"And does this Del Pinzo do that?" asked Nort, a little thrilled at having been in such close association with a cattle thief.
"I wouldn't put it past him, and the gang he hangs out with," Bud answered. "Maybe that's what he was up to when I roped him."
"Where does he hang out?" asked Dick.
"He's supposed to work on the Double Z ranch – Hank Fisher's place," was the reply. "And Hank doesn't bear any too good a reputation around here."
"Maybe he was one of the men the professors hired, and who afterward turned against them," suggested Dick.
"Maybe," assented Bud. "I'd like to know what that camp meant," he murmured as he rode on with his cousins.
"If they aren't after gold, they're after something, and they're making a secret of it," declared Nort. "And meeting Professor Wright the night an attempt was made to steal some of your cattle, Bud, makes it look as if the whole outfit might be trying to rustle off stock."
"Yes, it might, and again it might not," said the western lad. "I'd hate to think two decent-looking men, like Professor Blair and Professor Wright, would be cattle thieves. But you never can tell. Their learned appearance may be all bluff. I'd sooner think it was Del Pinzo and his gang. But he may be working with the professors. Anyhow, they haven't got away with anything yet, and they won't if dad's boys keep their eyes open. Only I would like to solve the mystery of that camp," and he looked back toward the deserted one, where some strange excavations had been made.
"Maybe we can trail 'em and find where they've gone," suggested Dick.
"Oh, we could find 'em if we wanted to," said Bud. "An outfit like that can't travel along in a ranch country and not leave a trail like an old buffalo wallow. But will it be worth while – that's the question? We'll soon be busy with the round-up at Diamond X, and no time for trailing mysteries."
"Well, the round-up won't last forever," said Nort, "and when it's over we can see what all this means. It'll be a pack of fun!"
"It sure will!" agreed his brother, "and we can stay here till snow flies."
"And then you'll want to hit the trail for home," laughed Bud. "Though we don't get as severe storms as they do farther north, nor do they come so early. But it's bad enough, sometimes."
"What's that?" suddenly asked Dick, rising in his stirrups and pointing to two or three figures of horsemen, down in a little swale, or valley. They were evidently engaged in some lively occupation, for they were riding rapidly to and fro, and from a fire, about which knelt three figures, a curl of smoke arose.
"They're stealing some of your cattle now!" cried Nort. "Come on!
We'll capture 'em!"
He spurred his horse forward, an act instinctively followed by his brother. Bud, too, rode after them at a fast pace, but there was a smile on his countenance.
"Keep your shirts on, fellows!" he advised. "That's only some of the Diamond X outfit branding stray calves they come across. But it'll give you a chance to see how it's done."
Riding rapidly across the open plains, where, here and there as they topped little hills the boys could see cattle grazing, the boy ranchers approached the group in the swale. After a quick inspection of the oncomers, the cowboys about the fire went on with what they were doing.
Two of them held down on the ground a struggling calf, while the cow-mother of the little beast, lowing and shaking her head, endeavored to break past two other cowboys who were heading her away from the scene of the branding operations.
For that is what was going on. Some of the Diamond X cowboys had come upon an unbranded calf with its mother as they rode across the prairies. As they were on their employer's land they knew the unmarked animal must belong to him, and it ought to be at once permanently identified as Mr. Merkel's property.
It was the work of but a moment for one of the cowboys to lasso the little bawling creature, and drag it to where he wanted it.
While some of the cowboys held the calf, not taking the time to "hog tie" the creature, others headed off the frantic cow-mother. Then a fire was made of greasewood twigs, and the branding iron, which one of the cowboys carried at his saddle, was put in the flames to heat. When hot enough it was pressed on the flank of the calf, burning into the hair and slightly into the hide, the diamond with the X in the centre – the mark of Bud's father's cattle.
As the men released the calf, it staggered to its feet, uttered a feeble bawl or two, and ran to its mother, who at once began to lick with her tongue the branded place.
"Where you headin', Bud?" asked Yellin' Kid Watson, one of the cowboys who had been engaged in the impromptu branding operations.
"Headin' home," answered the rancher's son.
"Then you haven't heard the news?" asked Snake Purdee.
"What news?" asked Bud, while Nort and Dick listened eagerly.
"Bad business," went on Yellin' Kid. "A lot of your dad's choice stock was run off from the far range a while ago. Tar Blake just rode in and give notice. Bad business!"
"I should say so!" agreed Bud. "Who did it; Greasers or some of that outfit?" and he motioned back to the camp he and his cousins had just left.
CHAPTER XII
RIDING HERD
Yellin' Kid, Snake and the other cowboys stamped out the brands of the grease-wood fire, coiled their lariats and mounted their ponies before anyone answered Bud's question. He did not repeat it, knowing the character of the men to whom he was speaking. Then, as Old Billie Dobb, who might have been a foreman a dozen times over if he had only proved more reliable, spoke up and said:
"We don't know who did it, Bud; an' your paw don't neither! Tar just rid in with th' news, as we rid out to do some fence mendin'. We wanted to stop an' hear th' particulars, but your paw said for us to mosey over this way, an' we done so. He said if we seen you boys to send you home."
"We're heading that way," Bud answered. "We were just over to the camp where they had trouble the other night, but they've vamoosed."
"Can't see what they ever come here for," spoke Yellin' Kid. "An' it wouldn't s'prise me a bit if them fellers proved to be the cattle rustlers."
"Nor me," declared Nort, impulsively, thus drawing attention to himself.
"Well, you know all we do, Bud," spoke Billie Dobb. "Maybe your paw'll have more news by th' time you get there. Tell him you met us an' that we'll be back as soon as we find th' break an' fix it. It's a big bust, the report has it, an' he don't want th' cattle to stampede out."
"All right, we're going," declared Bud. "Come on, fellows," he called to his cousins, and they galloped away toward the ranch headquarters, while the cowboys rode on their way, Yellin' Kid singing at the top of his voice. The boy ranchers passed the newly branded calf, its mother still licking the burned place, but the little creature did not seem much to mind what had happened, for it was eating grass.
"Who broke the fence?" asked Nort, as he and Dick rode along on either side of Bud, whose horsemanship they were trying to imitate.
"Hard to say," was the answer. "Sometimes it's Greasers, and again Indians, who hope to get a few cattle in the confusion if a herd gets out. Then again something may have frightened the cattle themselves, and in a rush they may have broken through. Generally it's the cattle themselves, and then we have to rush a bunch of cowboys to mend the break, some of 'em stringing new wire while others keep the steers, cows and calves from coming out on the open range."
"Say, there's been a lot of excitement since we came here!" declared
Nort, his eyes shining in delight at the prospect of more.
"Oh, there's always more or less going on like this," said Bud. "If it isn't one thing it's another, though I must say we haven't had anything like those queer professors in some time."
"I'd like to know what their game really is," remarked Dick.
"So would I!" exclaimed his more impulsive brother. "And I'd like to catch 'em at it when I had my gun loaded," and he tapped significantly the .45 on his hip.
"Don't be too fast with gun play," advised Bud calmly. "You'll find, if you ever become a rancher, that you'll use more powder on coyotes, rattlers and in driving cattle the way you want 'em to go, than you will on humans. There isn't so much shooting out here as the writers of some books would make out."
"Well, if there's only a little, I'll be satisfied," said Nort.
They reached the headquarters of Diamond X ranch without mishap, save that Dick's pony stepped into a prairie dog's hole, and threw his rider over his head. But Dick was rather stout, and cushioned with flesh as he was, a severe shaking-up was all the harm he suffered.
"They're nasty things at night – prairie dogs' burrows," said Bud. "But mostly a pony can see 'em in time to side-step. Yours just didn't – that's all."