Chapter VI: Trouble at Square M

"Guess that must be a joke," decided Nort, as he stepped gingerly from his cot, for it was cold in the mornings, though hot enough at midday. "Likely Old Billee or Yellin' Kid stuck it there," added the eastern lad, as he looked at the scrawled warning.

"Old Billee wouldn't do it," declared Bud. "He's gotten over his joking days. But it might have been Yellin' Kid."

"Sure!" agreed Dick. "Probably he did it to make what Billee said about the black rabbit come true--to sort of scare you, Bud."

"Well, of course that _might_ have happened," admitted the western lad, but from the tone of his voice, as he made a hasty toilet, his cousins could tell he was far from being convinced.

"You don't reckon it could be Buck Tooth, do you?" asked Dick, following his cousin's example in attiring himself for the day's work.

"What? That Zuni Indian? I should say not! His idea of a joke would make your hair stand on end--or it would in his wild and younger days. Now all he cares about, after he gets through riding herd, is to sit in the sun and smoke his Mexican cigarettes. Buck Tooth doesn't joke."

"Well, maybe it was Yellin' Kid," suggested Nort.

But when, a little later, they assembled in the meal tent, to partake of breakfast, and Bud produced the scrawled board, Yellin' Kid was the first to shake his head at the implied question.

"I like fun!" he remarked in his loud, good-natured voice, "but I don't play such jokes as this. My idea of fun would be to help dig up another one of them queer, slidin'-trombone insects with the three horns that the professor fellers discovered. But this--why, Bud, this may be serious business!"

"That black rabbit--I told you!" croaked Old Billee.

"Do you really think it means anything?" asked the boy rancher, while his young partners in the new venture leaned eagerly forward to listen to the answer.

"I sure do," declared Yellin' Kid. "All of us have known, Bud, an' your father among 'em, that puttin' a dam in Pocut River, an' taking water for you here, at Flume Valley, made the Double Z outfit mad enough t' rear up on their hind legs an' howl! Hank Fisher has claimed, all along, that th' Diamond X outfit hadn't any right t' take water from th' river, t' shunt over on th' other side of Snake Mountain, where we are, here."

"Yes, I heard dad say that," spoke Bud. "But if Hank Fisher had any rights that we violated, why didn't he go to law about it?"

"That isn't Hank's way," commented Yellin' Kid. "He'd more likely try some such tricks as _that_," and the cowboy nodded toward the warning on the board.

"Do you think he left that?" asked Nort.

"And was he, or Del Pinzo, in our camp last night?" cried Dick.

"As to that I couldn't say," replied Yellin' Kid. "I slept like two tops last night, after I got t' sleep. I didn't even hear you fellows _snore_," he added, for the three boy ranchers had a tent to themselves, while Old Billee and Yellin' Kid bunked in an adjoining one, Buck Tooth having his own special dugout near the camp fire.

"We never snore!" declared Nort.

"Well, I didn't hear a sound!" assented Yellin' Kid.

"Nor I," said Old Billee.

There was no use asking Buck Tooth. An actual demonstration would have been required to make him understand what a "snore" was, and then he might have misinterpreted it into an attempt to work some "magic" on him.

"Well, somebody came in our camp, and left that board--there's no getting away from the fact," declared Bud, as he put aside the ominous warning. "And it may have some connection with the stoppage of the water, or it may not."

"I'm inclined t' think it has," said Yellin' Kid. "An', what's more, Bud, I think we'll wake up again, some mornin', t' find that reservoir of yours out-a business."

"Do you mean Hank Fisher, or Del Pinzo and his crowd, will blow it up?" asked Bud anxiously.

"Not exactly that, but they'll cut off your water supply."

"But how can they?" asked Bud. "They can't do anything to the pipe intake at Pocut River without being seen, and dad had legal advice to the effect that he has as good right to that river water as Double Z, or any other ranch. And as for this end of the pipe here, we can look after that, I reckon," and he significantly tapped his .45 which he had strapped on, preparatory to getting ready for the cattle shipment.

"That's all right," asserted Yellin' Kid. "But you've forgotten th' big tunnel under the mountain, Bud, where the water runs free after it leaves the river pipe, an' before it gets to the pipe here."

"But Hank, or Del Pinzo, can't cut off the water inside the mountain tunnel without having it back up and run into the river again--and it didn't do that!" Bud insisted.

Yellin' Kid shrugged his shoulders, as he started for the corral to get his horse, since he was to aid in driving the cattle to the railroad stock yard.

"I don't know nothin' about th' scientific end of it," he drawled loudly, "but, mark my words, there's some queer business goin' on, an' Hank Fisher an' Del Pinzo have a hand in it. Look out for your water supply, Bud; that's my advice!"

"An' don't let any more black rabbits cross your path," added Old Billee.

"Bunk!" scoffed Bud. "Though I don't like this warning, all the same. Let's go take a look at the reservoir, fellows."

But an inspection of the concrete water-container showed nothing wrong there. The sparkling fluid, so necessary for the cattle, and so vital to Diamond X Second, was spurting from the pipe freely.

"Guess they're only trying to bluff us!" was Dick's opinion.

"Maybe," assented his cousin. "But, all the same, I'd like to know who was in our camp last night. If this thing is going to keep up we'll have to mount guard."

"That wouldn't be a bad idea," declared Nort. "I don't like to go to bed so early, anyhow."

"You'll be glad enough to turn in after we get into the swing of things here, branding cattle, shipping 'em off and all that," said Bud. "But let's take a look around after we get this bunch off."

And when Yellin' Kid, with another cowboy sent by Mr. Merkel to help Bud in getting the steers to the railroad station, had departed with the shipment, the boy ranchers, Old Billee and Buck Tooth made a careful examination in the vicinity of the tents.

Of course, with so many who really belonged in the camp, tramping around it, there was little likelihood of an alien foot being discovered. Nevertheless, Bud hoped for something of this sort. But it was not to be. No trace of the midnight intruder, who had left the ominous warning, was discovered. And yet he had come and gone--had even penetrated to the tent where the boys were sleeping.

"It's either bluff, or it means something," declared Bud, as they assembled for lunch. "And if it isn't bluff, but a _fight_, Hank Fisher and Del Pinzo will find we can stick to our guns as well as they!"

"You said it!" cried Nort.

"Del Pinzo didn't stay long in jail; did he?" asked Dick, for, following the discovery of the Triceratops and the capture of the cattle rustlers, as detailed in the first volume, the Mexican halfbreed had been arrested.

"No, he managed to get out, and, by some hook or crook, he still manages to escape arrest," Bud answered.

For some time it appeared that the two warnings were only "bluffs." No sign came from the unknown, and no trace was seen of Hank Fisher, Del Pinzo or any of the unprincipled gang which had made so much trouble the previous year for the Diamond X outfit.

Nor did the water coming under Snake Mountain show any signs of giving out. Day after day it ran its limpid stream, furnishing drink for man and beast, and enabling grass to grow where it had never grown before.

"Some day I'm going to rig up a turbine wheel and attach a dynamo to it, so we can have electric light here," declared Bud.

"That'll be great!" exclaimed Dick.

The first shipment of cattle had been safely gotten off from Flume Valley, and brought a good price. This money did not all come to the boy ranchers, however, as Mr. Merkel had insisted on a strict business deal; and he was to be paid for his share of the stock he supplied Bud from the first money coming in. Later the boys would get their profits--if there were any.

But the first lot of steers had been sent away, bringing a higher price than usual because of their prime condition, attributed, so Bud said, to the finer quality of grass, and it looked as if the boy ranchers might make a success of their first venture.

"Even discounting the black rabbit and the warnings out of the air," said Bud.

It was, then, with somewhat of an ominous feeling that, one morning, as the boys and their cowboy friends were at breakfast, they saw a rider hastening toward them along the trail that led from Diamond X.

"It's Snake Purdee!" exclaimed Yellin' Kid, when the rider had approached near enough to be recognized.

"An' he's ridin' like he had suthin' on his mind!" added Old Billee. "I hope that black rabbit----" he murmured, and then his voice trailed off into a whisper as Yellin' Kid surreptitiously kicked him under the packing-box table.

"Don't scare th' boys!" whispered Yellin' Kid in explanation, as Snake Purdee galloped nearer.

The rider flung himself from his pony, which came to a sliding stop near the camp tents, and, looking first at the boy ranchers, and then at the big, peaceful valley stretching out before him, remarked:

"Yes, there's plenty of room here!"

"For what?" asked Bud.

"More cattle!" answered Snake Purdee. "There's been trouble over at Square M, fellows!"

"Trouble?" exclaimed the boy ranchers in chorus. "What kind?"

"Bad trouble," was the reply. "Call your father up on th' 'phone, Bud," he added. "He wants t' talk t' you. Yes," he went on, musingly, as Bud hastened in to the telephone, "there's bad trouble at Square M!"