CHAPTER XII

IN SPITE OF ALL

Nort and Bud stared at d.i.c.k for several seconds without making any remark. They were sitting on their ponies, completely baffled by the manner in which the trail of the rustlers had suddenly "petered out." And they had been about to turn and go back to camp when d.i.c.k made his enthusiastic remark.

"A watch tower?" repeated Bud.

"Sure!" declared his cousin. "We used to build 'em when I belonged to the Boy Scouts. Remember, Nort?"

"Sure! It begins to come back to me. We used to bind saplings together and make quite a high perch. The idea was that you might be able to see your way if you got lost," he explained to Bud.

"Not a bad idea, either," commented the western lad. "I begin to see your drift, as the wind said to the snowstorm. You mean to build a sort of high platform up by the reservoir, d.i.c.k?"

"Yes, a watch tower of logs, strong enough to hold one or two fellows. You could make ladders so's we could reach the top platform, or we could scramble up if we left hand and foot holds where we lopped the branches off saplings."

"That's right!" cried Bud, now almost as enthusiastic as was his cousin. "And with a good pair of gla.s.ses, or a telescope such as dad has at the ranch, we could see all over the valley."

"Let's make it!" cried Nort, and the matter was settled as quickly as that.

Something of the excitement that had moved them must have been visible on the faces of the boys when they returned to camp, for Old Billee, greeting them in the absence of the other cowboys, asked:

"Did you land 'em, Bud?"

"Who; the rustlers? No. Couldn't see where they'd vanished to any more than, as one of the boys said, as if an airship had been used. But we got an idea, Billee."

"They're valuable--sometimes," agreed the veteran cow puncher cautiously.

"We hope this one is going to be!" frankly laughed Bud. "We're going to build a watch tower, and take turns staying up in it with a telescope. We can see almost the whole valley if we get high enough, and as there aren't many patches of woodland where the rascals can hide, we hope to spot the rustlers as soon as they begin their tricks."

"Well, you may do it," and again the cowboy was very cautious. "I never heard of cattle rustlers bein' caught that way, but when other means fail, try suthin' diffrunt! We'll tackle th' tower!"

And as the other cowboys, even Four Eyes, p.r.o.nounced the scheme worth trying, it was put into operation. Mr. Merkel, to whom Bud communicated his idea over the telephone, rather laughed at it.

"How about nights?" asked the ranchman. "No matter how high you are up after dark you can't see any better."

"But most of the raids of the rustlers have been in daylight,"

declared Bud.

"It's about fifty-fifty," his father told him. "However, it won't do any harm to try it. Only don't fall off that watch tower of yours. I'll come out and look at it when you get it done."

The boy ranchers and their cow punchers started work the next day. d.i.c.k and Nort remembered, in a dim way, how, as Boy Scouts, they had helped erect towers, hastily constructed of saplings.

Their recalled knowledge, together with the natural adaptability and skill of the cowboys, finally succeeded in there being evolved, and erected, on the aide of the valley rather a pretentious tower. "It must look like an oil well derrick from a distance," observed Nort, when it was al most completed.

"What do we care how it looks, if it does the trick?" retorted Bud. "From that perch, and with this telescope dad let me take, I can tell the color of a cow clear to the end of our valley."

There was no question but what the watch tower did provide an excellent vantage point. From its top platform, reached by rude ladders, any unusual movement in the entire valley could be seen during the day.

It was planned that the boys--and by this I mean the hired cowboys also--should take turns in being on watch in the tower during certain periods each day. A schedule was drawn up by Bud and his cousins, and put into operation as soon as the tower was completed.

"And now we'll catch the rustlers at work!" boasted Bud.

But alas for their hopes! In spite of all their precautions, and setting at naught the hard work of constructing the tower, there was another raid on the cattle in Happy Valley, about a week after the wooden perch had been set up.

It was not a disastrous raid, and only a half score of steers were driven off from one of the more distant herds. But the raid took place, and at night. It was discovered one morning, just as Bud was going up into the tower, where a seat and sheltered place had been built.

"They fooled us, Bud," said Old Billee, riding in from a distant part of the valley.

"Fooled us? How?"

"They let us watch by day, an' they come an' robbed by night!

Another bunch of steers gone!"

"Well--by Zip Foster!" cried Bud, slamming his hat down on the ground. "I'm getting tired of this!"

CHAPTER XIII

THE SIGNAL

"What's the matter?" cried d.i.c.k, hastening from the tent where he had been making a new loop on his lariat, in preparation for practicing some of the stunts worked by Four Eyes.

"Have you discovered something from the tower?" asked Nort.

"Yes, I've discovered that the tower isn't any good!" exclaimed Bud with emphasis. "Oh, it isn't your fault, d.i.c.k," he went on, as he saw that his cousin looked a bit crestfallen. "The tower is all right."

"Then you saw some rustlers from it?" asked Nort.

"No, that's the trouble," said Bud, ruefully. "We didn't see them but they were here all right--last night. Tell us about it, Billee," he requested.

"Well, there isn't an awful lot to tell," said the veteran cow puncher. "I was just prospectin' around, over on that new growth of Johnson gra.s.s, like you told me to, an' I saw where a steer had been killed, an' they had eat most of it, too, by th' signs."

"You mean the rustlers?" asked Nort.

"Rustlers, Greasers, Del Pinzo's bunch--anything you like t' call 'em," a.s.serted Billee. "Somebody, that hadn't any right t' do it, druv off our cattle!"

"And I say it's about time it was stopped!" declared Bud with as great positiveness as before. This time he picked up the hat he had dashed to the ground and dusted it off. "I'm going to do something desperate!" he declared.

"What, son?" asked Old Billee mildly. "They's allers been rustlers in this cow country, an' they'll allers be some, I reckon. Course if you can git 'em in th' _act_, they's nothin' t' do but shoot 'em up. But when you can't git 'em--"

"That's what I'm going to do!" declared Bud. "I'm going to get on the trail of these rustlers and clean 'em out! Tell us more about it, Billee. No use getting up in the watch tower now," he added, gloomily enough. "We've got other work cut out for us. Go ahead, Billee! Shoot!"

"Let me give you a word of advice first, Buddy boy," spoke the veteran cowboy as he slowly got off his pony, an act of grace for which the animal was, doubtless, duly thankful. Billee was no featherweight, though he was as active as need be, in spite of his bulk.

"What's the advice?" asked Bud good-naturedly. His first hot anger was beginning to cool.