STARTLING NEWS
Leaping from their saddles, Nort and Dick hurried to the side of
their cousin, chum and partner in the ranch venture. Eagerly they
looked over his shoulder while he examined the strange object he
had picked up, almost at the very door leading into the
mysterious tunnel.
The instrument--for such it seemed to be--consisted of a shiny,
nickeled part, which was what had reflected the moonlight, thus
attracting Bud's attention to it. In addition there were two
flexible tubes, of soft rubber, joining into one where they met
the shiny metal.
The two tubes each terminated in hard rubber ends, pierced with a
tiny hole, and on the end of the single tube was a bright metal
disk. The whole formed a strange object, picked up as it was from
the ground, and especially when the boy ranchers feared they had
some cause for alarm.
"What in the world is it?" asked Bud, as he dangled it in front
of his cousins. "I never saw anything like it before. Wait! I
have it! Yellin' Kid said he was going to send to Kansas City for
a flute he could play on. This must be part of it! He dropped it
here; though that couldn't 'a' been him sneaking around the
tunnel. But this is Yellin' Kid's musical instrument all right!
Oh, won't I rag him, though! I wonder which end you blow in?"
"That isn't a musical instrument!" declared Nort, taking it from
Bud's hand.
"Not What is it then?" asked the western ranch lad.
"It's a stethoscope," declared Nort.
"Whew! x I didn't know Yellin' Kid could play one of
_them_!" exclaimed Bud. "He must be more musical than any of
us thought!"
"'Tisn't musical, I tell you!" cried Nort, half laughing. "This
is a _stethoscope_--it's what a doctor listens to your lungs
or heart with when you're sick."
"He never listened to mine!" boasted Bud, "at least not since I
can remember, for I've never been sick."
"Well, I have," admitted Nort, "and so has Dick. You remember Dr.
Thompson using one of these, don't you?" he asked his stout
brother.
"Sure I do! And there's some other name for it besides plain
stethoscope," declared Dick. "It's a long word--bi--di--"
"Binaural stethoscope! That's it!" broke in Nort. "I remember,
now. I thought I'd never be able to say those words, but they
come back to me now. Binaural stethoscope."
"'Tisn't good to eat, or shoot with, is it!" asked Bud, as he
again took the instrument and turned it over and over in his
hands.
"Eat! Shoot!" laughed Nort. "No, I tell you it's to listen to
your heart beats, or lungs. Binaural means, simply, that it's
fixed so you can listen with both ears at the same time. And
stethoscope comes from two Greek words, stethos, the breast, and
skopen, to view. It means, literally, to view inside the chest,
but of course the doctors who use the stethoscope don't really do
that. They only listen through the ear pieces--these," and he
held up the two rubber tubes ending in hard nipples, pierced with
small holes.
"What's the other end for!" asked Bud, indicating the shiny disk
of metal that dangled from the single tube.
"That's the part the doctor holds on your chest or over your
heart," Dick answered. "Sometimes the doctor puts it to your back
to listen to your breathing from that side."
"Well, who in the world would have a--a binaural stethoscope out
here!" asked Bud. "Yon reckon Doc. Tunison dropped it!" he went
on, referring to the local veterinarian. "Shucks no! Cow doctors
don't use 'em, not that I ever heard of," declared Nort. "Though
Doc. Tunison is up to date."
"He sure was in discovering that it was germs which caused the
epidemic outbreak in our stock last year," remarked Bud.
"Yes, we got out of that mighty lucky," chimed in Dick. "What's
become of Pocut Pete?" he asked, referring to a scoundrel of a
cowboy.
"Oh, Del Pinzo and Hank Fisher had pull enough to get him out of
jail, after he'd served only part of his term for infecting our
stock," said Bud. He had reference to something which is
explained in the volume immediately preceding this. Del Pinzo was
a notorious Mexican half-breed who, more than once, had made
trouble for the boy ranchers. Hank Fisher was the owner of Double
Z ranch, adjoining that of Square M, one of Mr. Merkel's, and
also adjoining Happy Valley. Pocut Pete was believed to be a tool
of these two unscrupulous men, and Del Pinzo had at his command
Several Greasers who slipped back and forth over the Mexican
border, not far from which were located the holdings of Mr.
Merkel and the boy ranchers.
"Well, this is a stethoscope all right," went on Nort, as Bud
turned toward his pony, with the evident intention of mounting.
"And I'd give a lot to know what it's doing here, and who dropped
it," spoke Bud. "Let's look around a little more. I'm not at all
satisfied with this. I sure saw, some one here, and this proves
it," and he stuffed the doctor's instrument into his pocket.
"It doesn't prove that the man you saw--or thought you just
saw--sneaking around here dropped it," spoke Nort. "We've been away
for a week, and it may have been dropped any day within that
time."
"Yes," agreed Bud. "But who was monkeying around here as we rode
back to camp? That's what I want to know!"
However, search as the boy ranchers did, they found no midnight
visitor. All was quiet at their camp, save for the distant howl
of a coyote, and the splash of the water into the reservoir. All
the stock had been driven away from Happy Valley to the big
round-up at Diamond X, but soon the fertile glade would again be
dotted with hungry cattle.
"Well, I reckon we'll have to give up," said Bud, when a thorough
search had been made, and no one discovered.
"The tunnel door doesn't show any signs of an attempt having been
made to bust it; does it?" asked Dick.
"Not as far as I can see, in this light," Bud replied. "We'll
take a stroll up here in the morning," he went on as he thrust
the stethoscope into his pocket. "Now for a little grub, and then
to hit the hay. Oh, boy! But I to tired!"
So were the others, and after rummaging among their camp stores,
and eating some crackers and canned peaches, the boys, having
picketed their horses, turned in, rolled up in their blankets,
and were asleep almost as soon as their heads were on the
pillows, which were, as a matter of fact, stuffed with hay.
An examination, next morning, disclosed nothing more in the
neighborhood of the tunnel entrance than their own and, their
ponies' feet marks, until Bud, with an exclamation, pointed to
several cigarette stubs on the ground, and a number of half-burned
matches.
"Some one was here last night--or yesterday!" he declared. "And
they stood in this one spot for some time--either resting or
spying."
"What would they be spying on!" asked Dick.
"Search me!" frankly admitted Bud. "But since we had that water
fight I'm suspicious of everything. Those cigarette stubs are
fresh, and were dropped last night, or yesterday. None of us use
'em, and though some of our cow punchers do they haven't been
here lately enough to have left this fresh evidence. The stubs
are new ones."
"Well, maybe there was some one here last night," said Dick.
"I'm positive of it!" declared Bud. "Let's take another look at
the big door lock."
Even a close inspection, however, failed to disclose any signs of
the great portal, or its heavy padlock having been tampered with.
Nor were there any marks tending to show where an effort had been
made to force boards off the frame in which the door was set.
"Well, we'll just have to wait," said Bud, as he turned to go
back down to the tents. "Hello," he suddenly added, as he gazed
off up the valley. "Here comes somebody, riding like all
possessed, too!"
The boy ranchers watched the approach of the solitary horseman,
and, as he drew nearer Bud exclaimed:
"It's Buck Tooth!"
It was, in fact, that same Zuni Indian, who had been engaged as a
sort of camp cook and ranch hand by Bud's father, later being
transferred to Bud's service. Buck Tooth was devoted to the boy
ranchers.
"What's matter, Buck! What for you ride so _pronto_
fashion!" asked Bud as the Indian, a superb horseman, drew rein
close to the boy ranchers. "You race, maybe, Buck Tooth!"
"Yep--race tell you bad news!" half-grunted the Zuni.
"Bad news!" faltered Bud. "Is it my mother--dad---"
"Them all well," said Buck Tooth. "But got bad news all same. You
see anybody out here?" and he slipped from his saddle to rest his
almost winded steed.