"Water's there all right! Must 'a' come back in th' night! She's runnin' fine now!"

CHAPTER V

ANOTHER WARNING

Bud Merkel was about to hang up the receiver, with a blank and uncomprehending look on his face, when Babe caught the black rubber earpiece from him.

"Wait a minute, Billee!" called Babe into the transmitter. "See anything of anybody around there? Anything suspicious?"

The others could not hear what the old cowboy's answer was, but Babe soon enlightened them.

"He says it's all serene," Babe declared as he now hung up the receiver. "n.o.body in sight, an' the water is runnin' through the pipe as natural as can be."

"I can't understand it!" declared Bud. "It was almost as dry as a bone when we left last night."

"But it's running in here from the river dam," said Nort.

"Then there must have been a break somewhere in the tunnel natural water course," declared Bud. "Well, if it mended itself so much the better. But that doesn't explain this," and he held out the scrawled warning. "And if the water stopped once it may stop again."

"Yes," agreed Babe, "but if anybody wanted to stop it they'd have to do it either at this end, where the pipe takes water from the river, or at your end, Bud, where it delivers water to your reservoir."

"Unless somebody stopped the stream inside the tunnel," suggested d.i.c.k.

"Then it would back up here at the river end," said Nort, quickly, "and it hasn't done that."

"No, it hasn't," agreed Bud. "It sure is queer. I'm beginning to think there may be more in that black rabbit than I believed first."

"What rabbit is that?" asked Babe.

"The one Old Billee said would bring me bad luck," Bud answered.

"Well," he went on to his cousins, "we might as well go back to camp.

We can't do anything here."

"If you've got water that's all you want in Flume Valley," declared Babe. "There isn't a finer place t' raise cattle in all th' world than there--if you have _water_!"

"And if you haven't--you might as well quit!" spoke Bud.

"You eliminated an earful that time," the a.s.sistant foreman stated.

"But I reckon it was just a little break, inside th' tunnel, an' it filled itself up natural like. You won't have any more trouble."

"I hope not," spoke the boy rancher. "Are you going on back to Diamond X, Babe?"

"Not until I find that bunch of strays from Square M. They're too valuable t' let slip."

"Especially to let Hank Fisher, or Del Pinzo, slip them away,"

exclaimed Bud as he and his chums left the store where they had been telephoning.

"Not so loud! Not so loud!" cautioned Babe.

"Why not?" Bud wanted to know, when they were outside.

"'Cause one of Hank's men was in there! He'll be sure t' tell what you said, Bud."

"Let him! I'm not afraid of Hank, or his tool Del Pinzo, and I'd just as soon either one would know what I think of 'em!"

"Don't be too brash; don't be too brash!" counseled Babe. "But they sure are both bad actors--Del an' Hank!"

There was nothing more that needed to, or could, be done at the Pocut River end of the flume, part natural, part artificial, which supplied Bud's new ranch with such a vital necessity as water. The stream had been dammed just above the intake pipe--not completely dammed, but enough to provide the necessary head of water.

As Nort had said, had the stream been stopped purposely or by accident inside the tunnel, the water would have backed up and run out around the pipe, flowing into the river below the dam. But this had not occurred.

"If it doesn't happen again we'll be all right," spoke Bud, as he rode back with his cousins, making an easy pace along the trail that led over Snake Mountain and down into Flume Valley. "But if the water stops running again----"

"Let's go through the tunnel; it's the only way to be sure!"

interrupted Nort.

"I'm with you!" exclaimed d.i.c.k.

"It would seem to be the only way," agreed Bud. "Well, we'll hope this is the end of my black-rabbit bad luck, and look for success, now that you fellows are here. Cracky! But we'll have some good times, and there'll be plenty of work, too!"

"How many cattle you got?" asked Nort.

"About five hundred," Bud answered. "Course you have a share with me, that your dad bought, but we don't own 'em outright yet. My dad still has a mortgage on 'em."

"But if we have luck we can clear that off; can't we?" asked d.i.c.k.

"Sure, this year, maybe," a.s.sented Bud. "I never saw steers fatten so fast as ours have since I brought 'em to Flume Valley. I reckon the land, being without water so long, raises a specially fine kind of gra.s.s. Of course, there's always some at the far end of the valley, good gra.s.s, too, but when there wasn't any water for the cattle to drink there wasn't any use trying to raise stock there. But now it's different."

"And all we want is for the water to stay," added d.i.c.k.

"That's all," chimed in his brother.

With Buck Tooth trailing behind, the three boys took the mountain trail and reached their camp near the reservoir that evening. They found Old Billee and Yellin' Kid waiting for them, these two cowboys having been a.s.signed by Mr. Merkel to help his son in the lad's new venture.

"Well, yo' got back, I see," remarked Old Billee as he greeted the lads, the Indian going off by himself, for he was rather taciturn in his manner.

"Yes, we're here," admitted Bud. "But I can't understand that water coming back so unexpectedly."

"Are you sure it stopped running?" asked Yellin' Kid in his usual loud voice.

"Sure!" declared Bud. "Didn't Buck see it--or, rather, he didn't see it, for there wasn't any water to see coming through the pipe--only a few drops."

"I wouldn't take his word," declared Old Billee. "Not that Buck would actually lie, but those Indians are queer."

"Oh, we all saw that the water wasn't running," declared Nort.