QUEER ACTIONS
What effect this announcement had on Dick and Bud can easily be
imagined. Both leaped from their saddles, as Nort had done, and
gathered close to him as he held the branding iron in his hand.
It was of the usual type, an iron plate, which had been cast in a
mould, so that the device--two Z letters--formed a depression in the
smooth surface of the iron plate. On the outer edge was a circle, so
that when the brand was heated, and pressed on the hide of a steer,
calf or maverick it would burn the impression of a double Z inside a
ring--the mark of Hank Fisher's cattle.
"Whew!" exclaimed Dick. "This makes it look bad for them, Bud!"
"Oh, not necessarily, though I'm glad we found it," spoke the western
lad.
"Why isn't it suspicious?" asked Nort, whose high hopes had been rather
dashed by Bud's somewhat cool reception of Dick's statement.
"Oh, it's _suspicious_ all right!" Bud hastened to say, "and don't
imagine I'm making light of you finding this, Nort! I'm mighty glad
you did! Only we can't make it look bad for Hank Fisher, or the Double
Z crowd unless we can fasten this on them."
"You mean we can't prove they dropped it here during the raid last
night?" asked Nort, as he vaulted into the saddle.
"That's it," spoke Bud. "It does look suspicious, I'll admit. But you
see while this is our range, we couldn't make a fuss just because some
cowboy from Double Z rode over it. That wouldn't be right. And what's
to hinder this having been dropped by some cowboy who was merely riding
over our range?"
"That's possible," admitted Dick.
"But I don't believe it," asserted Nort.
"Nor I," chimed in Bud. "But you got to go slow in making accusations
out west, unless you're ready to back your opinion up with a gun; and
we don't want to do that."
"No," Nort admitted. "But Old Billee and Snake said they were going to
ride over to Double Z to-day, to sort of size up the situation. So
what's to prevent 'em taking this branding iron along and asking,
casual like, if they don't want it back?"
"Nothing to stop that," said Bud with a grin. "In fact that's just
what we'll do. Come on, we'll hit the trail for the camp and make a
sort of raid on Double Z--only we'll make it to-morrow instead of
to-day, as it's too late for a long ride."
There were murmurs of surprise and excitement at the camp, when the
boys rode in with the Double Z branding iron that Nort had picked up at
the scene of the raid.
"They dropped that last night, sure as horned toads!" cried Snake
Purdee, whose wound was excuse enough for not being out on duty.
"I reckon," agreed Pocut Pete, who likewise was off duty. "Let's see
that," and he reached for the iron which had a wooden handle to enable
a cowboy to manipulate the marker when the branding end was hot.
Bud, so Nort and Dick thought, looked rather curiously at Pocut Pete
while the latter was examining the iron. And when the strange
cowboy--strange in the sense that he had not been long in Mr. Merkel's
service--took out his knife and began whittling away at the wooden
handle, Bud uttered a sharp cry of:
"Stop!"
"What's the matter?" asked Pocut Pete, with an assumption of innocence,
which was so plainly an assumption that Nort and Dick exchanged rapid
glances.
"Don't cut off those initials!" went on Bud. "Maybe by them we can
tell who owns the iron."
"Initials!" exclaimed Pocut Pete. "I don't see any initials!"
"There they are," and Bud pointed to some, rather faintly cut, on a
flat place in the handle. "E. C. are the letters, though I don't know
anybody with them at Double Z."
"I don't, either," said Pocut Pete. "In fact, I didn't see them
letters, Bud. I was just whittling the handle to see what kind of wood
it was. Thought maybe I could tell by that."
"All right," spoke Bud, as he again assumed charge of the branding
iron. And Pocut Pete, with a sharp look at the young rancher, went out
to the corral where the spare ponies were kept.
"Was he really trying to cut out those initials?" asked Nort, as the
three boy ranchers passed on to the grub tent, for it was the joyful
time to eat--one of the three joyful times that came each day.
"I wouldn't say he was doing it _deliberately_," spoke Bud, "but he
certainly _was_ whittling near those letters. And if he had cut them
off the owner of the branding iron could easily claim it wasn't his."
"That was queer," declared Dick.
"Very," assented Bud. "In fact Pocut Pete has acted queer ever since
he's been here. I don't like him, and as soon as dad has another
puncher to spare I'm going to ask for a change."
The remainder of that day and the night passed quietly. There was no
other alarm, and riding herd was an easy task. Nor was there any
stoppage of the water, which ran freely out through the pipe from the
underground tunnel as though there had never been any interruption of
its very necessary service.
"Well, let's go!" exclaimed Bud next day, as he and his cousins saddled
their ponies, and Old Billee called for Yellin' Kid to help catch a
rather frisky pinto that the old cowboy was going to ride.
"Over to Double Z?" asked Nort.
"Yes, we'll take a sort of a look around their place, and hand back
this iron," went on Bud, as he slung the implement to his saddle by a
loop of his lariat.
The ride to Double Z was pleasant enough, for soon the boys and Old
Billee struck the hill trail, where it was cooler than down in the
valley.
But if they hoped to discover any incriminating evidence at Hank
Fisher's place they were disappointed.
There was no sign of Del Pinzo--in fact that wily Mexican half-breed
was seldom at the ranch proper. Nor was Hank at home. But his foreman
met the boys and Old Billee.
"Hear about the racket over at our place?" asked Bud, easily enough,
but with a beating heart. He and his cousins looked around for any
signs of wounded men, but saw none.
"What racket?" asked Ike Johnson, the foreman.
"Rustlers," put in Old Billee. "They scratched me, shot up Snake
Purdee and dropped this--or at least we found this after the mix-up
when we'd druv 'em off!" and he took the branding iron from Bud's
saddle loop.
"You don't mean to say----" began Ike, with an ugly tone to his voice.
"Don't mean t' say nawthin'!" drawled Old Billee. "That's one of your
irons, I take it."
"Yes, it is," growled the foreman slowly. "But that don't mean----"
"Course it don't!" pleasantly interrupted the old cowboy, giving the
young ranchers a slight signal to let him do the talking. "One of your
boys dropped it, likely, ridin' short-cut across our place, Ike."
"Yes, I remember now, Ed Carr said he lost his. This is it," and the
foreman of Double Z pointed to the initials.
"Well, tell Ed--is he here now?" asked Billee, interrupting himself.
For an instant--and for an instant only--Ike Johnson hesitated. Then
he answered:
"No, Ed's ridin' line. I'll give him this when he comes in."
"All right," spoke Billee, with a smile. "We was just passin' and
stopped with it. How's things, Ike?" he asked with an effort to be
friendly.
"Oh, so-so! Might be wuss, an' might be a hull lot better."
"I reckon it's that way all over," Billee made answer. "Well, boys,"
he resumed, "might as well ride back. You gittin' all the water you
can use from Pocut River, ain't you, Ike?" he asked, turning in his
saddle.
"Better ask th' boss about that," was the sullen retort. "I reckon
he'll have suthin' t' say, soon, that you Diamond X folks won't like!"
"Is that a threat?" asked Bud quickly.
"Easy, son, easy!" cautioned Old Billee.
"You can make anythin' yo' like of it!" sneered the Double Z foreman.
And then the boy ranchers and Old Billee rode off.
"Well, we didn't find out much," said Nort, when they were on the
homeward trail.
"No, but we let 'em know we found that branding iron, and that we knew
where it belonged," spoke Bud. "That's something!"
They were rather late getting back to camp, for Dick's pony went lame,
and the others accommodated their pace to his. It was dusk when the
little party hit the borders of Diamond X Second, and saw the grazing
cattle.
Bud saw something else, for as he rode ahead he called:
"What's he doing?"
"Who?" asked Nort.
"Pocut Pete," replied Bud. "Looks like he was trying to brand one of
our cattle with his knife! Look! That's mighty queer!"