The Boy Ranchers on the Trail | Page 4

agreed Bud.
The boy ranchers rode over the trail to their own camp--it was actually
a camp, for permanent ranch buildings had not yet been erected in
Happy Valley, though some were projected. Tents formed the abiding
place of our heroes, and as they were only there during the summer
months the canvas shelters served very well, indeed.

The moon rose, shining down from a starlit sky, as the rough but
faithful and sturdy cow ponies ambled along. Now the boy ranchers
would be down in some swale, or valley, and again topping one of the
foothills which led to Buffalo Ridge or Snake Mountain, between
which elevations lay Happy Valley, where the cattle of Diamond X
Second were quartered.
"There she is--the old camp," murmured Dick, as they started down the
slope which led to the collection of tents erected against the earthen and
stone bank of the reservoir.
"And maybe I won't hit the hay!" exclaimed Bud, with a yawn. "We
don't have to get up to-morrow until we're ready."
"Oh, boy!" cried Nort in delight.
They rode forward, and were almost at their camp when Bud, who had
trotted ahead, pulled his pony to a sudden stop and cried out:
"Hold on there! Who are you and where are you going?"
At the same moment his cousins saw the moon gleaming on the .45 gun
which Bud drew from his holster.
CHAPTER II
A CURIOUS INSTRUMENT
"What's the matter, Bud?" asked Dick, as he urged his animal forward
in a jump, until he was beside his cousin,
"Some one's up there around the tunnel entrance," responded Bud
Merkel. "I saw 'em dodge back out of the light." Then, raising his voice,
he cried: "Come on, now! None of your tricks! I've got you covered!"
"I don't see any one," spoke Nort.
"They're there, all right," asserted Bud. "Come on, fellows," he

exclaimed, "we'll have to look into this. There was trouble enough with
getting water to stay in Happy Valley, without letting some Greaser in
to queer the works again! Come on!"
He and his cousins rode their horses up the rather steep and winding
trail that led from the bottom of the reservoir to the top, where a big
iron pipe, sticking out under the mountain like the head of some great
serpent, brought from the distant Pocut River a stream, without which it
would have been impossible to raise cattle in the valley the boy
ranchers claimed as particularly their own.
"Who you reckon it is?" asked Nort, as his pony scrambled up between
the animals of Dick and Bud.
"Oh, some prowler that may have been rustling our grub while we were
over at the round-up," was the answer.
"They couldn't get any cattle, for there aren't any to get," observed Dick.
This was true, as all the animals had been driven from Happy Valley
over to Diamond X. Later such as were not shipped away, and many of
the calves and mavericks would be returned to fatten up and grow in
readiness for the spring tallying.
"I don't just like this!" murmured Bud, as he again urged his pony
forward. "Have your guns ready, fellows!"
And while they are thus riding toward the place where a strange tunnel
pierced Snake Mountain, I shall take this opportunity to present, more
formally than I have yet had a chance to do, my new readers to the boy
ranchers. For that is what Bud Merkel, and Nort and Dick Shannon
called themselves, being that, in fact.
Bud was a western lad, the son of Henry Merkel, who had been a
ranchman all his mature years. He lived at Diamond X ranch, with his
wife and daughter Nell. Some time before this present story opens
Bud's cousins from the east had come to spend the summer with him,
while their father and his wife made a trip to South America.

Nort and Dick, though "tenderfeet" at the beginning, had quickly fallen
into the ways of the west, and in the first volume of this series, "The
Boy Ranchers," I was privileged to tell you how they helped solve a
mystery that revolved around Diamond X.
This mystery had to do with two college professors, and a strange,
ancient animal. But it would not be fair to my new readers to disclose,
here, all the secrets of that book.
So successful was the first summer which Nort and Dick spent at their
uncle's ranch, that they were allowed to repeat it the following season.
But this time there was a change. As related in the second volume,
"The Boy Ranchers in Camp," Mr. Merkel had, by utilizing an ancient
underground water-course beneath Snake Mountain, and by making a
dam in Pocut River, brought water to a distant valley he owned.
This