A STRANGE REAPPEARANCE
Characteristic it was of Bud Merkel, being a son of the west as he was,
that his hand instinctively sought the leather holster whence protruded
the grim, black handle of his .45. But he did not draw the weapon, nor
did Nort or Dick pull theirs, which they had started to get out when
they noted Bud's action.
For Bud smiled when he had a glimpse of the newcomer, and Buck Tooth,
who had glanced up from where he was making the fire, gave a grunt of
welcome.
"Babe!" exclaimed Nort, as he recognized the fat assistant foreman of
Diamond X ranch. "Babe!"
"Sure! Who'd you think it was?" came the smiling question. "Looks
like you had an idea it might be one of them rustlers that made trouble
when you fellers was here before! Eh?
"Glad t' see you two _ex_-tenderfeet," and Babe Milton grinned broadly
as he accented the _ex_, and held out a welcoming hand to Nort and
Dick. "They said you was comin' back to Diamond X, but I sorter missed
you--been out tryin' t' locate a bunch of strays," he confided to Bud,
"an' I didn't have no luck! Glad to meet yo' all, though, powerful
glad! 'Specially on account of that there coffee!" and he sniffed the
air as he caught the aroma of the fragrant pot Buck Tooth was putting
on to boil.
"But what are you lads doing so far from Diamond X?" Babe went on, when
they had moved over to the camp fire, the blaze of which was genially
warm this cool morning on the mountain.
"We aren't stopping there this trip," said Nort.
"We're 'on our own,'" proceeded Bud. "I'm raising cattle in the old
Buffalo Wallow Valley--Flume I call it now."
"Oh, yes, I did hear you were going to tackle that," spoke Babe.
"Didn't know you'd got stocked up, though. Well, I've been over at
Square M for so long I don't hear no real news no more. Gosh! But we
did have some excitement the time those professor chaps pulled that
_Trombone_ out of the ground; didn't we, Bud?" he chuckled.
"Triceratops, Babe! Triceratops!" corrected Bud, laughing at the
expression of the fat assistant foreman's face.
"I never could remember the name of them musical pieces, nohow!" sighed
Babe. "Fond as I am, too, of singing," and, taking a long breath, he
bellowed forth on the unoffensive morning air this portion of a ballad:
"Sing me to sleep with a spur for a rattle,
Fill up the biscuits with lead.
Coil me a rope 'round th' ole weepin' willow,
Curl my feet under my head!"
"Glad you feel that way about it," remarked Bud, rather soberly, as
they squatted around the fire for breakfast, which Buck Tooth seemed to
have prepared in record time.
"What's bit you?" asked Babe, pausing with a smoking flapjack half way
to his mouth, while in his other hand he held a steaming tin cup of
coffee. "Git out th' wrong side of th' saddle this mornin'?"
"No, but there's trouble over at the valley," explained Bud. "The
water has stopped running and----"
"The _water_ stopped running!" interrupted Babe.
"Yes, and when we start out, intending to see what's the trouble, we
get this warning," and Bud extended the dirty piece of paper that had
been fastened to the tree with the thorn.
"Whew-ee-ee!" whistled Babe, as he read the scrawl of misspelled words.
He opened his mouth again, to intone another of the hundred or more
verses of his favorite cowboy song, but Bud motioned to him to refrain.
"Don't you like my singin'?" asked Babe, a bit hurt.
"Yes, but I want to ask you some questions," went on Bud. "You say
you've been out looking for strays?"
"Yep; prospectin' up and down Snake Mountain all yist'day an' part of
th' night. My grub giv' out with supper last night, an' I was hopin' I
might even run into a bunch of Greasers, when I saw you folks spreadin'
th' banquet table here."
"Glad you joined us," remarked Nort.
"So'm I," mumbled Babe, his mouth full of bacon and flapjacks. "But
what's your questions, Bud? Shoot!"
"Did you see anybody who might have written this?" and the boy rancher
again read the sinister warning:
"'Don't take no more watter frum Pocut River if you want to stay
healthy.'"
"Why, no, I didn't see nobody," spoke Babe, with more force than
grammar. "'Tain't a joke; is it?"
"Not when I tell you the water has stopped running," said Bud.
"So you did! Hum, that's mighty queer like!" mused the assistant
foreman, who had, early in the spring, been transferred to Mr. Merkel's
Square M ranch from Diamond X. "But some of us rather thought there'd
be trouble when your paw dammed up the river to shunt some of it
through the old water course over to Buffalo Wallow. Hank Fisher
claims his water supply has been lessened by what your paw did, Bud."
"That's all bosh!" exclaimed Bud. "There's as much water for Hank
Fisher as he ever had at Double Z. Besides, this isn't his way of
doing business. He's as mean as they make 'em, but he'll come out in
the open and tell you what he thinks of you."
"Yes, Hank is that way--_sometimes_," agreed Babe cautiously. "At th'
same time I wouldn't put it past him. Better tell your paw about this,
Bud. You got grit--all three of you!" and he included the other boys
in his glance. "But you can't fight Hank Fisher, Del Pinzo and that
onery gang of Greasers and Mexicans!"
"There!" cried Nort, clapping his hand down on his outstretched leg.
"That's who that man was--Del Pinzo!"
"What man?" asked Babe.
"The one Bud shot."
"What's that?" cried Babe, half starting to his feet. "Did you shoot
somebody?"
"Well, I may have _creased_ him," admitted the boy, using a word to
denote a grazing bullet wound, hardly more than a scratch.
"Whew-ee-ee!" whistled Babe again. "This sounds like old times! Let's
have the hull yarn, Buddy!" he appealed.
Whereupon Bud related how he had ridden from his new ranch--Diamond X
Second--to meet his cousins whom he expected. He told of finding the
stream of water shut off, of the appearance of the man, the shot, his
sudden vanishing, and the subsequent night ride of the boys.
"That was Del Pinzo, I'm sure of it!" declared Nort. "I was trying to
think where I'd seen him before, and now I remember!"
"You couldn't very well forget Del Pinzo," declared Bud. "But this
wasn't he. That isn't saying that it might not have been, of course,"
he added, "for I understand he broke jail, after they caught him and
sent him up for rustling our cattle. No, this wasn't that slick
Mexican, Nort."
"Who was it?" asked Babe, helping himself to another of the flapjacks
which Buck was making in a skillet over the greasewood fire.
"That's what we don't know," said Bud. "He just naturally vanished,
the way my water did. What are you going to do, Babe?"
"Well, I ought t' keep on lookin' for them strays your paw's so anxious
about," was the answer. "But I reckon I got time t' mosey along with
you. You say you're goin' down to the river?"
"Yes, to see if there's anything wrong at the intake pipe," Bud
answered.
"Then I'll go with you," offered Babe. "And before you try that ride
through the old water course, under the mountain, you'd better call up
your paw."
"What for?" Bud wanted to know.
"Well, he mightn't altogether like it. There's a risk, an' he may want
t' send some of us with you. It's easy t' get him on the 'phone from
the dam."
"Yes," agreed Bud, "I s'pose I had better do that." He remembered that
where Pocut River had been dammed to enable water to flow into the pipe
line, and then through the old river course to his reservoir, there was
a general store, which boasted of a telephone.
A little later, breakfast having been finished, the party, now
including Babe, reached the Pocut River. There an inspection showed
the water from the river above the dam running freely into the pipe
that carried it to Flume Valley.
"Nothing wrong here," remarked Bud as he looked into the dark tunnel
which received one end of the pipe. And it was through this natural
tunnel, extending under the mountain, being the course of an old
stream, that the boy ranchers proposed riding.
"No, th' trouble must be somewhere inside," agreed Babe. "But call up
your paw, Bud."
Which Bud did, learning from his father at Diamond X, that Old Billee
had departed, early that morning, to take up his abode at the camp in
the valley.
"Better wait until Old Billee reaches your place, and then call him
up," suggested Mr. Merkel to his son over the wire, for there was a
'phone in Bud's camp. It seemed rather an incongruity, but it was a
great convenience, since it connected directly with Diamond X, Triangle
B and Square M ranches, as well as with the regular lines.
There was nothing to do but wait until Old Billee might be expected to
have reached the camp in Flume Valley, and after several hours Bud
called up his own new ranch headquarters.
"They don't answer," Central reported.
"He's taking his time," commented Babe.
But an hour or so later, after several other trials, the voice of Old
Billee came back over the wire from miles distant.
"Hello! Hello there! Wassa matter? Wassa matter?" demanded the voice
of the old cowpuncher. "Where's everybody, anyhow? Nobody here but
me!"
"We're over at the dam--Pocut River," called Bud into the instrument.
"Say, Billee, something happened at my place last night. The water
stopped, and we came over here to see where the stoppage was. But it's
all right here. How about you there?"
"All serene here, Bud, all serene! Wait a minute and I'll take a look
at your reservoir. I can see it from the tent where you got this
talkin' contraption strung. You say the water stopped last night?"
"Stopped complete, Billee," Bud answered back over the wire.
"Well then, if there's any comin' over the spillway, now, it's a sign
she's runnin' here ag'in, I take it!"
"Sure thing. But is she running?" asked Bud, anxiously.
"Wait a minute, an' I'll take a look. Hold on to that there wire!"
"I'll hold it!" promised Bud, smiling at his cousins.
There was a moment of anxious waiting and, in fancy, the boy ranchers
could see Old Billee going to the tent flap and looking toward the
reservoir.
"Hello, Bud!" presently came the call over the wire.
"Hello, Billee. What about it?"
"Water's there all right! Must 'a' come back in th' night! She's
runnin' fine now!"