AROUND THE CAMPFIRE
Naturally impatient, the boy ranchers did not want to return once they
had started on the trail of the robbers. They thought they should be
allowed to rush off, and perhaps they had an idea they could soon "meet
up" with the suspects and bring them back. But Mr. Merkel and the
other ranchmen, as well as the veteran cowboys, had no such delusions.
However, this was no time to discourage impetuous youth.
"What's the matter, Dad?" asked Bud, as he recognized his father's
voice among those bidding him and his cousins to return. "Has someone
telephoned in that they've rounded up the thieves?"
No surprise need be occasioned when I speak of telephones in connection
with ranching in the far west. Times have changed since the early days
of the buffalo and Indians. Both are almost extinct, though the
Indians have lasted longer than the bison.
But the West has progressed with other parts of the country, and the
advent of the cheap automobile and the spread of telephone wires, and
even wireless now, has brought far distant ranches close together. So
Bud knew it could easily have been the case that some distant ranchman
might have telephoned to Diamond X that he had made a capture of
suspicious persons. He may not have known of the theft of Mr. Merkel's
Spur Creek papers, for this robbery had not yet been broadcast.
"No telephones, son," said Mr. Merkel easily, as he strode out to where
the horses of the boys were pawing the ground, almost as impatient to
be gone as were their masters. "But I want you to take one of the men
with you."
"Oh, Dad! I don't want to do that!" protested Bud.
"We've hit the trail alone before," added Nort.
"It isn't a question of your ability," went on Mr. Merkel. "But you
may have to split--very likely you will, and for this purpose four are
better than three. Then you can pair it off."
"That's right," slowly admitted Bud. "Two of us might have to follow
one trail, and it would be lonesome for just one to take the other.
How about Old Billee?"
"You couldn't pick a better companion," agreed Mr. Merkel.
Billee Dobb was only too glad to get away from the routine work of the
ranch--riding herd and helping in the round up and shipping--and
quickly saddled to accompany the boys on their ride through the night,
in an endeavor to pick up the trail of those who had committed the
robbery at Spur Creek.
"Well, I guess we're off this time," remarked Dick, as once more they
turned their horses' heads in the general direction supposed to have
been taken by the robbers.
It was, as you may surmise, pretty much guess work, and yet there were
some clues on which to work, and the boys hoped to pick up others as
they went along, by stopping at different ranch houses and making
inquiries. Then, too, cowboys would be met with here and there, and
they might have seen some trace of the fugitives.
In the olden days, before the West was as much traveled as it is now,
it might have been possible for pioneers, such as those featured in the
novels of James Fenimore Cooper, to have followed and picked up the
trail by the mere physical evidences left on the ground--a footprint
here, a hoofmark there, the pressed down grass and so on.
But this was out of the question now, though some slight marks might be
discovered in the daytime by the sharp eyes of Billee Dobb, who was a
veteran cowboy and plainsman. In this Bud and his companions would
have to rely on Billee, as the boys themselves had not had much
experience in this line.
"Well, Billee, what do you think of it all?" asked Bud as he rode
beside the old man, while Nort and Dick loped along in the rear.
"You mean what happened to-night, Bud?"
"Yep." Bud was clipping his words short to save time.
"Well," said the old man slowly, "I don't know just what to think.
It's all mighty queer, but one thing I'll say--this didn't all happen
just to-night."
"You mean it was planned in advance?" asked Dick.
"Sartin sure, son! It was a put-up job if ever there was one. Why,
just look back over it. Here we all were in peace and quiet, and Mr.
Merkel was entertainin' his friends, when up rides a bunch of onery
Greasers, if I'm any judge."
"What makes you think they were Greasers?" asked Bud.
"'Cause no decent white men would act like they did. Up they rides,
pretending to be sneakin' in on us, maybe to lift a few horses or else
stampede a bunch of our cows. But that wasn't their intention at all."
"If it was, Slim and the rest of 'em spoiled their plans," observed
Nort.
"Don't worry, they had no notion of takin' anything," declared Old
Billee. "They just wanted to take our attention while some of their
confederates sneaked in and got Mr. Merkel's papers; and they done that
same."
"I'll say they did!" exclaimed Bud in disgust. "It was all too easy
for them. But how did they know Dad's papers were in the safe?"
"Well, it's common knowledge that your paw claims the land around Spur
Creek," observed Billee. "That's common knowledge. And it wouldn't
take a Kansas City lawyer long to figger out that he had papers to
prove his claim, an' that he kept these papers in his safe; it bein'
equally well known that we haven't much time to fool with banks around
here, 'specially in the busy season.
"So all the rascal had to do was to get the house clear, by creatin'
some excitement away from it, and then he walked in an' skinned the
safe. It didn't help matters any that th' perfesser happened along at
the same time, either, and I don't care who knows it!" declared Billee
Dobb emphatically.
"You don't mean to say you believe Dr. Wright had any hand in this?"
cried Bud.
"Well, maybe _he_ didn't 'zactly have a hand in it," grudgingly
admitted the old cowpuncher, "but he played right into the hands of th'
scoundrels."
"On purpose, do you mean?" asked Nort.
"Well, that's to be found out," remarked Billee musingly.
"Billee, you're 'way off there!" cried Bud. "Professor Wright is as
right as his name--we proved that before when he was here after the
prehistoric Triceratops bones."
"He may have changed since then," declared Billee. "What did he want
to come in and lead us off on a false trail for, when we was hot after
the robbers?"
"He didn't do it purposely," asserted Nort, who, with his brother,
shared Bud's views as to the integrity of Professor Wright. "It was
because he got lost."
"Yes, to hear him tell it," sneered Billee.
"Why, look here!" cried Bud. "What good would it do Professor Wright
to get hold of Dad's papers proving ownership to the Spur Creek lands?
Why would he want the land? If anybody wants it they must be those who
are coming in under the new government ruling--sheep herders maybe, and
it's to them we have to look."
"That Wright is just the kind of a chap who'd go in for sheep herding,
and spoiling a cattle country," complained Billee, as he pulled up the
head of his horse, when the animal showed a tendency to stumble over a
prairie dog's hole.
"You're away off!" laughed Bud. "It may have been sheep herders who
got Dad's papers, hoping thus to be able to claim a lot of land for
their woolly feeders, but Professor Wright had no hand in it."
Billee's only answer was a sniff.
However, as the boy ranchers rode along in the darkness they realized
that they could have had no better companion than Old Billee Dobb, for
his very vindictiveness, though it might be wrongly directed, made him
eager to keep after the robbers. That Professor Wright was other than
he claimed to be, none of the boys doubted for a moment.
But who was behind the plot which had just succeeded so well? That was
a question which needed answering.
The ranch buildings of Diamond X were soon left behind in the darkness,
their pleasant glow fading as the four horsemen of the prairies rode
along in silence, looking, as best they could under the faint glow of
the moon for the outlines of other horsemen to be shown on the horizon
as they topped some rise in the undulating ground.
In general the boy ranchers and Billee were following the trail on
which Slim and the cowboys had started after the shots were fired--the
trail that was crossed by Professor Wright, causing the pursuers to
turn back.
"It would have been better if some of us had kept on when we had the
start," commented Nort when, after an hour's ride nothing had been seen.
"Yes, it would," agreed Billee.
"But we didn't know, then, that there had been a robbery," went on Nort.
"That's right," assented Bud. "We just thought it was an ordinary
bunch of cattle or horse thieves, and if they had been there would have
been nothing else to worry about, as we drove them off."
"Well, we may get 'em yet, but 'tisn't very likely," said Billee.
And as the night wore on and they kept their slow pace over the plains,
this prediction seemed about to be borne out.
The boys and Billee had stopped at ranch houses here and there to make
inquiries about some fleeing band of horsemen, but no one had seen
them. The proprietors of most of the ranches were over at Diamond X
and had not yet returned. Some of them had telephoned to their foremen
or other members of the ranch households, telling about the robbers and
saying that Bud and his companions might call.
But beyond this no trace was found of the robbers.
It was long past midnight when Old Billee pulled his horse to a stop,
and "slumped" from the saddle.
"What's the matter?" asked Bud. "See some sign?" By this he intended
to ask if the old plainsman saw any indications that they were hotter
on the trail of those they sought.
"Nope!" answered Old Billee. "But we're going to camp and make coffee
and frizzle a bit of bacon. No use keepin' on any longer. We can't do
anything more till mornin'."
"Camp it is!" exclaimed Bud, "and I'm not sorry, either."
Shortly a fire was going, made from twigs and branches picked up under
a few trees near where the party had stopped, and soon the appetizing
aroma of coffee and bacon spread through the night air.
"Um! But this is jolly!" cried Nort.
The horses were picketed out and after the midnight supper the
wayfarers rolled themselves in their blankets and prepared to pass what
remained of the night in the glow of the campfire, and beneath the
fitful light of the cloud-obscured moon.