The Boy Ranchers on the Trail | Page 8

you've brought news of something bad.
You were the first to tell me about the water stopping in the reservoir.
And from then on we had some rousing times; didn't we, fellows?"
asked Bud, turning to his chums.
"That's right!" assented Nort.
"But what's going on now?" Dick wanted to know.
"You said it!" exclaimed Bud. "I should let Buck Tooth tell it, instead
of keeping him gassing away about the past. What's the row, Buck?"
"Robbers!" was the Indian's answer.
"Robbers? At Diamond X?" cried Bud.
"Did they get anything?" Dick wanted to know.
"Anybody hurt?" asked Nort.
"Get some money--nobody hurt only Babe--him get broken leg,"
half-grunted the Indian.
"Babe has a broken leg in a fight with robbers?" gasped Bud. "Shoot it
along a little faster, Buck! I'm sorry I didn't let you ride harder at first.
How much did they get? Was it rustlers, and I'll bet a cookie with a
raisin in that Del Pinzo and his gang had a hand in the fracas! Did Babe
shoot any of 'em?"

"Babe him try--but too fat," said the Indian, with as near to a chuckle as
ever he achieved, "Fall down--bust leg. Your padre no can tell how
much money gone, but big iron box not opened."
"Oh, they didn't get to the safe, then!" exclaimed Bud with relief in his
voice. For he knew, at this season of the spring round-up, that many
thousands of dollars, from the sale of cattle, were often kept in his
father's safe. "But go ahead, Buck! Tell us more about it. Step on her!
Give her the gas! Open the throttle!"
"Hu?" grunted the Zuni, questioningly. "I step on somet'ing?" "You're
only mixing him up!" declared Nort "Let him take his own time, Bud."
"If I do he'll be until noon giving us the facts. And if the robbers looted
dad's office, even if they didn't get the safe open, they may have lit out
with a tidy sum, and we ought to take the trail after 'em. That's what
Buck came here for, likely! To get us on the chase from this end. Go
ahead! Shoot!" he requested, meaning a verbal fire, not actual.
Whether Buck Tooth would have succeeded, under these confusing
directions, in making a quick, dear statement of the matter is a question
that was not settled. For, just as the Indian was about to resume, Dick
looked off toward the distant hills, which lined the trail between
Diamond X proper, and Happy Valley, and the lad exclaimed:
"Here comes one of the robbers now, riding like Sam Hill!"
Bud and Nort leaped to the side of their partner, their hands on their
weapons, but, after a glimpse of the approaching horseman, having
shaded his eyes with his hands, Bud cried:
"That isn't a robber! It's Yellin' Kid. I know his riding. I reckon he's
come to give us the straight of it!"
Which proved to be the case.
"Buck outrode me," admitted Yellin' Kid as he drew rein, and his voice
was not as loud as usual. "We started at th' same time, shortly after

midnight when th' break was made, but that Indian's cayuse shore can
step some! An' Buck can ride--let me tell you!"
"You shot a ringer that time!" asserted Bud. "But what happened! And
is Babe badly hurt!"
"No! He just twisted his ankle gettin' out of his bunk in a hurry t' take a
pot shot at th' bunch that tried to hold us up. Doc. Tunison says he'll be
all right in a week."
"But Tunison is a horse doctor!" objected Bud, for Babe, the fat
assistant foreman of Diamond X, was a prime favorite with him and his
cousins.
"Yes, shore he is! Why not? A horse doctor for a cow puncher!"
chuckled Yellin' Kid. "But here's the yarn."
Thereupon, having turned his pony out to graze with the Indian's,
Yellin' Kid told the boys what had happened.
"We started some of the cattle from th' round-up brandin' over to th'
railroad," the cowboy stated, "an' followin' th' usual preliminaries we
all settled down for th' night, after you fellows rode off. An' let me tell
you I was glad t' hit my bunk!
"Well, some time near midnight we, out in th' bunkhouse, was roused
up by shootin' from your father's bungalow, Bud. Course that couldn't
mean but one thing, an' we all got our guns an' rushed out, natcherally.
But all we saw was a bunch ridin' off in th' darkness, your father firin'
at 'em, Bud.
"Come t' find out, your mother had been woke up by a noise in th'
office where th' safe was. She called your father an' he took a look, with
his gun, of course. He saw a man in a