Riding rapidly, Bud was quickly back at Diamond X. He told the story of the meeting with Rolling Stone. At first Mr. Merkel was a bit suspicious, but it happened that one of the cowboys had heard of Rolling Stone, and knew him to be what he laid claim to.

"I reckon he's all right," a.s.sented the ranchman. "Take him with you, Bud. You'll need help, and if he knows anything about the Yaquis he'll be of value."

"All right," remarked Bud. "He's on. What horse can I take for him?"

One was selected. Together the boy ranchers and Rolling Stone rode out to Happy Valley, for certain matters must be adjusted there before the start could be made after the Indians who had carried off Rosemary and Floyd.

Work went on at top speed, and a day later our young heroes, with Rolling Stone, better dressed, but the same unconventional spirit, started forth.

"On the trail!" grimly remarked Bud as they started to join forces with those from Diamond X.

"On the trail!" echoed Nort and d.i.c.k.

"And we can't meet with those Yaquis any too soon for me!" added Rolling Stone.

"You seem to have it in for them rather hard," observed d.i.c.k.

"It can't be any too hard," answered the man with a grim tightening of the muscles around his mouth. "When I think of all they did--"

He paused and gazed at the distant horizon. That there was a story connected with his hate of the Yaquis none of the boys doubted, and they were eager to hear it. But this was not the time and place. Too much remained to be done, and there was too little time in which to do it.

"I wonder when we'll meet up with the imps?" spoke Nort, as they ambled easily along.

"No telling," said Bud. "We've got things in shape back there so that we can remain away all summer if need be," and he glanced back toward their ranch which they had just left. "But I'd like to clean up this bunch of 'onery' Yaquis, and then get back on the job. Cattle raising is our business."

"But just now we're following a side line of rescuing Rosemary and Floyd," observed Nort. "And I think we can do it!"

Well it was that Fate veiled the Future.

CHAPTER V

ROSEMARY AND FLOYD

"Floyd, I don't like this a bit!"

"What's the matter, Rosemary?"

The young man driving the st.u.r.dy little sport model of a car brought the machine to a stop and glanced at the girl sitting beside him.

There was a quizzical smile on his face, a good-natured smile, however.

"What don't you like, Rosemary?" he asked again, and there was not in his tone any air of bored fault-finding such as seems to come natural to some brothers in appealing from a decision of some sisters.

"I don't like the way this trail is shaping up, if you'll excuse my English," answered Rosemary Boyd.

"Your English is perfectly excusable, Rosemary," retorted Floyd. "In fact I rather like it. It is much better than this _trail_, to be frank."

"Are you sure we have come the right road?"

"As sure as I can be of anything in this doggoned country, where they haven't enough sign posts. I took the turns they told me to take in the last town we pa.s.sed through, and all the land marks have run true to form so far."

"But we're a good ways from Uncle Henry's ranch yet; aren't we, Floyd?"

and there crept into the voice of Rosemary an anxious note.

"Well, maybe we are, but what do we care for a few hundred miles?"

He laughed merrily, showing a set of white, even teeth, and his jollity was so catching that his sister had to join in.

"Well, I suppose it really doesn't make much difference," she said.

"We're out for a lark and we've had it, so far. Only I don't seem to fancy sleeping out in the open again to-night. We were lost yesterday, you remember, and didn't make the town we expected to."

Floyd seemed to be waiting for something.

"Well?" he suggested. "Why don't you add that it was all my fault."

"I was going to leave that out," Rosemary said.

"But I'll admit it," acknowledged her brother. "I did pull a bloomer, as an Englishman would say, and I don't intend to do it again to-day.

I admit I shouldn't have tried to do more than a day's trip yesterday.

If I had taken your advice and stayed in the town where there was at least an apology for a hotel, you'd have had a better night's sleep."

"Well, I didn't mind being out in the open so much, after I got used to the howling of those wolves," Rosemary remarked.

"Coyotes--coyotes--not wolves, though they're off the same piece of goods," corrected Floyd.

"Well, never mind the lesson in natural history," laughed Rosemary.

"The point at issue is that I don't like the sort of country we're getting into. It doesn't look to me as though this could ever lead us to Uncle Henry's ranch, and I'm anxious to get there. Bud's mother wrote that he and his cousins, Nort and d.i.c.k, had such exciting times, that I'm anxious to join them."

"So'm I," said Floyd. "And we'll get there."

"Not on this trail!" declared his sister, as her brother was about to start the car. "You're getting into a worse and wilder country all the while. I think we should have taken the left turn a ways back."

"The cow puncher we asked told us to take the _right_ turn, and I did,"

retorted Floyd.

"Cow puncher!" exclaimed his sister scornfully, "He looked more like a renegade Mexican than a real American cowboy. And his accent was Spanish, too."

"Oh, well, lots of good American cowboys came from Mexican or Spanish people, and speak both languages," a.s.serted Floyd. "Don't hold that against him."

"I don't," said Rosemary. "But I will hold it against him if he has put us on the wrong trail, and I'm beginning to believe that's what he did. And maybe purposely, Floyd."

"Purposely? What do you mean?"

"Well, you know what we were told when we started out to make this trip--that we had better take the most civilized and best traveled trails, as the Yaquis were reported to be on the verge of making an outbreak."

"Yes, and for that reason I kept well away from the border. But we aren't anywhere near the Yaquis country now."