The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek: or, Fighting the Sheep Herders

"Looks like he just came to size us up," observed Billee, after an observation, at the conclusion of which the stranger turned his horse and rode slowly off in the direction whence he had come.

"That's right," assented Bud.

"Do you think he's a sheep herder?" asked Nort.

"Might be. Looks mean enough," said Yellin' Kid. The cattle men could say nothing too strong against this despised class of breeders and their innocent charges. Sheep herders were the scum of the earth to the ranchmen, and to say that a man has "gone in for sheep" was to utter the last word against him, though he might be a decent member of society for all that, and with as kind and human instincts as his more affluent neighbor raising cattle or horses.

"Well, he knows we're here and on the job, at any rate," commented Bud as the horseman slowly disappeared from sight in the distance.

"Yes, and he'll very likely tell his band and we'll have them buzzing about our ears before we know it," remarked Billee.

"Then we'll fight!" cried Bud.

"That's right!" chimed in Nort and Dick.

"I wish my leg was in better shape," complained Yellin' Kid. "But I can make a shift to ride if I have to."

However, the next two days passed with no signs of any activities on the part of the enemy. No sheep were sighted being driven up through the pass to the lands that were now, by government proclamation, open to whoever wanted to claim them, barring only those already having large holdings of grazing range.

"But this is only the calm before the storm," declared Bud, when he and his chums talked it over. "We'll have a fight yet."

And it was very likely that this would happen. While waiting, though, every opportunity was taken to better fortify that part of Spur Creek where Mr. Merkel's land began.

The shack was made more comfortable, a telephone line was strung to it from the main ranch at Diamond X, and it was well stocked with provisions.

"And we'd better run in a pipe line so we can pump water directly from the creek into the shack," said Billee when certain improvements were being talked over.

"Why that?" asked Nort.

"Well, it's terrible thing in this hot weather to be cut off from your water supply," said the old frontiersman. "And it might happen that the Greasers and sheep men would get between our fort and the stream. Then we couldn't get out for water without losing our scalps, so to speak. But if we have a pump in here, and the pipe line concealed so the scoundrels can't locate it, we can be assured of a never-ending supply of water."

"It's good advice," decided Mr. Merkel when it was told to him, and, accordingly the pump was installed. During this time no more was seen of the solitary horseman, or, indeed, of any visitors or spies on the Mexican side of Spur Creek. I say the Mexican side, though, as a matter of fact the Mexican border was some miles away, and I merely mention that country to identify the two sections, one on one side and one on the other of the stream, which was wholly within the United States.

Meanwhile Sheriff Hank Fowler had endeavored to trace the thieves who had robbed Mr. Merkel's safe, but there had been no results. Professor Wright and his men were busily engaged in further search for fossil bones, and they were considered out of suspicion.

Mr. Merkel had engaged the services of a lawyer to take up with the authorities in Washington the matter of his stolen deeds in an effort to hold to his land. There were rumors that a number of the new government claims had been taken up on the land that was once the property of the Indians, and among them some of the claim holders were sheep herders, it was said.

"Well, they'd better keep away from Spur Creek – that's all I got to say!" cried Yellin' Kid in his usual loud tones.

So far, however, there had been no advent of the hated "woollies" as they were sometimes called. But the boy ranchers and their friends did not relax their vigilance. The sheep and their human owners might drift in across the creek at any hour, day or night, so a constant guard was maintained.

It was one rainy, disagreeable night that the alarm came. It was the turn of Bud and Nort to stand watch, and they were keeping wary eyes turned toward the creek boundary through the mist of rain.

"This is no fun," mused Nort as he wrapped his poncho closer about him.

"I've seen more jolly times," agreed Bud with a laugh. "But it can't last forever. Wonder what time it is, anyhow?"

Before Nort could answer there suddenly flashed in the southern sky a glare of fire.

"Lightning!" exclaimed Nort.

"A rocket!" cried Bud, all excited. "It means something, Nort! Maybe the sheep herders are coming!"

CHAPTER VII

A PARLEY

For a moment the two boys remained motionless and quiet, waiting for what might develop. But the dying sparks of the rocket – if such it was – were followed by no other demonstration.

"We'd better call Billee and the others," murmured Bud.

"That's right," agreed Nort in a low voice, though there was no need for this, as the rocket-senders must have been several miles away.

Billee Dobb awakened at the slightest whisper near his bunk, and in a few moments Dick, Yellin' Kid and the other cowboys, of whom there were half a dozen at the "fort," as it was called, were awake. It did not take them long to hustle into their clothes, and then, draped in ponchos, for it was still raining hard, they stood out in the darkness, waiting for what might happen next.

"Couldn't have been a rocket," murmured Old Billee, as the rain pelted down. "It's too wet for that."

"Must have been some Greasers around a camp fire – though how in the name of a maverick they got one to burn I don't see," observed Yellin' Kid, making his voice only a little lower than usual. "Must 'a' been that one of 'em chucked a brand up in the air."

"It wasn't like a fire brand," declared Nort.

"It was just like a regular rocket," added Bud.

Old Billee was about to say something, probably to the effect that it was a false alarm, and that they'd all do better to be back in their warm bunks when the blackness of the night was suddenly dispelled off to the south by a sliver of flame, followed by a trail of red sparks.

"There she goes again!" cried Bud.

"The same as before," added Nort.

"That's a rocket right enough," admitted Billee.

"Like the time we was after cattle rustlers," said Yellin' Kid, referring to an occasion, not fully set forth in any of the books, when, as the Diamond X took after a gang of cattle thieves, rockets were used as signals by the marauders to communicate with separated bands.

"What do you reckon it means?" asked Dick, who often dropped into the vernacular of the plains.

"Well, it might mean almost anything," admitted Old Billee. "Can't be any of Uncle Sam's soldiers that far south, or we'd 'a' heard about it. As near as I can figure it there must be some crowd down there trying to give a signal to some crowd somewhere else."

This was sufficiently vague to have covered almost anything; as sport writers spread the "dope," in talking about a coming football contest between Yale and Princeton.

Yellin' Kid must have sensed this, for with a chuckle he said:

"You're bound to be right, Billee, no matter which way the cat jumps. It sure is some crowd signallin' to another crowd."

"Do you suppose they're trying to signal us?" asked Dick.

"Don't believe so," remarked Bud. "I think it's some of the sheep men getting ready to rush in here. That rocket is a notice to some of their friends around here that they're going to start."

"Well, if they come we'll stop 'em!" declared Bud, and the others murmured their agreement with this sentiment.