling me," replied the younger cowboy.

"Say! Look there!" suddenly called Pete, pointing. "That's how they got out. A section of th' corral fence is down."

"The gate didn't come open at all," said Dave. "The steers pushed down the fence."

"Drive 'em through the opening," directed Pete, and this was done. As the last of the cattle pa.s.sed in, Pete and Dave stood on guard astride their ponies to prevent the animals stampeding out again, and Dave looked at the broken fence. What he saw caused him to cry out:

"Look here, Pete! Some of those posts have been sawed almost through!"

"By the great side saddle!" exclaimed the foreman. "You're right, Dave!

There's been treachery here!"

CHAPTER VI

A CRY FOR HELP

Together, Dave and Pocus Pete examined the posts of the corral fence.

There was no doubt but that some of them had been partly sawed through, in order to weaken them so that only a moderate pressure was required to break them off short, close to the ground.

"So that was his game; eh?" exclaimed Dave in a justifiably angry voice.

"Whose game?" asked Pocus Pete.

"Len's! That's why he wouldn't stop to help me. He had been here sawing through the posts so our best bunch of cattle would get out and be spoiled. The hound! Wait until I get hold of him!"

"Better go a bit slow," advised Pocus Pete, in his drawling tones.

"Slow! What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean it isn't a good thing t' go around makin' accusations like that, without somethin' t' back 'em up. In this country you've got t' back up what you say, Dave."

"I know that, but--"

"An' what evidence have you got that Len did this mean trick? For mean trick it is, as sh.o.r.e as guns is guns. What evidence have you?"

"Why, didn't I see him riding away as fast as his horse could gallop just a little while ago?"

"Well, s'posin' you did. That's no evidence in a court of law. You didn't see him saw the posts; did you?"

"No, of course not. But look! Here's some fresh sawdust on the ground! The posts have been sawed within a few hours--perhaps even inside an hour.

Maybe just before I came." Dave pointed to the moist earth under some of the splintered posts and boards. There was the fine sawdust where it had been preserved from the trampling hoofs of the steers.

"Yes, th' job's been done recent," admitted Pocus Pete, "but that doesn't prove anythin'. Now if we could find a saw with Len's name on it, that might be some law-evidence. But I don't see any; do you?"

There was no saw in sight. The cattle had retreated to the far side of the corral, leaving the part next the broken fence free for examination. But as Pete had said, there was no saw lying about.

"He could easily have carried it away with him when he rode off," Dave said, following up his suspicion.

"Yes, he could, an' he'd be foolish if he didn't--provided it was him as did this," agreed Pete.

"Well, I'm sure he did," Dave insisted. "And I'll take it out of him for trying to spoil dad's best bunch of cattle."

The word slipped from Dave almost before he knew it. But he did not care.

As he had told Pocus Pete he was going to regard Mr. Carson as his father--he had thought of him so many years in that relationship that it was difficult to think otherwise.

"Well, you be careful of what you do, Dave; that's my advice t' you," said Pete.

"Why so? I'm not afraid of Len Molick," was Dave's quick response.

"No, maybe not. Yet Len trails in with a middlin' mean crowd, an' though you are pretty good, you're no match for Whitey Wa.s.son an' his bunch of cowpunchers."

"But my quarrel is with Len, for I'm sure he did this."

"That's all right. I have a sneakin' suspicion that way myself, but Len is a coward, as well as a bully, an' he'd howl for help if you went at him.

An' Whitey is just th' kind t' pitch in on you if he saw you givin' Len a drubbin'. So you take my advice, an' go a bit slow."

"I will. I won't have it out with Len until I can get him alone somewhere, and then I'll put it up to him."

"Well, maybe that's a good way, though I don't approve of fightin' as a rule."

"Oh, no! You don't!" laughed Dave, for it was a well known fact that Pocus Pete was considered the best man with his fists in that section of the country.

"Oh, of course I'll fight when I have to. But I'm not goin' out of my way t' look for trouble."