The Boy Ranchers: or, Solving the Mystery at Diamond X

"What's queer?" asked Dick.

"Seeing that town," his brother went on. "Bud never said anything about the ranch being so near a place where they had a river steamer. There isn't a boat of that size on the river around here."

"No," assented Dick. "This must be farther down. Anyhow, let's hit the trail for there. We aren't lost any more, I reckon."

"Doesn't seem," murmured Nort. But, even as the two brothers urged their tired, broncos forward, another strange thing happened. In the very same place where they had seen the vision of the town and the steamer, only to witness it vanish, there appeared in sharp detail a large ranch, with its corrals, its bunk house and main buildings.

"There! Look!" cried Dick. "There's Diamond X!"

Nort shaded his eyes with his hands, and peered long and earnestly.

"Diamond X!" he murmured. "That isn't our ranch! Our bunk house isn't so near the corral, and, besides – "

Then, even as he spoke, this vision vanished as had the other, being wiped out of sight; fading slowly as if some unseen operator in a movie booth had cut off his light.

The brothers turned and stared at one another. Suddenly the truth dawned upon them.

"A mirage!" exclaimed Nort.

"That's what!" assented Dick. "Two mirages! We saw one after the other, a city and a ranch in the same place!"

And that is what the visions had been – mirages, those strange phenomena of the west – of desert places – natural occurrences in localities where the air is abnormally clear, and where conditions combine to transpose distant scenes.

Of course the explanation is simple enough. Of the mirage the dictionary says it is "an optical illusion arising from an unequal refraction in the lower strata of the atmosphere, causing images of remote objects to be seen double, distorted or inverted as if reflected in a mirror, or to appear as if suspended in the air."

The word comes from a Latin one, meaning "to look at," and that is about all you can do to a mirage – look at it. It is as unsubstantial as the air in which it is formed.

There are many varieties of mirages seen in the West, and if the boys had seen a double one, or had the vision of the city and ranch been inverted, they might have sooner guessed the secret of it. But the particular mirages they had viewed had, through some trick of air refraction, been imposed on their eyesight rightside up, and wonderfully clear.

I do not suppose all the stories that have been written of mirages are true, but it is certain that many strange tricks have been played on the eyesight of observers by these phenomena, and more than one luckless prospector, or cattleman, has followed these visions, only to be tantalized in the end by finding, just as Nort and Dick did, that they merely vanished, dissolving into nothing.

Telling of their experiences afterward, Nort and Dick declared that when they had visualized the steamer moving up to her dock, they had actually seen figures disembarking.

"That couldn't be!" declared Bud. "Your eyes must have been blinking and you thought you saw figures. I've been fooled by mirages myself, but though you might make out something as large as a steamer moving, I never yet saw one of these visions clear enough so that you could make out people moving about. You can see a town, or a ranch, sometimes right side up, and sometimes upside down, but you can't make out people. I won't say that it is impossible, but I've never seen it, nor heard of anyone who has," the boy rancher concluded.

"Well, it was wonderful enough as it was," declared Nort, and even those who have seen many mirages will agree with this, I think.

"Well, that sure was queer!" exclaimed Nort, rubbing his eyes again. "And to think we might have ridden off, and tried to get to that ranch, or city."

"I thought sure it was Diamond X," declared Dick.

"Well, I knew it wasn't, as soon as I saw how the buildings were located. But I thought it was some ranch. Bud told me about these mirages, though I never thought they were as plain as that."

"They sure do fool you!" laughed Dick. "And now, before we get led astray by any more, let's get settled for the night. It looks as if we'd have to stay here."

"Yes, it does," agreed Nort. He looked in the direction where the strange images had appeared in the air, seemingly suspended between the heaven and the earth. There were no more of the visions, the declining sun doubtless being in such a position as no longer to produce the necessary refraction, or bending of the light rays.

"Here's water," spoke Nort, pointing to a spring bubbling out of the side of the hill. "We'll make a fire, and cook what we have."

"But not all of it," stipulated Dick. "We've got to save some for to-morrow. No telling how long we may be out on our own."

"That's right," agreed Nort. "Though when our bacon and flour give out we can get one of those fellows – maybe," and he pointed to a big jack rabbit, almost as large as a dog, loping away.

"Yes, Bud says they're good eating," assented Dick. "The only thing is, can we knock one over with our guns?"

"I'm not much of a shot, yet, but then a fellow ought to hit one of those jacks – when he isn't running," qualified Nort, for the speed of these rabbits of the plains is almost beyond belief. Indeed they put the speediest horse on his mettle, and a greyhound, or a similar breed of dog, is the only canine that can compete with them.

"Yes, no use shooting when they start racing," agreed Dick.

The lads slipped from their ponies, taking off the saddles which, later, they would use as pillows. And immediately the cow horses were relieved of their back burdens, they started to roll. This is the ideal recreation for the steeds of ranch or plain, for they get little of the rubbing down or care bestowed on other horses. Their daily roll in the grass and dust keeps their coat in good condition.

The ponies were pegged out by means of the lariats, which allowed them to graze or roll as they pleased. They were tied near a water hole, formed below the spring, so the animals had the three most desirable requisites – food, water and a place to disport themselves.

Nort and Dick proceeded to make their camp. It was a simple operation. All they had to do was to gather some greasewood for the fire, and start to cook. Later they would roll in their tarpaulins, with their heads on the saddles, and get what rest they could.

Fortunately the two boys had with them some cooking utensils, and also some bacon and flour with a supply of coffee. The flour was of the "prepared" variety. Mixing it with water gave them batter for flapjacks, which were baked in the same skillet in which the bacon had first been fried. Water for the coffee was at hand, and they had sugar for that beverage, though no milk, which might seem strange so near a ranch on which were many cattle. But ranches are for the raising of beef, and are not dairies, so milkless coffee was no hardship to the boys, though at Diamond X milk was plentiful enough.

The smell of the burning greasewood, the aroma of the bacon and coffee, not to mention that of the flapjacks, added zest to the appetites of the boys, if zest were needed, and soon they were eagerly eating.

Then, as night settled down they gathered a quantity of wood for the fire, looked to the fastenings of their ponies and stretched out under the light of the bright stars. They were – except for their ponies – alone amid the foothills, how far from Diamond X ranch they could only guess.

CHAPTER XVIII

QUEER OPERATIONS

"Feel sleepy?" asked Nort of Dick when they had stretched out under their canvas blankets, which might keep off the dew, but which were not very comfortable.

"Not specially," answered Dick. "I'm thinking too much of all that's happened lately."

"So 'm I. But I'm not worried because we're here; are you?"

"Not a bit of it! This is only fun! We wanted to see real western life and we're seeing it," Dick went on. "This is what we came out here for. It isn't like anything else we ever did, and it only makes me all the more want to be a rancher."

"You said it. Only there are one or two things I'd like to know more about."

"Such as what, for instance?" asked the younger lad.

"Well, I'd like to know who it was that tried to snake you away with a lasso. I'd like to do the same to him. And I'd like to know more about those two strange professors, and what they're after."

"I'm with you there," spoke Dick, as he raised on one elbow to look toward where he had tethered his horse, the animal seeming to be suddenly excited about something.

"Only a coyote," remarked Nort, as he caught sight of a slinking figure under the light of the stars. The boys had become used to these creatures which acted as scavengers of the plains.

"I wonder if, after all, those professors can be hunting gold?" mused

Dick, when his horse had quieted down and resumed grazing.

"According to what Bud says there isn't any gold here and never has been," declared Nort. "But there is a mystery about them and I'd give a lot to solve it. You see we tenderfeet don't count for much out on a ranch – that is, yet. We don't know much about roping or shooting or riding herd. Of course we're learning, and Bud and the others are as nice about it as they can be, but I can see they don't think overly much about our abilities; and I don't blame them.