Chapter XVI: 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!"