Boy Ranchers; Or, Solving the Mystery at Diamond X

by Frank V. Webster

  CHAPTER X

  DEL PINZO

  Characteristic it was of Bud Merkel not to answer at once the sharp andexcited question of his cousin. Living all his life in the West, as hehad done, and most of it having been spent on his father's ranches, Budhad unconsciously acquired the valuable habit of observation--and quietobservation at that. He wanted to look about and notice the "sign"before he gave his opinion. In this he was like the Indians, whence,doubtless, our own plainsmen developed the habit of looking twicebefore they spoke once.

  I don't mean to say that Bud was not a regular fellow, or that he wasnot at times almost as impulsive as Nort. He was like the majority ofboys, but on this occasion, when it appeared that something unusual wasafoot, Bud held back his opinion for a moment.

  "Well, what do you think of it?" asked Nort again, as eagerly asbefore. "Doesn't this look like they'd been digging for gold?"

  "I should say it did!" cried Dick, no less eager, now, than hisbrother. "Those professors saying they weren't after the yellow boyswas all bunk and bluff! They did it to throw us off the track, so wewouldn't try to have a hand in it. They've been mining here, Bud, assure as guns!"

  Bud slowly shook his head.

  "Why not?" asked Nort, seeing his cousin's denial of the theory thatfitted in so well with his own ideas.

  "Well, they don't mine this way--that is, I've never seen any done inthis fashion, and I've been in several mining localities," spoke Bud."This looks more like they'd been prospecting for water, digging here,there and everywhere. But there wasn't any need of that, for here's agood spring of water, and the river isn't so far away. This is a goodwatered country, and that's what makes it so valuable forcattle--you've got to have grass and water and we've got that onDiamond X."

  "But what do you s'pose this all means?" asked Nort again, as heslipped from his saddle, and, by pulling the reins forward, over hispony's head, thus gave that animal the universal sign of the plainsthat it was not to wander.

  "I don't know," Bud was frank to say, as he shook his head. "They surehave been tearing up the ground," he added, as he noticed on the sidehill, where there was an outcropping of red sandstone, that manyexcavations had been made.

  "If it isn't gold maybe it's silver," suggested Dick, willing to accepta theory of less valuable metal. "Or diamonds!" and his eyes gleamedas he overmatched his brother's guess.

  "Nothing doin!" laughed Bud. "Of course there are silver mines not farfrom here, down Mexico way, and diamonds have been found in the UnitedStates, but not around this locality."

  "Well, what's your theory?" asked Nort of the more experienced boyrancher. "Here we've been gassing along, saying what we thought, andwe don't know any of the ins and outs of the matter. You're right onthe ground, and you've lived here all your life, so you ought to havesome idea of what it all means."

  "But I don't!" exclaimed Bud. "Wish I did," he added, as he joined hiscousins on foot, walking about the debris of the camp, while the poniessniffed, here and there, sometimes finding a choice morsel which theydaintily lipped before eating.

  "You'd say they were hunting for something, wouldn't you?" asked Nort.

  "Yes, I'd go that far," admitted Bud.

  "And they didn't find it," put in Dick.

  "What makes you think so?" asked the young rancher quickly.

  "Well, there isn't any hole, or any excavation, where they could havetaken out a treasure chest, or bags of hidden gold; not to say minedgold," went on Dick. "In all the stories of recovered treasure I everread, they always left a hole where they took out the stuff. Thereisn't any hole like that here, though there's enough to show thatplenty of digging went on."

  "I don't believe they've been after any gold, or anything like that,"declared Bud. "That professor man said so, but----"

  "But was he telling the truth?" asked Nort. "That's what we got tofigure on."

  "I s'pose," agreed Bud. "And from what I know of the country andsizing up this outfit, I'd say he was--they aren't after gold."

  "What then?" asked Dick. "A man--two men like Professor Blair andProfessor Wright don't hire an outfit such as they had, and prospectfor nothing!"

  "You are right," quietly agreed Bud. "They're after something, but Ireckon it's something we don't know anything about."

  "Maybe they were trying to run off some of your cattle, or some steersfrom the Circle T," suggested Nort. "Cattle rustlers; eh, Bud?"

  "If they're cattle rustlers they're a new kind," said the ranch boy."But of course it's possible. It may be they've gone into cattlerustling on a new scale, to throw everybody off the track, and findingout we were on to their curves, or maybe on account of having a fightamong themselves, they couldn't turn the trick."

  "That's right!" exclaimed Nort, in his impulsive way. "Maybe insteadof being attacked by Greasers and Indians, who thought they could getsome gold, the professor's bunch had a fight among themselves, andthat's how those two men got hurt."

  "It's possible," admitted Bud. "But, as Zip Foster would say, I don'tbelieve that's the right of it either."

  "Would Zip Foster know what all this meant?" asked Dick, waving hishand toward the deserted camp.

  "Maybe," murmured Bud, turning quickly aside. "But there's no usestaying here any longer. We can't learn anything here. Might as wellget back to the ranch. If you fellows are ever going to learn to throwa rope, you've got to do some practicing."

  "What's the matter with doing it here?" asked Dick. "We've got ropeswith us."

  To each saddle was looped the cowboy's most dependable friend asidefrom his horse and his gun--the ever-present lariat. Bud was anaccomplished swinger of the rope, and Dick and Nort had been practicinghard since coming to Diamond X.

  "Yes, we can try a few throws here," said Bud, as he walked toward hishorse. "I'll sit up here and watch you two," he went on, as he leapedto his saddle, and pulled up his pony which had, as was usual, startedoff the moment he felt a weight on his back. "I can see you better uphere," Bud went on. "Try it standing first. Tackle some of thosestumps, and for cat's sake remember to keep your palms up when youshoot the rope out. You'll never be accurate until you do."

  The brothers tried, one after the other, and Bud encouraged them bysaying that they were improving.

  "Now you show us," begged Nort, when his arm began to ache, forthrowing a long coiled rope is no easy task.

  "All right," agreed Bud. "But I'll try it from the saddle. It comesmore natural to me that way, and nine times out of ten you do all yourroping from the saddle. Of course this isn't regular, for you don'tgenerally rope standing objects," he went on. "Sock isn't used tothat, and he expects a pull on the rope after I fling it. But I'll tryfor that stump you fellows have been mistreating," and Bud laughed.

  He rode Sock, his pinto pony, off a little way, coiling his rope inreadiness as he did so. Then, wheeling quickly, and with a wild,inspiring "Yip-yippi!" the young rancher came riding fast toward a low,broad stump the two other lads had, more or less successfully, beentrying to rope.

  His right hand shot out, palm up, his cousins noticed, and the ropewent twisting and turning through the air, lengthening out like a long,thin snake, and almost hissing like one. Instinctively, as thoughroping a steer, Bud prepared himself for the pull that always followed.

  Sock, the intelligent pony, braced his feet to hold back as soon as hesensed that Bud had thrown the rope. For Sock had been taught that hemust always do this when a steer was being roped, and though he coulddistinguish between a stump and an animal, Bud's action seemed to callfor co-operation on Sock's part.

  The coils of the lariat whirled through the air, and, just as they wereabout to settle over the stump, there was a sudden movement in aleaf-filled hole beside the remains of what had once been a big tree.

  Up out of this burrow, or hole, where he had been lying asleep amongdried leaves and grass that concealed him from the boys, rose a humanfigure. He was so close to the stump and he rose up in such a mannerlea
ning slightly over, as if dazed from too sudden awakening from asound slumber, that he received the noose of Bud's rope fairly abouthis shoulders!

  So suddenly did the man appear, popping out of the hole beside thestump like a Jack in the Box, that Sock was startled, and pranced back,exactly as he would have done in order to drag a refractory steer offits feet. And this was just what took place with the man.

  The noose tightened about his middle and he was dragged over the flattop of the stump, yelling and shouting in protest.

  Nort and Dick did not know what to think--whether it was an accident,or a bit of play arranged for their benefit by their cousin. But alook at Bud's face was enough to convince them that he was as muchsurprised as were they.

  There was a series of shrill yells of protest from the ropedman--shrill language which Nort and Dick recognized as Mexican-Spanish,and then, as Bud stopped his pony, and the rope loosened, the man stoodup. He scowled at the boys--a menacing figure of a Greaser, dirty andunkempt.

  "Del Pinzo!" gasped Bud, as he recognized the fellow. "Del Pinzo! Ididn't know you were near that stump!"

  The man's answer was a deeper scowl, and his hand went toward theholster at his hip--a holster that Nort and Dick noted with relief wasempty. For Del Pinzo's gun had fallen out as he was dragged by Bud'slasso from the hole beside the stump where he had been hiding.