QUESTIONS
“What’s up?” asked Jerry, solicitously. “Someone ill?”
“No,” answered Ned. “But dad intimates that we’ve fallen down on the
job, so to speak, and he thinks we might as well give it up and let
him send on a real detective. He says he knows of one that used to be
in the United States Secret Service and he thinks this fellow would
succeed where we’ve failed.”
“I don’t admit we’ve failed yet!” Jerry exclaimed. “Of course, I don’t
want to presume to dictate to your father,” he hastened to add, “but I
wish he’d give us a little more time.”
“My father says the same thing that Ned’s father does,” said Bob, who
had finished reading his letter. “I guess yours and mine must have had
a confab, and decided on this move,” he remarked to Ned.
“It looks that way. But I’m not going home, fellows. I’m going to stick
it out!” and Ned struck a defiant attitude.
“So’m I!” exclaimed Bob.
“Rebels!” remarked Jerry with a smile, though none of the lads felt in
any gay mood since the disappearance of Professor Snodgrass.
“Well, you have to rebel once in a while,” went on Ned. “I don’t mean
to say that I’d deliberately disobey my dad,” he added. “But he doesn’t
understand. I suppose he’s a bit sore at losing so many cattle, and I
don’t know that I blame him. But he doesn’t understand the situation
here, and your father doesn’t either, Bob.”
“I’m with you there. But this letter says come home without delay, and
let the detective take up the case. Dad says there are certain reasons
for this.”
“What are they?” asked Jerry.
“Mine mentions ’em, too,” added Ned. “It seems that my father is rather
sorry he bought a ranch, and got Mr. Baker to go in on the deal. Dad
wants the money he put in it to finance some other matters connected
with his store, though he doesn’t go into details.
“He says they had a chance to sell the ranch at a handsome profit, but
the intending purchaser backed out when he heard rustlers were running
off the cattle. The man said he wanted a ranch with some _steers_ on
it, not just _grass_,” went on Ned with a rueful smile as he referred
to his father’s letter.
“Is the deal off?” asked Jerry. “It’s too bad to have your father lose
money, Ned.”
“Yes. Though dad isn’t poor, still he is a good business man, and it
must get on his nerves to see a waste in finances. The man who was
going to buy the place hasn’t exactly given up all interest in it, but
he won’t purchase until the rustlers are captured.”
“Then it’s up to us to get ’em!” cried Jerry. “We must do more and talk
less.”
“I’m with you there,” agreed Ned. “But what can we do?”
“Especially when we’re practically ordered home,” put in Bob. “Told to
give up and let a real detective take a hand! What can we do?” and he
looked at his two chums.
Ned seemed to have a sudden inspiration.
“I know one thing I’m going to do!” he exclaimed.
“What?” cried his two chums together.
“I’m going to telegraph to dad.”
“And say what?” Jerry queried.
“I’m going to wire him that Professor Snodgrass has most unexpectedly
disappeared, and that we can’t leave him here in this predicament,
especially as he came out West with us as our guest. That will get my
mother, anyhow,” he added with a twinkle in his eyes. “Mother’s great
on that hospitable stuff, and she’ll get dad to let us stay all right.
She’ll argue that it would be wrong for us to come away and leave the
professor in the hands of the rustlers--if that’s where he really is.”
“I think you’re right,” returned Jerry, after a moment of thought.
“It’s only fair to him, and it will gain us a little delay in which we
must work harder than ever before to solve the mystery.”
“Now you’re talking!” cried Bob.
This telegram was prepared and sent to Mr. Slade:
“Professor Snodgrass has disappeared. Probably captured by
rustlers. Are on their trail. Impossible to leave now. Better
wire us money for expenses. Letter follows.”
“Think that will do?” asked Ned.
“Pretty well gotten up,” Jerry assented. “You put it a bit strong,
though, about being on their trail.”
“Well, it’s true enough. We are after them--on their trail--so to
speak. I didn’t say we had _caught_ them. But we will!”
“I hope so!” agreed Jerry.
The boys anxiously awaited the reply to their message, and to their
gratification, it came the next day. They were told they might remain,
and in a letter that followed a few days later funds were sent to
all three, while there were many expressions of concern from those in
Cresville concerning the fate of Professor Snodgrass.
“Spare no expense in finding him,” wrote Mr. Slade. “Hire a couple of
detectives if necessary.”
“I guess we can do as well at this business as the city detectives,”
growled Ned.
His chums agreed with him.
“And we haven’t got to the bottom of the mystery of Munson’s fake
leg,” remarked Jerry as, on the afternoon following the receipt of the
letters, they were riding together toward a distant part of the ranch.
“No, that’s another secret we have to solve,” agreed Ned. “He said
something about riding to town to-day to have the doctor look at it.
He’s limping worse than ever.”
“He’ll never do it,” observed Bob.
“Do what?” asked Jerry.
“Let a doctor examine his leg. That would give the fake away right off
the bat. That’s why he didn’t want to let the doctor look the time you
were hurt, Jerry.”
“Oh, of course! But, it sure is a queer game.”
The capture of Professor Snodgrass--if capture it was--seemed to put
a quietus on the cattle raids. The stock at Square Z ranch had not
been molested since his capture, and the foreman and his cowboys were
beginning to feel that perhaps the operating gang had been frightened
off because of the vigorous search made for them.
Meanwhile, Professor Snodgrass had not been forgotten. A systematic
search was kept up for him, but without result. Circulars describing
him had been sent through the mail to various ranches and to the
neighboring cities. Cowboys from other ranges made trips to the
mountain where he had last been seen and tried to find the little
scientist. But he seemed to have disappeared completely. Ned, Bob and
Jerry joined in these hunts, eagerly searching for some clue to the
mystery.
Reports from distant ranches told that there had not been any cattle
losses on them of late, though no other ranch had ever been so
systematically robbed as had Square Z.
And then, like a thunderclap on a pleasant day, came a change. Two
cowboys, who had been sent to bring in a bunch of choice steers for
shipment to Omaha, returned without them but with worried faces.
“Well?” asked the foreman. “Where are they?”
“Gone.”
“Rustlers?”
“Yep.”
“Huh!”
It was short talk but to the point.
“How did it happen?” Mr. Watson demanded, and when the cowboy admitted
that the raid took place while he and his companion slept, the foreman
became angry for one of the few times the boys had seen him in that
condition.
“Get off the ranch! You’re discharged!” he called to the cowboys. “A
tenderfoot could have done better!”
There was more than the usual buzz of excitement about the ranch when
the news of the cattle raid became known. It proved, at least to Ned,
Bob and Jerry, that the rustlers were still in the neighborhood and if
they were, and had captured the professor, there was a chance to rescue
him.
“Your father will feel still more greatly disappointed in us when he
hears there’s been another raid,” said Jerry to Ned.
“I don’t intend he shall hear of it right away,” was the answer; and
when Jerry pressed for an explanation his chum said he was going to ask
the foreman not to telegraph word of the theft to Mr. Slade for a few
days.
“I want to have an opportunity to see what we can do,” went on Ned. “It
may be our last chance. A few days’ delay in letting dad know won’t
do him any harm, and it will allow us to keep on trying to solve the
mystery. If we can’t, in a reasonable time, I’m willing to quit, and
let the New York detective try his hand.”
“Well, maybe it will be wise,” agreed Jerry. “But we’ll put in our best
licks on this last chance. It does seem as though we ought to get some
sort of clue to the thieves after all these tries.”
As the cowboys who had reported the raid did not know what time it took
place, except at some hour during the night, it could not be said how
much of a start the thieves had. It was seven hours at least, for the
men had reached the ranch house about noon, and they had awakened at
daylight to find the cattle gone. More likely it was ten hours, and
that was a good start.
The trail of the stolen cattle was comparatively easy to follow. And,
as had the others, eventually it led to the foot hills and to the
ravine the boys had explored so ineffectually.
“The secret is here, and here’s where we’ve got to stick until we find
it!” declared Jerry. “We’ll make a secret camp here, and not leave day
or night. Can’t you plant a bunch of cattle somewhere, so they could be
easily stolen?” he asked Mr. Watson.
“I s’pose I could. But why?”
“Well, we could stay near ’em and see who takes ’em. Then we could
follow.”
“Oh, a sort of trap, eh?”
“That’s it.”
“Well, I’ll think about it.”
Search as they did, the rest of that day, no trace of the missing
cattle could be found. They returned to the ranch, tired and
despondent. Mr. Watson had agreed to wait a few days before informing
Mr. Slade of this latest loss.
“I’ll give you your last chance, boys,” he said. “Make the most of it.”
That night, when the three chums were out among the cowboys, listening
to their talk, Munson came in. Hinkee Dee seemed to notice him at once.
“Where you been all day?” asked the assistant foreman.
“In town, having my leg treated.”
“Do any treating on your own account?”
“Why, no, I can’t say I did.”
“Oh, you weren’t around Jack’s place then?”
Munson looked up quickly at this persistent questioning.
“I don’t see that it is any of your business if I was,” he said slowly.
A flush mounted to the tanned face of Hinkee Dee.