A CURIOUS INSTRUMENT
"What's the matter, Bud?" asked Dick, as he urged his animal
forward in a jump, until he was beside his cousin.
"Some one's up there around the tunnel entrance," responded Bud
Merkel. "I saw 'em dodge back out of the light." Then, raising
his voice, he cried: "Come on, now! None of your tricks! I've got
you covered!"
"I don't see any one," spoke Nort.
"They're there, all right," asserted Bud. "Come on, fellows," he
exclaimed, "we'll have to look into this. There was trouble
enough with getting water to stay in Happy Valley, without
letting some Greaser in to queer the works again! Come on!"
He and his cousins rode their horses up the rather steep and
winding trail that led from the bottom of the reservoir to the
top, where a big iron pipe, sticking out under the mountain like
the head of some great serpent, brought from the distant Pocut
River a stream, without which it would have been impossible to
raise cattle in the valley the boy ranchers claimed as particularly
their own.
"Who you reckon it is?" asked Nort, as his pony scrambled up
between the animals of Dick and Bud.
"Oh, some prowler that may have been rustling our grub while we
were over at the round-up," was the answer.
"They couldn't get any cattle, for there aren't any to get,"
observed Dick. This was true, as all the animals had been driven
from Happy Valley over to Diamond X. Later such as were not
shipped away, and many of the calves and mavericks would be
returned to fatten up and grow in readiness for the spring
tallying.
"I don't just like this!" murmured Bud, as he again urged his
pony forward. "Have your guns ready, fellows!"
And while they are thus riding toward the place where a strange
tunnel pierced Snake Mountain, I shall take this opportunity to
present, more formally than I have yet had a chance to do, my new
readers to the boy ranchers. For that is what Bud Merkel, and
Nort and Dick Shannon called themselves, being that, in fact.
Bud was a western lad, the son of Henry Merkel, who had been a
ranchman all his mature years. He lived at Diamond X ranch, with
his wife and daughter Nell. Some time before this present story
opens Bud's cousins from the east had come to spend the summer
with him, while their father and his wife made a trip to South
America.
Nort and Dick, though "tenderfeet" at the beginning, had quickly
fallen into the ways of the west, and in the first volume of this
series, "The Boy Ranchers," I was privileged to tell you how they
helped solve a mystery that revolved around Diamond X.
This mystery had to do with two college professors, and a
strange, ancient animal. But it would not be fair to my new
readers to disclose, here, all the secrets of that book.
So successful was the first summer which Nort and Dick spent at
their uncle's ranch, that they were allowed to repeat it the
following season. But this time there was a change. As related in
the second volume, "The Boy Ranchers in Camp," Mr. Merkel had, by
utilizing an ancient underground water-course beneath Snake
Mountain, and by making a dam in Pocut River, brought water to a
distant valley he owned.
This valley was originally called Buffalo Wallow, the source of
the name being obvious. But once water was brought through the
underground course, and piped to a reservoir, whence it could be
distributed to drinking troughs for the cattle, and also used to
irrigate the land, it enabled a fine crop of fodder to be grown.
With the bringing of the water to Buffalo Wallow, or Flume
Valley, as Bud called the place, it was possible to do what had
never been done before--raise cattle there. Bud's father let him
take this valley ranch as his own, and Nort and Dick were boy
partners associated with their western cousin, Mr. Shannon
putting up part of the needed capital to make the start for his
sons.
All would have gone well except for the mysterious stoppage of
the flow of water, which stoppage, if continued, would mean
disaster.
How the water fight at Diamond X Second (as the valley ranch was
sometimes called) ended, and how the strange mystery was solved,
is the story in the second volume, and I absolutely refuse to go
into more details about it here. It would not be playing the game
square.
At any rate the water was finally turned back into the
underground tunnel, and then, in order to better guard this vital
necessity, Mr. Merkel had the entrance to the tunnel boarded
up--egress being possible only when heavy doors, at either end, were
unlocked.
I might say that while the tunnel was the old water-course of a
vanished river, the shaft under the mountain appeared, in.
ancient times, to have been used by the Aztecs, or some Mexican
tribes, for hiding their store of gold away from the Spaniards.
There were secret passages and rooms in the tunnel, to say
nothing of hidden water gates.
Who had constructed these, and what actual use had been made of
them was, of course, lost in the dim and ancient past. But that
it was the Aztecs, or some allied race, was the statement of
learned men who examined the tunnel.
After the water fight at Diamond X Second had terminated in favor
of the boy ranchers, and great copper levers that operated the
hidden water gates had been removed, the tunnel was boarded up,
and was now seldom entered.
But now, as Bud and his cousins rode back from the big round-up,
and the western lad had, as he thought, seen some one sneaking
about the forbidden gate, there was a feeling of apprehension in
the hearts of himself and cousins.
They had now reached the top level of the reservoir which held a
storage supply of water. The reservoir was a great semi-circular
bank of earth and atones, wide enough on top for two to ride
abreast.
"I don't see any one," remarked Nort, straining his eyes to
pierce the gloom and shadows into which the face of the tunnel
and the locked gate were thrown by the moonlight and clouds.
"Nor I," added Dick.
"Well, I saw some one!" insisted Bud. "It was a man, as sure as
snakes, and he seemed to be trying to open the big gate."
This gate was made of heavy bolted planks and was set on hinges
in a jamb of other planks and boards that closed the reservoir
end of the tunnel water-course. A similar barrier and big door
was at the Pocut River end.
"Well, if he was here, he seems to be gone," observed Nort "Maybe
it was a sheep herder, Bud."
"Well, if any of that gentry think they can drive their flock
over here, and water their woolies at my expense, they're
mistaken," declared Bud with emphasis. "Sheep men have to be, I
reckon, but they're out of place in a cow country. Hello, there!"
he called, loudly. "Come on out and show yourself!"
But there was no answer, and the only sound, aside from the
creaking of the damp saddle leathers, was the splashing of water
as it flowed from the big pipe and into the reservoir.
"Guess he lit out," observed Bud, thrusting his gun back into the
holster.
"Or else you didn't see him," chuckled Nort. "Maybe your eyes are
full of dust, same as mine are, from that round-up."
"Oh, I saw somebody all right!" declared Bud. "Might 'a' been one
of Buck Tooth's Indian friends making a call, but--"
He suddenly ceased speaking and leaned over in his saddle to gaze
earnestly at something on the ground. It was something that
glittered and shone in the mystic moonlight as Nort and Dick
could see. "What's that?" inquired the latter.
In answer Bud slipped from his saddle and picked up the object
which the moonlight had revealed.
"What in the world is this?" asked the boy rancher, as he held up
a curious instrument. "Is this the start of another mystery!"