The boy ranchers stood looking down into the reservoir, which was almost full of water, but which was slowly running out through the different gates, some to concrete drinking troughs where thirsty cattle congregated, and some to distant meadows where it supplied moisture for the gra.s.s on which the steers of Diamond X Second fed. From the slightly ruffled surface of the reservoir, as the evening wind blew across the water, the gazes of Bud, Nort and d.i.c.k sought the faces of one another.

"This looks had!" murmured Bud, while Buck Tooth, the Zuni Indian, grunted something in his own incomprehensible dialect.

"What does it mean?" asked Nort, as he looked down the slope from the reservoir to the group of tents that was to form the home of himself, his brother and cousin for several months, while they were in camp.

"It means the water supply, on which I depended to raise these steers, has petered out," answered Bud, and there was a worried note in his voice.

"You mean stopped for good?" asked d.i.c.k.

"I hope not," went on Bud. "But from what you can see--no water coming through the pipe line that dad laid to the Pocut River--I should say there was a break in it somewhere, and it will have to be fixed right away--that is, if I'm to keep these cattle here," and he looked down the valley where the bunches of steers were ever on the move, seeking new places to feed, or coming to drink water from the supply flowing out of the reservoir.

"We seem to have struck a job right off the bat!" remarked d.i.c.k, as he picked up a stone and tossed it into the reservoir.

"Just as we did when we came west before, and had to jump out and help the queer professors," added Nort. "But we're ready to go to work, Bud. All you'll have to do is say the word and----"

But Bud did not seem to be paying much attention to what his cousin was saying. Instead his gaze followed that of his Zuni Indian helper.

Buck Tooth was looking off up the hill under which the big pipe ran to the distant Pocut River on the other side of the mountain. And as Bud and Buck Tooth looked, and as the gaze of Nort and d.i.c.k was bent in the same direction, they all beheld a figure on the back of a fast-moving pony, riding up the trail that led over Snake Mountain.

"Who's that, Buck? See him!" yelled Bud.

"No can tell. Old Billee, mebby!" grunted the Indian.

"No! Old Billee just left me! He's back at the ranch house. But that's a stranger, and I don't like strangers sneaking around my ranch--especially when there's a break just happened to my pipe line!"

exclaimed Bud. "I'm going to look into this!"'

"Hi there! Hold on a minute! I want to talk to you!" he yelled, making a megaphone of his hands and directing it at the figure on the back of the st.u.r.dy pony that was scrambling up the mountain trail.

"Wait a minute!"

But this the stranger seemed unwilling to do. The watching group near the reservoir saw him raise his quirt, or short whip, and bring it down savagely on the back of the pony, which, already, was doing its best to carry its master out of distance.

Then, with a quick motion, Bud drew his .45, and though both Nort and d.i.c.k saw him aim it high above the man's head, in order to shoot over him, horse and rider went down in a tumbled heap at the sound of the report, which followed as Bud pulled the trigger.

"You've winged him!" cried d.i.c.k.

"Shucks! Didn't mean to hit him--just shot to scare him!" declared Bud. "But we'll have to see about it now! Come on!" he cried, and he ran down the side of the reservoir to where he had left Sock, his pony, followed by d.i.c.k and Nort who also headed for their steeds.

"Hu!" grunted the Indian, as he came on down more leisurely. "No water--man shot--new boys come--big time, mebby! Hu!"

And Buck Tooth was more than right. Big times impended in Flume Valley.

While Bud Merkel and his two cousins who had arrived from the east only the day before were mounting their ponies, to ride up the side of Snake Mountain, and seek the man Bud had shot, I shall have a chance to tell my new readers something about the boy ranchers, and the volume that immediately precedes this one.

The book is ent.i.tled "The Boy Ranchers; or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X." Norton, or Nort, and d.i.c.k, or Richard, Shannon were sons of Mr. and Mrs. Thornton Shannon, and their home was in the cast. When Mr. Shannon, the summer previous, had been obliged to make a trip to South America, with his wife, he sent his sons to spend their vacation at Diamond X, one of the western cattle ranches owned by Henry Merkel, Mrs. Shannon's brother.

Almost immediately on their arrival Nort and d.i.c.k, who were then rightly cla.s.sed as "tenderfeet," became involved in a strange mystery.

A call for help came, and they took part in the rescue of two college professors who had been attacked by a band of Mexicans and "Greasers,"

the latter being a low-cla.s.s Mexican.

The professors were rescued, but the mystery only deepened. What it was, and how it came to be solved, you will find set down at length in the first volume. Sufficient to say, here, that Nort and d.i.c.k, as it were, "cut their eye teeth," during the exciting experiences that followed their arrival at Diamond X.

The eastern boys learned how properly to ride a pony cowboy fashion, they learned the use of the branding iron, the lariat and "gun," as the .45 revolvers were universally called. They learned, also, how to "ride herd," "ride line" and how to live in the open, with the prairie gra.s.s for a bed and the star-studded sky for a blanket, their saddle forming the pillow.

Mr. Merkel, Bud's father, owned several ranches besides Diamond X, so named because that brand was used on the cattle from it. He had Square M, and Triangle B, the explanation of which names are obvious.

When it came time for Nort and d.i.c.k to return east, as winter approached, they left, promising to return as soon as their summer vacation should arrive, for they were determined to become boy ranchers in earnest, an ambition in which Bud shared.

Now it was summer again, and Nort and d.i.c.k had once more journeyed to their uncle's ranch, to be met by Bud, as arranged, at the water-hole.

For between the two visits of the easterners some changes had been made at Diamond X.

Bud had been clamoring to be allowed to raise some cattle "on his own,"

and his father had consented. Off to the north of Diamond X, and in a depression between the Snake Mountains on the east and Buffalo Ridge on the west, was another valley, well sheltered from the wintry blasts.

This valley was owned by Mr. Merkel, and though part of it was timbered, and some scattered sections produced an excellent variety of gra.s.s for stock, there was no dependable source of drinking water available. And without water at hand it is impossible to raise cattle in the west--or any place else, for that matter.

How to get water to "Flume Valley," as it came to be called, was a problem. It would have been put to use raising cattle long before this had Mr. Merkel been able to get any water there for the animals to drink, and also some to irrigate the more arid portions so that fodder would grow.

At the foot of the eastern slope of Snake Mountains ran the Pocut River, which served to supply not only Diamond X, Square M and Triangle B ranches with water, but also those of Double Z and Circle T, the respective holdings of Hank Fisher and Thomas Ogden. But though Pocut River gave plenty of water to Bud's father and the other ranchmen, none was available for the isolated valley which, except for this, would have been an ideal place to raise steers.

And it was here that the good services of Professor Wright, one of the scientists mentioned in the first volume, came into play. For Professor Wright discovered an ancient underground water course, connecting with Pocut River, and when this had been partly tunneled, re-opened at places where it had caved in, and a big iron pipe laid part of the way, water came gushing out into Flume Valley, as Bud renamed the place, it having been called Buffalo Wallow before that time; probably when there was water in it and the buffalo made it a rendezvous.

And when the water came through the iron pipe, falling into the reservoir that had been built to hold it in reserve, Bud was allowed to begin his experiment in stock raising.

His father provided him with the cattle, and Bud was a boy rancher in reality now. His cousins had agreed to help him in the venture on their arrival, and Bud had been expecting them when he rode out with Old Billee that day. Old Billee was one of the Diamond X cowboys, and he might have been made a foreman, except that he had no executive ability. He could do as he was told, and that was about all. He was reliable and dependable, but had no initiative for big undertakings.

Old Billee, with Buck Tooth and some other cowboys, had been a.s.signed to help Bud in his venture.

As Bud has told his cousins, when he rode to meet them at the water-hole, on the trail from Diamond S ranch, there was no time, yet, to construct ranch houses in Flume Valley. Tents would have to serve the purpose, and the boys were rather pleased, than otherwise, with this.

"It will be just like camp!" said Bud.

And so the easterners had arrived, and, almost with the moment of their coming, there had begun the first act in what was to prove a drama of almost tragic happenings.

"You stay at the camp, Buck!" called Bud to the Zuni, as the three boy ranchers mounted and prepared to ride up to where the unknown man had collapsed after Bud had fired. "You stick around! Old Billee, or some of the boys from Diamond X may ride over, though I don't expect them until morning. Stay here, Buck!"

"Me stick!" gutturally answered the Indian. "You catchum man mebby--git back water."

"Maybe," agreed Bud, as he and his cousins trotted off up the trail, which wound around the reservoir and over the mountain.

Dusk was falling as the boys reached the vicinity of the place whence they had seen the lone rider emerge from the bushes, spurring his horse up the rocky trail that led over Snake Mountain, as the whole ridge was known.

"Must have been about here," said d.i.c.k, as he reined in his steed, for which the panting animal, doubtless, was grateful.

"Little farther on, I think," said his brother.

"No, it was right here," declared Bud, as he dismounted and began to scan the ground. "Here's where his horse slipped," and he pointed to the tell-tale marks on the trail.

"Yes, and look--you hit him all right!" added d.i.c.k.

He indicated some dull, red spots on the stones. Bud reached down and gingerly touched them.