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

Already several cowboys, sensing that something was wrong, had begun to catch and saddle enough ponies to provide mounts for Bud, the foreman and his fat helper.

"Give my cousins Baldy and Gimp!" cried Bud to one of the cowboys who were in the corral. "You can ride those, even if you haven't got your old clothes on," he added.

"Lively now!" cried the foreman, assuming, as was his right, command of the little cavalcade. In less time than it takes to tell it, they were riding along the trail, directed by Professor Blair, whose horse seemed, somehow, to have recovered its wind sufficiently to keep pace with the fresher steeds.

"Are you all right, fellows?" Bud called back to his cousins, as he, himself, spurred ahead alongside Slim and Babe. Nort and Dick formed the rear guard with the professor.

"Sure!" declared Nort. "Oh, boy! A fight the first day we get here,

Dick!" he yelled to his brother.

"Don't be too sure," called hack Bud. "These Greasers may hit the trail as soon as we head into sight."

"Greasers are Mexicans, aren't they?" asked Dick.

"Yes," answered Professor Blair, who rode between the two easterners. "We had to engage some, and I believe a few Indians, also, in our prospecting work. Our own men are all right, but we were attacked by some strange Mexicans and Indians – or we were about to be attacked, when I rode off for help."

"What started the row?" asked Bud.

The question seemed to embarrass Professor Blair.

"The Mexicans seem to think we have something of value, or at least know where valuables may be," he answered. "I believe they think we are after desert gold, and though we have found some – "

"You have found gold!" cried Bud.

"No! No! It is a false rumor!" hastily declared the professor. "But Professor Wright has been obliged to keep secret the object of his search, and perhaps the mystery surrounding it has been misconstrued by the ignorant men. They declare we are after gold, but it is something far more valuable, though I am not allowed to disclose what – "

He was interrupted by the sound of distant shooting, followed by faint yells. Bud Merkel clapped spurs to his horse and shot forward, while Professor Blair excitedly exclaimed:

"Oh, they are killing him! They are killing him!"

CHAPTER IV

SUSPICIONS

With distinct feelings of joy, and no alarm whatever, Nort and Dick watched the hands of Slim and Babe slide toward their holsters, where nestled their .45 guns. Bud had taken his off, on reaching the house, and his two "city" cousins found themselves wishing that they wore those ugly but effective weapons.

It was not that Bud was a "gun man," nor was either the ranch foreman or his fat assistant. But as the classical saying has it:

"You don't always need a gun out West, but when you do need it you need it mighty bad, and mighty sudden!"

The guns, by which are meant revolvers of heavy calibre, were used for many other purposes than shooting at human beings. They were almost a necessity for a lone rider to signal for help, or indicate the need of certain action, and more than one cowboy owed his life to his gun, either in turning aside a stampede of steers, or against some human or animal enemy.

It had been the hope of Norton, and Richard Shannon, as soon they learned they were to spend some time at their uncle's ranch, to "pack a gun," but their advent and arrival had been so sudden, and their time so crowded since reaching Diamond X, that they had to dispense with these luxuries, or necessities, according to the way you regard them.

But the two eastern lads grinned happily at one another as they galloped along, and saw the foreman and his fat helper with their heavy weapons out of their holsters.

"Left mine home!" muttered Bud, as his hand, too, instinctively sought the leather sheath. Professor Blair, as he had called himself, did not seemed to be armed.

"They shore is some row going on!" exclaimed Slim, as he clapped spurs to his already well-doing horse, and shot ahead of the others. "How many in your bunch?" he called to the professor.

"There are four of us – Professor Wright, myself and two helpers, Edward Newton and Silas Thorpe," was the answer. "But the other day we engaged some Mexicans and burros, so our party is now about eight."

"And how many are trying to rush you?" asked the foreman, slightly checking his horse to accommodate its pace to the slower gait of the professor's animal.

"I don't know. There seemed about a dozen who were threatening

Professor Wright when he told me to go for help."

"Not such bad odds," murmured Bud.

"Is it a real fight?" asked Nort, his eyes sparkling.

"Sounds like it," commented the western ranch lad. "But we'll have to lay low. No guns," he added regretfully.

Dick turned to look back toward the ranch buildings, now out of sight owing to the uneven nature of the country. He might have been calculating whether it would be possible to go back and get weapons.

But he said nothing on this score, though he did let out an exclamation:

"There's another bunch coming along the path."

"Don't say path– it's a trail," corrected Bud with a smile. "And that's some of our bunch," he added. "Cowboys from Diamond X. Guess mother sent them after us, thinking we'd tackled too big a job alone."

"And it does sound like a lively fracas," observed Babe Milton, wiping his wet and glistening face with the big handkerchief that adorned his neck, and the neck of every cowboy that Nort and Dick had so far observed since coming to the "cow country."

These sometimes gaudy handkerchiefs were not mere ornaments. They served the same purpose to which Babe was then devoting his, and as the eastern lads learned later, the silk or cotton squares formed very effective protection to nose and mouth while riding range in the thick, heavy dust stirred up by the feet of thousands of cattle. So, like the "chaps," the high-heeled boots, the handkerchiefs and the guns, each part of the equipment of a cowboy, has its use.

"Hi! They's some shootin'!" cried Slim, as he spurred forward again, having learned what he wished of the professor.

"Oh, don't let them kill him!" begged the scientist. "It is all a mistake – thinking we are after gold – but they'll make any excuse to try to rob us and get the secret."

"What secret?" asked Bud, but just then a renewed outburst of shots, punctured by shrill yells, told of the need of action as against words.

"They'll kill him! They'll kill him!" moaned Professor Blair.

"'Tain't all one sided!" declared Slim Degnan to Bud, Nort and Dick, as the three boys managed to get their ponies on a line with the sturdy beast of the foreman. "There's two sets of shootin' goin' on there!"

The sound of fighting, and yells, whether of defiance or fear, increased in volume now, and came from a little glade at the base of the wooded foothills, which formed a sort of stepping stone to the grim mountains behind them, along the base of which flowed a river. These hills, or part of them, marked one of the limits of Diamond X ranch, though at another point the holdings of Bud's father extended well to the summit of one of the mountains.

Urging on their horses by heels and voices, the little party swept into the glade, following a path, or "trail," as it should be called. This trail had been worn by countless cattle going to the river to drink, and the feet of the ponies now clattered along it.

A moment later, swinging around a little clump of trees, greasewoods and sagebush, Bud and his cousins saw a sight which thrilled them through and though, though perhaps Bud was more accustomed to such stirring scenes than were the city lads.

In the midst of an encampment of tents, several men were kneeling down, using packs and baggage as a barricade. They were firing over this line of defense at objects unseen, but which, as the white puffs of smoke showed every now and then, were easily guessed to be humans, with more or less sinister motives.

There was a regular fusillade, as the party of cowboys approached, and in addition a series of sharp and wild yells which, now that the scene was reached, could be heard as arising from the underbrush outside the camp.

The attackers of Professor Wright, for he later proved to be the owner of the camp, were using their voices as well as their weapons to intimidate the defenders.