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[Illustration: WITH A FUSILLADE OF REVOLVER SHOTS THE RAIDERS RUSHED TO
THE ATTACK.]




                            THE MOTOR BOYS
                              ON A RANCH

                                  OR

                       Ned, Bob and Jerry Among
                              the Cowboys

                                  BY

                            CLARENCE YOUNG

             AUTHOR OF “THE MOTOR BOYS SERIES,” “THE JACK
                         RANGER SERIES,” ETC.


                              ILLUSTRATED


                               NEW YORK
                        CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY




BOOKS BY CLARENCE YOUNG

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Colored Jacket.


=THE MOTOR BOYS SERIES=

  THE MOTOR BOYS
  THE MOTOR BOYS OVERLAND
  THE MOTOR BOYS IN MEXICO
  THE MOTOR BOYS ACROSS THE PLAINS
  THE MOTOR BOYS AFLOAT
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE ATLANTIC
  THE MOTOR BOYS IN STRANGE WATERS
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE PACIFIC
  THE MOTOR BOYS IN THE CLOUDS
  THE MOTOR BOYS OVER THE ROCKIES
  THE MOTOR BOYS OVER THE OCEAN
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE WING
  THE MOTOR BOYS AFTER A FORTUNE
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE BORDER
  THE MOTOR BOYS UNDER THE SEA
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON ROAD AND RIVER
  THE MOTOR BOYS AT BOXWOOD HALL
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON A RANCH
  THE MOTOR BOYS IN THE ARMY
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE FIRING LINE
  THE MOTOR BOYS BOUND FOR HOME


=THE JACK RANGER SERIES=

  JACK RANGER’S SCHOOLDAYS
  JACK RANGER’S WESTERN TRIP
  JACK RANGER’S SCHOOL VICTORIES
  JACK RANGER’S OCEAN CRUISE
  JACK RANGER’S GUN CLUB
  JACK RANGER’S TREASURE BOX


  Copyright, 1917, by
  Cupples & Leon Company


  =The Motor Boys on a Ranch=

  Printed in U. S. A.




CONTENTS


 CHAPTER                             PAGE
      I. DISAPPOINTMENT                 1
     II. HINT OF A MYSTERY             11
    III. WHEN THE WHEEL CAME OFF       18
     IV. “WE’LL STOP IT!”              27
      V. LAST DAYS AT BOXWOOD          36
     VI. OFF FOR THE WEST              47
    VII. THE STOWAWAY                  55
   VIII. A BREAKDOWN                   63
     IX. THE CATTLE BUYER              72
      X. A MIDNIGHT ALARM              81
     XI. AT SQUARE Z RANCH             89
    XII. EXPLANATIONS                  95
   XIII. A SENSATION                  102
    XIV. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE          111
     XV. OUT OF THE AIR               118
    XVI. THE WRONG PONY               127
   XVII. ANOTHER RAID                 135
  XVIII. TWO INVALIDS                 142
    XIX. ANOTHER ATTEMPT              151
     XX. THE PROFESSOR’S DILEMMA      158
    XXI. QUEER MARKS                  167
   XXII. ANXIOUS DAYS                 174
  XXIII. LETTERS FROM HOME            180
   XXIV. QUESTIONS                    188
    XXV. THEIR LAST CHANCE            197
   XXVI. SEEN FROM ABOVE              203
  XXVII. THE LONE FIGURE              210
 XXVIII. THE SECRET PASSAGE           217
   XXIX. THE ROUND-UP                 223
    XXX. A FINAL SURPRISE             234




NED, BOB AND JERRY ON A RANCH




CHAPTER I

DISAPPOINTMENT


“Might have known it would turn out this way if we let _him_ manage
things,” grumbled Ned Slade in disgusted tones as he slumped down on
one of the forward lockers of a motor boat that was drifting slowly
in the middle of a blue lake. “Why didn’t you look after the details
yourself, Jerry?”

“Why, Bob said he would see that everything was all right and----”

“Yes! And this shows how much he ‘saw.’ A chap with compound
astigmatism in both blinkers could see better than Bob Baker!”

“Oh, come now,” protested Jerry Hopkins in soothing tones. “Aren’t you
a bit rough on our fat chum,” and he glanced toward a stout chap who
was bending over the motor of the boat, tinkering with its various
parts in an endeavor to set it going again.

“Rough on him?” expostulated Ned. “I should say not! I’m like a piece
of silk compared to a bit of sandpaper when I think of the things I
could say--and haven’t the heart.”

“Don’t stop on my account!” snapped the heavy-weight, over his
shoulder. “Get it out of your system and maybe you’ll feel better.”

“I won’t feel better until you get the engine started, so we won’t have
to stay out in this broiling sun. And to think there’s a fine feed
waiting us at the other end of the lake if we could only get to it! I
should have thought you’d have had common sense enough, Bob, where the
eats were concerned, to make sure of getting to them.”

“Say! Look here!” and Bob turned fiercely on his tormentor. He tried
to seem angry but the effect of a smudge of oil on one cheek, with a
daub of black grease on the end of his nose, while one eye appeared as
though it had come off second best in a fistic encounter, caused his
two companions to laugh, which altogether spoiled the effect of the
vigorous protest on which the youth had started.

“How did I know this was going to happen?” he asked, waving a grimy
hand at the engine, while, with the other, he beat a tattoo with a
monkey wrench on the nearest cylinder. “Could I tell she was going to
break down as soon as we got out in the middle of the lake?”

“Break down nothing!” scoffed Ned. “You’re out of gasoline, that’s
what’s the matter. You didn’t have sense enough to see that the tank
was full before you started.”

“Huh! I s’pose _you_ never overlook a little matter like that?” sneered
Bob.

“Of course not,” and, having spoken thus loftily, not to say
superciliously, Ned turned away and gazed across the blue waters of
Lake Carmona, now sparkling and rather uncomfortably hot under the June
sun.

“Guess you don’t remember the time you invited the girls out in the car
and got stalled on Mine hill just because of the same little old fact
that you forgot the gas?” asked Bob. “How about that?”

“There was a leak in the tank,” defended Ned.

“It takes you to tell it.”

“Oh, dry up and get started!” exclaimed the other.

“Easy, boys,” counseled tall Jerry Hopkins. “This won’t get us
anywhere. Is the gasoline really gone, Bob?”

“I guess it is,” answered the stout lad. “I did forget to have ’em put
some in the tank, but I thought there was enough for the trip. Anyhow,
you needn’t worry about starving. I put in a little sort of snack, as I
thought we might get hungry on the way.”

A smile replaced the frown that had come over his face during the
contention with Ned, and Bob brought forth from a locker a large box
wrapped in paper.

“Look what he calls a little snack!” mocked Jerry, laughing. “There’s
enough for a whole day’s rations.”

“Oh, not quite,” declared the stout lad. “This lake air gives me a
wonderful appetite.”

“Never knew you to be without an appetite,” commented Ned, and his
voice was more friendly. “I’ll take back some of what I said, Bob.
But for the love of sulphur matches, what are we going to do? Eating,
pleasurable as it is, isn’t going to move the boat.”

“I’ve a little gasoline in the can that I use for priming the
cylinders,” returned Bob, after rummaging in the engine locker. “That
might take us a little way.”

“Pooh! not a hundred yards,” scoffed Ned.

“Anyhow, lack of gasoline isn’t the only trouble,” went on Bob. “One
of the cylinders doesn’t work. It began missing a while back, before
the gas gave out. Even with a tank full I couldn’t run the boat until
that’s fixed.”

“You get out!” advised Ned. “You forgot the gasoline and that’s all
there is to it. And you wanted to have charge of all the arrangements
on this little cruise. Well, you’ve had your way, but you won’t again
if I know it.

“There’s nothing to do now but row,” he went on. “Not another boat in
sight and there isn’t any likelihood of any coming up to this end of
the lake to-day. They’re all down at those races. We’re booked for a
row, and we ought to make you do it all, Bob Baker.”

“I’ll do my share,” offered the smutty-faced, fat engineer.

“Break out the oars!” cried Jerry. “Never say die! It might be worse.
It’ll give us an appetite--rowing. It might be a whole lot worse.”

Ned went aft to where, in a space along the locker tops, the emergency
oars were kept. He turned to Jerry and said:

“It couldn’t be!”

“Couldn’t be what?” the tall youth asked in some wonder.

“Any worse. There aren’t any oars!”

“No oars?” cried Jerry.

“Nary an oar!”

Both lads gazed at Bob. He regarded them with a crestfallen countenance.

“Aren’t--aren’t they there?” he asked falteringly.

“Look!” and Ned pointed to the vacant space.

“Hang it all! I did take them out when I was at the dock,” Bob
admitted. “I couldn’t get at what was in the locker with the oars on
top, so I laid them on the wharf. I meant to put them back again,
but----”

Ned groaned and pretended to weep with his head hidden in his arms.
Jerry smiled grimly. Bob scratched his head in perplexity.

“Well, I guess the only thing to do is to let the boat drift and wait
for someone to come along and give us a tow,” sighed Jerry. “Meanwhile,
there are the eats. Break out the grub, Bob, and we’ll solace ourselves
with that.”

“This is the limit!” complained Ned. “If ever I come out with you
again, Bob Baker, you’ll know it!”

“And if ever I ask you I’ll kick myself all around the campus,” was the
retort.

For a time Ned refused the tasty sandwiches which the stout lad
had, with prudent foresight, stowed aboard the motor craft. But the
appetizing odor was too much for him and he capitulated, but in no good
spirits.

“Cheer up,” advised Jerry. “You’ll get indigestion if you eat with such
a sour face, Ned. We’ll get there some time.”

“Yes, and find that my father and Bob’s have gone on with their trip
and we have missed seeing them. Dad was going to bring me some dough,
too. And I need it,” he added as he turned his pockets inside out. “Not
a nickel left, and I want to get tickets for the show to-night.”

For a time the spirit of gloom seemed to settle down over the motor
boat and her occupants.

The three chums, Ned, Bob and Jerry, had set off early that afternoon
from Boxwood Hall, where they were students, to cross Lake Carmona.
They were going to Haredon, a small town on the other side of the body
of water, and there Ned and Bob expected to meet their respective
fathers who were on a business trip together, and had written that they
would stop off to see their sons, and have dinner with them, before
resuming their journey.

The boys had hired a large motor boat, as their own, the _Neboje_, as
well as their automobile, had already been shipped to Cresville because
of the approach of the summer vacation, and started on the trip. The
details of the expedition had been left to Bob. Jolly and good-natured,
Bob never thought very far ahead, and the double calamity of not having
had the gasoline tank filled and having taken out the oars, by which
the boat could have been surely, if slowly, propelled, had left the
boys becalmed in the middle of Lake Carmona on a hot day.

Owing to the fact that there were some races being held on this day,
nearly all the other students had gathered at the lower end of the
lake, as had most of the craft of persons living on the shores. This
made the middle and upper end deserted of the usual flotilla; so there
was scant chance of the boys getting a tow.

They ate for a while in silence, and then Bob had an inspiration.

“I believe it will work!” he cried.

“What now?” asked Ned. “Have you found some way of getting ashore and
buying some gasoline?”

“No, but we can put up a sail,” Bob went on. “Here’s the boat hook, and
the canvas cover of the engine is stuffed away in the stern.”

He scrambled aft, hauled out a bundle of canvas, and then got the boat
hook. For a few seconds Ned and Jerry watched him. Then the tall lad
said:

“I believe it will work at that. Bob, you’re not so worse.”

The motor boat, being heavy, did not move very fast under the small
sail area the boys spread. But at least they did move, and it was
better than being becalmed under a hot sun.

They sailed on for perhaps two miles when they spied another motor boat
which was evidently going to pass near them.

“Hail him!” suggested Ned, and they attracted the attention of the lone
skipper by toots on the electric horn. The man was a baker who made the
round of the shore resorts delivering bread and pastry. He agreed, for
a small sum, to tow them to Haredon and, several hours after they had
expected to arrive, the boys reached the hotel where Mr. Baker and Mr.
Slade had promised to meet them.

“Your fathers aren’t here now,” the clerk told them. “They waited until
the last train, then said they’d have to go. They left a note for you,
however,” and he handed over a long envelope.

“It’s for you, Ned,” said Jerry, reading the superscription.

“But there’s something in it for each of us,” Ned declared, opening the
envelope.

“Mine’s a letter from mother,” Jerry remarked, as he recognized his
parent’s handwriting. Mrs. Hopkins was a widow.

“Mine’s from dad--short and to the point,” chuckled Bob. “He says
he reckons I took so much time to eat that I missed connections and
couldn’t arrive on time. They’ll be here again next week, though.”

“That’s what my father says,” sighed Ned. “Well, it’s a
disappointment,” he went on, turning over the paper in his hand,
“especially as I did need that money.”

“Maybe he left some for you with the hotel clerk,” suggested Bob. “Ask,
and, if he didn’t, I can lend you some.”

“Thanks,” returned Ned. “I’ll ask.”

The hotel clerk was apologetic enough, but, unfortunately, no money had
been left for any of the boys. Ned turned away, disappointment showing
on his face. As he was debating with himself what was best to do he
saw, on the floor, half concealed by a time-table rack near the front
desk, a folded paper.

Half mechanically, he picked it up, unfolded it and, as he glanced over
the first few lines of writing, uttered an exclamation of surprise.

“What’s the matter?” inquired Jerry. “Did you find some money after
all?”

“Not quite as good as that,” was Ned’s answer. “This seems to be a
letter to my father from his ranch foreman. Dad must have dropped it
from his pocket when he was standing here paying his bill. And it’s got
_some_ news in it, fellows! Listen to this!

“Rustlers have been stealing cattle from the ranch, and the foreman
suggests that dad come out in a hurry, or else send someone, to take
quick action, as they haven’t been able to get the thieves. This is bad
business sure enough!” and Ned’s face took on a serious look.




CHAPTER II

HINT OF A MYSTERY


“What’s that?” asked Jerry Hopkins, sharply. He had been reading over
again a portion of his mother’s letter, and had not quite caught what
Ned had said. The latter repeated his statement.

“Cattle rustlers! Plain thieves, in other words; eh?” exclaimed Jerry.
“That’s no joke out West, I believe. In the early days ranch owners
used to suffer big losses from the acts of rustlers, but I thought it
had all died out.”

“It doesn’t seem to have done so--not on dad’s ranch,” went on Ned.
“This letter from the foreman must have been quite a shock to him. He
got it a day or so ago, I guess,” and Ned glanced at the date.

“I didn’t know your father was interested in a Western ranch,” remarked
Jerry.

“It’s a comparatively new venture for dad--going into the cattle
business,” Ned replied. “He figured, though, that with the price of
beef as high as it is, and going higher, he could make money. But I
guess if this sort of thing keeps up he’ll come out the little end of
the horn. I’ll read the letter to you.”

And while Ned’s chums gather around to hear the letter, which he
prepared to explain, I will take just a moment to give my new readers,
who may meet Ned, Bob and Jerry for the first time in this volume, an
idea of the books that precede this.

Under the name, “The Motor Boys,” our three heroes made their first bow
to the public. The boys lived in Cresville, not far from Boston, and
had many good times together. Jerry Hopkins was the son of Mrs. Julia
Hopkins, a wealthy widow. Aaron Slade, Ned’s father, was a prosperous
department store keeper, and Andrew Baker was president of the largest
bank in the city where he lived.

The boys’ first experiences with gasoline vehicles had to do with
motorcycles, but it was not long before they had an automobile, and in
that they took many trips, overland, into Mexico, over the plains and
home again. Then the motor boys went in for boating, and sailed not
only on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans but in strange waters.

On many of their trips the boys were accompanied by Professor Uriah
Snodgrass, and he did not balk even when they went in for airships,
in which line of locomotion they were very successful. Professor
Snodgrass--at present an instructor in Boxwood Hall--was a great seeker
after queer forms of insect life and his zeal sometimes got him into
odd predicaments.

I had the pleasure, in a number of volumes, of telling you of the
activities of the motor boys until it seemed there were no more worlds
left for them to conquer. But they heard the call of the under sea,
and, venturing into a submarine, they found life beneath the waves
fully as remarkable as above, if not more so.

The parents of the boys began to think the lads were getting too
much idle fun. They wanted their sons to have a better education.
So our three heroes had been sent to a boarding school. “The Motor
Boys at Boxwood Hall, or, Ned, Bob and Jerry as Freshmen,” the volume
immediately preceding this, tells of new adventures for Ned Slade, Bob
Baker and Jerry Hopkins.

Of the merry times they had, and how they were instrumental in “putting
Boxwood Hall on the map,” in athletics, you may read in that book. This
present story opens with the boys coming to an end of their first year
in the place, with the prospect of a long summer vacation, and at this
moment we find them puzzled over the foreman’s letter to Mr. Slade.

“He says,” began Ned, reading the missive again. “He says----”

“Who’s he?” demanded Jerry.

“Dick Watson, foreman of dad’s Square Z ranch,” explained Ned.

“Square Z ranch--what does that mean?” asked Bob.

“Guess you’ve forgotten all the western lingo you used to know, haven’t
you?” Ned asked. “The brand on dad’s cattle is a Z in a hollow square,
and his ranch is named that.”

“Cut out the explains,” begged Jerry, “and get down to facts. What
about the cattle rustlers?”

“Well, Dick writes dad that a lot of his choice stock has been run
off the ranch,” went on Ned, reading the letter and summarizing the
information he gathered from it. “It isn’t the first time, it seems,
for the thieving had been going on before dad bought the place. Dick
was foreman then and dad kept him on,” Ned explained. “He’s one of the
best there is, so all reports of him say.

“But he writes that never before were the cattle thieves so bold or
so successful. They have wiggled out of every trap set for them and
seem to laugh at the cowboys. Dad’s ranch isn’t the only one that has
suffered either, for Dick tells of others. He ends up his letter by
warning dad that he’ll have to do something if he doesn’t want to lose
all he invested in the place.”

“And something ought to be done!” declared Bob. “Think of all the
prospective roast beef that’s being stolen! Those cattle thieves ought
to be--they ought to be----” and Bob paused to consider a punishment to
fit the crime.

“They ought to be kept on a vegetable diet!” laughed Jerry. “That would
leave so much more roast beef for Bob--eh, Chunky?”

“Well, I’d like a chance to chase after ’em,” declared the fat lad.
“What’s your father going to do, Ned?”

“I don’t know. This is the first I have heard about it. I suppose I’d
better send this letter back to him. He may want it to refer to.”

“Too bad we missed him--and my dad, too,” put in Bob. “I’m sorry I
forgot about the gas, but----”

“Oh, well, there’s no use worrying about it now,” was Ned’s philosophical
comment. He was now in better humor. “If I only had some of the money
I’m sure dad would have given me----”

“Here!” cried Bob, eagerly producing a few bills. “Take half of this
until you can get yours. I sha’n’t need it. Besides, I’ve got credit
with the proctor.”

“I haven’t--worse luck,” grumbled Ned. “Well, I’ll take this, and make
you an I. O. U. later. Thanks. And now let’s have a real meal. Ah, I
beat you to it!” he exclaimed as he saw Bob about to make the same
suggestion. “We’ll eat and go back to Boxwood. Then I’ll write to dad
and send him this letter.”

The meal progressed merrily. It was a holiday at the school, the
occasion being the regatta on the lower end of the lake, and the boys,
having already missed the racing, were in no haste to return.

“Make sure you have plenty of gas this time, Bob,” advised Ned, as the
three went down to the dock where the motor boat was tied.

The trip back was uneventful, if we except the fact that Bob nearly
fell overboard when making a sudden grab for his hat that had blown off.

“Yes, this sure is queer business,” said Ned, musingly, when the three
chums were gathered in his room, which adjoined the apartments of Bob
and Jerry.

“What’s queer?” the tall lad questioned, rather absent-mindedly.

“This cattle-stealing out on dad’s ranch,” and Ned glanced over the
foreman’s letter again.

“Seems to interest you,” observed Bob.

“Sure! Why wouldn’t it? What gets me, though, is why the foreman or
some of his cowboys on the ranch haven’t been able to get on the trail
of the thieves. Watson seems to think there is something of a mystery
about it.”

“How mystery?” inquired Jerry.

“In the way the rustlers cover their tracks after they run off a bunch
of choice steers. There’s something queer about that. I may have to
take a trip out there myself, and help clear up the mystery,” and Ned
assumed a whimsical air of importance.

“Mystery; eh?” cried Chunky. “Say, I wouldn’t mind taking a chance at
that myself!”

“Not so bad,” came drawlingly from Jerry Hopkins. “We haven’t made
our vacation plans yet, and trying to find and frustrate a band of
mysterious cattle rustlers might not be the worst way of having a good
time.”

Something seemed to startle Ned Slade into action. He folded the
foreman’s letter, slapped it sharply on the edge of the table and cried:

“Fellows, I’ve got the greatest idea ever! If we three----”

There came an imperative knock on the door, followed by the command:

“Come on! Open up there!”

Startled, the three chums looked at one another.




CHAPTER III

WHEN THE WHEEL CAME OFF


“What was that?” asked Bob, and when it is added that he whispered the
question it may better be understood what a hold the finding of the
letter had taken on the boys. Already they seemed to be within the
mystery at which it hinted.

Then Jerry realized the futility of Bob’s query.

“It _sounded_ very much like a knock on the door,” and his tone was
humorously sarcastic.

“Say! are you going to keep me here all day? What’s the matter in
there? Open up! I’ve got news for you!”

“It’s Jim Blake!” exclaimed Jerry, now recognizing the voice of the
person on the other side of the door.

“Of course it is!” came the reply. “What’s the matter? Is Bob Baker
giving one of his spreads? If he is, let a fellow in on it, can’t you?
Open the door!”

“Come in; it isn’t locked,” called out Jerry. “But there’s nothing
doing in the eats. What’s up?”

“I don’t know,” answered Jim Blake, whose ability to control a slow and
fast ball had gained for him the honor of ’varsity pitcher. “I don’t
know what it is, but there’s something doing all right.”

“In what way?” Jerry asked, as Jim slumped down in an ancient chair,
the joints of which squeaked in protest, thereby moving Jerry to utter
a caution.

“Oh, I won’t break it,” said Jim. “But say, do you fellows know that
Professor Snodgrass is on his way to pay you chaps a visit?”

“We didn’t know it,” said Bob, coming back from a quiet trip to his
own room, meanwhile munching some chocolate, which he generally kept
on hand to use in cases of emergency. “No, we didn’t know it, but he’s
none the less welcome.”

“Oh, I know he’s quite friendly with you boys,” went on Jim, “but I
thought maybe he had it in for you this time.”

“What makes you think so?” asked Ned.

“And how do you know he’s coming here?” was Jerry’s question.

“I’ll answer the last first, like working out some of those tough
back-handed problems,” laughed Jim.

“Black-handed, did you say?” came from Bob.

“Pretty nearly that--yes. But the reason I happen to know the professor
is coming here is that I passed him in the laboratory hall a few
minutes ago. He held something tight in his hand, and he was awfully
excited. His clothes were covered with mud, his hat was dented in, his
collar torn and his coat was split up the back. He was hurrying along,
talking to himself as he often does, and what he said was:

“‘I must get to Ned, Bob and Jerry at once! This is terrible!’”

The three motor boys looked at one another, surprise plainly showing on
their faces.

“What----” began Jerry.

“How did he----” Ned commenced.

“Maybe he’s been----” And that was as far as Bob got, for Jim
interrupted with:

“I thought maybe you fellows had been up to some game or trick with
him, which would account for his condition. And from what he said I
thought maybe he was on his way here to have his revenge, one way or
another. So I cut on ahead to warn you. Better lock your door and keep
quiet. I’ll slip out and----”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” exclaimed Jerry. “And we won’t lock
our door against Professor Snodgrass. He’s welcome to come in any time
he likes.”

“Oh, well, if you’ve made up your minds to take your medicine,
why that’s a different proposition,” said Jim with a shrug of his
shoulders. “Only I thought I’d tip you off so you could----”

“Thanks, it’s kind of you,” murmured Jerry. “But, as a matter of fact,
we haven’t been up to any mischief.”

“But what put the professor in this condition?” Jim demanded. “I know
he’s always on the lookout for queer bugs and such things, and that
he’ll do almost anything to get a rare specimen. But I never saw him
quite so badly off as this before, and he seemed very much in earnest
about getting to you. Still you know your own business, I s’pose. Hark!”

They all listened. In the corridor outside the sound of rapidly
approaching footsteps could be heard.

“There he is!” exclaimed Jerry, as he opened the door.

In the doorway a queer sight stood revealed. A little bald-headed man
gazed unblinkingly through the powerful lenses of his spectacles at
the four boys. His condition was just about as Jim had described, and
the three chums noted the tightly-clenched hand of the “bugologist,”
as the delightful scientist was dubbed behind his back, though with no
disrespect attached to it, for the boys were very fond of him.

“Ah, Ned, Bob and Jerry, I am very glad to find you in,” began
Professor Snodgrass, with a little jerky bow.

“It’s a good deal better than being found out, sometimes,” murmured
Jim. The professor, not having heard the comment, nodded in friendly
fashion to the pitcher.

“What has happened?” asked Ned, as he pushed forward a chair for the
little man. The teacher seemed rather out of breath and considerably
excited.

“What’s the matter?” chimed in Bob. “Is everything all right?”

“Well--yes--I think so--perhaps.” Professor Snodgrass was not quite
certain about the matter, it seemed. “At any rate, I have him,” he went
on.

“Who?” Jerry gasped. “The person who is responsible for your condition?”

“Oh, no--er--my condition? Oh, I see,” and for the first time the
scientist seemed aware that he was greatly disheveled. “I--er--I _do_
seem a bit mussed,” he admitted. That was putting it mildly.

“But I got him,” went on the professor. “Have you a strong box that you
aren’t using?” he asked.

The latter, guessing what was coming, produced one that met the
professor’s requirements. Then, sliding back the cover, he held his
clenched hand over the box and dropped into it something that fell with
a thud, like that an inert toad or frog might produce.

“There you are!” exclaimed the scientist, quickly slipping the cover
into place. “The finest specimen of a one-spot lizard I have ever
caught! I certainly _am_ in luck!”

“One would hardly believe it to look at you,” said Jerry with a laugh.
He and his chums were on terms of more or less familiarity with the
professor.

The scientist had known the boys a number of years and had made several
trips with them. To some his actions might seem grotesque when he
was anxiously searching for some rare animal or insect, but the boys
knew him well enough to think little of what, to others, might be
absurdities. And no one would ever think the professor foolish when
once they knew of his attainments. He had written many books, which
were authorities on their special topics, and he had more honorary
degrees from different schools of learning than he could recall,
off-hand.

“You say you caught the lizard, but it looks more as though he had
caught _you_,” laughed Jerry.

“He gave you a pretty good tussle, at all events,” remarked Ned.

“Oh, you are referring to my clothes--and--er--my general condition, I
suppose,” said the professor with a smile. “Well, it is not altogether
my fault this time. I had little or no difficulty in capturing this
lizard, but my appearance is due to what happened when the automobile
lost a wheel.”

“Lost a wheel?” chorused the boys. “Were you in an automobile catching
lizards?”

“No, I had already captured this fine specimen, and I was riding back
with it to the college in the machine, when the wheel came off.”

“What made the wheel come off?” Bob queried. “Must have been a queer
kind of machine. Did the wheel just roll off?”

“No, I think it was broken off the axle when the auto toppled down the
hill,” said the professor calmly, as he opened the top of the box a
trifle to take a peep at his specimen.

“Toppled down the hill! Did an automobile in which you were riding
topple down a hill?” asked Jerry in astonishment.

“It did,” the professor answered. “It went over and over. I was made
quite dizzy, but I kept tight hold of the lizard. And when we came to a
stop, after crashing into a tree, I noticed that the wheel was gone.”

“Great Scott!” cried Ned. “When did all this happen--and where? Aren’t
you hurt? Hadn’t you better see a doctor?”

“Ha! I knew there was something I was to remember! It’s a doctor!”
cried Professor Snodgrass in triumph. “Your father wants you to send a
doctor to him at once, Ned.”

“My father--wants a doctor?” faltered Ned. “What for?”

“Because he was slightly hurt in the same accident when the wheel came
off the auto,” gently explained the professor. “It isn’t anything
serious, though. He’s at the hotel in town and your father is with him,
Bob. That’s what I came to tell you. But there is no need to worry.”

“Well, of all the----” began Ned.

“What in the world----” murmured Bob.

“Don’t stop to talk!” cried Jerry. “Let’s get a machine, hunt up a
doctor, and go to the hotel at once. What does it all mean, Professor
Snodgrass? No! don’t stop to tell me. You can explain later. Lively,
fellows! Come on!”

“Anything I can do?” asked Jim. “Say the word!”

“You might get a machine for us,” suggested Jerry.

“I’ll get Charlie Moore’s,” offered Jim. “He isn’t using it.”

Out he rushed, leaving Ned, Bob and Jerry to get ready, for they had
taken off coats, ties and collars on reaching their rooms. They dressed
hurriedly, Jerry meanwhile asking Professor Snodgrass if the scientist
himself were not in need of medical treatment.

“Not in the least, I assure you,” was the answer. “Fortunately, I was
in the rear, among a lot of blankets and cushions, and they made a
sort of buffer for me. Your father, Ned, and Mr. Baker were riding in
the front seat.”

“But what in the world were they doing in an automobile around here?”
Ned questioned. “They were supposed to be in a train making a business
trip.”

“They said they had to change their plans, and they were on their way
back to Haredon in the auto and, incidentally, they were going to stop
off to see you,” explained Professor Snodgrass. “They picked me up
along the road. Then the accident happened, and I told them I’d come on
and let you boys know. Your father, Ned, said it was very important.”

“Auto’s waiting!” came the hail of Jim from the ground under the chums’
windows, and without waiting for Professor Snodgrass, the boys ran down
the stairs.




CHAPTER IV

“WE’LL STOP IT!”


“I can’t understand it,” said Ned, as they swung along in the borrowed
car, Jerry driving.

“Nor I,” added Bob. “What are our fathers doing around here now, when
they were in such a hurry to be on their way that they couldn’t wait at
Haredon when we were an hour or so late?”

The distance from Boxwood Hall to the town of Fordham, the nearest
railroad station to the institution, was about two miles, and if speed
laws were violated by the boys no one took them to task for it.

Dusk was just settling when they reached the hotel, and the clerk and
those in the lobby looked up in surprise as the students rushed across
the tiled floor toward the desk.

“Some of that hazing business,” ventured a drummer, as he got out of
the way of the rush.

The clerk evidently thought the same thing, and was about to call for
the hotel detective and a porter or two (for sometimes the Boxwood
lads went in for rather strenuous times), when Ned, noting the
looks cast toward them and realizing that their actions were being
misconstrued, called out to the clerk before they reached the desk:

“What room is Mr. Slade in?”

“And Mr. Baker, too?” added Bob.

“Oh!” There was distinct relief in the clerk’s voice. “Are you the boys
the gentlemen are expecting? Well, you’re to go right up. Front!” he
called, and struck a bell which brought a diminutive boy, with two rows
of brass buttons down his jacket front, up to the desk on a slide.

“Show these gentlemen up to Number Nineteen,” said the clerk, with a
wave of his hand.

“Dis way!” drawled the hotel Mercury, and the three boys followed.

Ned and Bob were, naturally, worried about the physical condition of
their fathers, and Jerry was anxious to know what it all meant--Mr.
Slade and Mr. Baker coming back unexpectedly from their important
business trip to visit their sons at Boxwood Hall.

“Why wouldn’t a letter or a telegram have answered?” Jerry wondered,
and Bob and Ned would have wondered also only they were worried lest
the accident might have been more serious than the professor had
admitted.

A moment later Bob and Ned, with Jerry in the background, stood before
the door indicated to them by the bell boy.

“Come in!” called a voice as Ned knocked, and he breathed a sigh
of relief as he recognized his father’s tones, their usual vigor
indicating that the injuries could not be very serious.

The boys entered to behold Mr. Slade propped up in an easy chair, one
leg stretched out in front of him on a pile of cushions placed in
another chair, while wound around his head were white bandages.

Mr. Baker sat in another chair, but his legs seemed intact. One arm was
in a sling, however, and his face was adorned, or unadorned, if you
please, with strips of adhesive plaster.

“Oh, Dad! For the love of football! what have you been doing?” asked
Ned, as he advanced toward Mr. Slade with outstretched hand.

“Easy, Son, easy!” cautioned his father. “That leg’s badly bruised.
Don’t touch it or inflict any new injury, for I’ll almost have it
amputated before I let that doctor touch it again. But sit down, boys,
and we’ll talk business.”

“How are you, Dad?” asked Bob.

“All right, Son. Only I’ll have to give you my left hand. My right is
cut and scratched, but, fortunately, no bones broken. So you got the
professor’s message all right, I see.”

“Yes, we got it--after a fashion,” said Jerry, grimly. “He began with
a lizard, worked up to the broken wheel, told about the roll down hill,
and finally admitted that you were hurt.”

“He told you by easy stages then,” remarked Mr. Slade. “We asked him
not to alarm you.”

“He didn’t,” affirmed Bob. “But what’s it all about?”

“Yes, what?” chimed in Ned. “We can’t, for the life of us, guess. End
the suspense, Dad!”

“I lost an important letter, somewhere between the hotel in Haredon,
where we stopped to wait for you boys, and Leighton, where I had to
make a business call,” explained Mr. Slade. “That is, I missed the
letter when I got there.

“I thought possibly I might have left it in the room Mr. Baker and I
engaged for a short time at the Haredon hotel, so I ’phoned the clerk
and asked him to take a look. He did, he said, but there was no trace
of the letter anywhere about the place.

“Then I concluded I might have lost it somewhere along the road, and,
too, I had an idea that clerk didn’t make any too careful a search.
So Mr. Baker and I decided to come back here, or, rather go back to
Haredon. And as we were losing time, anyhow, we concluded we might as
well lose more and stop off to see you. We were sorry we missed you,
but as things were then we didn’t think we could wait.

“So we started back, hiring a machine to travel in, and--well, I guess
the professor told you what happened. It was an unfortunate accident,
but it might easily have been worse. Neither of us had any bones
broken, though I don’t know but what a bruised leg, like mine, pains
almost as much as a broken one. Now you have the whole explanation,
boys, as to why we are here. We sent for you, thinking you would be
able to help us. I want you, Ned, to go to that hotel and see if you
can find the letter.

“It contained some important information that I must act on at once,
and I need it to refer to. If you can find it----”

Ned interrupted his father by stepping forward with the missive he had
picked up in the hotel lobby.

With surprise showing on his face, Mr. Slade unfolded the missive, and
as he realized what it was he cried:

“Where in the world did you get it? Is this a case of mind reading, and
did you know what I was coming back for, and go after the letter?”

“Nothing as occult as that,” laughingly answered Ned. “We simply picked
it up where you must have dropped it as you paid your bill at the
Haredon hotel desk.”

“That’s right!” admitted Mr. Slade. “I did pull out my wallet there
to get money to settle for our room and meal. The letter must have
come out with it. I’m obliged to you, Ned. This is very important--how
important you can hardly guess.”

“I can in part, Dad, for I took the liberty of reading the letter. I
didn’t realize what it was at first.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I should have told you, anyhow.”

“But what about a doctor?” Ned asked. “The professor said you wanted us
to get one for you, and that’s why we came on with such a rush.”

“Oh, that was my fault,” explained Mr. Baker. “When we got clear of
the machine, and were being brought on here by a passing motorist, I
suggested that you boys had better be sent for and asked to get us a
physician, as you would probably know best which medical man would
suit your father, Ned, and myself. But, as it happened, we were both
bleeding pretty freely, though not seriously, and the clerk here didn’t
want us to wait about having any special physician. He sent for Dr.
Mitchell, who did very well by us, I think.”

“The very one we would have picked out!” cried Ned. “He’s considered
the best in town.”

“Glad to know we didn’t make any mistake,” said Mr. Slade. “Well,
getting back this letter simplifies matters. There’s no need for you
to make that trip to Haredon, Ned. Though you might, if you will,
telephone the hotel clerk there and tell him I have the paper I was
looking for.”

“I will, Dad. Sorry you’re so battered up.”

“Oh, well, it might be worse. It’s going to interfere with my plans,
though, for no doubt I’ll be laid up here a few days. I’m getting stiff
now, and I know I can’t travel to-morrow.”

“Did you count on going on out to your ranch, Dad, and trying to catch
those cattle rustlers yourself?” asked Ned, eagerly.

“Well, I don’t know that I was exactly planning to go myself,” answered
Mr. Slade, slowly. “But something has to be done, and soon, too. I
didn’t tell you,” he went on, “but I happened to miss this letter when
I looked for it after I received a telegram from Watson on my arrival
in Leighton.”

“You mean he telegraphed you after he wrote this letter?” Ned asked.

“Yes, a little while ago. His wire was filed this morning, and was to
the effect that another choice bunch of my steers was run off last
night.”

“Whew!” whistled Ned. “That’s surely bad.”

“It certainly is, Son! And it’s got to stop!”

“How did Watson know where to find you?” asked Ned of his father.

“He didn’t. He telegraphed me at my office, and as they knew my route
they sent on the message.”

“I see. But what are you going to do?” and Ned’s voice had in it an
eager note.

“Well, that’s one of the reasons we came on to Boxwood,” said Mr.
Baker. “Watson suggested, in his wire, that I send out some New York
or Boston detective to the ranch to see what he could do. The cowboys,
though they’re all right at their own business, don’t seem to be much
of a success as sleuths. I happen to know one or two New York private
detectives, one of whom did some work for me a few years ago. So I’ve
decided to engage him, and what I want you to do, Ned, is to go on to
New York, explain matters to him, and hire him. I’d do it myself only
I’m laid up, as you see, and Mr. Baker has other matters to engage him.
I think you can attend to the detective end of the business as well as
I. So, if you can arrange to make the trip, I’ll give you more details
which you can pass on to Peck. That’s the detective’s name--Henry Peck.”

“Well, Dad,” returned Ned, slowly, “I suppose I _could_ go to New York
all right, but I don’t _want_ to--to be frank with you.”

Ned’s chums looked curiously at him. It was not at all like their
friend to object to his father’s wishes.

“You don’t want to go?” repeated Mr. Slade. “Well, Ned, of course I
don’t want to take you away from your studies, but----”

“Oh, it isn’t a question of studies, Dad. I’m all through, as far as
they are concerned. This is the last week. But I think you don’t need
any New York detective.”

“Why not?” demanded Mr. Slade. “Don’t you suppose I want the thefts of
my cattle stopped?”

“Sure you do,” and Ned smiled and winked at his chums, who themselves
did not quite see his drift.

“Well, then get ready to go to New York and engage that detective,” and
Mr. Slade spoke a bit sharply, for his leg pained him.

“Oh, Dad!” cried Ned, his eyes shining as he hurriedly arose from his
chair. “Let the sleuth go! As for the stealing of your cattle, _we’ll_
stop it!”

“Who’ll stop it?” repeated Mr. Slade, as if in a daze.

“We’ll stop it, Dad! We were just wondering where we’d spend our summer
vacation and now we know. It will be out on your Square Z ranch solving
the mystery of the cattle thieves among the cowboys! Hurrah, fellows!
Off for the West once again!”




CHAPTER V

LAST DAYS AT BOXWOOD


Mr. Slade glanced across the room at his friend Mr. Baker. The latter
returned the look, and, had one observed carefully, he might have seen
the shadow of a wink pass between the two men. Then Mr. Slade slowly,
but with an evident air of firmness, shook his head.

“What is it?” asked his son.

“I’m sorry, Ned; but we can’t consider your proposition--not for an
instant.”

“You mean you won’t let us go out to the ranch to try our luck at
discovering the cattle rustlers?”

“That’s it, Son. This is a business proposition--not a vacation lark,
as you seem to think.”

“I didn’t say that, Dad. I mean business--we all mean business. Don’t
we?” and Ned appealed to his chums.

“Of course we do!” chimed in stout Bob. “Why can’t we go out there and
trace the cattle thieves as well as a New York detective who wouldn’t
know a prairie dog’s burrow from a dried water hole? Come on, Dad, say
something!” and he appealed to his father who, so far, had done little
talking. “Let us go out West. We can get to the bottom of the mystery
as well as any one. That is, if there is a mystery.”

“Oh, there’s a mystery surely enough,” said Mr. Slade. “There’s no
question of that. The rustlers haven’t left the semblance of a trail to
follow, if we can believe Watson--and I have every confidence in him.
But I wouldn’t, for a moment, think of letting you boys try your hand
at this. Why, there’s danger in it! Those rustlers are unscrupulous
scoundrels--they shoot first and ask questions afterward. You can’t
take any chances with men like that!”

Jerry and Bob saw their chum Ned give himself a little shake. They had
observed the same action on other occasions--notably when Ned was at
bat in a tight place in a ball game, or when he knew he was going to
be called on to take the pigskin in a rush through tackle and guard to
make a much-needed touchdown. The same look Ned’s face wore at such
times was on it now. He was girding himself for some fray--albeit a
mental one.

“Just one moment, Dad,” he said in a quiet voice. “I agree with all you
say about this being a man’s job, dangerous and calling for ingenuity.
And I’m not going to urge this on you just for the sake of letting us
have a little fun. We’ll get some fun out of it--I don’t mean that we
won’t--but it isn’t going to be _all_ fun. I’m in earnest when I ask
you to let us have a try at this.

“Now give me a few seconds more,” he quickly said, as he observed that
his father was about to speak. “As I said, I know it’s a man’s job. But
I ask you if we three aren’t equal to one man?”

He indicated by a sweeping gesture himself and his two chums.

“Well, yes, in general appearance, huskiness and ability to take care
of yourselves under ordinary circumstances, I’d say you were any one
man’s equal, if not more,” conceded Mr. Slade.

“Two and a half, easily,” came from Mr. Baker, who seemed to be
enjoying the situation.

“All right, you admit that then,” and Ned seemed to be getting ready
for an argument, as he often did in some of the college debates. “Now
for point number one. Do you remember, Dad, and you, too, Mr. Baker,
how we made out that time we took the trip on the Atlantic in our motor
boat? You didn’t think, then, that we’d get what we went after; but we
did.”

“Yes, you did,” admitted Mr. Baker, slowly.

“And after that,” went on Ned, like an attorney following up an
argument in court, “we made an airship. You said, Dad, you didn’t
believe it would go up; but it did.”

“Yes, and we got the fortune in it, too!” added Bob, who had remained
silent as long as was possible for him.

“That’s right!” exclaimed Mr. Baker. “The boys certainly turned the
trick that time.”

“And then,” went on Ned, relentlessly, “do you recall how we patrolled
the border for Uncle Sam, and caught the Canadian smugglers, when
nobody else could get a line on them?”

Mr. Slade scratched his head reflectively.

“Well, I do give you credit for that,” he said. “I never thought you’d
do it. But----”

“Well, if we caught those smugglers in the air where there wasn’t much
of a trail to follow, why can’t we get after the cattle rustlers?”
demanded Ned. “This ought to be a whole lot easier.”

“He’s got you there!” laughed Mr. Baker.

The tide seemed to be turning in favor of the boys.

“Just what is it you propose to do?” asked Mr. Slade at length. This
much was a concession.

“Go out there, size up the situation, find out what the facts are and
then--_act_,” was Ned’s prompt answer.

“Hum!” said Mr. Slade, musingly. “I admit, Ned, to be perfectly fair,
that you boys have certainly done well in the past. But this is a new
proposition. You’ve got to deal with cunning and unscrupulous men.”

“It won’t be the first time,” observed Ned. “Look at the trouble we had
with our Western mine. It isn’t as though we didn’t know something of
men and their ways, Dad, and of the West.”

“No, that’s so. You have been out there. Oh! I don’t know. What do you
say, Baker?” and Mr. Slade turned suddenly to his friend.

“I leave it all to you, Slade. You’re more interested than I am. As
far as Bob is concerned, if you want to let the lads try their hand, I
won’t stand in his way. The more experience he gets the better off in
after life--if he takes care of himself.”

“Trying to put the whole burden on me,” said Mr. Slade with a laugh. “I
don’t know whether I told you or not,” he went on to his son, “but Mr.
Baker has some money invested in this ranch. So he is losing, as well
as I, when the cattle rustlers are active.”

“Then let us go out there and stop ’em!” cried Ned. “I’m sure we can do
it. You’d go, wouldn’t you, Jerry?”

“Well, I’d like to make the attempt,” said the tall lad quietly,
“though I don’t know that we can guarantee results.”

“But we’ll make a big effort!” exclaimed Ned. “Come on, Dad, be nice
and say we may go.”

Once more Mr. Slade seemed to be thinking seriously. Then he slowly
said:

“All right. As long as friend Baker is willing I’ll give in, though
I have a sort of feeling it won’t amount to anything--your going out
there.”

“Just you wait and see!” laughed Ned. “We’ll show results before you
know it. Say, fellows, this is great! And I have another idea.”

“He’s full of ’em to-day,” commented Jerry, smiling.

“We’ll make the trip in our big car,” went on Ned, not noticing the
interruption. “We’ve gone on long tours in it before, and it’s a lot
more fun than riding in stuffy trains. We’ll take the auto, and send
our airship on ahead of us, to be ready when we get there.”

“Better reverse the process,” suggested Mr. Slade. “If this business
is going to be done by you boys, the sooner the better. The longer you
wait the more of my cattle will be stolen. Better go on out in your
airship, and use your auto when you arrive at Square Z ranch. I don’t
believe I can afford the time to have you make the trip in your big
car. It would take three weeks at least.”

“All right, we’ll take the airship,” conceded Ned. He and his chums
would have agreed to walk to the ranch for the exciting pleasure they
expected to have after they arrived. “We’re in just as much of a hurry
as you, Dad, to get at the bottom of this mystery.”

“Well, then,” went on Mr. Slade, “I’ll wire Watson you’re coming, and
give you a letter of introduction to him. And now one last thing. This
is strictly business! I’m letting you go a little against my better
judgment, but maybe you’ll produce results. But, remember, business
before pleasure, though if you can get any fun out of the trip, why,
have it. Only take care of yourselves. Now you had better get your
affairs in shape. You’ll soon be through at Boxwood, you say?”

“Yes, we could start West to-morrow if we had to, Dad,” replied Ned.

“Oh, I don’t know that there’s any such rush as that. But the sooner
the better. Now we’ll try to be as comfortable here as we can. Run over
this evening if you get time. Ouch! but my leg hurts!”

“How did the accident happen?” asked Jerry, as he and his chums
prepared to leave for Boxwood Hall.

“Oh, I was driving the car, and I made too sharp a turn in my hurry, I
suppose. The first I knew the machine had left the road and was rolling
down the hill. We were tossed out and did some separate rolling on our
own account, which, probably, saved our lives.”

The chums left, promising to return in the evening, and as the door
closed on them Mr. Slade rang for the bell-boy and requested a
telegraph blank.

“Going to wire Watson?” asked Mr. Baker.

“No, I’m going to wire Peck.”

“You mean the New York detective?”

“Yes. I think I’ll engage him.”

“But I thought you said you were going to let the boys try to solve the
mystery. I was going to ask you, now that they are gone, if you think
it wise. But----”

“Oh, well, I’m going to let them _try_,” said Mr. Slade with a smile.
“At the same time I think it’s a good thing to have two strings to your
bow. I’ll send the detective on after the boys to sort of watch over
them, and he’ll be there on the ground in case they fail. But don’t
tell the boys.”

“I won’t,” promised Mr. Baker with a smile, as the bell-boy took the
dispatch Mr. Slade had written.

       *       *       *       *       *

Out on the Boxwood campus bright fires gleamed. Around them circled
chanting students casting into the flames various articles, from books,
the study of which had ceased, to broken baseball bats, torn gloves and
other tokens. The silence of the darkness was broken by more or less
weird chants.

It was the closing of the term at Boxwood Hall and the time-honored
observance of it was in full swing. It was several days after the
accident to Mr. Slade and Mr. Baker. The latter was able to be out, and
Mr. Slade had the promise that by the middle of the following week he
could walk around on crutches.

Meanwhile, messages had gone to and come from Square Z ranch. The boys
had started their preparations and then had entered with zest into the
fun of the last days at Boxwood.

“Where are you fellows going to spend your vacation?” asked Tom Bacon
of the three inseparables. “I’m getting up a yachting party, and I’d
like first rate to have you join.”

“Sorry; but we’re going on a Western trip in our big aeroplane,” said
Jerry.

“Hum! That sounds good. Well, some other time then. Look! There goes
Prexy for the final,” and he pointed to the figure of Dr. Anderson
Cole, head of Boxwood, who, as was the custom, came out to the senior
fire to deliver the ancient Greek ode composed in honor of the
departing class.

“Mustn’t miss that!” cried Ned, as he, Bob and Jerry started to run
toward the biggest blaze. All the other lads paid final tribute to the
graduates in this form.

Jerry felt someone tugging at his coat, and, glancing behind him,
beheld Professor Snodgrass.

“Oh!” cried Jerry. “I beg your pardon,” though he did not know just why
he should say that. “You’re out late, aren’t you?”

“No, Jerry. You see the bright fires attract so many moths and other
insects, that I am making a fine collection. I have all my boxes full,
and would you mind letting me take your cap to keep this big fellow
in,” and he showed his half-closed hand in which something fluttered.

“Sure! take it and welcome,” said Jerry, snatching the cap off. “And
say, Professor,” he called back, as he sped away, “we’re going on
another Western trip. Maybe you’d like to go along.” But he did not
stay to hear the answer.

There was more news awaiting the boys when they went to the hotel that
night after the closing scenes at Boxwood Hall.

“I guess, after all, you needn’t be in such a rush to get out to Square
Z ranch,” said Mr. Slade, as he read over again a telegram that had
recently been received.

“Why not?” asked Ned. “Don’t tell me all your cattle have been run off
by the rustlers and there aren’t any left!”

“No, it isn’t as bad as that,” replied his father. “But the gang made
a raid on a place not far from mine, and they were caught--at least
some were. So Watson thinks there won’t be much more stealing done at
our ranch, at least for a time. The rustlers will keep under cover, I
fancy. So if you boys still want to go----”

“Want to go!” cried Ned. “Of _course_ we want to go. We’ve made all our
plans.”

“Well, you needn’t be in such a hurry,” went on his father. “You don’t
need to take your airship. That is, I mean you won’t have to travel
in it. Use the big car as you originally intended, and forward the
aeroplane if you like.”

“That will be fine!” cried Jerry. “Not that going in the airship
wouldn’t be sport, but we can enjoy it more if we don’t have to hurry.
Then we’ll just reverse our plans, and make an auto tour of it. I
believe we can do it inside of three weeks, though it may take a little
longer.”




CHAPTER VI

OFF FOR THE WEST


“Well, everything seems to be in pretty good shape.”

“It surely does,” agreed Jerry to Ned’s observation.

“Except I don’t understand what contraption this is,” and Ned kicked
a box that an expressman had just delivered at the Slade homestead in
Cresville. “Must be something pretty particular that Bob sent, for he’s
marked it ‘_Don’t open until I get there_.’”

“Something to eat, I’ll wager,” declared Jerry. “He’s getting worse
instead of better. Where’d he go, anyhow?”

“Why, we needed that spare part of the carburetor and he said he’d go
to town for it.”

“That’s right. Well, it’s time he was back. Oh, here he comes now,” and
Jerry pointed down the road, along which a motorcycle was approaching
speedily.

“Come on, Chunky. Open it up and pass out the good things!” cried Ned
as his stout chum approached, leaving the motorcycle at the side of
the garage in front of which Ned and Jerry had been talking.

“Open what up?” demanded Chunky.

“This box of cracker dust, or whatever it is,” and Ned kicked the
express package.

“Cracker dust nothing! That’s----”

“Something to eat, of course,” finished Jerry.

“That’s where you get left!” laughed Bob. “Here’s the spare carburetor
part. Stick it some place where you won’t forget. I had trouble enough
getting it--had to go to four places.”

“Well, the exercise will do you good. But we’re hungry, and we don’t
mind admitting it, Chunky, though the failing is more yours than ours.
However, be that as it may----”

“Oh, you want me to open that,” and Bob smiled at his chums. “Well,
here goes.”

With a hammer he attacked the box, while Ned and Jerry sat on chairs on
the shady side of the automobile shed and looked on.

“Just a little roast turkey, with dressing on the side, and a stalk of
celery for mine,” suggested Jerry.

“Too much like Thanksgiving,” commented Ned. “I’ll have lobster salad
with plenty of mayonnaise and peppers.”

“All to the bill of fare,” was Bob’s murmured response. “There!” and
he took off the last board. “How’s that?”

To the disappointed eyes of Jerry and Ned was revealed a small
refrigerator of a new style, made especially for automobiles. It was
new and--absolutely empty.

Ned and Jerry swallowed hard. They were really hungry, for they had
worked all morning going over the big touring car, not even stopping
for a full meal at noon, as Mrs. Slade was away and there was no one to
insist that they should do so.

“Pretty nifty, eh? What?” asked Bob, looking up at his chums.

“Well, it’s all right in the abstract,” assented Jerry, “but in the
concrete it’s a flat failure. We were looking for something good.”

“This is one of the best auto refrigerators made!” was Bob’s indignant
retort. “It uses little ice, and has a net low temperature of forty
degrees on the hottest days. It will keep uncooked meat----”

“It wouldn’t keep a ham sandwich two seconds--not if I saw it first!”
broke in Ned. “Come on, Jerry! If this advance agent for a patent
fireless cooker wants to demonstrate the merits of his gas tank let him
do it. I’m going on a tour of discovery along the route of the kitchen
and the pantry. Come on!”

Bob took off the last of the papers from the miniature refrigerator,
looked at it, then at his disappearing chums, and called:

“Hold on! I’m coming!”

“I thought he would,” chuckled Ned.

The boys had been home from Boxwood Hall about a week. Mr. Slade had
been able to travel back to Cresville with Mr. Baker, and the two had
taken up their business matters again.

Preparations for the boys’ trip West went on apace, and word had
come from Dick Watson, foreman of the Square Z ranch, that those who
were about to solve the cattle mystery should lose as little time as
possible since another theft, this time a small bunch of steers, had
occurred.

“We’ll make good time when we get started,” Ned declared.

They were to go in the big touring car in which they had made several
extended trips. It was really a sort of traveling hotel, for it
contained about double the room of an ordinary car, being of extra
length. Storm proof curtains could be let down to the ground at the
rear, and in this enclosed space cots could be set up, and cooking done
on a solidified-alcohol stove of extra size. So that if the travelers
found themselves at night far from a habitation they could be almost as
comfortable as though in a hotel.

This car was now in shape for the long trip to Wyoming. When Jerry
advised Bob to look at the map he meant that they would take from
Boston a route to Square Z ranch that would not carry them near
Arizona, a northern trend being followed.

They would cross the lower part of New York State, skirt through
Pennsylvania and Ohio and on, running a pretty straight course through
Nebraska into Wyoming. Square Z ranch was located in the Great
Divide Basin, at the foot of the Green Mountains on Muddy Creek and
about a hundred miles, in an air line, from the Medicine Bow Forest
Reservation, one of the government wonder-spots. The Union Pacific
Railroad ran about thirty miles from the ranch.

“But we’ll be independent of that with our auto and airship,” said Bob,
as he finished the cheese and started to eat some cold roast beef Ned
had set out for his chums.

The boys had completed arrangements to take one of their air craft. It
was not the big, combined dirigible balloon and aeroplane, in which
they had had some wonderful adventures, but a biplane which could carry
four comfortably, and five when necessary.

This craft would be shipped to Bodley, the nearest railroad station,
and there put together by the boys, who felt they would find good use
for it over the Western plains.

“And I have a notion,” commented Ned, as they finished the lunch and
prepared to resume work on the big automobile, “that the airship will
be just what we need to discover the cattle thieves. We can circulate
in the clouds and spy down on them when they drive off bunches of dad’s
choice steers.”

“It sounds well,” remarked Bob. “What I’m counting on is having some
choice steaks roasted over an open fire.”

“It’s a habit with him,” sighed Jerry. “He’ll never get over it.”

“Doesn’t seem so,” agreed Ned.

“Oh, well, it might be worse,” and Bob grinned at his chums. “We might
not have anything to eat. I ought to be anxious!”

“Let’s get busy,” suggested Jerry. “We’re losing time. This isn’t
exactly a fishing excursion. If the thieves keep on running off bunches
of cattle, Ned, your father won’t have any ranch left for us to hike
to. Come on!”

Another day saw the preparations completed. The big touring automobile
had been put in shape for the long trip. New tires had been put on,
and spare ones stowed away. An extra gasoline tank had been slung
underneath. The bedding had been provided and Bob’s refrigerator, with
a supply of ice that was guaranteed (in the advertisements) to last
twice as long as congealed water in any other place, had been given a
nook all by itself. To the stocking of the miniature cold storage plant
Bob devoted much of his time. But his chums let him have his way.

The airship had been packed and started on its journey there to await
the arrival of the boys. The big car was run out of the garage and the
chums, looking keenly over every part, had assured themselves that it
was never in better trim.

“But I guess he isn’t coming,” said Jerry, as he playfully lifted
his mother off her feet and set her down again at her semi-indignant
protest.

“Who?” asked Bob, who had given a final look at his patent refrigerator.

“Professor Snodgrass,” was the answer. “You know I invited him to
make the trip with us, and he seemed delighted, as he said there were
several new varieties of Wyoming bugs he wanted to gather. He promised
to be here, but he hasn’t showed up and----”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to go without him,” remarked Mrs. Slade. “Your
father is anxious to have you start, Ned, for he really thinks you may
accomplish something. And he is so fussy since his accident, I think
you had better go.”

“Of course we’ll deliver the goods!” cried Ned, breezily, if a bit
slangily. “And dad’s right. We’ve got to get started. I suppose the
professor may be circulating around the suburbs of Boston, trying to
make a date with a new kind of mosquito. If he comes, tell him to take
a train out to the ranch and we’ll see him there. Now it’s--all aboard!”

The respective parents and some friends had gathered at the Slade home
to witness the start. And after a last look at everything to make sure
that nothing was lacking, the boys kissed their mothers, shook hands
with their fathers and friends, and, with Jerry at the wheel, the big
car slowly gathered way.

“And whatever you do,” called Mrs. Hopkins after them, “don’t sleep in
damp clothes.”

“We’ll dry ’em out in Bob’s refrigerator!” shouted back her son, with a
laugh.

And then, amid farewells from the crowd on the Slade lawn, the Motor
Boys started away.

“Ho for the West!” cried Bob, swallowing the last of a bit of chocolate
he had munched so he would not get hungry. “The West and the cattle
mystery!”




CHAPTER VII

THE STOWAWAY


“Like old times, isn’t it?” suggested Ned, who sat beside Jerry.

“It sure is,” agreed the tall lad. “After all, in spite of the fact
that we’ve had some cracking good times in our motor boat, and in the
airship above the clouds, there’s nothing like a good car for a change.
She has great pulling power,” he added, nodding toward the hood of the
automobile, where the powerful engine was chugging away. “Watch her
take this hill on high,” he went on.

“She’ll never do it,” Ned retorted.

“Watch,” said Jerry, and he steered the machine up an incline on the
main highway that led out of Cresville.

“She’s doing it!” commented Bob, who was in a rear seat.

“I take my hat off to you, Jerry,” admitted Ned, as the crest of the
hill was reached. “You certainly know how to work her.”

“It’s all in the motor,” said the tall lad. “Having her gone over, and
the valves reground, was just what she needed.”

“Well, we’ll need all the power we can crowd into her before we get
to the end of this trip,” declared Bob. “We’ve never made such a long
journey in this big car before.”

“That’s right,” assented Jerry. “But she’ll do it. And say, maybe we
won’t have good times when we get out to the ranch! Your father says
there are big level stretches of country there, Ned, just the place for
starting and landing our airship.”

“Fine!” cried Ned. “We’ll whoop things up when we get out among the
cowboys.”

“They may whoop things up for us,” commented Jerry.

“What do you mean?” asked Bob.

“Oh, nothing, only you know they may class us as tenderfeet, and start
to put a few tricks over on us.”

“I’d like to see ’em try it!” blustered the stout lad. “This isn’t our
first trip West.”

“No, but they don’t know that,” laughed Jerry. “However, there’s no use
crossing a bird in the hand until the well runs dry,” and with this
misquoting of proverbs the tall steersman gave his attention to the
business before him, which, at that particular moment, consisted in
passing a heavily-laden truck at a narrow place in the road.

“Watch your step,” warned Ned.

Jerry nodded his head, but did not answer.

“Better give him a blast, hadn’t you?” suggested Bob. “He’s one of
those road hogs, I guess, and there’s a bad dip on the side where we
have to pass. Give him a toot.”

Jerry stretched his hand out and pressed the button of the electric
horn. Its screeching tone filled the air but the driver of the big
auto-truck ahead gave no sign of heeding. His machine chugged on its
way.

“He isn’t going to give over,” said Ned in a low voice.

“Guess I’ll have to brush by,” came from the tall lad. “Hold fast
everybody!”

With that Jerry pressed down on the accelerator pedal. There was a
throbbing burst of speed as the motor took the increased flow of gas.
Then Jerry opened the muffler and a sound ensued that was like a small
Gatling gun in action. At the same instant, with a great burst of
speed, the big car fairly shot past the offending truck, Jerry with
steady eyes and hands guiding her neatly. There was, indeed, but barely
room to pass, and it was such a close shave that there was but a bare
six inches between the left wheels of the boys’ machine and the edge of
the road which, at this point fell away in a sharp decline.

But Jerry did it, and as he passed the truck the rear luggage carrier
on the touring car brushed the mud guards of the other vehicle. At the
same instant Jerry gave a screech on the electric horn, and he and his
chums as they rushed past gave a wild yell.

They had a glance of the startled face of the driver who must have
thought a runaway locomotive had nearly run him down, for he swerved
over to the right so suddenly that his wheels skidded and he had to jam
on the brakes to avoid danger.

“Serves him right!” commented Ned. “Next time he’ll use only his half
of the road. Good work, Jerry.”

The tall lad nodded grimly and then slowed down the pace. The boys were
well out of Cresville now.

“Are we going to stop anywhere?” asked Bob, after a period of talk and
speculation on what would happen when they reached the ranch.

“For what?” asked Ned. “Of course we’ve got to stop some time, but
we’ve just got started.”

“I guess he means stop to eat,” chuckled Jerry.

“Huh! That’s where you’re away off!” laughed the stout lad. “We don’t
need to stop to eat. I’ve got the little refrigerator well filled and
there’s lots of other stuff, too. We can keep right on going and eat as
we go. I’ll hand you fellows out something now if you want it,” he went
on, and there was a trace of eagerness in his voice.

“That’s one thought for us and two for himself!” chuckled Jerry. “I
guess he’s hungry again, though how he manages always to keep up an
appetite gets me. His system would be worth a fortune to a doctor
that had to give his patients a tonic to make them eat. Give us the
combination, Bob!”

“I’ll give you a sandwich,” was the retort, and the fleshy youth began
delving around in the rear of the car--that portion given over to the
stowage of cots and other necessaries used when they camped out for the
night.

“Hum! This is funny!” exclaimed Bob a moment later.

“What is?” Ned queried.

“Why, I put a package of sandwiches--some chicken ones mother made--and
some of her dandy cookies back here just before we started, but I can’t
find it now. You fellows haven’t been grubbing in here, have you?” he
asked.

“Nary a grub,” declared Jerry. “Guess you ate ’em yourself, Bob, and
forgot about it.”

“I did not! But I’ll take another look and--double-jointed mud
turtles!” he cried a second later, while he tumbled backward into the
rear seat he had left to delve in the after-part of the car.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Ned and Jerry, together.

“Something--or somebody’s--back there!” Bob sputtered.

“Somebody?” repeated Jerry.

“Back where?” Ned questioned.

“Back in there among the bunks,” was the answer. “I--I put my hand on a
face.”

“A face!” cried Jerry. “What in the world is he talking about? Did that
chocolate go to your head, Bob?”

“It was a face!” insisted the stout lad. “I--I felt the nose and--and
spectacles. It was warm and soft and--and----”

At that moment there was a movement in the rear of the car, in
the space behind the seats. Something--or somebody to be more
correct--arose and started forward. The boys had a glimpse of a
face--the face with a nose as Bob had described it.

And then, as Jerry brought the car to a sudden stop, with an
application of the screeching brakes, the boys, looking back, cried in
unison:

“Professor Snodgrass!”

“At your service!” beamed the little scientist as he yawned and rubbed
his eyes. “I must have fallen asleep,” he added, casually.

“Fallen asleep!” repeated Jerry, wonderingly.

“Where did you come from?” asked Bob.

“And how did you get there?” Ned cried.

“Well, I believe an explanation is due you,” said the professor in his
gentle, classroom voice. “You remember inviting me to go with you on
this trip, I suppose?” he continued, and it was exactly as though he
was about to explain something difficult in a scientific way.

“Sure, I asked you to come with us,” admitted Jerry. “And when you
didn’t show up we left word for you to follow us to Wyoming. But we’re
glad you’re with us now. Only----”

“No doubt my presence here is puzzling,” went on the bald-headed
collector of bugs. “But this morning, when I awakened, I had a very
severe headache. I sometimes get them when I mix the chemicals with
which I preserve my specimens. I have a headache remedy I use on such
occasions, but I must have taken a little too much this time, for when
I reached here I felt so weak and faint that I was not able to go into
your house.

“Then, too, I did not want to alarm your good mother, Ned. So, as I
saw the auto here, and knew from past experience that there were cots
in it, I thought it would be a good plan to go in and lie down until I
felt better.

“I did so. The medicine stopped my headache, but it evidently threw me
into a heavy sleep, for I did not realize anything until just now when
I felt something fluttering over my face. I fancied it was a moth I was
trying to catch.”

“That was me, feeling around for the sandwiches,” explained Bob, with
a laugh. “I touched your face and it startled me.”

“Oh, sandwiches!” exclaimed the professor understandingly. “Some sort
of package fell to the floor of the car when I stretched out here.
I was too tired to see what it was. Perhaps that was what you were
looking for.”

It proved to be, and the boys and the professor were soon eating
sociably together, while Bob suggested that if the sandwiches were not
sufficient there was a hotel a short distance ahead where they could
stop.

“The professor might want to get something else for his headache,”
suggested the stout lad.

“Oh, no, thank you. It is quite cured I am glad to say,” remarked the
scientist.

“That fact won’t prevent Bob from wanting to stop at the hotel,”
laughed Jerry, and it did not. In fact, the sandwiches were none too
satisfying for the hungry youths, and even Jerry admitted that the
prospect of a hotel meal was not displeasing. So they stopped, much to
Bob’s delight.




CHAPTER VIII

A BREAKDOWN


During the meal at the hotel, Professor Snodgrass gave further details
of how he had happened to become a stowaway in the big car. He had
finished his work at Boxwood Hall and had made his plans to go on the
trip with the boys. He had spent the night at the hotel in Cresville,
for he had arrived there late, and he said he did not want to go to the
Slade home and disturb their domestic arrangements.

But instead of going to bed in the hotel he sat up all night, as he
had often done before, preserving his specimens and looking for signs
of the rare moth he wanted to add to his collection. Then he went on
to Ned’s home in the morning, unconventionally getting into one of the
automobile bunks where he fell asleep from the effects of the headache
remedy, as described.

“Well, guess we might as well get under way again,” remarked Jerry,
at the conclusion of the meal. “Hoist up the anchor, Ned, and I think
you’d better take the helm. I want a rest.”

“All right, Cap. Where’s Bob?” Ned asked, for the stout lad was not in
sight. He came into the dining-room a moment later, carrying a bulky
package, and there was a guilty look on his face as he saw his chums
looking at it.

“Well, for the love of butter and eggs!” cried Jerry. “What have you
there, Son?”

“This is bait for white-tailed night moths,” Bob answered, grinning. “I
got some from the chef to use in the traps the professor is going to
set.”

“He has you there, Jerry!” laughed Ned. “Go to it, Bob! I’ll help eat
’em.”

They found Professor Snodgrass eagerly looking along the shady side of
the hotel, a large magnifying glass in his hand, and behind him stood a
group of men observing him with puzzled eyes.

“I was looking for a small, rare bug, green in color, that I saw
crawling on the side of the hotel,” the professor explained. “I have
only one in my collection, and if anything should happen to that I
would be at a great loss. I saw it crawling here a while ago, but it
must have gone down a crack. However, I won’t delay you boys, though I
should very much like to have that bug.”

“Is this it?” asked one of the observers, making a sudden grab for
something in the air. He brought what he had caught to the professor,
and the latter’s eager glance gave way to disappointment when he saw a
green grasshopper fly from the opened hand.

“Oh, pshaw!” cried the man. “He’s gone!”

“It wasn’t what I wanted,” returned the professor with a smile. “Thank
you, though. I shall have to try again some other time. Now, boys, I’m
ready to go on with you.”

The rest of that day passed uneventfully. Good time was made and when
evening approached the boys and the professor had put about two hundred
miles between themselves and Cresville, and were that much nearer
Square Z ranch.

“What’s it going to be--camp out or sleep in a hotel?” asked Ned, who
had remained at the wheel since dinner time. “That sign we passed a
while ago said there was a hotel about five miles further on.”

“Let’s camp out,” suggested Bob. “It’s nice and warm, and this looks to
be a good place,” and he indicated a little group of trees across some
green fields that bordered the wood. “We could run the car up in there
and be well out of the way.”

“I’m willing,” assented Jerry.

“Then we’ll go to it,” declared Ned. “Let’s see if we can get across
the fields safely.”

They stopped the car and walked on a little way. They came to what was
evidently a wagon road leading to the woods, and, after taking down
the bars of the rail fence, the automobile was driven to the edge of
the little patch of woods, being left for the night in a small clearing.

“And now for an old-fashioned camping-out time!” cried Bob, as he
leaped from his seat. “We’ll have a fire and everything. I brought a
couple of dressed chickens along, and we can broil them over the coals
and----”

“Chunky, you’re a lad after my own heart!” cried Jerry. “Forgive all
the fun we’ve poked at you.”

“Same here,” echoed Ned.

“Sure!” agreed Bob, good-naturedly. “Now for the fire!”

“I’ll get the wood,” offered Jerry, “and we’ll let you broil the
chickens. You can make a better job of it than either Ned or I.”

“Well, I’ll do my best,” and Bob seemed modestly proud of the honor
thrust upon him.

“I don’t fancy standing over a bed of coals turning a broiler,”
whispered Jerry to Ned as the two set about collecting dry wood. “Let
Bob do it.”

“Sure, he’s tickled to pieces,” and Ned chuckled.

To do Bob justice, he made good work of broiling the chickens, as even
Professor Snodgrass admitted, and he was a man who cared less about
eating than any one the boys knew.

[Illustration: HE MADE GOOD WORK OF BROILING THE CHICKENS.]

“Well, this is something like!” exclaimed Ned, as he and his chums sat
about the glowing fire after supper and talked over the events of the
day, speculating on what lay before them.

“You’ve said it!” agreed Jerry, leaning back comfortably against a tree.

The professor was wandering about with a small net and an electric
flashlight, trying to gather bugs in the early twilight.

The tent had been put in place--that is, the curtains had been extended
out at the rear and the folding cots had been set up. Two bunks were in
the automobile proper and it was agreed that Professor Snodgrass should
have one of these, the boys preferring to occupy the tent, in which
four could sleep.

“Well, I guess I’ll turn in,” announced Bob, with a sleepy yawn, when
their watches showed it was about nine o’clock. “We want to get an
early start in the morning.”

“Yes, now that dad has given us the chance to catch the cattle thieves,
we don’t want to waste too much time on the road getting to the ranch,”
agreed Ned. “No telling what may happen when we’re not there.”

The boys had been up early that morning making arrangements for the
start, and they were tired. So it did not take any of them long to drop
off to sleep once they had stretched out. Professor Snodgrass said
he would stay up a little longer on the chance of gathering some rare
night-flying insect, but as he could get to his bunk through the front
entrance of the automobile he would not disturb the boys.

Along about the middle of the night, Bob, who slept near the outer
entrance to the tent, was awakened by feeling some heavy object fall
across him, while a voice cried in his ear:

“I’ve got him!”

Only half awake the stout lad gave a yell.

“Grab ’em, boys! Grab ’em!” he shouted. “Cattle thieves! Grab ’em and
hold ’em for the sheriff!”

“For the love of porous plasters!” exclaimed Jerry, sitting on his cot.
“What is it?”

“Bob has the nightmare,” suggested Ned, disgustedly.

But as Jerry switched on the little flashlight near the head of his bed
the gleam revealed Professor Snodgrass just arising from where he had
fallen across Bob, and on the face of the little scientist was a look
of triumph.

“I’ve got him!” he cried, holding up a hand which clutched the folds of
a small net. “It’s the big white moth I’ve been after, and which I sat
up all night to get! I caught him!”

“Oh, I thought you meant you had me!” exclaimed Bob. “It’s all right.
No damage done. Guess I must have been dreaming we were out on the
ranch after the rustlers.”

“It sounded that way,” commented Jerry with a cheerful grin.

“I’m sorry I disturbed you,” apologized the professor. “I was roaming
about outside your tent when I saw this moth alight near the entrance.
I didn’t want to miss it, so I made a jump for it, and I suppose I went
right on through.”

“Like a fullback going through tackle for a touchdown,” commented Bob.
“But there’s no harm done, Professor.”

To any one else the scientist’s actions would, perhaps, have been
surprising. But the boys knew his anxiety to get a rare specimen would
cause him to do almost anything. The call of science never was unheeded
by Professor Snodgrass.

He apologized to the boys for disturbing them, but they made light of
the matter, for he was such a good friend and such jolly company in
spite of the fact that he was much older than they that they would have
done almost anything in the world for him.

Exulting over the prize he had caught, the scientist was content now to
retire, and the camp was soon quiet again.

All were up early the next morning, Ned and Jerry being awakened by the
aromatic odor of coffee and bacon. They looked out and saw Bob engaged
in the preparation of the breakfast at a fire he had kindled.

“Happy New Year!” he called to them as they stuck their heads out of
the tent. “Come on! Seven o’clock whistle blew long ago.”

Seldom had a breakfast tasted better, they all agreed, and thus well
fortified they again took up their journey.

“Looks like rain,” commented Ned at the wheel, after they had had
dinner and saw, with satisfaction, that they had made good progress.

“So it does,” agreed Jerry, with a glance at the clouds. “But it takes
more than rain to stop us. We’ll keep on.”

The automobile was well adapted for traveling through a storm, for
it could be enclosed completely. It began to drizzle shortly after
Ned’s remark, and this soon turned into a regular downpour. They were
in a comparatively untraveled section of the country, and were a bit
uncertain what road to take when they came to a fork. A man driving
a wagon came along in the midst of their indecision, however, and
answered their inquiry by saying:

“Both roads go to Falkenburg, but the right’s the shortest.”

“Then we’ll take that,” decided Ned, and once more they were under
way. But the shortest way is not always the best, and they had not
proceeded more than a mile before they ran into a stretch of sticky,
greasy clay on which the car at once began to skid.

“Better put the tire chains on,” suggested Jerry.

Ned, who was steering, hesitated. It was no pleasant undertaking in the
downpour.

“I think this bad stretch comes to an end a little farther on,” he
said. “I’ll chance it.”

“Drive slow, then,” warned Jerry.

Ned cut down his power and the car proceeded. But it skidded worse
than ever and Ned was on the point of stopping to get out and adjust
the chains when, with a suddenness that none foresaw, the big vehicle
swerved to one side as the brakes were applied and, a moment later,
the left rear wheel crashed hard against a big tree at the side of
the road. There was a sound of splintering wood and the rear of the
automobile sank down.

“Busted!” cried Jerry as he opened the side curtains.




CHAPTER IX

THE CATTLE BUYER


Dejectedly, and fearing the worst, the boys piled out of the automobile
into the pelting rain. They did not stop to put on their slickers, so
eager were they to see the extent of the damage. It was bad enough, for
the wheel was smashed and the end of the axle bent.

“That means a lay-up,” said Jerry. “We’ve got a spare wheel, but we
can’t get it on the axle until it’s straightened. Bur-r-r-r! This is
some rain!”

“Guess this is up to me, fellows,” gloomily remarked Ned. “I should
have put on the chains at the start.”

“Oh, well, it couldn’t be helped,” said Jerry.

“It was the fault of that fellow who told us to take this road,” Bob
said. “If we’d taken the other we’d be going yet.”

“Oh, you can’t tell by that,” came from Jerry. “The other road might be
worse in this storm. Let’s get inside out of the wet and talk it over.
We’ve got to do something.”

“Better jack up the car to take the strain off the other end of the
axle,” suggested Bob.

As they crawled back into the car again Professor Snodgrass, who
was snugly ensconced in the rear, reading a book by the light of
the electric lamp, looked over the tops of his spectacles and
absent-mindedly asked:

“Have we stopped?”

“Didn’t you feel it?” asked Jerry in some surprise.

“Why, I felt a jar, a while ago, but I paid no attention to it. I
forgot it immediately. You see, I was so engrossed in this book on
frogs’ legs that----”

“Does it tell new ways to cook ’em?” asked Bob, eagerly.

“Cook what?” the professor questioned.

“Frogs’ legs,” went on Bob. “They’re great fried in butter, but if
there’s another way----”

“This is a book about the actions of frogs’ legs under the impulses of
an electrical current,” replied the professor rebukingly. “I never eat
such things.”

Leaving the professor to continue his reading, only half aware of what
had happened, the boys set about making the best of a bad situation.

Attired in garments that defied the rain, which was coming down hard,
they jacked up the fallen end of the car and removed the broken wheel.
It had been badly smashed by the impact against the tree, but as they
had a spare one this feature was not the worst. The axle was bent, and
until it was either straightened or a new half inserted, they could not
run. The rear axles of automobiles are in two parts, the differentials
joining them, so to speak, for as each rear wheel must run independent
of the other, to allow for different speeds when rounding corners, so
the axles go at different rates.

“This is a job for a garage, if we can find one,” observed Jerry, as
he contemplated the bent axle. “We’ll have to stay here all night, I
reckon, and somebody will have to go on a scouting expedition.”

“I’ll go!” quickly volunteered Ned. “It’s up to me, anyhow.”

“I’ll go along,” said Bob. “I want the exercise.”

“To get up an appetite,” suggested Jerry with a laugh. “Well, go on,
and I’ll get the place in shape for a night’s sleep. Tell the garage
man what the trouble is, Ned, and maybe he can bring out a spare axle
in the morning and fix us up.”

“I’ll try,” promised Ned; and he and Bob soon splashed off through the
rain down the muddy road.

Jerry busied himself with arranging the curtains and getting the cots
in position for a night’s stay in the open. The location of the car
was not the most favorable or comfortable, for it was to one side
of the road, tilted at an angle and jammed against a big oak tree.
However, the last fact was rather an advantage, since the dense foliage
furnished some shelter from the rain.

The ground was water-soaked though, and Jerry was contemplating this
when he saw coming along the road a big auto-truck.

The machine stopped when opposite the stalled automobile, and the
driver, leaning out from under his canopy, enquired kindly:

“Can I give you a tow?”

“Thanks, I’m afraid not,” answered Jerry. “One axle is bent, and we’ll
have to tie up here. If you had a board floor for our auxiliary tent
I’d buy that of you.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t got such a thing on board,” was the laughing
answer. “But how would a bale of hay do? I’ll sell you one if you like,
and you can scatter that on the damp ground the way they do straw at a
circus when it rains.”

“Fine!” cried Jerry. “What is your craft, anyhow, a traveling farm?”

“No, but I happen to have a load of feed and grain on, and there is an
extra bale of hay. I’ll tumble it off for you.”

He did so after naming the price, and when the wires had been cut
Jerry, with the professor’s help, spread out on the damp ground
several layers of the dry hay. It was almost as good as a board floor.

“That’s great!” Jerry said as he paid the man. “If you happen to see
two fellows splashing along through the mud, looking for a garage,” he
added, describing Ned and Bob, “you might give them a lift.”

“I will,” agreed the driver. “I’ll take them to the nearest repair
shop, too.”

He was as good as his word, and about an hour later Jerry heard the
chugging of an automobile. In it, returning with the garage men, were
the two scouts who told of having been picked up on the road and taken
into town.

“I thought I’d take a run out to see what the damage looked like before
I started on the repairs in the morning,” said the garage man who had
brought Ned and Bob back with him. “Yes, I guess I can fix you up all
right,” he said as he finished his inspection. “I’ll have you under way
again by ten o’clock.”

This was good news, and the boys, when the portable stove was going and
they were gathered about it eating supper, felt their spirits raised
several degrees. True, they did not relish the delay, but they would
not lose many hours, and they did not intend to do much night driving
anyhow.

The weather cleared with the rising sun and with it came the repair
gang who did good work in putting in the new axle. Then, having wired
for another spare wheel to be awaiting them on their arrival in the
next large city, the travelers were once more on their way. But as the
clay road was in bad shape, they went back to the dividing fork and
took the longer route, which they found safer.

This accident seemed to be the end of the boys’ bad luck, at least for
a time. For from then on they struck good roads and the weather was all
that could be desired. They even made three night drives with a full
moon to show them a safe way, and so they were a little ahead of their
schedule when they reached Des Moines.

There they found awaiting them letters from home, since they had
arranged to get them at this stopping place in Iowa. They planned to
stay here one day to enable their automobile to be gone over thoroughly
by a garage man. They also needed to get some supplies.

“Well, so far so good,” remarked Jerry, when they had left their car to
be inspected and were on their way to the hotel.

“Yes, we’re over half there,” commented Ned, “and only one accident
worth mentioning.”

“Knock wood,” advised Bob. “We’ve got a long way to go yet.”

The boys had been in Des Moines before, but it was a new place for
Professor Snodgrass. He rather bewailed the fact that such bugs and
insects as he caught glimpses of were so common that they were not
worth collecting. But when, after registering at the hotel with the
boys he saw on the book the name of a fellow scientist he was happy.

“I shall not lack for occupation now,” he said beamingly. “I want to
have a talk with Professor Bowden, a long talk. He has written the only
authoritative book in existence on the markings of horned toads and it
will be a great pleasure for me to compare notes with him, for I have
made some observations of those creatures myself.”

This was true enough, for the professor on his trip to Mexico had had
excellent chances to note the habits of these curious reptiles, which
look much fiercer and more dangerous than they really are, for in spite
of their horny spines they may be picked up and handled without danger.
Though called “toads,” they are really a form of lizard.

“Well, that disposes of the professor,” observed Jerry. “Only we
mustn’t forget him when we start off again. He’s likely to stay up all
night talking bugology. And now for a little recreation. Let’s go to
the movies.”

They passed an enjoyable afternoon, and were sitting in the hotel
lobby, waiting for the supper hour, when a flashily-attired man, with
a big diamond in his scarf and another on his left hand, dropped into a
chair beside Jerry and remarked:

“Strangers in town?”

“Well, not exactly,” was the answer, Jerry not altogether relishing the
appearance of the man. “We’ve been here once or twice before.”

“That’s what I thought. You didn’t look like greenies. I’m not
altogether a stranger here though I don’t know many folks. Cattle
buying is my business. I’m on my way farther west. Just stopped off
here to do a little business. Like to have a game of cards?”

“We don’t play,” and Jerry’s suspicions began to rise.

“Oh, well, no offense. Lots of good people play and lots of good ones
don’t. How about billiards?”

“Not now, thank you,” was the answer. “I guess it’s about time to eat,
anyhow.”

“Well, see you after supper,” said the bediamonded man, not a bit
abashed by his cool reception. “No use being lonesome,” and he strolled
over to the cigar counter as the boys got up.

“Who is he?” asked Bob.

“You know as well as I do,” was Jerry’s answer. “He said he was a
cattle buyer.”

Jerry said this as he was passing the hotel clerk’s desk. The man made
a motion as though he wanted to speak to Jerry, and when the latter
leaned forward the clerk said:

“Don’t get into any games with that man. I don’t know him, though I’ve
seen him around here the last few days. I think he’s a professional
sport and gambler.”

“He’s dressed the part,” answered Jerry. “Thanks for the tip. We’ll
steer clear of him.”

As Jerry and his chums turned to go into the dining-room they heard the
man who had tried to scrape an acquaintance with them talking in loud
tones to someone near the cigar counter.

“Yes, cattle buying is my business,” he was saying, “though I have a
couple of side lines. I’m on my way now to a place in Wyoming where I
expect to do a good trade.”

“Wyoming!” was the reply of the other. “I’m from there. What ranch did
you say yours was?”

“I didn’t say, but I expect to buy some cattle from the Square Z
outfit.”

Jerry, Ned and Bob stood still in surprise.




CHAPTER X

A MIDNIGHT ALARM


“Did you hear that?” asked Ned in a whisper of his two chums.

“Sure,” nodded Jerry.

“What about it?” Bob said. “Hasn’t he got a right to buy cattle where
he pleases?”

“Yes, but that’s dad’s ranch--his and your father’s,” went on Ned in
low tones. “Maybe this man knows something about the stealing of the
stock.”

“Well, don’t go up and ask him if he does,” returned Jerry, quickly,
for Ned evinced a desire to approach the stranger.

“Huh! Think I’m as rash as that? But don’t you call it queer?”

“Hum! Well, maybe,” said Jerry, slowly. He was not prompt to jump at
conclusions.

“But can’t we do something?” Ned demanded. “Wouldn’t it be great if we
got on the track of the thieves as easily as this?”

“It would be, only it’s too good to be true,” said Jerry. “But wait a
bit. As long as he’s talking as loudly as he is no one can call it
impolite if we stand here and listen. Just see if we need any of these
railway time-tables,” and he directed the attention of his chums to
a rack of folders near the hotel desk. Taking out some of them, and
pretending to look them over, gave a good excuse for lingering within
hearing distance of the flashily dressed man who had announced he was a
cattle buyer.

“So you’re going to get some of the Square Z stock; eh?” asked the man
to whom the bediamonded one had spoken. “I do a little in that way
myself, but the Square Z prices are too high for me. I can do better in
other markets.”

“Too high! I don’t call what I pay too high!” boasted the speaker and
he named a price “on the hoof” at which the other man exclaimed:

“Is that all you’re paying?”

“That’s all. I tell you it takes little ol’ Sid Munson to get the best
of a deal!” and he patted his inflated chest in satisfaction.

“Munson, eh?” mused the other. “So that’s your name. I haven’t heard
of you in the cattle business before. My name’s Johnson--Ed Johnson,
and I’m from Omaha. But I want to tell you one thing, Mr. Munson, and I
say it in all friendliness. If you’re only paying that much for cattle
there’s something crooked somewhere.”

“Something crooked? What do you mean?” and the voice of Mr. Munson
expressed an amazement as great as was the surprise of the boys who
were listening near the time-table rack.

“Oh, I don’t mean you, so don’t get roiled,” was the quiet response of
Mr. Johnson. “I mean that the price you mentioned is lower than the
lowest market quotations on live cattle that I’ve ever known, and there
must be an African gentleman concealed somewhere in the fuel heap, as
the poet says. I mean, if they’re quoting that price to you they must
have an object in it. Maybe the cattle aren’t A, number one.”

“But they are!” exclaimed Munson. “I know, for I sold ’em at a good
profit.”

“I should think you could, at the price you say you paid. Then if
it isn’t the quality of the beef it’s something else. They may be
stringing you along to get the best of you in some other deal. I’d
watch out, if I were you.”

“Thanks. But don’t worry. I’ll take care of myself. It takes a pretty
early bird to get the worm if little ol’ Sid Munson is after it!” and
once more the man with the diamonds patted himself on the back, so to
speak.

“Did you hear that?” asked Ned in a whisper, as the two men moved away.

“Couldn’t very well help hearing it,” assented Bob.

“Sort of queer,” commented Jerry.

“More than queer!” declared Ned when they were in the dining-room.
“It’s a clue, I think, to the cattle----”

“Hush!” exclaimed Jerry with a warning glance; and he spoke only
in time for at that moment the two men who had been talking in the
corridor entered. They did not notice the boys but went to a table at
the far end of the room, whence came murmurs of their talk about the
cattle business. But the three chums could overhear no more because of
the general din around them.

“Don’t give yourself away to them,” advised Jerry in a low voice.

“That’s right, I should be more careful,” admitted Ned. “But don’t you
think there’s something in this?”

“Maybe more than we can tell at present,” agreed Jerry. “We’ll talk it
over in our rooms.”

“It’s a clue, that’s what it is!” declared Ned when they were by
themselves. “Either this man is one of the thieves, or he’s buying
cattle from them. No wonder they can afford to sell below the market
price when they don’t have to do anything to get their stock but run it
off dad’s ranch. We’ve got to follow this fellow.”

“Well, maybe not exactly that,” said Jerry, slowly, “but I think it
might be wise to pump him a bit. He’s made some advances to us, and it
won’t look suspicious if we come back at him.”

“You’re not going to gamble with him, are you?” asked Bob in surprise.

“I should say not! There are other ways,” and Jerry smiled. “I guess we
haven’t traveled around for nothing.”

But their plan of having further conversation with Mr. Sid Munson was
not destined to be carried out just then. For when they looked for him
around the hotel he had gone, and the clerk said he had given up his
room.

The man who had given his name as Johnson was in evidence, however, but
a bit of judicious questioning by the boys, after they had scraped an
acquaintance by asking directions for getting about the city, convinced
them that he knew no more of Munson, and the cheap cattle, than they
themselves had overheard in the talk.

“We might as well get on with our trip,” advised Jerry the next
morning, when it became evident that staying in Des Moines would not
advance their case. “The sooner we get out to Square Z ranch and look
for clues, the better, I think.”

“Same here!” agreed Ned and Bob.

The big automobile had been put in shape to make the rest of the
trans-continental trip, Professor Snodgrass was gently but firmly
persuaded to break away from his scientific friend, and once more the
motor boys were on their way.

There was plenty of excitement along the route. Once they came within a
narrow margin of toppling, car and all, over a high cliff while going
along a narrow, perilous road. Again the professor went on a little
side trip after some queer bug and became lost. They were a day finding
him and he was quite exhausted and in great distress when he was found.
So, taking it by and large, Ned, Bob and Jerry had plenty of adventures
to keep them awake on the trip.

“And isn’t it just one dandy little refrigerator though?” asked Bob for
perhaps the fiftieth time as he took some cold chicken from it one warm
afternoon and proceeded to make sandwiches. “How would you like to be
eating hot roast beef now?” and he looked at the thermometer which was
creeping up toward ninety degrees in the shade.

“It’s certainly all right!” agreed Ned in a mumbly voice, for he was
just then engaged in masticating one of the chicken sandwiches. “You
didn’t make any mistake, Chunky. But I’m thinking we won’t need it much
longer.”

“Why not?” asked Bob in surprise. “You’re not going to chuck it away,
are you?”

“No, but we ought to be at Square Z in a day or so now, if our maps are
any good. We’ll be in Medicine Bow by to-night, and it’s only about a
hundred miles from there to dad’s place.”

“Good!” cried Jerry.

They reached Medicine Bow about supper time and put up over night.
Early in the morning they were under way again, following the
directions given them for reaching Square Z ranch. But they did
not follow the directions closely enough and took the wrong trail.
Consequently, when darkness was settling down they had not reached
their destination and they decided they would have to wait until
morning.

“But that needn’t worry us,” said Bob. “We’ve got fine shelter, even if
it should rain, which it won’t. And the refrigerator----”

“Yes, one of us can crawl in there and sleep!” laughed Ned.

“Suppose we camp right here,” suggested Jerry, bringing the car to a
stop. It was on a sort of wagon road that ran over a big grassy plain.

“This is as good as any,” agreed Ned. “I don’t see why we didn’t hit
the ranch, though.”

They made their preparations for spending the night, not exactly in
the open, for they had their shelter tent, but at least far from any
habitation. There seemed no need of setting a watch and after an hour
or two spent around the campfire, they turned into their bunks and were
soon sound asleep.

It was still dark when Jerry was awakened by hearing a movement
outside the shelter curtains of their tent. It was as though some large
body were being dragged over the ground, and there was a distant hum
and murmur.

Then as the lad sat up on his cot to listen better he heard a voice
saying distinctly:

“It’ll be easier to drive them over to the north I reckon. There aren’t
many in this bunch and they’re quietin’ down.”

“Yes,” agreed someone else. “But for well brought up cattle these were
as ornery a bunch as I ever seen. They’re all right now, though, an’ we
can soon run ’em over.”

Jerry was out of bed in a hurry, and a second later had awakened Ned
and Bob, but had prevented them from calling out by putting his hand
over their mouths.

“Not a word!” he whispered in their ears. “But get up and put on some
clothes. Also slip a gun in your pocket.”

“What for?” demanded Ned.

“Cattle thieves outside!” murmured Jerry.




CHAPTER XI

AT SQUARE Z RANCH


The startling announcement of “cattle thieves outside” galvanized Ned
and Bob into action.

Outside the shuffle of countless hoofs could be plainly heard, and
there was the murmur of men’s voices, though the words were not
distinguishable. In a whisper Jerry told what he had heard, while he
and his chums slipped on some of their clothes and got their revolvers.

“It’s the cattle thieves running off some of the Square Z stock as sure
as mustard!” declared Jerry.

“Think we can catch ’em?” murmured Bob.

“Well, we’ll make a good try, anyhow. At least we can scare ’em so
they’ll leave the cattle, and maybe we can round up the steers and save
’em.”

“What’s your plan?” asked Ned of his tall chum.

“Well, I guess it’s best to surprise ’em,” whispered Jerry. “That seems
to be the only way now, for we don’t know how many of ’em there may be.
Are you ready?”

“Ready,” assented the two others.

“Then out on the jump, fire in the air and give ’em the surprise of
their lives.”

But that plan was not destined to be carried out, for just as the three
boys, who had not awakened Professor Snodgrass, were about to leap
outside their shelter there came a sharp hail and the sound of a shot.
Jerry, who was at the flaps of the tent, saw a flash and sliver of
flame cut the blackness of the night.

“Throw up your hands, you in there!” came the sharp command.

“What is it?” asked a second voice in the darkness, as the boys slid
out of the tent.

“I can’t make out what it is, Gimp,” was the answer. “But I’ve got ’em
covered. And I’m a two-gun man,” he added evidently for the information
of the boys. “I can shoot as well with my left hand as with my right,
so be governed accordingly. Parson, you and Gimp ride up and see what
that outfit is. If I ain’t greatly mistook it’s what we’ve been lookin’
for, though how in the name of a chuck wagon they make use of that
contraption is more than I can remonstrate.”

“All right, Hinkee; but keep your big words for the round-up,” was the
laughing advice from somewhere out of the darkness.

The boys heard horses galloping toward them. The silence of the night
was further broken by the uneasy movement of a large bunch of cattle
that could dimly be observed off to the left.

“Take it easy now, whoever you are,” was the advice given by one of the
approaching horsemen. “We’ve both got guns that go off mighty easy, and
Hinkee Dee back there’s got two more.”

“Isn’t this rotten luck!” exclaimed Ned in disgust. “Just as we were
going to get them they get us!”

“They haven’t _got_ us yet,” observed Jerry, significantly in a low
voice.

“Are you going to fight?” asked Bob.

“Not with guns, no. But let’s wait and see who they are.”

“Cattle thieves! Who else?” asked Ned, indignantly.

The tramping of the horses ceased. The boys saw two mounted figures
confronting them as they stood outside the tent that was attached to
the rear of their car. Then a match flared and they blinked in the
glare.

“Sufferin’ horned toads!” came the explanation. “They’re nothin’ but
boys, and tenderfeet at that! Drop them guns, boys. It ain’t healthy
to play with men’s tools that way in this country! Drop ’em!” and the
command was not one to be lightly disregarded.

[Illustration: “THEY’RE NOTHIN’ BUT BOYS AND TENDERFEET AT THAT!”]

Ned, Bob and Jerry let their revolvers fall into the soft grass at
their feet.

“That’s better,” said the other man, who seemed to have lighted a small
torch. It was a patent pipe lighter, as they learned afterward.

“They’re sure enough young chaps,” was this man’s observation.

“That’s right, Gimp,” agreed the other, whom the boys guessed to be the
one who had been called “Parson.” “It’s all right, Hinkee!” he called
to the unseen third. “We’ve got ’em, such as they are. Ride up if you
can leave the cattle.”

“All right,” answered a voice from out of the distant gloom. “Are you
and Fatty there?”

“Yes,” was echoed.

“Well, look after the bunch. Don’t drive ’em any more until I say so.”

“There’s quite a crowd of ’em,” murmured Jerry.

“More’n enough to handle you--so be nice,” drawled the Parson. “If
you’ve got a light, maybe you’d better show it, and we can get this
business over with quicker. My fusee won’t burn forever.”

“I’ll light up,” said Jerry, moving to enter the tent again.

“And don’t light on a gun, whatever you do,” was the warning given in
ominous tones.

For an instant Ned and Bob thought Jerry was about to put into
execution some plan either to escape or to capture their captors. And
they were disappointed when he came out with a portable electric
lantern that gave good light.

“Now then, boys, give an account of yourselves!” sharply exclaimed the
third man who had ridden up. He seemed to be in command, though his
small size, in contrast to his companions, and his not very dignified
appellation of Hinkee Dee, seemed hardly in keeping with his leadership.

“Why should we account to you?” demanded Jerry, sparring for time.

“Because I said to!” was the curt response.

“Huh! This is a free country!” broke in Ned. “Besides, we’re not in the
habit of being ordered about by cattle thieves!”

The three men on their horses started and looked at one another.

“Cattle thieves!” ejaculated Hinkee Dee. “Cattle--huh!” and he seemed
too surprised for further observation.

“That’s what we’re hunting for,” went on Ned. “And we’d have had you,
only you were too quick for us. But----”

“Say, who do you think you are?” demanded Hinkee Dee in contemptuous
tones.

“I believe they really do take us for cattle thieves!” exclaimed
another of the cowboys.

There was some laughter, and Hinkee Dee remarked:

“Well, then it’s an even guess, for that’s what I think they are. Who
are you?” he shot out suddenly.

It dawned on Ned and his chums that they had, perhaps, made a mistake.

“Tell ’em who we are, and what we’re after,” suggested Bob, in a low
voice. “They might shoot without giving us a chance.”

Thereupon Ned explained, saying that he was the son of one of the
owners of the ranch, that they had come out to try to capture the
cattle rustlers but had lost their way.

“You’re not so _very_ much lost,” said Hinkee Dee, drawlingly. “You’re
on part of Square Z ranch now and we’re part of the outfit.”

“Are you, really?” asked Ned. “Not that I mean to doubt your word,” he
went on quickly, as he discerned a startled movement among the cowboys,
“but it seems very strange--meeting you at night this way.”

“Your outfit struck us as queer, too,” said one of the night-riders.
“We’ve sorter been on the lookout for rustlers, but we haven’t had any
luck trailing ’em.”

“And I don’t believe _they’ll_ have any better,” struck in the
sarcastic voice of Hinkee Dee. “I s’pose you’ve got something to prove
who you are?” he suggested, questioningly.




CHAPTER XII

EXPLANATIONS


For a moment Ned and his chums did not know whether or not to accept
the word of the cowboys. They feared a trick. But, as the one called
Hinkee Dee had said, the boys themselves might justly be regarded with
suspicion, so explanations were in order.

Ned brought out the letter of introduction he carried to the foreman,
Dick Watson, and when Hinkee Dee and the others had examined this,
and heard the story of the young men the cowboys felt they had made a
mistake.

“And I guess you did the same thing,” observed the one called Parson.
“You took us for rustlers, eh? Well, maybe it does look queer, driving
cattle off at night this way. But we wanted to avoid the heat, and
then, too, the boss is in a hurry to have ’em shipped away. You’ll find
we’re all right.”

“Oh, I’m sure of it,” said Ned. By the light of one of the electrical
flashes he had made out the Square Z brand on some of the cattle that
had strayed up toward the big automobile. “You see we’re strangers
here, and----”

“So I decimated,” observed Hinkee, who seemed to have a queer fondness
for using the wrong word, whether from ignorance or a sense of humor
the boys could not decide.

“And so you come all the way out here to catch the cattle rustlers?”
asked the cowboy called Gimp.

“To have a _try_ at the mystery,” corrected Jerry.

“Well, it sure is a mystery all right, but I don’t reckon you can solve
it.”

“There’s no harm in them tryin’,” added the Parson, who seemed to be
more friendly than the others.

“No, I reckon not,” agreed Hinkee Dee. “Well, what’s to be done? If
these tenderfeet are lost I s’pose it’s our duty to set ’em on the
right trail. Tell you what,” he went on. “Gimp, you stay with ’em and
see that they get to Square Z in the mornin’. The Parson and I can
manage the steers. You ride back with the boys and show ’em how to keep
on the trail.”

“All right,” agreed Gimp. As he spoke the flaps of the tent erected at
the rear of the automobile parted, and the face of Professor Snodgrass
peered out.

“Are we there?” asked the little man. “If we are I want to get up
early, Jerry, and see if I can capture that specimen of a moth that
only flies in the morning hours. I wish----”

The professor suddenly stopped talking and fairly sprang from the tent.
Then it was observed that he was clad only in his pajamas and slippers.
He made a dive toward Gimp, who quickly aimed his gun at the advancing
figure, and then, though evidently fearing an attack, but seeing the
professor was unarmed, the weapon was lowered, and Gimp murmured an
apology.

“Oh, what a beautiful specimen!” exclaimed the scientist, gazing at
something on the saddle in front of Gimp. “It is the largest I have
ever seen. Where did you get it?”

“Get it? Get what? Oh, you mean _Lizzie_!” and he picked up a big
horned toad. “Yes, she’s quite a pet of mine. A friend sent her to me
from Arizona, and in warm weather she goes everywhere with me in my
pocket. Guess she crawled out now to see what all the rumpus was about.
You like horned toads?” he asked.

“I like anything in this line,” said the eager scientist as he picked
up the unpleasant, but harmless creature and stroked its back. “So you
call her Lizzie?”

“It’s a bit easier than _Iguanidae Phrynosoma_,” said Gimp.

“Oh, you know the Latin name?” beamed the professor, probably unaware
of the queer figure he presented.

“That’s all the Latin I do know, so don’t tackle me on any more,”
laughed the cowboy. “I wouldn’t have known that only it was writ on
the box Lizzie come in, an’ I set up three nights learnin’ to say it
without gettin’ a cramp in my tongue. Then I called her Lizzie for
short.”

“She is a beautiful specimen,” murmured the scientist. “I see you have
a love for nature.”

“Well, you might call it that,” assented Gimp. “I beg your pardon for
gettin’ the drop on you just then.”

“You didn’t get anything on me,” the little bald-headed man said.

“He means covered you with his gun,” translated the Parson. “He had it
aimed at you. He sure thought you was coming at him I reckon.”

“That’s what,” said Gimp. “’Tain’t healthy, out here, to jump at a man
lessen he knows you some. But it’s all right.”

“I saw the toad and didn’t think of anything else,” explained the
scientist. “I want to see if the markings correspond with those
illustrated in Professor Bowden’s book.”

“This is Professor Snodgrass,” introduced Jerry, nodding toward him.

“Pleased to have met up with you,” said Gimp.

“Well, I guess introductions are in order,” commented Hinkee, as he
handed back the letters. “From the outside these seem to be all right,
boys, and if you turn out to be so, we’ll beg your pardon for bothering
you. But we sure have to be careful. Now my name’s Jim Felton, and
I’m assistant foreman, commonly known as Hinkee Dee. This here is Sam
Jones, otherwise known as the Parson ’cause he’s so suburban like, and
Tod Henderson never answers to anything but Gimp because he’s such a
good dancer. Now you know us.

“Well, as I say, it may be all right,” went on Hinkee, “but for the
sake of the ranch we’ve got to be careful. We sure did take you for
cattle thieves when we saw your buzz wagon and camp over in this swale,
though we couldn’t make out how in the world you used it to run the
steers off the range. However, that’s all right now.”

The rest of the night was not long, and it was passed by the boys
in quietness as the herd moved away, driven by the cowboys. In the
morning, after breakfast, the start for the ranch house was made.

“Reckon I’ll ride with you lads,” said Gimp, as he untethered his
horse. “I’ll let him amble home alone. I don’t want to push him too
much as he’s been ridden hard lately. And I don’t often get this
chance,” he added, as he glanced admiringly at the large automobile.

“But won’t somebody steal your horse?” asked Ned.

“I’d like to see ’em try. Blaze won’t let nobody but me come nigh him
and he’ll find his way home all right. Cut along, Blaze,” he called as
he removed saddle and bridle and patted the horse on the flank. The
intelligent steed gave his master one look and then trotted slowly off.
The automobile soon passed him, and for a time Blaze tried to keep up,
evidently knowing his master was inside. But he soon gave it up and
trotted at his own gait.

If the boys expected Gimp to make any observations on their elaborate
traveling car they were disappointed. He said little or nothing on the
trip.

“Here we are!” he exclaimed as they topped a little rise, and the boys
looked down into a valley divided by a small stream and holding a
collection of dull red buildings which they rightly guessed to be the
Square Z outfit.

“Well, I see you got here!” was the greeting of foreman Dick Watson as
the big car came to a stop.

“Then they’re all right?” asked Gimp, plainly a little surprised at
this welcome, without the letters being read.

“Sure. Didn’t you think so? By the way, how comes it you’re not with
the bunch?”

Gimp explained.

“Huh!” chuckled the foreman. “Took ’em for cattle thieves, eh? Yes, I
been expectin’ ’em for some time. The boss wrote me as how they was
comin’. If I’d a thought you fellows would ’a met-up with ’em, I’d ’a
tipped you off. But it’s all right. I never seen you before, but I
guess I can call you by name right off the bat,” and he did, to the no
small amazement of Gimp.

“Your dad sent me pretty good descriptions of all of you,” he went
on, speaking to Ned. “Well, you can tie your hosses---- Oh, shucks! I
forgot you come in an automobile!” he laughed. “Well, we have a few
out here but the crop ain’t very big yet. Come in and make yourselves
comfortable.”

Frankly, the boys were just a bit disappointed by their reception
and arrival. They had not created the furor they expected, and when
dinner time came and half a score of cowboys flocked in to eat there
was no curious crowd about the big automobile, as at least Ned had
half expected. In fact, the arrival of the boys created very little
impression.

“But wait until we get to work on the mystery!” murmured Ned.




CHAPTER XIII

A SENSATION


“Turned out all right, did it?” asked Hinkee Dee of Gimp when the
former came back the next day from the cattle-driving trip.

“Yes, they was the goods all right. But shucks! what do you think of
’em, anyhow?”

“Huh! Well, you know my opinions regardin’ tenderfeet in general, don’t
you, Gimp?”

“Sure do!”

“Then just depict it on these young chaps and you’ll have it
individually so to speak. A lot of college Willies come out here to
make us walk Spanish. Did you see a wrist watch on any of ’em?”

“Great jumping spiders! No! You don’t mean to tell me, Hinkee, that
any----”

“No, I didn’t say any of ’em _had_ fallen so depressingly as that, but
they’re that kind, I reckon. Catch the cattle rustlers! Oh, say, I’m
glad I’m not in the habit of fainting.”

“That bald-headed bug isn’t so bad,” remarked Gimp.

“No, I reckon he’s a sort of keeper to ’em. Well, I should be anxiety.
Give me the makings,” and he deftly rolled a cigarette from the bag of
tobacco and the papers Gimp passed over to him.

“Anything happen while I was away?” Hinkee Dee next asked.

“No. The new ones sort of made themselves to home and they’re getting
the run of the place. Maybe they’re not as green as they look.”

“Huh! Don’t talk to me! Tenderfoot sticks out all over ’em, Gimp.”

“I admit that. But they’ve been West before, accordin’ to their tell,
and done some campin’.”

“With a hired cook I s’pose and a patent electric stove like the one in
their car,” sneered the assistant foreman.

“No, the real thing they say.”

“Yes, let them tell it.”

“Oh, I don’t say they can throw a diamond hitch, or anything like
that,” went on Gimp. “But I’m only tellin’ you p’raps they ain’t as
green as we first believed. I s’pose it’s up to us to be decent to ’em,
seein’ as how their paws--at least the paws of two of ’em--own this
shebang.”

“That doesn’t fit in my pipe,” sententiously observed Hinkee Dee,
blowing out a cloud of smoke. “I’ll treat ’em decent, but blamed little
of that. I don’t have to work here!”

“You seem sort of peeved,” observed Gimp, rolling himself a cigarette.

“Well, wouldn’t you be if you’d sat up nights thinkin’ up ways to fool
these cattle thieves, and then had a bunch of mavericks, right off the
baseball field, come along and want all the credit of it? Huh? I guess
yes!”

“But you, nor none of us, didn’t solve the cattle mystery,” Gimp said.

“I know we didn’t. But I’m on the track of ’em. I’ve got a theory that
I’m sure’ll work out all right-- Well, what is it? You lookin’ for me?”
he broke off, to speak to an approaching cowboy who was galloping up on
a dust-flecked steed.

“They’ve gone and done it again, Jim!” the man called.

“Who’s done what?”

“Cattle rustlers--run off a nice bunch from the bottom lands last
night!”

“Whew!” whistled Gimp, while Hinkee Dee scowled.

Gimp galloped off, and the news soon spread around the ranch that the
cattle rustlers had made another raid. Several of the cowboys who were
at liberty joined the posse that was quickly organized. Ned, Bob and
Jerry, of course, heard what was afoot.

“Say, we didn’t get here any too soon; did we?” asked Ned.

“No, indeed!” agreed Jerry. “It’s lucky they didn’t start a raid while
we were on the road, or, if we had heard of it, we’d have had to leave
the auto and come on by train to satisfy your folks. The rustlers held
off just long enough.”

The boys had been a little longer making the trip than they had counted
on, owing to a number of minor accidents, but they had made fairly good
time. That there was a cattle raid the very night of their arrival was
a coincidence that could be viewed in two lights. It was an advantage
that the rustlers had held off this long, but, of course, it was
unfortunate that Mr. Slade and Mr. Baker must suffer new losses.

“I guess some of the gang that was captured must have got loose,” said
Ned, “or else they’ve had recruits. Well, they’re up to their old
tricks and we’ve got to try to stop ’em.”

“And here’s a chance to get some first-hand information about how the
thieves operate,” cried Bob. “Come on, fellows!”

“I don’t s’pose there’s any objection to us going along; is there?”
asked Jerry of the assistant foreman.

“Yes, there is!” was the snapped-out reply. “I can’t be bothered with a
bunch of tenderfeet around. There’s likely to be shootin’, too, and you
might get in the way of a bullet.”

“We’ve been under fire before,” said Jerry, quietly. “Still----”

“Let the boys go along!” broke in the foreman. “That’s what they’re out
here for--to try to help run down those thieves.”

“A lot they’ll do!” muttered Hinkee Dee.

The boys had been assigned horses as soon as they reached the ranch,
and these were quickly saddled. Of Professor Snodgrass little had been
seen since his arrival, as he went afield early in the morning armed
with net and specimen boxes. He was in his element now.

Square Z ranch was a big one. It had the advantage of water as well
as good grass, and it gave range to thousands of cattle divided into
several herds which were quartered in various grass sections. When
one was eaten well down the animals were moved to another to give the
fodder a chance to grow again.

The bunch of cattle that had been run off the night the boys arrived
had been kept on a distant part of the range. They had been moved there
only a few days before, and after the cowboy guards had remained a
short time they were withdrawn.

The cattle thieves, it seemed, had awaited their opportunity, and had
made the raid just at the best time for them. A cowboy--one of several
in charge of another herd--following up his runaway pony, had noted
the missing bunch and had come in with the news.

“Well, they started off this way sure enough,” decided Hinkee Dee, when
he and his helpers had made a tour of the grazing ground. The boys
went with them, keeping well out of the way, however, of the assistant
foreman.

“Not that I’m afraid of him though,” declared Ned. “Only I don’t want
a row right off the bat. If he tries to make me knuckle under to him
he’ll find he’s got more than he can handle. Dad gave me a free rein on
this business and I intend to have it.”

“This is the way they led ’em,” said Hinkee Dee, riding along and
pointing to the ground.

“I think you’re wrong,” put in the Parson, quietly.

“Wrong? What do you mean?” demanded the assistant foreman, and his
voice sounded threatening.

“I mean the signs show they went over there,” and he pointed in the
direction of some low hills.

“Huh! that shows how much you know about it!” sneered Hinkee Dee.
“There’s no grass left over there and these fellows have to have fodder
to keep the cattle a week or more before they move to sell ’em. You’re
wrong!”

“I think I’m right, Hinkee.”

“So do I,” chimed in Gimp.

“Sure he’s right,” said several others, and as there seemed to be no
one to side with Felton, he shrugged his shoulders and said:

“Well, have your own way, then. But you’ll find I’m right.”

And it did seem so. For though the trail was plain--at least so the
boys believed--for part of the distance along which Gimp and the Parson
indicated, it became faint and uncertain when a patch of stony ground
was reached where the foot hills began, and ended at the opening of a
deep rocky ravine which was a sort of blind alley.

“What’d I tell you?” crowed Hinkee Dee. “Next time you’ll take my
advice.”

“Well, there’s been cattle along here, that’s sure!” declared the
Parson, and others said the same.

“Well, if they _were_ here, why aren’t they here _now_?” asked Hinkee
Dee. “You can see there’s no sign of a stolen bunch. What would be the
sense of driving cattle over there, anyhow? You couldn’t do anything
with ’em once you got ’em here, ’ceptin’ maybe coop ’em up in that
ravine. They couldn’t live there two days--no grass or water. These
rustlers aren’t fools!”

“Well, there was cattle here, and not long ago,” declared the Parson.

“I s’pose them rustlers drove ’em here and then jumped ’em over the
mountain on the other side?” sneered the assistant foreman. “Now
you’ve had your way, let’s go back an’ try mine.”

Shaking their heads over the puzzle, Gimp and the Parson rode back with
the others. But though there were also signs of cattle having been
hurried along the route Hinkee Dee pointed out, the animals themselves
were not to be found, and none of the cowboys had the temerity to say,
“I told you so,” to their superior.

“It’s mighty queer what becomes of the cattle,” said Dick Watson, as he
was talking to the boys that night after the return of the unsuccessful
search. “If them fellows had an airship I’d say they rode ’em off in
that, for all trails, traces and clues seem to disappear at a certain
point.”

“Tell us how this thing started,” begged Ned, and the foreman told the
story of the losses to date. It was getting serious.

The next day Ned, Bob and Jerry set off alone to see what they could
find. They went to the place of the last disappearance of the cattle
and investigated as best they could. But they came to the same baffling
end as before.

“I wonder if there could be a way of getting the steers over the
mountain?” suggested Ned.

“Of course not!” scoffed Jerry. “But it sure is a puzzle.”

“Well, let’s stop, build a fire and have something to eat,” proposed
Bob.

“His favorite remedy for all troubles,” laughed Jerry.

A week or more passed, and though no trace of the thieves was
discovered, no more cattle were stolen. The boys kept up their search
for clues, but without avail, and several times the cowboys laughed
openly at them.

“They make me mad!” cried Ned. “You’d think we were a lot of children.”

“We ought to give ’em a surprise--startle ’em--get up some sensation to
show we can do something,” declared Bob.

A cowboy came in with the mail, and among the letters for the boys was
a postal. At the reading of it Ned gave a cry of delight.

“Now we can do it!” he cried.

“Do what?” Jerry demanded.

“Give these cowboys a surprise! Our airship has arrived at the railroad
station. This is a notice from the freight agent. Come on, we’ll go for
it!”




CHAPTER XIV

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE


Ned in the lead, the boys were hurrying to their ponies in order to set
off on a gallop for the railroad station, about thirty miles away, to
arrange about getting the airship which had been shipped in parts. But
half-way to the corral Jerry called a halt.

“Look here,” he said in that drawling tone he often used when he had
not quite prepared his thoughts. “Have any of you fellows told the
cowboys about the airship?”

“I haven’t,” answered Bob. “I was afraid, after what had happened, and
the way they sort of looked down on us, that they’d laugh and make more
fun of us than ever, if we told them we could navigate an airship.”

“Same with me,” admitted Ned.

“I haven’t mentioned it to a soul,” went on Jerry, “and I think the
professor has been so busy catching bugs that he hasn’t spoken of it.”

“Well, what’s the idea?” asked Bob.

“Just this. What we want to do is to spring a surprise on Hinkee Dee
and his friends--make them think we amount to something after all, even
if we can’t spot the cattle thieves right off the bat. Now my notion
is that if we could put the airship together in some out-of-the-way
place and then, some day, come sailing over the ranch in it, and flop
down out of the clouds, so to speak, it would make them sit up and take
notice.”

“Say, Jerry, you’re right!” cried Ned.

“Good idea!” exclaimed Bob. “But how are you going to do it?” he added.
“The airship is at the freight station, and Ned has a card saying it’s
arrived. Somebody is sure to talk about it.”

“Not necessarily,” put in Ned. “This card I just got doesn’t say
anything about an airship. It just says some crates and boxes have been
received for us. And you know the way we packed up the wings and the
engine in parts no one by looking at the outside of the boxes could
tell what was in them.”

“That’s so,” admitted Bob.

“Then we’re all right,” came from Jerry. “Instead of riding in on our
ponies we’ll take our car. By leaving out some of the fittings we’ll
have plenty of room to carry the airship in about two trips I think,
and no one will ever know what we have. Then if we can find some
secluded place where we can put it together we’ll be all to the merry
and we can spring our big surprise.”

“That’s the idea,” Ned declared.

So instead of galloping off post haste to the freight station, the
boys proceeded to get their car in shape to bring back the parts of
the airship. They left in the automobile only a few needful things,
took along plenty of ropes and some food, for they expected to be
away all day, since it might require some little searching to find a
sufficiently secluded spot.

“We want to pick out some place in the woods where the cowboys don’t
come,” suggested Jerry. “If one of them happened to spy the craft
before we had her together it would spoil the surprise and we’d lose
all the effect we want to produce.”

His chums agreed with him, and after a little judicious inquiry made of
the foreman they got on the track of a place that they thought would
just suit their purposes. It was in a clump of rather wild wood on the
edge of a sandy plain. As the sand prevented the grass from growing, it
was avoided by the cattle. In consequence of this there was no need for
the presence of the cowboys in that vicinity.

“And it will be just the place for us,” Jerry said. “The sandy plain
will be an ideal starting ground for the beginning of our flight.
There’s no water near there and we’ll have to cart enough in the auto
for the airship radiator, but we can easily do that. And now we’ll
start.”

“Got ’em in there?” asked Hinkee Dee in his sneering voice as he saw
the boys start for the railroad station in their big car.

“Got who in where?” Bob questioned before he thought.

“The cattle thieves!” chuckled the assistant foreman. “I s’pose you’ve
got ’em hog-tied and all ready for the sheriff.”

“Not yet,” admitted Jerry, trying to be good-natured about it. “But
we’re on their trail.”

“Oh, yes!” went on Hinkee Dee. “All you’re waiting for is a post card
from ’em, givin’ their address so’s you can call for ’em. I’ve heard
of such detective work before!” and with a jingle of his spurs he rode
away at a fast pace, he and his pony being soon lost to sight in a
cloud of dust.

“I don’t like that man,” said Bob, who was usually the most forgiving
and good-natured of the three.

“He isn’t very pleasant,” admitted Jerry.

Two days later, had anyone chanced to pass the vicinity of a certain
clump of trees, one would have heard some such talk as this:

“Pass that hammer this way, will you?”

“Yes, and heave over that monkey wrench. I never can find it when I
want it.”

“I say, which way does the steering wheel chuck face? I’ve tried it
every way I know and it doesn’t seem right.”

“No wonder, you’ve got it adjusted upside down. Fat chance we’d have of
sailing that way--more like loop-the-loop.”

Then would come a period of silence broken by hammering, sawing or
filing sounds and there would come another call for tools placed or
misplaced.

The assembling of the airship was under way. The boys had successfully
transported it from the freight station in its boxes and crates, and,
so far as they could learn, no one of the cowboys was aware of what was
afoot, or, it might be said, in the air.

The airship was much simpler than the big combined dirigible in which
the motor boys had had many adventures, and they had often before
taken it apart and put it together. When it had been shipped West the
necessary tools had come with it, so now the boys had no difficulties
in doing the reconstruction work.

Their workshop was under the trees, and as the weather was now settled,
with little prospect of rain, they needed no shelter. Their absence
each day from the ranch was easily enough accounted for--they gave
out that they were looking about the country for traces of the cattle
thieves, and, in a way, this was true enough. They were laying plans
for the search.

Since the cattle raid the night of their arrival no more of Bob and
Ned’s fathers’ stock had been run off, but there was no telling when
the rustlers might again descend on Square Z ranch.

“Though as for them tenderfeet stoppin’ ’em, I wouldn’t give that!”
declared Hinkee Dee, snapping his fingers in scorn.

“Well, I don’t set such a great store by the boys myself,” admitted the
foreman. “But it won’t do for me to say so. Mr. Baker and Mr. Slade
likely thinks their sons is all right, and maybe can do detective work
of this sort, and it isn’t for me to undeceive ’em. I’ll help ’em all I
can. But when some of the best cattlemen in the country can’t get trace
of the rascals I don’t see how a crowd of college chaps is goin’ to.
But, as I said, far be it from me to open their eyes. They’re havin’
fun out of it, and that’s what they come out for--one of the reasons,
anyhow.”

“Well, maybe they’ll surprise us, some day,” ventured Gimp, and
his words came true sooner than he expected, though not just as he
anticipated.

“Huh!” scoffed the Parson. “Them boys’ll never catch the thieves. That
bald-headed professor stands a better chance, for he roams all over the
ground and he goes slow and careful. I’ve watched him and seen him look
over a space not more than a yard square for more than an hour.”

“That was because he wanted to find a pink grasshopper or a blue-toed
snake,” laughed the foreman.

“Well, maybe. But he’s careful like, and that’s the way you got to be
when you’re trailing cattle thieves.”

“Oh, well, give the boys a chance, I say!” exclaimed Gimp.

Meanwhile, Ned, Bob and Jerry were working on the airship. They had
spent each day for about a week in the woods now, and the craft was
nearly ready for flight. That it would sail the boys had no doubt for
they had made many a trip in it.

“Yes, it’s beginning to look like an old friend,” commented Jerry, as
he stepped back to observe the general effect. “I think----”

“Speaking of old friends, here comes one now!” interrupted Bob.

“Where?” exclaimed Ned and Jerry in a breath, for, so far, they had not
been molested by man or beast in their little retreat.

“There!” said the stout lad, and he pointed to the approaching figure
of Sid Munson, the bediamonded individual the boys had last seen in Des
Moines.




CHAPTER XV

OUT OF THE AIR


If Mr. Sid Munson, as he had called himself, was at all surprised to
see the boys under the present circumstances, he made no mention of
it. From his manner and air one would have thought it was something he
had expected all along, and that he would have been disappointed if he
had not encountered them. Smiling, his diamonds sparkling in the sun,
and his red tie matching the healthful color of his face he came on,
breezily--airily.

“Well, boys, how are you?” he exclaimed genially. “You look just the
same as ever. Quite a change from the hotel where we first met, though.
I’ll wager you didn’t expect to see me here.”

“No, we didn’t, for a fact,” answered Ned.

“And by the tone of your voice you’re not glad to see me,” went on Mr.
Munson in no whit abashed. “Never mind. I’ll not give your game away.”

“How do you know we have a game?” asked Jerry, and, for the life of
him, he could not keep the coldness out of his voice. Verily, neither
he nor his chums were glad to see the flashy man.

“Everybody has a game--life’s a game,” returned the man. “I have mine,
and I play it my own way. You have yours and you play it according to
your lights. So, as I said, I’ll not give you away. Are you making this
to sell?” and he nodded toward the airship.

“No, just for pleasure,” responded Bob. “And if you would just as soon
we’d rather you wouldn’t mention it to anyone. We want it to be a
surprise.”

“I see!” exclaimed Mr. Munson. “Now that’s the way to talk,” for Bob
had spoken earnestly. “Well, I’ll keep mum about it. I suppose I’m near
the Square Z ranch?” he questioned.

“Are you going there to buy cattle?” asked Jerry. Neither he nor his
chums had mentioned to anyone on the ranch what they had overheard Mr.
Munson saying in the hotel. They had regarded it as part of the stolen
cattle mystery they were to solve, and they wanted to solve it in their
own way. But the sudden disappearance of the man they suspected had
rather puzzled them. Now he had bobbed up again, most unexpectedly.

“Well, I don’t know--I might make an offer for some,” was the guarded
answer. “I don’t know just what my plans are. I came on from Des
Moines, stopping off at several places. I’ve been riding sitting down
so much that I decided to walk for a change. I told the man who drove
me over here from the station to set me down about five miles from
Square Z and I’d hoof it the rest of the way. But I guess he wasn’t a
very good judge of distance. I’ve walked five miles already and I don’t
seem to have arrived.”

“It’s only about three miles further on,” said Jerry. “We--we are sort
of stopping there and----”

“Oh, don’t bother to explain!” broke in Mr. Munson. “I don’t want to
know anybody’s business, any more than I want them to know mine. It’s
all in the game.”

“If you wait a while we’ll take you back in the car,” said Jerry,
nodding toward the big automobile. “We want to finish work on this to
have it ready for a flight as soon as possible.”

“And are you really going up in that yourselves?”

“Sure,” and Jerry’s voice was more cordial now. He had quickly formed
a resolution, later shared by his chums, that they must, if necessary,
placate this man. Though they suspected him of having dealings with the
cattle thieves he might, or might not, be one of them to the extent of
sharing in their ill-gotten gains. Of course, there was the benefit of
the doubt to be given, Jerry reasoned, and if they wanted this man’s
silence, as indeed they did regarding the airship, it would be best to
have him on their side rather than against them. And he seemed inclined
to be on their side.

“Well, I’ve seen some of them in the air, with fellows in them,” went
on Mr. Munson, “but I never really had a chance to look at one close
by, nor talk to anyone who had flown. I always supposed a chap had
to be rather light and airy to go up in one, but you boys seem husky
enough.”

“Oh, our machine can carry a good weight,” Jerry said. “We could even
take you up, and I guess you’ll go over two hundred.”

“A little, yes. But you’ll never take me up--not if I know it!” and
he shook his head heartily. “I’ll take a chance in your auto, but
not in your airship. What do you expect to do with it, anyhow? Oh, I
forgot--no questions asked--that’s part of the game--forget it.”

Indeed, the boys were glad not to have to answer. They had hopes of
accomplishing several things by giving an exhibition flight over the
ranch. The chief was that they might startle the cowboys and cause
them to become more friendly. For Jerry and his chums felt that the
ranch employees could, if they wished, give better clues to the cattle
thieves than had yet been forthcoming.

Mr. Munson, as indeed all casual visitors were, was made welcome by
the foreman of Square Z ranch. The newcomer explained that he was on
cattle business, but he did not go into details nor was he asked. He
told of having met the boys on his way to the ranch. His tale ended
there, and no mention was made of the airship.

At supper that night Hinkee Dee, in his usual sneering, chaffing way,
asked:

“Well, have you got the cattle rustlers yet, tenderfeet?”

“We have their address,” answered Jerry, good-naturedly.

“What!” exclaimed Mr. Munson in real or simulated surprise. “Are you
bothered with cattle raids here, too?”

“Sure. Haven’t you heard about it?” answered Mr. Watson. “But I forgot,
you just arrived.”

“They’re a pest--those rustlers,” declared the Parson.

“They’re worse than that,” came from Gimp. “You never know when they’re
going to hit you--it’s like the toothache. And they’re such ornery
critters. Too lazy to do an honest man’s work, they make the other
fellow work for ’em. I’d like to get a bunch of ’em within reach of my
gun,” and he tapped his big revolver significantly.

“Cattle rustlers, eh?” said Mr. Munson, musingly. “I’m sorry to hear
that. It may interfere with my business,” though he did not say in what
way. “I heard rumors in several places where I stopped that they were
up to their old tricks,” he resumed, “but I supposed you ranchmen had
organized to drive them out of business.”

“We did once,” said Mr. Watson. “Back in ninety-two, when some of the
small settlers around here got so bold in their cattle rustling that
they’d run a herd off under your nose, we formed a small army, and
started to round up the suspects.”

“That was the Johnson County Raid, wasn’t it?” asked Ned.

“Yes. But how’d you know?” the foreman questioned.

“I read about it,” Ned replied.

“Yes, we had quite a time then,” went on Mr. Watson. “We trailed some
of the suspects to a lonely cabin and surrounded ’em. Two was killed
and then the whole lot got roused up and they came back at us. We’d
have been in a bad way ourselves only some United States troops heard
of our plight and rescued us. But it stopped cattle rustling for a
time. Now they’re at it again, and the worst of it here with us is that
we can’t get a single clue.”

“That’s mean,” agreed Mr. Munson. “Well, I’m in no particular hurry and
if I hear anything that would help I’ll let you know.”

“Oh, don’t tell us--tell these boys!” sneered Hinkee Dee, nodding at
the motor boys. “They’re the only original cattle detectives.”

“Is that so? Are you really after the thieves?” asked Mr. Munson.

“Well, my father, one of the owners of this ranch, said we could try
our hands,” replied Ned, “especially after these gentlemen had failed,”
and he looked at the assistant foreman, who laughed.

“Well, you might stumble on the trail just as well as anyone else,”
agreed Mr. Munson. “I wish you luck. It’s no fun to raise choice cattle
and have them stolen.”

Jerry and his chums wondered whether the man would refer to his boast
that he had bought Square Z cattle below the market price, but he said
nothing, nor did they.

The next day when Mr. Munson had gone with the foreman to look over
the round-up of some distantly pastured cattle, and when Professor
Snodgrass had gone afield on his usual bug-hunting expedition, the
three boys talked matters over.

“We want to make this airship flight impressive,” Jerry said.

“How are we going to do it?” asked Bob.

“Well, my notion is to start a discussion of it say to-night after
supper. I understand most of the cowboys don’t believe in airships.
Few, if any of them, have ever seen one, for they haven’t been away
from the ranch in a good while. They may have read about long flights,
but they don’t believe much of what they read. So they’ll be all the
more surprised when they see us flying over their heads. I think the
best time to do it will be right after dinner some day, when they’re
sitting in the shade smoking and telling yarns. We can come along just
then.”

“Good!” agreed Ned and Bob.

To prepare the minds of the cowboys for the surprise, or, rather, to
ascertain their feelings on the matter, Jerry started the ball rolling
that night by reading from a paper something about a woman having made
a particularly long flight.

“Don’t you believe it!” declared Hinkee Dee. “No human bein’ can fly
through the air, and never will.”

This suited the boys, as the assistant foreman was the chief one they
wanted to impress. So Jerry kept the talk going by adding:

“You don’t know what you’re talking about! Of course, anybody can fly
if they have the nerve.”

“I suppose you think you have!” sneered Hinkee Dee.

“Yes, I have--we all have,” was Jerry’s quiet answer.

“Let me out of here!” laughed the man. “I--I feel sorter sick. You make
me tired!”

“Just the condition I want him in,” Jerry said to his chums as they
went to bed that night.

Two days later the airship was ready for a flight. The engine had been
tried and worked perfectly. The boys had gone off as usual in their
automobile and now, as the hour of noon approached, they awaited the
favorable moment for approaching and hovering over Square Z ranch.

“Well, let her go,” said Jerry as he and his chums took their seats in
the airship. The powerful motor hummed, the craft hesitated a moment
and then shot swiftly over the smooth ground. Jerry turned on more gas,
gave the control of the elevating rudder a shift and, as lightly and
airily as a bird, the craft soared.

“Feels like old times!” shouted Bob in Jerry’s ear, but the engine,
muffled as it was, made so much noise that the tall lad barely heard.
He nodded his head in answer.

“They’re all there!” the lips of Ned formed as they came near the group
of ranch houses. Looking down the boys could see the cowboys relaxing
after dinner. Out of the air swooped down toward them the flying craft.




CHAPTER XVI

THE WRONG PONY


“What’s that noise?” asked Gimp, seated with the other cowboys, most of
whom were smoking.

“What noise?” asked the Parson, lazily flicking the ashes from his
cigarette.

“Sounds like a lot of firecrackers going off.”

The cowboys, roused from their noon-day _siesta_, had risen from
benches or from sprawling positions on the grass, and were gazing about.

“I don’t _see_ anything,” observed Gimp.

“Nor I,” said the Parson. “But I hear it. It’s a sort of crackling.”

The noise grew louder.

“Sometimes,” said Hen Dalton, still softly, “quick rifle fire makes
that noise. Once I was in----”

He stopped suddenly. The Parson had looked up and his surprised gesture
made the others do likewise.

In the sky was an object. It was growing larger. It was from this
object that the noise seemed to come.

“Boys! Boys!” ejaculated Gimp. “Do you s’pose--do you s’pose it’s one
of them--one of them--airships?”

“Huh!” contemptuously remarked Hinkee Dee. “More like a couple of
turkey buzzards having a family quarrel.”

They were all standing with craned necks looking up at the object in
the sky, momentarily growing larger. Now it began to circle about
instead of keeping in a straight line.

“Maybe it’s a balloon,” ventured an old cowboy. “I seen one at a fair
once and it busted and the feller come down head fust and----”

“Balloons don’t carry sewing machines to make a noise like that!”
contemptuously murmured Gimp.

“Then what is it?” came a general cry.

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” was Gimp’s calm rejoinder. “She’s going to
cash in right soon, I reckon.”

The object--the noise--came nearer. It was the airship of Ned, Bob and
Jerry swooping down on Square Z ranch.

“It can’t be!” ejaculated the Parson.

“Huh!” was all that came from Hinkee Dee.

And then, with engine shut off, and on outstretched wings of varnished
canvas, the airship volplaned down to earth.

As it came to a stop, under the application of the brake, after
rolling over the ground toward the semicircle of amazed cowboys, the
three lads leaped out, snatching from their heads the leather and steel
helmets.

“Well--I’m--I’m--lassoed!” gasped the foreman.

“Just what I thought!” chuckled Gimp.

“It’s them!” murmured the Parson.

“Huh!” was all that Hinkee Dee uttered.

“We didn’t find ’em,” announced Jerry, stepping forward, and his tone
was as casual as though he had announced his lack of success in looking
for some lost chickens.

“Find ’em? Find who?” the foreman asked sharply.

“The cattle thieves,” went on Jerry with a smile. “We had an idea that
they might have gone up in a balloon, seeing they didn’t leave any
tracks anywhere. But they’re not up in the clouds.”

“Do you boys--do you mean to say you’ve been up there?” and Dick Watson
pointed toward the blue sky.

“Well, not exactly _all_ the way up,” was the answer. “But we hit about
five thousand feet, just for a practice spin.”

“Would anybody else like to try?” asked Ned.

“Not on your life!” cried Gimp, as Bob stepped forward, and the cowboy
backed away.

“Look here! look here!” and the foreman seemed laboring under the stress
of great excitement. “Do you--you gentlemen mean to say you really have
been up in that thing? It isn’t one of these--er--slight-of-hand tricks,
is it?”

“Hardly,” laughed Jerry, and he noted the difference in the tone of the
foreman. “Here, we’ll show you how it’s done.”

In another minute the boys were back in their seats, and the airship,
headed down a long, level stretch, was under way once more, the
propellers flashing in the sun and the engine spitting fire.

Once more it arose in the air, like a great bird, and then, flying at
a low elevation, so the cowboys could better observe them, Ned, Bob
and Jerry circled about in the air over their heads. They did figure
8s, they looped the loop, going higher for this, of course, and then,
shutting off the engine, they volplaned down, coming to rest in almost
the same spot where they had first landed.

“Now do you believe?” asked Jerry as he and his chums advanced toward
the marveling throng.

“By stirrups! We just can’t help it--that’s great!” cried the foreman,
and the others murmured their assents.

“What do you think of ’em now?” asked Gimp of Hinkee Dee, as they went
with the others to get a closer view of the airship.

“Huh! A bunch of stuck-up tenderfeet--that’s all they are! They maybe
learned that trick in a circus and pulled it off on us to make us feel
how little we know.”

“You couldn’t do it,” said the Parson, grimly.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to. A cow pony is good enough for me, or I can
walk when I have to.” And with that Hinkee Dee stalked away.

But the others did not conceal their admiration and amazement at the
feat of the boys. They crowded about, asked all sorts of questions, and
some of the cowboys patted the parts of the craft as though soothing a
restive horse of a new species.

“Well, I see you arrived,” remarked Mr. Munson, who came up when the
curiosity of the cowboys was about satisfied.

“Did you know they were up to this?” demanded the foreman.

“Well, I did see ’em tinkering with some contraption over in the
woods,” admitted the cattle buyer as he called himself. “But I thought
I’d let ’em surprise you.”

Professor Snodgrass, who had come back, his specimen boxes filled, saw
the gleaming wings of the airship and called:

“Oh, boys, are you going to make another flight? I want to go up, for
I have an idea there is a new species of high-flying butterfly in this
region and I’d like to get a specimen.”

“We’ll take you up after we’ve had something to eat,” said Bob.

“Fine!” cried the professor. “I’ll get my long-handled net ready. Some
of those butterflies are very shy in the upper air currents.”

“Do you mean to say you’re going up in _that_?” asked the Parson.

“Why not?” counter queried Professor Snodgrass. “I’ve done it before.”

There was a murmur of surprise, and it was easy to see that the
professor had advanced greatly in the estimation of the cowboys.

The putting together of the airship, and its use by the boys made quite
a diversion at Square Z ranch, where novelties were rare. The cowboys
lost so much time from their routine work looking up at the clouds for
a sight of the craft that Dick Watson finally requested the boys to
make their flights at times when the employees were at liberty, or else
keep from circulating over the cattle ranges.

Professor Snodgrass went up not once but several times, and made choice
captures of upper air insects. Jerry and his chums tried to induce
some of the cowboys to take a flight with them. But though Gimp almost
allowed himself to be persuaded he finally backed out, amid the jeers
of his fellows.

The boys were in high spirits for the airship accomplished all they
expected it would in the way of gaining them more consideration. The
cowboys treated them as more than equals. They could not ask enough
questions about the workings of the airship, and few of them would
believe that it was not like a balloon, and that, somehow or other,
compressed gas caused it to rise.

Jerry tried to illustrate by scaling a piece of tin in the air, the
flat surface corresponding to the surface of the airship’s wings, and
its motion sustaining it, just as the motion of the airship, imparted
to it by the propeller kept the machine up. As soon as the forward
motion ceased down came the tin, just as down came the aeroplane.

But the cowboys were all incredulous in general, though Gimp and the
Parson had some idea of the theories involved.

As for Hinkee Dee, while he was plainly impressed, he did not become at
all friendly. Instead of being sarcastic, he was just plain mean and
insulting.

“Well, we’ll get him yet,” declared Jerry. “He can’t hold off forever.”

“I wonder what makes him this way?” asked Bob. “Is he afraid we’ll
discover the cattle thieves?”

“Looks that way,” replied Ned. “I guess he wants to solve the mystery
himself. But he’d better get busy.”

“He hasn’t done anything that I can see--except talk,” put in Jerry.

“No,” agreed Ned. “It’s queer. But we haven’t done much ourselves. I
say! let’s get busy, now we’ve had our fun in the airship.”

“All right,” assented Jerry. “We’ll take a trip to-morrow over to the
place where we ran up against a stone wall last time.”

“In the airship?” asked Bob.

“No. Not this time. The ponies will do.”

It was boots and saddles early the next morning, the boys taking their
lunch with them.

“Good luck!” called the foreman after them. “If you don’t find the
rustlers, at least you’ve kept ’em away since you came, except for that
one raid.”

When he went out to the corral a little later and observed a pony there
he exclaimed to Gimp:

“Who’s horse is Jerry riding?”

“His own, ain’t he?”

“There’s his pony now,” said the foreman. “Where’s Go Some?”

“By stirrup!” cried the cowboy. “Jerry’s taken the wrong pony. That imp
Go Some will turn wild after he’s been ridden a few hours--he always
does. And the fellow that’s on his back--well, I wouldn’t give much for
his hide!” and he started off on a run.




CHAPTER XVII

ANOTHER RAID


“Here! where you goin’?” demanded the foreman after the retreating
cowboy.

“To see if I can catch that imp of Satan before he does any mischief,”
was the reply, shot back over Gimp’s shoulder. “I can’t see how Jerry
took the wrong pony.”

“They look a heap alike to a fellow that don’t know much about hosses,”
was the answer. “But if he doesn’t know Go Some’s tricks he sure will
be throwed, and likely trampled on. Think you can get to him in time?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t say where they was goin’, but I’ll do my
best.”

Gimp threw his saddle over his own mount that was having a “breather”
after dinner, pulled tight the girths and swung himself up with a
peculiar hitch that, as much as had his reputed ability to dance, had
gained him his nickname.

“Try down by Bubblin’ Spring,” directed the foreman. “I think I heard
the professor say he was goin’ that way, and he asked the boys to stop
and flag him if they got the chance. He said he was after some new kind
of frog or other. The spring’s full of ’em.”

“All right,” answered Gimp, as he galloped off.

“Queer, though, how Jerry took the wrong pony,” murmured the foreman
as he went back to his office. “They look a bit alike--his’n and Go
Some, but the last is meaner’n pizen. He’ll trot along with you for an
hour or so and then he’ll get as wild as the wust buckin’ bronco that
ever stiffened his legs and humped his back. Never could account for
it--never. Guess I’ll get rid of him--if Jerry comes out of this all
right. If he don’t I’ll shoot the imp.”

“What’s the matter? You got money in the bank?” asked Hinkee Dee,
sauntering out of the bunk house.

“Why?” the foreman queried.

“Talkin’ to yourself like that.”

“Oh! I was just wonderin’ why he took him.”

“Who took him?”

“Jerry--you know--one of the boys. He rode off on Go Some and left his
own pony. Mistake, I reckon, but it’s like to be a bad one for him. You
know Go Some.”

“I should say I did! Don’t care for his acquaintance, either.”

“Well, think of that tenderfoot lad on him. Gimp has rid off trying to
catch him. Maybe if you was to----”

“No thank you! I’ve got something else to do besides going to the
rescue of thick-headed tenderfeet.”

“But Jerry made a mistake I tell you! He took Go Some thinking he was
his own pony. Must have been tethered where he left his mount, though
I don’t see how that could be, as Go Some is never fastened with the
saddle ponies any more.”

Hinkee Dee said nothing as he strode away, but there was no look of
concern on his face as there was on the countenance of the foreman.

“What’s the matter with your pony, Jerry?” asked Bob as he and Ned rode
beside their tall chum.

“Nothing that I know of. Why?”

“He seems to want to hurry up all the while. Never knew him to be that
way before. He was always at the tail end.”

“He is a bit speedy,” admitted Jerry, as he saw that his mount was
stepping along at a good pace. “I never paid much attention to him
before. Maybe he has some friends over this way. I wonder,” went on
Jerry, speculatively, “if any of the cow rustlers’ ponies could be
grazing around here?” for they were in the vicinity of the place where
they had picked up the trail of the last raiding party.

“It might be,” agreed Ned. “Horses have relations, same as other
animals, I reckon, and if your pony got a whiff of the family he might
be in a hurry to rub noses. But, however that may be, I’d give a good
bit to know where they hide their horses and the cattle. Hold on there!
Don’t be in such a rush!”

Jerry tried to rein in his mount, but it was too late, for, a moment
later, the animal had taken the bit in his teeth and was dashing across
the plain.

“What are you trying to do--start a race?” cried Ned.

“I’ll give you a brush!” added Bob, but he had a glimpse of Jerry’s
face as the lad tore past him, and Jerry’s countenance showed anything
but delight in a coming test of speed.

Meanwhile, Gimp, his anxious eyes scanning the horizon at every rise he
topped, was riding on, muttering to himself.

“That change of horses never was made natural,” he said. “Somebody who
didn’t like Jerry had a hand in it. Now I wonder who it could be? Well,
better not ask too many questions, I reckon. But I’ll keep my eyes
open.”

He trotted on, now and then speaking to his horse as a range rider
will often do. But Gimp saw no trace of the boys of whom he was in
search--at least not for over an hour after he had fared forth.
Then, as he turned away from Bubbling Springs where his search had been
unsuccessful, and headed for the defile where the trail of the cattle
rustlers had been lost, he descried in the distance three figures, one
far in advance of the others.

“That’s them, sure!” exclaimed Gimp. “And Go Some has done his famous
boltin’ stunt. Anyhow, Jerry’s still in the saddle. How long he’ll
stay is another matter. Hop along you rat-tailed runt!” and with this
affectionate epithet directed at his own steed, Gimp shook the reins
and galloped off, making sure Lizzie, his horned toad pet, was safe in
his pocket.

He was within five hundred feet of the leading, onrushing Go Some when
the maddened horse did just what was to be expected of him. He began
to buck, and as Jerry was no expert in the saddle he shot out at the
second landing. And then, with fury, Go Some turned and rushed at the
prostrate, motionless figure.

[Illustration: “GO SOME” TURNED AND RUSHED AT THE PROSTRATE, MOTIONLESS
FIGURE.]

With yells of dismay, Ned and Bob tried to spur their already
half-exhausted animals forward to stop the maddened brute, but their
mounts were unable to give the necessary burst of speed.

“Leave him to me!” yelled Gimp, who rode up just then. “I’ll ’tend to
him!”

“Hump yourself now, you rat!” he yelled to his animal.

Like a polo pony, Blaze collided with the infuriated Go Some, the two
horses coming together with a thud that could be heard for a long
distance. Then Ned and Bob saw Gimp’s plan. He fairly knocked the
maddened animal to one side so it could not trample on the unconscious
Jerry.

But the shock was only momentarily successful. Thrown out of his
stride, and away from the object of his attack, Go Some swerved to one
side for an instant. But as he came on again, with no thought of giving
up his plan, Gimp was ready for him.

Drawing his revolver, the cowboy fired directly at the furious animal.
The bullet, as the marksman intended, creased a red line along the
beast’s neck, making a smarting, stinging wound.

“Maybe that’ll cure you!” muttered the cowboy as he saw the mad horse
turn and gallop away across the rolling plain. Then Gimp reined Blaze
in, and slipped out of the saddle. He knelt beside Jerry, as Bob and
Ned jumped from their mounts.

“Is he--is he----” faltered Chunky.

“Not by a long shot!” exclaimed Gimp. “There’s a lot of fight left in
him yet! He struck on his head and he’s insensible, but there don’t
nothin’ seem to be busted,” he added, feeling all over Jerry who lay
with closed eyes.

“How’re we going to get him home?” asked Ned, when his chum had not
aroused after they had wet his face with water and had tried to force
some between his lips.

“Guess one of you’ll have to ride back for the ambulance--I mean a
wagon,” Gimp answered.

“Our auto would be best,” suggested Ned. “I’ll go get it and run it
back here.”

Ned made good time back to the ranch, considering the half-exhausted
state of his pony, and he made better time back with the automobile.
Jerry was just opening his eyes when Ned returned, but he went off
in another spell of faintness as they lifted him up on the pile of
blankets that had been slipped in by the anxious foreman.

As the automobile, carefully and slowly driven by Ned, while Bob and
Gimp rode beside it, came within view of the Square Z buildings they
saw a horseman riding toward them.

“What’s up now; more trouble?” asked Gimp, as he recognized the Parson,
who seemed excited.

“I should say so! Munson’s been shot.”

“Shot! How?”

“In a cattle raid. There’s been another.”




CHAPTER XVIII

TWO INVALIDS


Gimp pulled up his horse sharply and looked narrowly at the Parson.

“Where was the raid this time?” he asked.

“From the Bear Swamp range,” and he named a part of the Square Z ranch
that lay to the southeast, a low tract that was wet part of the year.

“Bear Swamp, eh?” mused Gimp. “That’s where some of the good stock was,
too.”

“Yes, the old man had a nice bunch fattening there for a special order.
He’s ravin’ now.”

For the moment Bob and Ned were more interested in how Munson had been
shot than in the news of the cattle being driven off. The same thought
was in both their minds. Was the cattle buyer shot while protecting the
Square Z herd, or while participating in the theft? This last fitted in
with the suspicions in the minds of the two boys. They wanted to ask a
question but did not know just how, when Gimp saved them the trouble.

“Where was Munson hit?” he asked. “In the back?” he added as a
significant after query.

The Parson laughed.

“It wouldn’t have surprised me if he had been on the run away from the
enemy when he got nipped,” he said, “but I’ll have to be just and say
it was in the leg, and head on at that.”

“What was he doing?” Gimp next demanded.

“He tried to plug some of the rustlers but they got him first, it
_seems_,” answered the Parson.

“Huh! It _seems_?” inquired Gimp. “Doesn’t anybody _know_?”

“Nobody was there but Munson, and we had to take his version of it,”
went on the narrator. “At least nobody but Munson came back to Square Z
after the fracas. The others rode away with the cattle.”

“Oh, then he was the only one who saw ’em. Which way did they go?”
asked Gimp, eagerly.

“Over there--same way as the others,” and the Parson pointed toward the
rocky defile near which all traces of the former bunch of stolen cattle
had been lost.

“Same gang then, I take it,” said Gimp, presently. “Go on. Spin the
yarn as we go along. We’ve got a sick boy here and the sooner the
doctor sees him the better.”

Gimp told the Parson, briefly, how Jerry had been hurt, and added
something about Hinkee Dee which Ned and Bob could not quite catch.
Then, in his turn, the Parson told of the raid.

Munson, it appeared, had ridden off, as he often did, to look at a
bunch of steers or to inspect some part of the ranch. He had come back,
riding a winded horse and with his right leg tied in bloody bandages.
His story was to the effect that as he approached a small herd of
cattle that were temporarily without cowboy watchers from Square Z, he
had seen the steers being rounded up by half a dozen men, who started
to drive them away.

“Munson said he knowed they wasn’t our men,” said the Parson, “so he
hailed ’em. They fired at him quick as a flash, and then he said he was
sure they were the rustlers. He shot back and thinks he hit one, but
they got him in the leg. He knows a little about medicine it seems, so
he tore up his shirt, bandaged the wound and rode home. I guess most of
us would have done the same.”

“Then he saw the rustlers?” asked Gimp, eagerly.

“Sure,” assented the Parson.

“Can’t he give a description so we can find ’em?”

“Well, he didn’t get near enough to see ’em clearly, he says. And you
know one cowboy on a horse looks pretty much like another,” replied the
Parson. “I guess Munson’s description won’t be much help. But we’re
going to get right on their trail, and maybe we’ll be able to land
’em. They haven’t got such a start as before.”

Poor Jerry was beginning to recover consciousness when they carried him
into the ranch house. He opened his eyes.

“Are you badly hurt, old scout?” asked Bob, anxiously.

“Well,” was the slow and low-voiced answer, “I have felt better,” and
there was a faint smile which showed Jerry’s grit.

There were some modern conveniences at Square Z, a telephone being
one of them, and a message was sent to town for a physician, who,
fortunately, was in his office. He promised to come at once in his
automobile, and was at Square Z in a comparatively short time.

“You’ve got two invalids to look after, Doc,” remarked the foreman, who
had remained behind with the boys when Gimp and the Parson had ridden
off after the other cowboys who had already started the chase.

“Two? I thought there was only one.”

“Visitor stayin’ here got himself shot-up,” and Mr. Watson briefly
described Munson’s hurt.

As Jerry seemed to be the worse injured, the doctor attended him first,
and after a searching examination announced, to the relief of Bob and
Ned, that their chum was not in a serious condition.

“He’s had a bad shaking up, and he’s as sore as a boil and will be for
some days,” declared the physician. “But nothing is broken, and I think
there will prove to be no internal injuries. He’s badly bruised and
he’ll have to stay in bed for three or four days. Now where’s the other
chap?”

But that was a question that could not be answered; at least off-hand.
For when they went to Munson’s room, whither he had limped on his
arrival at the ranch with the startling news, he was gone. Some bloody
bandages on a chair seemed to indicate that he had dressed his wound
again and gone. But where?

The cook solved the mystery by reporting that, just before the arrival
of the doctor, Munson had been seen riding away in the direction taken
by the pursuing cowboys.

“Well, he’s got grit, that’s what I say!” exclaimed the foreman.

Jerry was made as comfortable as possible, and then they could only
await the return of the cowboys from the chase to see how Munson fared.
And when he came riding in with the others, showing little traces on
his face of any pain or suffering, and heard the edict that the doctor
was to come to him, or he to go to the doctor, he exclaimed:

“Not much! It isn’t the first time I’ve been shot, and it may not be
the last. I know how to doctor myself and I’m all right. I’ll be a
little lame and stiff for a while and I’ll have to lie around the
bunk, but that’ll be about all. No doctor for me!” and they could not
persuade him otherwise.

Then the talk turned to the results of the pursuit.

“They got clean away!” declared Gimp, in disappointed tones. “Couldn’t
find hide nor hair of ’em.”

“Where was the last trace?” asked the foreman.

“Same place as the others, near Horse Tail Gulch.” This, it appeared,
was the name of the ravine near which the boys had made some
observations. “We traced ’em to there,” explained the Parson, “and that
was all we could do.”

“Well, this sure is queer!” exclaimed Mr. Watson, banging his fist down
on the table. “I never knew cattle raids to be carried on like this.
They must give the beasts wings after they start to drive ’em away.”

“It does seem so,” agreed Gimp. “What they do with ’em is a mystery to
me.”

“Could they mingle your cattle in with others from another ranch, so
you wouldn’t notice them?” asked Ned.

“Well, Son, they _could_ do that if there was other herds with a
different brand than ours near here,” admitted the foreman. “But there
isn’t. I see your drift. You mean they’ll round up some of your dad’s
steers and when they get to where some other rancher has his herds
they’ll bunch ’em; is that it?”

“Yes,” nodded Ned.

“Well, I don’t hardly believe they’d do that. It would be too hard work
to cut out our cattle, and besides, as soon as the rancher saw a new
brand in with his beef he’d send word here. Our brand is registered all
over.

“Besides,” went on the foreman, “the thieves wouldn’t just cut out our
cattle and drive them on, after they’d let ’em mingle; they’d take
some of the other man’s, too. And we haven’t heard of any other ranch
being robbed the way Square Z has--at least, I haven’t,” he concluded,
looking at the cowboys.

“No, they seem to be picking on just us,” said the Parson.

“I guess my theory isn’t of much account,” admitted Ned. Then, as the
two boys left the group of ranchers, going off by themselves, he added:
“But we’ve got to do something--we’ve got to make good.”

“That’s right!” declared Bob. “We got the folks to consent to let us
try our hand at this rather than hire detectives, and they may call us
off if we don’t show results.”

The doctor came the next day and announced that Jerry was doing finely,
saying he could be up and around in another day. Munson stuck to his
decision not to have the physician look at the wounded leg, and to this
the medical man, with a shrug of his shoulders, had to agree.

“It’s healing fine,” the cattle buyer said.

Jerry was able to be up the next day, and it was considered that the
two “invalids” were doing well. Ned and Bob wanted to stay around the
ranch to keep Jerry company, but he insisted that they do what they
could to get some clue to the mystery. So they rode off each morning
toward the gulch, but they were not successful in uncovering anything.
Nor were the cowboys, though they could not devote much time to
searching, since there was much work to be done about the ranch.

Jerry had been questioned as to why he took Go Some in mistake for his
own horse.

“Why, I thought it was my own pony, that’s all,” he said. “The wild one
was tethered where I’d left mine, and I’m not sharp enough about horses
to tell one from another at a glance when they are as much alike as
those two.”

“Well, they are a bit alike,” admitted the foreman. “But someone
changed the places of the ponies, and I’d like to know who did it.”

The puzzle remained unsolved, however--at least for some time.

“Well, I guess I’ll be able to go about enough to-morrow to start with
Bob and Ned on a thorough search,” said Jerry to himself, about a week
after his accident, while he was moving about the house to get the
stiffness out of his muscles. “I’m feeling all right again.”

Munson had not been active, either, his leg developing a stiffness that
kept him to his room. He had been given an apartment to himself instead
of bunking in with the cowboys. Ned, Bob and Jerry, too, as guests, had
rooms to themselves in the same building.

As Jerry, walking in the Indian moccasins which he wore while in the
house, passed Munson’s room he was minded to go in and have a talk with
him. But as he noiselessly approached, something he saw through the
partially opened door caused him to pause.

The cattle buyer was changing his clothes. Jerry had a glimpse of both
his bare legs and on neither one was a trace of a bullet wound!




CHAPTER XIX

ANOTHER ATTEMPT


“Well!” exclaimed Jerry to himself, “wouldn’t that make you wonder if
you were seeing things?”

For a moment he stood, fascinated by the thought of what it all might
mean, and he did not realize that it was not exactly the proper thing
to do. But Munson was without so much as a scar to show where the
bullet had gone in and been cut out, as he had claimed it had been!

“I wonder if he could have said his arm instead of his leg?” mused
Jerry as he walked softly away, having given over his idea of speaking
to the cattle buyer. “Did I misunderstand them when they told me about
the shooting?”

Jerry tried to reason it out.

No, he was sure “leg” had been mentioned. Besides, he himself had seen
the blood-stained trousers the man had worn.

“And one doesn’t wear trousers on one’s arms. What does it all mean?”
Jerry mused.

He tried to think it out. Clearly, since there was no trace of a bullet
wound there could have been no bullet. And, by the same process of
reasoning, if there was no bullet there could have been no shot fired
at Munson.

“And if there wasn’t a shot there wasn’t the fight he described, and
maybe--yes, there was a cattle theft all right.” Jerry was sure of that
much, anyhow.

“But why should he fake a wound?” Jerry asked himself. “What object
could he have, unless he wanted to make himself out a hero. I guess
that must be it. He wanted to prove that he wasn’t afraid of a gun.
Well, maybe he isn’t. But this is a queer way to prove it. I give it
up!”

A little later as Jerry was sitting out in the sun Munson came limping
toward him.

“He’s keeping up the fake,” thought the tall lad. “And he does it
well. Limps just about enough, and not as much as at first. He doesn’t
forget, either. Must be a good actor.

“How’s the leg?” the boy asked, just to see what would be said.

“Oh, getting on fine!” was the enthusiastic answer. “I’ll be able to
leave the bandages off in a couple of days now,” and he motioned to a
bulge under his trousers where, evidently, he had wound some cloth,
uselessly, as Jerry knew.

“That’s good,” was Jerry’s comment. Then, just to see what the effect
would be, he remarked, as though in surprise:

“Oh, you were shot in the right leg, weren’t you?”

He thought perhaps Munson might surmise that he had been suspected of
faking, and would seem confused. But he was perfectly cool and replied
in casual tones:

“Sure it was the right leg. Did you think it was the left?”

“I had an idea,” Jerry answered.

“Yes, I’ll be in fine shape in a couple more days,” went on Munson,
“and then I can help you boys look for those cattle rustlers. I’d like
to get hold of the man who shot me.”

“You never will,” thought the lad grimly, “for there wasn’t any such
man. You’re a big faker; but what’s your game?”

Jerry cared more for that than for anything else just then. Was Munson
in with the thieves? If so, what would it benefit him to pretend to be
wounded? Jerry’s brain was tired with trying to get a loose end of the
tangle that he could follow.

Ned and Bob, going off by themselves to look for traces of the thieves,
were no more successful than the three chums had been together. They
returned at the end of a long day, tired and disappointed.

Their zeal was quickened, however, when Jerry told them of the queer
discovery in regard to Munson.

“Whew!” whistled Ned. “There’s something doing here, all right. He’s
one of the cattle thieves as sure as guns! We’ve got to watch him
close.”

“I agree to that last part all right,” said Jerry. “But I’m not so sure
he’s in with the rustlers.”

“I am!” and Bob sided with Ned.

“Well, that’s one end to work on, and another is to see what happened
to your dad’s cattle,” said Jerry. “We’ll have another try at the
gulch, I think.”

“It’s only a waste of time,” declared Ned. “Bob and I have gone over
every inch of the ground there.”

“Well, I’m a bit freshened up by my rest,” insisted Jerry, “and I want
to take another look. But have you fellows formed ideas at all?”

“Half a dozen, and not one any good,” answered Bob. “Once I had an idea
that they took the cattle away in a big automobile from the point where
we lost trace of them.”

“They couldn’t do that without leaving marks of the wheels,” put in
Ned, “and we didn’t see any.”

“Then I got a crazy notion that they floated them down a river on a
raft,” went on Chunky. “Only,” and he grinned, “there isn’t any river
near there.”

“And then he sprang the tunnel theory,” laughed Ned.

“What’s that?” Jerry demanded.

“Oh, I had an idea there might be a secret underground passage
somewhere near the gulch, and the rustlers could slip the cattle away
through that. But we couldn’t find any tunnel.”

“And so we’re about at the end of our guessing,” resumed Ned. “The
only theories left are that the cattle sprout wings and jump over the
mountain range, or else they’re carried up in an elevator, leaving no
trace.”

“Well, we’ll see what we can find,” said Jerry. “What with that, and
keeping an eye on Munson, we’re going to have our hands full.”

“And our eyes, too,” laughed Ned.

“Want to take a spin in the airship?” asked Bob of Jerry.

“Not quite yet,” he replied. “I feel a bit weak still, and I haven’t
gotten back all my nerve. But you two go if you like.”

Bob and Ned did take a little flight just before supper, to the delight
and astonishment of the cowboys, who never wearied of watching the
evolutions of the aircraft, though once it made considerable work for
them, as in flying over a herd of cattle the animals stampeded, when
some of them saw the shadow of the big wings hovering over them, and
the cowboys had all they could do to quiet the steers.

But, for all that, the plainsmen delighted to watch the boys sail
aloft. Few of them would venture very near the craft, however, for
fear, as one of them said, “she might turn around and chase us.” But
the airship gained for the boys a certain respect and awe that had been
lacking before. Hinkee Dee only remained hostile, but he was less open
in his antagonism now.

A day or two later the three boys were on their way to the baffling
gulch, or defile. Jerry, Bob and Ned rode their ponies easily along the
undulating grassy plains, Jerry having made sure this time that he had
his own horse. The wild one had wandered off the day of the accident
and had not come back to the ranch. Mr. Watson had told the men not to
make a search for him, as he was “too ornery for anyone to own.”

Professor Snodgrass had been invited to accompany the boys, but he said
he was on the track of some new kind of moth, and its feeding ground
was in the opposite direction from the gulch.

“Well, see what you can find,” suggested Ned to Jerry, as the trio
reached the place where all traces of the stolen cattle had been lost.
“Bob and I have ridden all over the place, and we can’t find a crack
big enough to let a sheep through, let alone a steer.”

“We’ll see,” said Jerry. “Mind, I don’t say there _is_ anything here,
but I just want to satisfy myself.”

They looked carefully in the vicinity of the entrance to the gulch, or
defile. It was at the top of a long low slope that extended along the
western boundary of Square Z ranch.

This ridge was really the last of a line of hills which lay at the
foot of the mountain slope. The ravine was a sort of V-shaped break in
the mountain wall. At one time it might have been a pass through the
mountains, but an upheaval of nature had closed it until now it was but
a wedge-shaped cut, or gash, into the stony side of the mountain. Stony
were the steep walls and also the floor, which was covered with shale
and flat rocks.

“There’ve been cattle along here,” declared Jerry, pausing at the
entrance to the gulch.

“Yes, everybody admits that,” conceded Ned. “And there’ve been cattle
in the gulch, too. You can see traces of ’em. But the mystery is: how
do they get out?”

Jerry looked about without answering.




CHAPTER XX

THE PROFESSOR’S DILEMMA


Ned, Bob and Jerry were perhaps better fitted to attempt to solve a
mystery of this kind than most young men would have been. They had
traveled considerably, and had been in strange situations. More than
once they had had to do with secret passageways and queer tunnels which
they had discovered only after long, tiresome search.

“But I never saw anything quite so plain as this,” confessed Jerry,
as he and his chums rode around the sides of the V-shaped gulch. It
was shaped like a V in two ways. That is, the entrance was of that
character and the sides sloped down from the top; though because of the
width of the floor, as it might be called, of the gulch the outline of
the elevation would better be represented by the letter U.

The opening of the gulch was perhaps half a mile in width, and the
two sides were a mile or more long. They came together, gradually
converging, until they formed the inside of a sharp wedge.

“Now the question,” said Jerry, “is whether or not there is an opening
in this V; and, if so--where?”

“Now you’ve said it!” exclaimed Ned. “Where? Beats any problem in
geometry I ever tackled.”

“Well, come on, let’s be systematic about this,” suggested Jerry.
“There are three of us, and we can divide this gulch into three parts.”

The tall lad indicated some natural landmarks on the rocky walls of the
ravine. He would take from the entrance on the left to a third of the
way down the side. From there, extending part way up the other side,
and, of course, including the angle of the V, would be Bob’s portion.
The remainder would be inspected by Ned.

“But Bob and I have done it all before,” objected Ned. “We didn’t find
a thing.”

“And maybe we sha’n’t now,” admitted Jerry. “But it won’t be for lack
of trying. Come on now, start.”

“And you can both meet me at the end of the gulch,” suggested Bob.

“Why meet you there?” Jerry asked.

“So you can eat,” was the ready response. “I’ve got the grub, you know.”

“Trust you for that,” laughed Ned. “But it’s a good idea all the same.”

The search began. The boys were sure the cattle had been driven up to
the entrance of the defile. In this they were supported by the cowboys
who agreed to the same thing. But there was a division of opinion as to
whether the steers had been driven into the gulch and held there for a
time.

There were objections to this theory on the ground that in some cases
pursuit had been made so soon after the raid that had the cattle been
held in the gulch they would have been seen.

Of course, they might have been kept there for a little while, and then
concealed, either further up the side of the mountain or among the low
foothills. But searches in these places had failed to give any clue.

“The cattle come into this gulch,” was Jerry’s decision, “and we’ve got
to find out how they are taken out without being seen.”

The boys searched the rocky sides of the gulch thoroughly. They even
climbed part way up, but all to no purpose. When Jerry and Ned met with
Bob in the angle, and began to eat, they were no nearer a solution of
the mystery than at first.

“Well, I know one thing I’m going to do!” exclaimed Jerry, vigorously,
as he washed down the last of his sandwich with a drink of water.

“What’s that?” queried Ned.

“I’m going up on top and look down. That’s getting a different
viewpoint, and that’s a whole lot, sometimes. Me for the top of the
mountain.”

“Well, maybe that wouldn’t be a bad idea,” conceded Ned. “Go to it!”

“But not to-day,” objected Bob. “I’m about tuckered out.”

“You’re getting too fat!” laughed Jerry. “But I’m in no hurry about
it to-day. To-morrow or day after will do as well. And I have an idea
we’ll discover something.”

“It’s going to be a climb,” observed Bob, dubiously, as they rode out
of the gulch on their homeward way and looked up at the steep sides of
the mountain. Then they started for the house.

“Didn’t bring ’em back with you this time, did you?” sneered Hinkee Dee
as the boys rode into the corral at the ranch.

“No, but we’re on their track,” replied Jerry, good-naturedly. “And
we’ll have them in a few days now.”

“Well, give ’em my regards,” said the cowboy.

“Why, are the rustlers friends of yours?” asked Ned in drawling tones.

Hinkee Dee turned like a flash.

“What do you mean by that?” he cried.

“Just the same as you meant,” was Ned’s cool rejoinder; and, after a
moment’s insolent scrutiny of the lad, Ned never flinching under the
gaze, the assistant foreman swung away muttering.

“You an’ him don’t seem to pull together very well,” observed Gimp,
leaping from his pony.

“That doesn’t worry me any,” said Ned.

The trip to the top of the mountain required a little more preparation
than the one on which the boys had fruitlessly examined the gulch.
They could not make it in one day, and had to arrange to spend the
night out. But the weather was fine and they knew they would enjoy the
excursion, since they could take a shelter tent along.

“I’ll go with you,” declared Professor Snodgrass. “You are going
to remain out all night and that is just what I want. I am making
a special study of night moths now, and I imagine I may find a new
species on the mountain top. I’ll go with you.”

“Glad to have you,” replied Jerry, cordially. Since arriving at the
ranch they had not seen as much of the scientist as they usually did on
their travels.

“We’ll take the ponies,” suggested Jerry, in talking over the plans.
“It will be easier for us and not too hard for them if we ride the
slope slowly. We can even walk part of the way if it’s too steep. And
with the animals we can easily carry what we need for the night camp.”

“I’m not a very good horseman,” objected the professor. “I had hopes
that you would go in the car or the airship.”

“The car couldn’t make the trip,” Jerry said. “Of course we could use
the airship, but I’m not sure about a good landing place up on the
summit. It looks as if it were pretty well wooded. I guess we can pick
you out a good, safe pony, Professor.”

“Lots of ’em,” Mr. Watson assured them.

“Well, if I fall off you’ll have to pick me up, boys,” and the
scientist smiled, but somewhat apprehensively and dubiously.

However, the animal which was assigned to him proved so very tractable
and gentle that Professor Snodgrass felt all his fears vanish, and
after a preliminary trial around the ranch buildings he said he felt
that he could go anywhere the boys went.

The tent in which they would sleep was in four sections, each rider
carrying one. The food, too, was divided into packets and this, except
for weapons, was about all they needed, save blankets that went with
the tent.

“Well, we’re off!” called Ned as he and his chums, with the professor,
mounted their well-laden ponies and started away from the ranch.

“Good luck!” called the foreman.

“And don’t lose the rustlers when you start back with ’em!” added his
assistant. “Better hog-tie ’em or they might slip loose.”

Some of the boys chuckled at this sally of wit, but others showed by
their attitude that their sympathies were more with the boys than with
Hinkee Dee.

The trail up the mountain was not an easy one, but the sure-footed
ponies made it very well indeed. At first Professor Snodgrass stopped
his steed every few steps to get off to look for some bug he fancied he
saw, or to gather a specimen of a new plant or flower.

But Jerry pointed out to him that if thus delayed they would not reach
the summit in time to hunt any moths that night, and admitting the
right of this the professor kept on with the boys.

“Just what do you expect to find when you get up there, Jerry?” he
asked.

“I wish I knew,” was the answer. “But we’ve got to find something
somewhere to solve this puzzle.”

“That’s what,” agreed his chums.

The boys fully expected to get to the top well before noon, but the
trail was circuitous and presented accumulating difficulties as they
went upward, and finally the ponies and they, themselves, were so tired
that they halted at noon, still several miles from the top, and ate
their lunch, giving the animals a breathing spell and a chance to crop
what scanty herbage there was.

The remainder of the trip was worse than the first part as regarded
going, and the sun was hiding behind a big bank of gorgeously colored
clouds when they topped the last rise and reached the summit. They
found themselves on a wide, level stretch of rich land, extending for
miles, and parallel to the next mountain range, there being a valley
between. But the boys could not see into this yet, as night was coming
on and the shadows lay deep in the valley.

“Can’t do any exploring to-night,” decided Jerry. “We’d better make
camp at once and turn in, so as to be up early. Then we can put in a
full day.”

“Good idea!” exclaimed Bob. “I’ll get a fire going right away. I
brought along some bacon and eggs.”

“Good old scout!” yelled Ned.

The tent was soon erected, the fire was merrily burning, the horses
eagerly cropping the sweet grass, and the aromatic smell of bacon and
coffee filled the air.

“I’ll sleep like a top to-night,” declared Jerry as he and the others
wrapped themselves up in their blankets a little later and went into
the tent.

“I’ll sleep like two,” said Bob.

“No wonder--you ate so much!” joked Ned.

Probably their sound slumber accounted for the fact that the boys did
not hear Professor Snodgrass leave the tent. And then he had told them
he intended to get up in the night and go out with a lantern to hunt
for moths that would be attracted by the light. In accordance with this
plan they had given him an outside place so he would not disturb them.

Just when he went out the boys did not know, but in the middle of the
night they were awakened by a cry.

“Boys! Boys! Help! They’ve got me!” was shouted in distressed tones.

“It’s the professor!” exclaimed Jerry, sitting up suddenly.

“That’s what! And he’s in trouble!” added Ned. “We’ve got to help him!”

They arose and rushed from the tent into the darkness only faintly
illuminated by the dying blaze of the campfire.




CHAPTER XXI

QUEER MARKS


“What is it?”

“What was it?”

“Where is he?”

Ned, Bob and Jerry shot these questions into the darkness as they
sleepily stumbled out of the tent.

“Quiet!” commanded Jerry when he realized that it was vitally necessary
to learn from which direction the call for help had come so they might
go to the rescue. Bob and Ned understood and stood still, listening.

But though they could hear the restless moving of their horses,
tethered not far away, there was no further call. Night insects,
perhaps some of the very kind the professor had gone out to capture,
made their characteristic sounds.

“What shall we do?” asked Ned in a whisper. “Something must be done and
quickly.”

“We’ve got to call,” said Jerry in husky tones, after waiting what
seemed to his chums a long time, though it was but perhaps a few
seconds. “Let’s all yell at once.”

They raised their voices in a call that must have carried far, shouting
the name of the missing man. But the echoes of the forest and plain was
their only answer.

“He must have fallen and knocked himself insensible,” suggested Ned.

“But didn’t you hear what he said?” asked Jerry.

“No, I didn’t,” Ned admitted. “The call woke me, but I couldn’t make
out the words.”

“He called for help, and said, very distinctly: ‘They’ve got me,’”
repeated Jerry. “I’m sure about that.”

“What did he mean?”

“That’s what we’ve got to find out.”

“Could it have been that he was attacked by a big moth--a giant of its
species?” ventured Bob, jokingly.

“Say, this is no joke!” exclaimed Ned, and he glanced involuntarily
over his shoulder.

“Let’s make up the fire,” suggested Jerry. “It will be a guiding mark
for the professor, and we’ll not go to bed again this night--unless we
find him.”

“Why, don’t you think we shall?” asked Bob. “And say, if not a big
moth, perhaps a wild animal----”

“Forget it,” advised Ned. “If anything in the animal line attacked
the professor it was a bear or a mountain lion, and I don’t believe
there have been any of them in this region for years. I think he went
puttering around in the dark to see about getting some insects, and he
fell over a cliff, or into some hole.”

“But that wouldn’t make him say something--or someone--had him,”
refuted Jerry.

“That’s so,” chimed in Bob. “But let’s do something instead of standing
here talking. The professor is in trouble.”

“That’s true enough,” conceded Jerry. “Come on. We’ll get a light and
make a search. But first build up the fire.”

They threw on a quantity of light wood, and the blaze that flared up
was doubly welcome, giving both warmth and cheer, for things were
getting on the nerves of the boys, sturdy chaps though they were.

“Let’s yell again,” suggested Jerry, and once more their voices were
raised in a loud cry. They hoped with that and the sight of the fire to
get some response, but none came.

“Well, we’ve got to search for him,” decided Jerry, with a sigh.

“We’ll have some hot coffee before we start out,” Bob said. “It won’t
take but a few minutes to make over that hot fire, and we’ll all feel
better for a drink.”

There was a rude stone fireplace at one side of the main blaze, and
raking some glowing embers into this Bob set the coffee pot over the
coals. In a little while he served out the hot and cheering beverage.
It did put heart into the boys, and they were soon ready to set out on
their search.

“Now we’ve got to have some sort of system to this,” said Jerry. “It
won’t do to get separated too far, or--well, something might happen to
us. Now I suggest that we make the fire the central point. We can start
from that--the three of us, as though from three equally separated
points on a circle. We’ll each walk until we can just see the fire and
start to call from there.”

“Why not fire our guns?” suggested Ned.

“Yes, we can do that. But, as we haven’t any blanks, fire in the air.”

“And if we don’t get any result?” Bob asked.

“Then we’ll have to come back, after a reasonable time and wait until
morning. I haven’t much hope of finding him in the dark, anyhow, for
once a person starts to wander he gets more and more confused.”

“Then you think he wandered away?” asked Ned.

“I don’t know what to think,” was Jerry’s answer, and it was a bit
despondent. “I wish we had a few hours of daylight.”

“The night can’t last forever,” Bob said softly.

“No, but it’s only half gone--it’s only a bit after twelve,” responded
Jerry, looking at his watch in the light of an electric flashlight he
had brought from the tent.

The boys prepared for the night search. They started from the fire,
pacing off equal distances, and then went forward into the darkness.
Every now and then they would look back to see that they had not lost
sight of the guiding beacon behind them.

At intervals they called--shouting the professor’s name. Intently they
listened for an answer, but none came. Nor was there any response to
the shots they fired.

An hour was spent thus fruitlessly, and then they came back to the camp
blaze.

“No use, I guess,” Jerry said. “You two didn’t hear anything, did you?”

“No,” answered Bob, and as Ned shook his head negatively he asked:

“Did the professor have a revolver with him?”

“I told him to take one when we started out from the ranch, and always
keep it with him,” said Jerry. “Whether he did or not I can’t say.”

“Let’s see if he left it with his stuff in the tent,” suggested Ned.

They looked near the place where the professor had slept. Some of his
belongings--spare insect nets, specimen boxes and the like--were on the
ground, but there was no weapon of any sort.

“Guess he must have taken it,” Jerry said. “The question is--will he
think to use it?”

“He ought to have used it on whatever attacked him,” Bob said.

The boys became silent. They loved Professor Snodgrass and they did not
know what to do to help him. That he was in trouble they knew. But it
was literally groping in the dark to try to do anything further until
daylight.

They went back into the tent, for it was warm there from the heat of
the blaze, but none of them felt like sleeping. Bob got up and began to
rummage among some packages.

“What are you looking for?” asked Jerry.

“Seeing how much grub we have left. You can’t tell how long we may have
to stay if we don’t find the professor.”

For once Bob’s chums did not rebuke him for mentioning something to eat.

“You’re right,” said Jerry. “We didn’t bring enough for a long stay.”

“I packed a pretty good lot,” said Bob, “and I’m glad I did. We could
stay a couple of days, I think, with what we could shoot. Then if we
don’t find him we’ll have to go back to the ranch for more.”

“Oh, we’ll find him before then,” declared Ned.

Jerry said nothing.

Morning came. They were astir with the first faint glow in the east
and made a quick breakfast. They decided to keep together, for they
were in a strange country, and to hunt in a circle with the camp as a
center. Having hidden their main supply of food after putting up some
for a noon-time “snack,” they mounted their horses and fared forth.

They were not experienced enough in wood lore to pick up the
professor’s trail. All they knew was that he had started out in some
direction from the tent. They argued that he would keep on going west,
as the ranch lay to the east of the camp, and he would, most likely,
want to explore new country for his moths.

For a while they discovered nothing, and there came no answer to
their shouts. Then, as Ned was riding a little in advance, he gave a
surprised cry and called eagerly:

“Look here, fellows!”

“What is it?” asked Jerry, as he and Bob galloped up.

“Look at those queer marks!” cried Ned, pointing to the ground.




CHAPTER XXII

ANXIOUS DAYS


The boys sat silent in their saddles and looked down at the queer
tracks left in a place where the earth was soft. The marks were
like two shallow depressions in the ground, about a foot across and
separated by about eight feet. They looked to have been made by some
rounded body, for in the center the depressions were more deeply
indented than on the edge, and the marks, or tracks, curved and twisted
this way and that, but always in almost an exact parallel.

“What do you make of them?” asked Ned, and both he and Bob glanced at
Jerry.

“They’re queer,” said the tall lad at length.

“You’re right there,” assented Bob. “But what do they mean?”

“And have they anything to do with the disappearance of the professor?”
went on Ned.

“You’ve got me there,” Jerry had to confess. “You see we don’t know
whether the marks were made before or after he left us.”

“They can’t have been made very long though,” declared Ned, sliding
off his pony and getting down to feel the marks. “They’re comparatively
fresh.”

“But what in the world made ’em?” asked Bob.

Neither of his chums could answer, and, at Jerry’s suggestion, they
decided to follow the queer trail to see whither it led.

“It may have something to do with the disappearance of the professor,
though I doubt it,” said Ned.

After following the queer marks for some distance, not knowing whether
they were going toward the starting point or in the opposite direction,
the boys encountered a difficulty. The marks came to a sudden stop at
the edge of a stretch of land that was smooth shale rock. On that, if
the object that made the marks had been dragged, no impression would
remain.

“Now let’s go back and start over again,” suggested Ned. “The marks
either end here--or begin.”

“More likely begin,” responded Jerry. “If they ended here it wouldn’t
amount to a hill of beans as far as helping us is concerned. But let’s
go back.”

So they followed the trail back to the spot they had first observed the
strange lines in the soft earth. And when they reached this place Ned
made another discovery.

“Look!” he cried, pointing to the space between the marks. “There have
been horses along here.”

“Sure, we rode there,” said Jerry.

“No we didn’t!” said Bob, quickly. “We came over that way,” and he
pointed to the left. “We haven’t ridden here at all. Those are strange
horses.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Jerry admitted.

“I _know_ I am!” Bob retorted.

An examination of the impressions left by the strange horses showed
them to be unlike those made by the steeds the Motor Boys rode.

“Well, now that’s settled,” observed Jerry, “let’s keep on following
the trail. We must find out what it all means.”

The queer marks went on for a little distance farther, and then were
lost once more, at the edge of a stretch of ground so hard and rocky
that it would have taken a small locomotive, running along without a
track, to have made an impression.

“Nothing doing here,” said Jerry. “The mystery deepens.”

“The only two things we are sure of,” observed Ned, “is that the
professor has disappeared, after calling for help, and that something
has been dragged along here by horses. And they are both queer things.”

“The only thing to do is to keep on searching and calling and
shooting,” said Jerry. “And we don’t want to do too much of the latter,
for we haven’t a big supply of cartridges, and we may need them.”

“What for?” Bob asked.

“Well, you never can tell what will happen,” was the answer. “It’s best
to be prepared and well armed, especially in this region of cattle
rustlers.”

“And we’re forgetting all about them!” exclaimed Ned. “We haven’t done
the exploring up here we set out to do.”

“We had to drop it,” Jerry said. “The professor came first, of course.”

“Oh, sure,” Ned agreed with him. “I wonder,” he went on musingly, “if
the rustlers are around here?”

“I only wish they _were_!” exclaimed Jerry, warmly. “They’re just the
ones we’d like to see. They might put us on the trail of the professor.
That is,” he chuckled, “if they didn’t feel hurt because we had caught
them.”

“Do you expect to nab ’em?” asked Bob.

“Say ‘hope’ instead of ‘expect,’” suggested the tall lad with a smile.

“Well, the marks aren’t going to help as much as I expected,” Ned
remarked. “We’ll just have to go it blind again.”

And they did, riding here and there, calling and occasionally firing
their revolvers. But as the day passed, and they received no answer,
they became discouraged.

“Shall we go back to camp?” asked Bob, as night was beginning to
manifest itself.

“Where else would we go?” asked Jerry.

“Well, I thought maybe we would go to the ranch. There isn’t much grub
left----”

“Do you put eating ahead of the professor?” cried Ned.

“No, of course not. But I meant we could go back to the ranch, stock up
and come back here prepared to make a long stay. Of course, I want to
find the professor as much as you!”

“That’s all right,” returned the mollified Ned. “But we’ve got grub
enough for a while yet, and he may come back as queerly as he went
away.”

But Professor Snodgrass did not do so. The boys passed an uneasy night,
listening for any sounds that might indicate the return of their
friend, but his place in the tent was vacant when morning came.

Then they held a sort of council and decided it would be best to go
back to the ranch and tell what had happened. They could come back the
next day, with some of the cowboys and make a more thorough search.

It was a dispirited party of youths that took the homeward trail.
They gave up, for the time being, the plan of seeking for the cattle
thieves.

“Maybe he’s here ahead of us,” suggested Bob, as they came in sight of
the ranch buildings.

“Where?” asked Jerry.

Bob nodded toward the collection of buildings.

“He might have got away from whatever or whoever had him,” he resumed,
“and wandered back here, not being able to find our camp.”

It was but a forlorn hope and it was not justified.

“Seen Professor Snodgrass? Why, no!” exclaimed the foreman, in answer
to their question, as he greeted the boys. “What happened?”

They told him, and related what they had done in the way of making a
search.

“Jumping tomcats! That’s too bad!” cried Mr. Watson. “We’ll get right
after this! Here, Gimp, send up some of the boys!”

“What’s happened?” asked the cowboy.

“The cattle rustlers have captured the professor!” cried the foreman.




CHAPTER XXIII

LETTERS FROM HOME


The boys started at these words. The professor in the hands of the
cattle thieves!

“But--but!” stammered the surprised Ned. “If they took him, why didn’t
they take us? We weren’t far away from where they made the professor a
prisoner, to judge by his voice. It sounded very plainly.”

“Sound carries a good distance in this clear air,” said the foreman.
“He might have been half a mile away.”

“Besides, they didn’t know you were there,” put in Gimp. “You say the
professor went out of the tent?”

“Yes, to look for some moths. He’s been collecting them of late. And
they grabbed him while we slept,” explained Ned.

“Well, that accounts for it,” went on the cowboy. “The rustlers were
abroad that night on top of the mountain, maybe getting ready to make
another raid on us. They came upon the professor, who probably didn’t
notice ’em, and they nabbed him before he knew what was going on. It’s
as plain as a long-eared rabbit. But we’ll get after the rascals!”

“That’s what!” declared the foreman.

“You can’t do much there at night,” Jerry said.

“No. But we can get a start, which is something, and be on the ground
bright and early in the morning,” replied Mr. Watson. “The more time we
lose the worse for the professor. I know that trail in the dark as well
as in daylight. Where’s Hinkee Dee?” he asked.

“Makin’ a new lariat the last I seen of him,” answered Gimp.

“Send him here, will you? I’m going to leave him in charge while I go
off on this expedition with some of you boys. I’ve had enough of this
business. I’ll get them rustlers or bust a leg! It’s bad enough to have
’em steal our cattle, but when they take to kidnappin’ a nice man, like
Professor Snodgrass, it’s time something was done.”

A curious friendship had sprung up between the rough foreman and the
gentle professor which accounted for the warmth of Mr. Watson’s talk.

“Hink,” he said shortly, when his assistant came in, “we’ve got bad
news. More of those rustler’s doin’s. It’s got to stop! I want you to
take hold here until I come back,” and he explained what had taken
place and outlined his plans.

“Get off that shipment that’s to go to-morrow,” he added, “and I’ll
be back as soon as I can make it. I won’t come without the professor
either, if I can help it,” he said grimly.

“We’ll be with you after we’ve had something to eat,” said Bob, for it
was then near the supper hour.

“You’re not to go back to-night!” declared the foreman. “You’ve done
enough and you’re tuckered out. Get a good night’s sleep and you can
ride up and join us in the morning. Bring along plenty of grub, for we
may have to stay a few days. We’ll prepare to camp out. You say you
left your tent there?”

“Yes, for we counted on going back,” Jerry answered.

Arrangements were quickly made to get the cowboys, under the leadership
of the foreman, off on their trip.

“I wish I was going along!” exclaimed Mr. Munson, as he limped around
the room where the talk had been going on.

“Why aren’t you?” asked Hinkee Dee in some surprise. “They’ll need
every man they can get, and the boss has signed up more of the cowboys
to go with him than I like to see leave the ranch. It makes us
short-handed.”

“I don’t see how I can go,” replied the cattle buyer. “My leg doesn’t
seem to be getting on as well as I expected. It pains me a lot and
if I go up there, where the trail is steep, I might have to walk. I
couldn’t do that very well now,” and he limped more than ever. “I’d be
more of a hindrance than a help.”

“Well, I reckon there’s something in that,” agreed the assistant
foreman. “Do as you think best.”

“Then I’ll stay until my leg gets better.”

“Hadn’t you better let the doctor look at it?” asked Jerry with a wink,
seen only by his chums.

“Yes, I think I shall,” was Munson’s cool answer. “I’ll ride in to
town and let the doc have a look some day if it doesn’t heal soon. It
doesn’t hurt me to ride on the level.”

“What do you suppose his game is--playing off like that?” asked Ned of
his tall chum when the three were by themselves.

“I wish I knew,” Jerry replied. “But I’m going to find out. He has some
reason for wanting to stay around this ranch, and if it hasn’t to do
with cattle stealing I’m very much mistaken.”

“That’s right,” chimed in Bob.

The little cavalcade of cowboys, headed by the foreman, left the ranch
singing and shouting, one of the more excitable firing off his revolver.

Ned, Bob and Jerry kept pretty much to themselves that night, as Hinkee
Dee was in charge. Even though the parents of the boys owned Square Z,
the surly fellow might make it unpleasant for them. He had not become
at all friendly as had the others.

“Where are you going?” asked Bob of Jerry, as he saw the tall lad
saunter outside.

“Just to have a look around,” was the answer. “I rather want to see
what our friend Munson is up to.”

“Want any company?” asked Ned.

“Thank you, no. It will be better for one to do this. He might get
suspicious.”

Jerry came back an hour later, shaking his head.

“Nothing doing,” he reported. “He just sat playing cards with the other
cowboys for a while, and then took a walk around. I followed, but all
he did was to saunter here and there, star-gazing as nearly as I could
make out.”

“He’s up to some game,” decided Bob, and his chums agreed with him.

The night passed uneventfully, and after an early breakfast Ned, Bob
and Jerry started for the mountain again. They made better time on this
trip, and reached the site of the camp in mid-afternoon. No one was
about, but another tent had been pitched near theirs, and through a
note left in a conspicuous place by the foreman the boys learned that
Watson and the others were off making a search. He advised the three
boys to stay in camp until the return of the party.

The chums did not want to do this--they wanted to be “on the job,” as
Ned declared, but they decided it was best to obey the wishes of a more
experienced person.

“We can be getting grub ready for them,” suggested Bob, who, to do him
justice, was as anxious to have others partake of the good viands he so
enjoyed as he was to eat them himself.

His plan was voted a good one by his chums, and, having had
considerable experience in the way of preparing meals, they got up a
good one, that was much appreciated by the tired cowboys who came in
just before dusk.

“Well, this is a surprise!” exclaimed the foreman as he smelled the
savory odors. “In a way it makes up for our disappointment.”

“Then you didn’t find a trace of him?” asked Jerry.

“Not a trace.”

“Did you see queer marks?” Bob queried.

The foreman nodded silently, his mouth full of bread and bacon.

“What were they?”

“Stone-boat,” sententiously replied Mr. Watson.

“Stone-boat?” repeated Bob.

“Yes. A stone-boat is a sort of platform of heavy planks nailed
crossways to two logs. It’s easy to roll a big stone on this, as it’s
up only a few inches from the ground. Then you hitch some horses to
the front end, and pull the stone-boat along. It’s an easy way of
hauling heavy weights over dry ground. Of course, when there’s snow you
can call it a stone-sled if you like. But that’s what made the marks
you saw.”

“And did they drag the professor on a stone-boat?” was Jerry’s question.

“I think not,” and the foreman shook his head. “It was a pretty big
stone-boat, to judge by the marks. Most likely someone has been
building a sort of wall around a water hole, and had to haul the stone
quite a way. I don’t think it had anything to do with the professor.”

The search was renewed early the next morning, and kept up for two
days without success. There was no trace of the professor and none of
the rustlers. A careful examination was made of the land lying to the
west of the ravine, but nothing was revealed that would help solve the
mystery.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to give up,” regretfully remarked the foreman
after the third day, when their provisions were almost gone. “We’ve
made a good search. They’ve either--well, done away with the poor
professor somehow, carried him far off, or else they’re hiding with him
in some cave in these mountains. And the land knows there are so many
we’d never be able to search them all. We did go through a few.”

There seemed nothing else to do, and the cavalcade slowly wended its
way down the mountain. The boys felt as though they were coming away
from the funeral of their dear friend. It was like leaving him behind.

“But I’m not going to give up!” exclaimed Jerry. “We haven’t solved
the cattle mystery yet, and we’re going to have another whack at that.
Incidentally, we can look for the professor, too.”

“It does you credit, boys,” said the foreman. “But I don’t believe
you’ll have any success.”

The mail was in when the boys got back to Square Z ranch. Each one had
a letter, and when Jerry had finished his from his mother he looked at
the faces of Ned and Bob.

“You don’t seem to have good news,” he remarked.

“We haven’t,” admitted Ned. “Dad wants us to come home!”




CHAPTER XXIV

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.




CHAPTER XXV

THEIR LAST CHANCE


Silence followed this rather insolent remark of the cattle buyer; and
apprehensive looks were on the faces of his auditors. For in the free
and breezy ranch life such talk usually was the preface to a stronger
brand that ended in a fight.

“Well, in a manner of speaking, and casual like, maybe it wouldn’t be
any of my business,” said Hinkee Dee, and it was noted that he was
trying to keep his temper. “But this time I think it is.”

“Just what did you want to know?” asked Munson. Clearly he was not
going off “half cocked.” He wanted a basis for his objections.

“I want to know,” and the assistant foreman spoke more slowly, “what
you were doing with Pod Martin?”

“How do you know I was with Pod Martin?”

“You and him was seen going in Jack’s place together,” and Hinkee Dee
banged his fist on a table.

“Go easy,” advised Munson. He seemed less angry than at first. “Why
shouldn’t I go with Pod Martin if I want to?” he demanded.

“Well, I’ll tell you why, Mr. Cattle Buyer, as you call yourself.
Out here it ain’t healthy for folks visitin’ on a ranch where cattle
are being stolen, to consort with a man suspected of being a cattle
rustler!”

He fairly shot out the words, and there was a general murmur throughout
the room. Everyone expected to see Munson spring to an attack on the
assistant foreman, at least with his fists if not drawing a gun. But
the visitor, who still wore his big diamonds, gave no sign of being
insulted or accused.

“I don’t admit I was consorting with a cattle-rustler suspect,” he said
gently.

“You don’t have to admit it. You was seen.”

“That doesn’t prove anything. How was I to know Martin is said to be a
stealer of cattle?”

“Ain’t you heard it?” blustered Hinkee Dee.

“You heard what I said,” was Munson’s rejoinder.

“Well, if you ain’t heard that then you’re about the only one in these
parts that ain’t--barrin’, maybe, these tenderfeet,” and he indicated
the listening and interested boys.

“Isn’t Pod Martin suspected of being a cattle rustler?” demanded the
assistant foreman of the Parson.

“Yep!” was the answer.

“Well,” rejoined Munson, coolly, “I suppose if he’s really a rustler he
might have taken cattle from this ranch.”

“As like as not,” growled the assistant foreman.

“Then why don’t you have him arrested?” shot out the cattle buyer so
suddenly that some of the cowboys jumped, steady as their nerves were.

Hinkee Dee paused for a moment before answering. Then he growled or
grunted rather than replied:

“Huh! I would soon enough, if I could get the evidence against him. But
he’s too slick. There’s nothing positive.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Munson, easily. Then he got up and went away. The
incident ended so quickly and so unexpectedly that it left some of the
auditors in a sort of gasping state. Hinkee Dee did not, apparently,
know what to make of the way the wind had been taken out of his
sails. He sat looking at the door through which Munson had limped and
muttered, as he, himself, went out:

“I’ll get him yet!”

“Think there’ll be a fight?” asked Bob, apprehensively, of Gimp.

“Naw. It’s all talk. I’ve seen and heard lots like it before. But Hink
was right; it was sort of brash for Munson to talk openly with Martin,
who people is beginnin’ to suspect of bein’ a rustler.”

All of this served to strengthen the suspicions that had been growing
in the minds of the boys that Munson was, somehow or other, more or
less connected with the cattle thefts.

True, there was no direct evidence against him. The only point that
looked bad, aside from his talk to Martin, was the story of his having
been shot while witnessing the raid of some rustlers. That part of the
story was a fake, surely enough, as Jerry could testify. And Munson
still kept up the fiction about his injured leg. In fact, for some
time he had been going to town twice a week, saying he had to have it
treated by a doctor.

“We could disprove that easily enough,” suggested Ned. “There’s only
the one doctor and we could ask him.”

“We don’t need to,” Jerry declared. “I saw both his legs and there
wasn’t a scratch on them.”

“It doesn’t seem as if we’d ever get to the bottom of this,” sighed
Ned. “I’m plumb discouraged about that and the professor. Had a letter
from dad to-day and he wanted to know how we were making out. I hate to
tell him, on top of sending word about the latest cattle raid.”

“How much longer did Mr. Watson say he’d wait before sending word?”
Jerry queried.

“The last of the week. Saturday was the last chance he could give us,”
he said. “He has to fix up his monthly accounts then and he’s got to
make some report of the missing cattle. So, boys, we’ve got a few days
more to make good.”

“It isn’t long,” suggested Bob, dolefully.

“It’ll be our first failure in a long while,” Ned admitted.

“And I’m not going to let it be a failure!” cried Jerry, eagerly.

“What are you going to do?” asked his chums. Somehow they always looked
to the tall lad in an emergency, and one seemed to have arrived now.

“We’re going up in the airship,” said Jerry. “It’s a pity we couldn’t
have used her more for this business as we would have except for the
accident to the wheel. But from now on we’ll use our own little old
machine. We’ll start to-morrow morning.”

“Doing what?” asked Ned.

“Making a search along the mountain ridge in the aeroplane,” was
Jerry’s prompt answer. “This horseback business is too slow.

“Mountain climbing and searching around on top of a range is about the
hardest work there is. Now what’s the matter with getting in our craft,
taking along a week’s supply of grub--can we carry that much, Chunky?”

“Sure--more.”

“That sounds good, coming from you. Well, let’s go on a regular air
expedition,” went on Jerry. “We can take it easy a thousand or so feet
up in the air, and we can be looking down for signs all the while. We
may pick up the trail of the stolen cattle, the rustlers, or even that
of----”

“Professor Snodgrass!” cried Ned.

They set off early the next day, having packed a generous supply of
food in the lockers of the airship.

“We’re off!” cried Ned, as the propellers whirred about.

Amid the cheers of the cowboys, who waved their hats and shot off their
revolvers, the start was made.

Would the boys come back safely, having discovered the location of the
rustlers’ camp, and perhaps having found Professor Snodgrass? Or would
they be lost as the scientist had been, somewhere in the wilds of the
mountain?

More than one asked those questions as they watched the airship
becoming smaller and smaller in the blue sky.

“Our last chance!” murmured Jerry Hopkins. “Well, there’s luck in last
chances.”




CHAPTER XXVI

SEEN FROM ABOVE


Below the boys in their airship there unrolled the fields and plains
of Square Z ranch, as on some vast map. As the craft rose higher and
higher the figures of the cowboys, gazing upward in wonder, became,
to the eyes of the Motor Boys, first like dwarfs, then like a child’s
dolls or toy soldiers. Then the men took on the similitude of ants, and
were but tiny specks on a vast field of green.

“Wonder what will happen before we get back there again,” ventured Bob.

“No telling, but plenty, I hope,” said Jerry who was steering.

The airship was somewhat differently outfitted than when they had first
used it in the West. A sort of cabin had been put on, it having been
shipped to them from home, and this shut out much of the noise of the
engine so that it was possible for them to converse without yelling at
the tops of their voices in the ears of one another.

“Yes,” put in Ned, “if we discover the cattle thieves and find the
professor that will be enough to hold us for a while.”

“We may find them together,” suggested Jerry.

“Then you believe the rustlers got him?” asked Bob.

“I can’t imagine what else could have happened to him. Of course he
might have fallen, and been fatally hurt that night when he went away
alone, and his call that someone had him might have been a delusion.

“But I prefer to think otherwise. If the rustlers got him they’d keep
him pretty close, so he wouldn’t have a chance to escape. If anyone
else caught him, say a party of hunters or cattlemen who might think
him an escaped lunatic, as he has been suspected of being more than
once, by this time they would have let him go. But as not a word has
come from him I believe he is a prisoner of the cattle thieves.”

After some talk, Ned and Bob were of the same opinion as was Jerry, and
then they began to discuss ways and means of conducting the search in
the airship.

“Where are you heading for, Jerry?” asked Ned, as he saw the tall lad
change the course of the airship, which at the start had flown due
north from the ranch buildings.

“I thought it would be a good plan to go to the site of our old camp,
and make that our real starting point. There’s a good landing place
there, on top of the mountain, and there is just a possibility that the
professor may have gone back there. We left a notice on a tree, you
know, telling him, if he did come, to proceed at once to the ranch,
leaving word on the reverse of our notice that he had done so.”

“Well, it’s a pretty slim chance, but let’s take it,” conceded Ned.

That the boys had not before used their airship to make an investigation
on top of the mountain was due to the fact that in making a flight one
day they had broken a wheel of the engine and had had to send to Chicago
to have a new part made. The craft was now, however, in good running
order.

The speedy airship was not long in reaching a point above the place
where the camp had been made--the camp from which Professor Snodgrass
had disappeared. Jerry, at the controls, sent the craft about in a
spiral, bringing it lower and lower, for they had risen to quite a
height.

“Nothing down there, I’m afraid,” said Bob, peering down through the
celluloid window set in the floor of the cabin. “There’s not a sign of
life.”

“We’re too high to see,” declared Ned. “Wait until we get a bit lower.”

“That’ll be in a few seconds,” said Jerry, and he sent the machine
down at a sharper angle.

“Hand me those glasses,” said Bob to Ned, who took a pair of powerful
binoculars from their case on the cabin wall and gave them to his chum.

“See anything?” Jerry inquired, after waiting a few seconds.

“Take a look, Ned,” requested Bob, and there was that in his voice to
indicate that he was laboring under some excitement.

“What’s this?” cried Ned, as he fixed the focus to suit his eyes. “I--I
see smoke down there in the old camp!”

“Smoke!” cried Jerry.

“Yes--in little puffs--as though someone were signaling with a damp
fire and a blanket--the way the Indians used to do. Here, give me the
wheel, Jerry, and take a look yourself.”

As the two changed places there was a sharp metallic sound near
the engine--a clang of metal that sounded above the noise of the
explosions. And, just as Ned took hold of the wheel which Jerry
relinquished, the motor stopped.

“Look out!” yelled the tall lad. “We’re falling! You’ll have to
volplane down!”

“I know,” replied Ned, coolly. He and his chums had done this before,
both in emergencies and when they had purposely shut off the engine.

Volplaning down in an airship is like coasting down hill on a sled,
only in the former case the hill is nothing more substantial than a
bank of air. But by letting the airship slide down on slanted wings,
and then by sending it sharply upward, by means of the vertical rudder,
its speed can be nicely controlled, so that a landing can be made.

This was what the boys aimed to do. Ned was now at the wheel and
controls in place of Jerry, who, seeing that his chum had matters well
in hand, turned to look downward through the binoculars.

“Can you see the puffs of smoke?” asked Bob.

“No, I can’t,” murmured Jerry, not taking his eyes from the instruments.

“I wonder what made the engine stop?” asked Ned. “Did you have plenty
of gas, Jerry?”

“Sure! Both tanks filled before we left. Wait, I’ll try the self
starter.”

He set this in motion but it did not operate the engine. There seemed
to be something broken, and as the motor was not readily accessible
from the cabin the boys would have to wait until a landing was made.

This was in a fair way to be accomplished, and near the spot of their
former camp. Ned was scanning the ground, which seemed coming up to
meet them, for a smooth place on which to let the airship run along on
its wheels.

“How about over there?” asked Jerry, indicating a spot to the left.

“All right,” assented Ned. “See any more smoke?”

Jerry resumed his observations, but shook his head to indicate that
he saw nothing. They were soon near enough to see by the use of their
unaided eyes, but the nearer they came the more it became plain to them
that the camp was deserted.

“And now to see what it all means, and what happened to the engine!”
exclaimed Ned, as he made the landing neatly and leaped out, followed
by Bob and Jerry.

“Hello! Anybody here?” yelled Jerry as he looked about near the place
where the shelter tent had stood. There was no reply save the echo of
his own voice.

“Well, it couldn’t have been the professor, or he’d have been so glad
to see us that he’d be jumping about here now,” commented Bob.

“But where is the fire that made the puffs of smoke?” asked Ned.

“I think there wasn’t any fire,” said Jerry.

“No fire? What do you mean? Didn’t I see smoke?”

“But smoke doesn’t always mean a campfire. Come on, let’s have a look
at the engine.”

They went carefully over the machinery, the perfect working of which
was so vital to their safety. It did not take Jerry long to discover
what the trouble was.

“Look!” he cried. “One of the carburetors is smashed.”

“Smashed!” echoed Ned.

“Yes. No wonder we couldn’t get any explosions, even when the self
starter spun the propellers. She wasn’t getting any gas, and the spare
carburetor wasn’t in service.”

“But what would make it break?” asked Ned.

“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” Jerry stated. “Did you hear a sort
of click just before the machinery stopped working?”

“Yes,” assented Ned, “and I wondered what caused it.”

Jerry was looking with careful and eager eyes over different parts of
the powerful motor.

“I think this caused it,” he said, and with the point of his knife
blade he pried from one of the propeller blades, where it was not
deeply imbedded, a bullet.

Silently he held it in his palm for the inspection of his companions.




CHAPTER XXVII

THE LONE FIGURE


“Well, for the love of guns! how did that get there?” asked Bob.

“Landed after it smashed our carburetor,” was Jerry’s reply. “At least
that’s my theory.”

“But who shot it at us?” Ned demanded. “Some of those crazy cowboys, I
guess, who got so excited when we made flights over their heads.”

“It wasn’t there when we started out this morning,” said Jerry, “for I
went over the propeller blades with a fine tooth comb, so to speak. And
certainly the carburetor was all right.”

“That’s so,” admitted Ned, scratching his head. “Then----”

“The puffs of smoke down below us!” interrupted Bob. “Was it someone
shooting a revolver at us, Jerry?”

“Not a revolver, Bob. That wouldn’t carry as high as we were. This
is a bullet from a high-powered rifle, and it’s lucky it smashed the
carburetor instead of us.”

“But who in the world could have fired it?” went on Ned. “If it was
the professor, firing in the air signaling for help, he surely would
have seen us and been a bit more careful.”

“It wasn’t the professor,” declared Jerry. “He hasn’t a rifle, and I
doubt if he would know how to fire one if he had.”

“Then you think----” began Bob.

“I think, Chunky, that we’d better look about a bit,” was Jerry’s
reply. “There may be some traces here that we could pick up which would
help us solve the cattle mystery.”

“Good idea!” said Ned. “Let’s look about.”

They scurried about the site of their first camp, but it was not so
easy to read any signs there as they had hoped.

“But there was certainly someone here firing at us from shelter, while
we were up in the air,” declared Ned. “Those puffs of smoke Bob and I
saw were from a rifle, and not a campfire.”

“My idea, too,” put in Jerry. “The question is who was shooting at us,
why and where is he?”

“Three questions, and three of us to answer ’em,” remarked Bob. “For
the first I’ll say it was one of the cattle thieves.”

“Probably,” agreed Jerry. “No one else hostile is in this neighborhood,
as far as I know.”

“As for why,” mused Ned, “it must have been because he wanted to
disable us, so we couldn’t continue the pursuit.”

“Probably that’s right,” assented Jerry. “And for the third
question--where is he?--that’s for us to find out. I don’t imagine
though, that he’s anywhere around here now. When he saw us coming down
he probably ran away.”

“Or he might be in hiding within ten feet of us, watching us now, and
hearing everything we say,” commented Bob, and at his own words he
looked half-apprehensively over his shoulder.

The boys stood silent, thinking this last statement over. But as the
place about them gave no sign of life they came to the conclusion that
the unknown rifleman had made good his escape.

“But just to make sure we’ll have another look around,” suggested
Jerry, and they scoured over the fields, penetrated a little way into
the wood and looked behind clumps of bushes. No one did they see,
however, and then Jerry remarked:

“Well, let’s look after our airship. We haven’t begun to do any real
scouting in her yet. This is only the starting point of our search. We
ought to cover a good deal of ground before night.”

“If we can go on,” supplemented Ned.

“Oh, there’s no serious damage done,” Jerry said. “We have a spare
carburetor.”

“Will that bullet in the propeller weaken it any?” Bob inquired.

“Not in the slightest. The old machine will soon be as good as ever.”

It was not quite so easy to put in a new carburetor as Jerry had
thought, however, for the bullet that put out of commission this very
necessary part of the motor’s equipment had also smashed a feed pipe.

There was an extra piece in one of the lockers, however, and this was
inserted after about an hour’s work. A test of the machine showed that
it was again in shape for the duty required of it, and having rolled it
to a stretch of level ground the boys prepared to set off once more.

Up and up rose the great bird-like affair of wood, steel and canvas and
the deserted camp was soon but a speck below them.

“Now if that fellow takes it into his head to fire again, and smashes
our other carburetor, we’re done for,” observed Ned.

“I don’t believe he will,” responded Jerry, and he proved a true
prophet. For while the tall lad was at the wheel, Ned and Bob kept a
sharp watch down below. There were no more puffs of smoke, and the
airship was soon so high up that no ordinary missile could reach it.

“And now what’s your plan?” asked Ned of his tall chum.

“Well, I think we’ll fly over the mountain in a straight line west from
the rocky defile, in which the disappearance of the cattle seem to have
taken place. I have an idea there may be some way of getting under the
mountain, by means of a tunnel, perhaps.”

“It would have to be _some_ tunnel,” observed Ned, for they were flying
across the flat mountain top now, and could see that it extended for
several miles.

“Well, it might be one made by nature. Probably is, if there’s one in
existence,” Jerry said.

On and on they flew, now circling to the right, and again to the left
in an endeavor to cover as much ground as possible. But they saw
nothing that would lead to a solution of the mystery.

All that day was spent in flying about, peering here and there through
the powerful glasses, the airship moving along at a low elevation so
the boys might make more careful observations.

“Well, we don’t seem to have done much the first day,” observed Bob, as
they descended to a level, sandy plain as night settled down. “All we
can do is to get something to eat and go to bed.”

“There’s another day to-morrow,” remarked Ned, “so don’t eat up
everything to-night.”

“No danger!” exclaimed Jerry. “Chunky brought along enough for a small
army.”

“Well, I’m as hungry as half an army myself!” laughed the stout lad.

“Going to stand guard to-night?” Ned asked, as they proceeded to make
the cabin of the earth-fast airship snug and comfortable.

“Well, I don’t know but that it would be a good idea,” agreed Jerry,
after a moment of thought. “Of course we’re a good way from where that
fellow shot at us, but that isn’t saying he hasn’t some confederates
in this place. Yes, it wouldn’t be a bad plan to sit the night out in
three watches. They won’t be such very long ones. I’ll take first, as I
can always sleep better in the rear end of the night.”

“I wake up early, so I’ll take last watch,” volunteered Ned.

This gave Bob the middle watch, and he and Ned went to bed about nine
o’clock, Jerry making a fire not far from the airship, so the blaze
would serve to illuminate a space around the craft.

Somehow Jerry was distinctly nervous as he assumed his watch. There
had been strenuous times since he and his chums had come to Square Z
ranch, and there had been much to cause them worry. Of course, the
disappearance of the professor was the most important. The loss of
the cattle was serious, naturally, but both Mr. Baker and Mr. Slade
were men of wealth and would not be ruined even if they lost the whole
ranch. Still, Jerry and his chums felt an eager desire to solve the
mystery. They felt the same excitement and determination as when trying
to win a baseball or football championship.

Though Jerry kept eager watch, his vigil was not disturbed save by the
approach of timid animals of the night, which made off at the sight of
the fire.

Nor were the watches of Bob or Ned fruitful of any results. Ned
thought, just as the east was beginning to be light, that he heard
a suspicious sound at the rear of the airship. He ran to the place
immediately but all he saw was a small deer that was nosing the rudder
and licking it, doubtless with the hope that it was coated with salt.
The animal sprang away in alarm at the lad’s approach.

“Well, this is getting pretty close to our time limit,” observed Jerry
as, after breakfast, they set off through the air once more. “If we
don’t have any luck now----”

“It’s give up for ours!” declared Ned with a sigh.

It was toward noon, when they were flying over a small valley, that
Bob, looking down through the observation window in the floor of the
cabin, cried:

“Look, you fellows!”

Ned sprang forward, and Jerry, at the wheel, leaned to one side to look.

Down below, standing on a big rock, was the solitary figure of a man,
and he seemed trying to signal to them.




CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SECRET PASSAGE


“What shall we do?” asked Bob, greatly excited.

“Go down to him, of course,” answered Ned. “He may have some
information for us.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” put in Jerry.

“Sure of what?” came quickly from Ned.

“Whether we ought to go down to him or not. He may be waiting for us
with a gun, hoping to get us into range so he can take a pop at us.”

“We’re in range now, as far as that goes,” declared Bob, glancing at
the barograph which gave their height. “We were up farther than this
when we were hit before.”

“That’s so,” assented Jerry. “I didn’t think about that. He would have
shot some time ago if that were his game. Well, we’ll take a chance.”

Nearer and nearer the aeroplane settled toward the great flat rock, on
which the lone figure was now running to and fro. His clothes flapped
in the breeze, as though in tatters and rags. He appeared greatly
excited, and there was no question now but that he was frantically
beckoning to the boys to come to him.

“Who in the world is it?” murmured Jerry, trying to peer through the
floor window, but not being able to get a good view because of his
position at the wheel.

“He doesn’t look like a cowboy,” said Bob.

“Then he can’t be one of the rustlers,” observed Ned. “For they’re all
cowboys--of a sort.”

“He looks like a tramp, as nearly as I can make out,” suggested Jerry.

“Maybe a grub-staked miner who’s lost his way,” came from Bob. “This is
sure enough a lonesome place,” and he looked around the desolate valley
of which the lone figure seemed to be the only occupant. Nor was there
a habitation of even the most humble sort to be seen.

“Who is he, and what does he want?” murmured Jerry over and over again,
as he manipulated the wheel and levers.

“Where are you going to land?” asked Ned. “You’ll knock him off that
rock, if you don’t look out.”

“I think not,” returned Jerry, with a smile. “The rock is big enough to
land on safely. And it will be a dandy spot to make a start from--it’s
as level as a barn floor.”

They were now near enough to see faintly the unshaven face of
the solitary man. His ragged clothes, too, gave him a grotesque
appearance, but for all his forlorn plight he seemed transported with
joy as the airship, now moving about in big circles, came closer and
closer.

“Who is he? And what does he want?” said Jerry, again.

And then, as the airship landed on the great flat rock, and came to
a gentle, gliding stop, the strange figure rushed forward, crying
hoarsely.

“Boys! Oh, boys! I never was so glad to see anyone in my life! Oh,
boys, at last I’ve found you!”

For perhaps three seconds none of the lads spoke. They stood looking at
the pathetic figure and then, as in one voice, they cried together in
low, awed tones:

“Professor Snodgrass!”

“Yes. Oh, boys! No wonder you hardly know me. I haven’t had a shave in
so long that I must look like Rip Van Winkle. And as for my clothes!
Oh, I’ve had a terrible time. And I’m hungry!”

“Good!” cried Bob, but he didn’t mean it just that way. “We’ve got lots
to eat!” he went on eagerly. “Come and have a square meal, Professor,
and then tell us what happened. Did you get away from the cattle
rustlers?”

“You mean the cattle thieves?” asked the professor.

“Well, thieves, rustlers--you can call ’em whatever you like,” laughed
Jerry. “But never mind talking now. We are delighted to see you!”

“No more than I am to see you.”

“We’ve been looking everywhere for you,” added Ned. “We’d about given
up. How’d you make your escape?”

“I hardly know. They kept me pretty closely guarded, for they took me
for a spy, I guess. But finally they weren’t so careful, and after I
had let pass several chances to leave their camp, they began to think I
was content to stay there.

“I would have been, too, for there were a lot of the rarest bugs I ever
saw. But I wanted to get back to my friends, and so I hid away one
night and in the morning began a long tramp to find your ranch. But I
can’t tell it all to you now.”

“Of course not!” cried Jerry. “We’re crazy to stand here making you
talk when you’re starving.”

“I’ll get him something to eat!” volunteered Bob, hurrying toward the
anchored airship.

“Yes, and I’d like to get rid of some of these whiskers and wash
myself with soap,” said the professor, who was the most cleanly man
imaginable. “I did manage to scrub with a little sand and water, but it
wasn’t soap,” he cried.

“Come in then, and get fixed up,” urged Ned, laughing.

“Wait,” begged the professor. “I must not leave my specimens behind.
They are too valuable.”

He hurried to the far end of the rock, where, in a niche, he had
secreted several boxes and carrying cases made rudely from bark, held
together with twisted fibers.

“I didn’t dare bring my regular specimen boxes away with me,” he
explained to the boys, “or they would have suspected something. So
I had to leave them behind. But I hid them well and we can get them
again.”

“How?” asked Jerry.

“Oh, I can get them again if you’ll take me there, I’m sure. I can
guide you to the secret camp of the cattle thieves, boys!”

“Hurray!” cried Ned. “Next to finding you this is the best news I’ve
heard yet! Come on, Professor!”

They helped him carry his precious specimens in their rude cases, which
he had fashioned himself, into the airship cabin. There Bob was busy
with the meal.

“Sorry we haven’t got more,” said the stout lad, indicating the table
which he had let down from where it had been folded up against the side
wall of the cabin. “But we won’t be long, now, in getting back to the
ranch.”

“Well, it isn’t such a small meal at that, Chunky,” laughed Jerry.
“Did you put on all there was in the locker?”

“No, there’s a little more left, but not much; so we’ll have to go
back.”

“But you’ll return for my specimens, won’t you?” pleaded the little
scientist.

“Oh, yes, we’ll come back after them--and the rustlers!” declared Jerry.

“Hope we can catch ’em,” sighed Ned.

“I think you can,” Professor Snodgrass said. “They are a bold but
careless lot. They fancy themselves safe, but I know their secret.”

“What is it?” asked Jerry, and his chums waited eagerly for the
professor’s reply.

“There is a secret way out of the rocky ravine,” was the answer. “I
know how to find it. I’ll tell you about it after I eat.”

“Yes, for the love of horse-radish let him eat!” cried Bob. “He must be
half starved.”

And the professor certainly seemed so, judging by the way he began at
the food, after he had made a hasty toilet with soap and water, which
he said was almost as great a luxury as the soup and meat Bob set
before him. The boys ate with him, for they, too, were hungry.

“And now for the story of your disappearance!” cried Jerry, when
appetites were satisfied, and they sat back on the lockers in comfort.




CHAPTER XXIX

THE ROUND-UP


“Well,” began Professor Snodgrass, whose strange appearance on account
of his ragged and unshaven condition was a source of fascination to the
boys, “I suppose you know about how I went away?”

“Out of the tent, yes,” assented Jerry. “We were awakened by hearing
you yell for help, and Bob here thought,” he added, grinning, “that one
of the big moths might have carried you away.”

“Not so bad as that!” laughed the professor; “though some of the moths
were very large and most beautiful specimens. I went out, without
waking any of you, and I was moving about with my net, my lantern and
my specimen boxes, when I suddenly felt myself grabbed from behind. I
heard the sound of low voices and at once it flashed into my mind that
the rustlers had me. I had no chance to use my revolver.

“I called as loudly as I could, and when I said ‘they’ had me I thought
you boys, if you heard me at all, would understand.”

“We didn’t though, at least not for some time,” remarked Ned.

“But no sooner had I cried out for help than someone clapped a hand
over my mouth and I couldn’t make a loud sound. Then I was bound and
gagged and stretched out on something by which I was pulled along the
ground. It seemed like a big sled.”

The boys uttered exclamations of surprise.

“What’s the matter?” Mr. Snodgrass asked.

“Nothing, only that we saw the marks of the log runners of the
stone-boat on which you were carried away,” explained Jerry. “We tried
to trace the strange marks,” he said, describing them, “but we failed.”

“Yes, a stone-boat,” agreed the narrator. “But they didn’t use it for
hauling stone after they used it to give me an unexpected ride.”

“What did they use it for?” Ned asked.

“To haul cattle on.”

“Cattle!” cried the boys.

“Yes. They had a sort of fence built around the edge of the big, low,
flat stone-boat. They would load it with cattle in the ravine and by
means of pulleys and rope work it through the secret passage. That was
done so the cattle would make no mark on the ground, telling in what
direction they had been taken.”

“It sounds pretty complicated,” said Jerry. “But maybe it’s easy when
you come to the details. What about the secret passage in the ravine?
We suspected one but we couldn’t discover it.”

“I’d better tell my story in sequence,” suggested the professor.
“Throughout the night I was hauled along on this stone-boat, as I
later discovered it to be, and I couldn’t see where I was going. When
daylight came those who had captured me halted in a pleasant little,
but well hidden, valley where hundreds of cattle were pastured. There
was a sort of camp, around a group of rude buildings, and in one of
these I was locked.

“To make a long story short I had been captured by the cattle rustlers
as a spy. They had seen you boys come to camp and they guessed you
were on their trail. They planned to get you all, but my going out in
the night upset their plans, and they took me. Then events occurred to
change their plans.

“That they were the cattle thieves who had me was soon proved to my
satisfaction. A few days after I had been made prisoner I saw early
one morning, some of the rustlers driving into the valley some of the
steers from the Square Z ranch. I recognized the brand.”

“What did they do with them?” asked Ned, eagerly.

“Held them in the valley a few days, changed the brand marks, and
drove them away again. The valley was so well hidden in the mountains
that I believe no one, save the thieves, knew of it.

“After about a week, during which time I was kept in the shack, I was
allowed to go about at will. But when I tried to get out of the valley
I found it was impossible. The sides were steep and dangerous to climb.
There were but two entrances and both were guarded night and day. One
was that by which the cattle were driven in, and the other where they
went out. Both were well concealed by winding paths leading through
dense forests, and though I found both, I could not get past the
guards.”

“But you finally escaped,” said Bob.

“Yes. I’ll tell you how. As I said, after a while I was allowed to go
about as I pleased, and when I found out I could not escape I began to
collect specimens. And what wonderful ones there were in the valley!

“In time the rustlers paid little attention to me and, as I seemed
engrossed in my collecting, they talked freely before me. It was in
this way that I learned the ravine was connected with the valley by a
secret passage.

“When they made a cattle raid they would drive the steers up near the
V-shaped end of the gorge. There the cattle would be held together
until, ten or fifteen at a time they were put on the stone-boat and
hauled through the secret opening, leaving no trace.”

“But how is the opening hidden?” asked Jerry.

“By means of a great wooden door covered with concrete on the outside,
so that it looks like part of the rocky wall,” answered the professor.
“I know about the location of it. It should be easy to find.”

“We’ll have a try at it!” murmured Jerry. “But how did you manage to
get away, Professor?”

“By a stroke of good luck. The rustlers had brought in some of the
choice cattle from Square Z, and as they had a market to which the
steers must be sent in a hurry they decided to get them out of the
valley after dark. I saw then my chance to escape. There were, lying
about the camp, any number of old hides, taken off the cattle that had
died or been slain for food. I wrapped one of these about me one dark
night when the herd was to be driven out, and mingled with the cattle.
It was taking a chance, I knew, but I managed to keep from being
trampled on and went in the midst of the cattle through the woods to
the secret outlet of the valley. Once outside I lay down under a bush
to wait until morning. My one regret was that I had to leave behind my
lovely specimens. But I dared not carry them.

“Since that night I have been tramping about trying to find Square Z
ranch. But I must have gone away from it instead of toward it for I
became lost. My clothes and shoes began to wear out. I managed to get
enough berries and roots to live on, for I had made a careful study of
botany and knew what was best for me. But I was so hungry for a ham
sandwich!” said the professor, pathetically.

“Have another!” begged Bob, offering one.

The professor munched it while concluding his narrative. He had
wandered on and on, finally becoming so footsore, weary and ragged
that he was the tramp the boys beheld him. But in his misery he did
not forget his collection mania and made boxes of bark to hold his
specimens.

Finally, he reached the great rock, not knowing where he was and
scarcely able to go on. Then he had heard the hum of the aircraft
engine above him, and had recognized the ship of his friends.

“You are to be congratulated on getting away from those rustlers,” said
Jerry. “It wasn’t easy, I imagine.”

“Indeed it wasn’t,” said the professor fervently, and the boys admired
him for his pluck.

Not that he had ever lacked it, but his was a restful life, compared to
theirs, and he seldom had need to show what he could do in a strenuous
way. Though once, when Jerry had been in danger from a wild animal on
one of their trips, the professor, armed only with a light gun which
he used to bring down birds without injuring their plumage, rushed up
and fired in the animal’s face, delaying the attack long enough for Ned
to kill the beast.

“They watched me pretty closely,” went on the scientist. “But when
I began collecting bugs and spiders, of which there is a wonderful
variety in the valley, they began to think I was a bit out of my head,”
he said with a chuckle. “Then, thinking me harmless and simple, they
did not keep such a close espionage over me, and----”

“You fooled ’em good and proper!” exclaimed Bob, admiringly. “We
couldn’t have done it half as well.”

“Not much!” declared Jerry. “We’d have probably tried to concoct some
elaborate scheme to escape, and they’d have found it out right away.
But the professor’s simple trick worked.”

“I didn’t exactly intend it for a trick,” said the scientist, who
was the soul of honesty and fair-dealing. “I really did make a good
collection while I was held a prisoner in the valley.”

“And have you really learned the secret of the mysterious ravine and
just how the cattle rustlers work?” asked Ned.

“I think I have. Of course I haven’t seen the actual secret door, but I
believe I can show you how to find it.”

“And the reason the marks of the cattle always stopped before the
end of the gorge was reached was because they put the beasts on the
stone-boat and dragged them over the remaining distance,” said Jerry.
“It was a clever trick, but it’s been found out.”

“But not by us,” put in Ned, gloomily. “We have fallen down all along
on this job.”

“Well, you found me, and that’s as good as finding the secret, for I
can tell it to you!” exclaimed the professor. “If you hadn’t found me
you might never have discovered what you wanted. So, you see, it is the
same, one way or the other.”

“I wonder if we can catch the thieves?” mused Bob.

“I think you can,” the professor said. “They didn’t seem to have any
idea of giving up their dishonest raids, and, doubtless, they’ll pay
another visit to Square Z.”

“Then we must go back and get ready for a round-up!” exclaimed Jerry.
“Are you sure you can lead us to the secret valley, Professor?”

“All we’ll have to do will be to go to the gorge, find the hidden door
and go through a tunnel-like passage that leads through the base of the
mountain. It is the dried bed of an ancient stream, I take it.”

The airship never made better time than in getting back to the ranch,
and the surprise created by the return of Professor Snodgrass, ragged
and with bristly, unshaven face, was great. Everyone, from the foreman
to the least of the laborers, was thrown into a state of excitement.

It was not until after Professor Snodgrass had been shaved by the ranch
barber, and had put on some garments that were not in tatters because
of his long tramp through forest and brush, that Watson really got at
the facts of the professor’s abduction and subsequent escape.

“And so you have discovered the camping place of the rustlers!”
exclaimed the foreman, gleefully.

“Well, the professor knows where it is,” Jerry remarked.

“You made good only just in time,” went on Mr. Watson.

“Why?” Ned inquired.

“Because there was another raid last night. The biggest yet. I was just
going to send your father word. Instead, I’ll wait and we’ll round-up
these thieves. It’s the best news I’ve heard yet! But we must be lively
now.”

“Oh, if they have just taken some more cattle they will not move or
dispose of them for some time,” said the professor. “They will have to
change the brand and arrange for their sale.”

“That’s a part I’d like to know,” said the foreman. “How do they
dispose of the stolen stock?”

But this the professor could not tell.

“All hands that can be spared for the round-up!” was the general cry
the next morning, and Hinkee Dee was so busy seeing to the men that he
had no time to be sarcastic or to sneer at the Motor Boys, in case he
had been so disposed. In fact, he did not even notice them, though the
other cowboys praised them warmly for their rescue of the professor--an
act that would be, it was hoped, the means of wiping out the gang of
outlaws.

“Where’s the Parson?” asked Hinkee Dee, as he was marshalling his
forces, for he was to lead the party, the foreman having some business
to attend to at the ranch that required his presence there.

“He rode to town,” volunteered Gimp.

“Huh! That’s a nice thing to do when he knew I wanted him on this
round-up!” snapped Hinkee Dee. “Here, you Gimp, ride after him and tell
him to come back at once. No, never mind. I’ll need you. Just tell
him to follow us when he comes back,” he called to the foreman, who
promised to do so.

“The Parson knew he’d be needed. I don’t see why he went away at a time
like this without telling me,” fumed Hinkee Dee. “We’re short-handed as
it is. Where’s Munson? He’ll be of some help, even if he has a stiff
leg.”

“He went in to town right after Parson did,” someone said.

“Well, this is a nice thing!” stormed Hinkee Dee. “Why didn’t they make
a regular party of it? But we won’t wait. Come on, and we’ll round-up
this gang.”

It was arranged that the boys and the professor should go on ahead in
the airship, to locate and open, if possible, the secret door. The
cowboys would follow, go through the passage and surprise, if they
could, the rustlers in their very possession of the stolen cattle. It
would be good evidence against them.

“I wonder what made Munson and the Parson go off just before the time
for the raid?” asked Bob, as he and his chums, with the professor, were
in the airship, speeding toward the mysterious gulch.

“Oh, just a coincidence,” suggested Ned. Jerry did not give an opinion,
but he had his own ideas.




CHAPTER XXX

A FINAL SURPRISE


“Better fly low,” said Ned to Jerry, who was guiding the airship. “If
you go up too high,” he went on, as they were approaching the location
of the mysterious gorge, “they may see you.”

As far as they could learn by looking down and sweeping the landscape
through powerful glasses, they were not seen, and the airship settled
down at the entrance of the defile, to give the boys and the professor
a chance to find the secret door before the cowboys arrived.

“We’ve got about three hours,” Jerry said. “It will take them that long
to ride here.”

They entered the V-gorge, and when they came to the place where, always
before, they had been stopped by the lack of the cattle signs, they
examined the ground with new interest.

“Look at those splinters of wood!” exclaimed Ned. “That shows where the
big stone-boat was pulled along over the stones, laden with cattle.”

“That’s right,” agreed Jerry. “Probably those splinters were there all
the while.”

“It’s queer we didn’t notice ’em!” cried Ned. “I don’t believe they
were as plain before. I’m sure we would have taken some notice of them
if they had been. More likely they put more cattle on the wooden drag
this time, so as to hurry them through the passage, and because of the
greater weight more splinters were rubbed off.”

“That’s right,” agreed Jerry. “Anyhow, the thing is plain now, and
if we follow the splinter trail to where it ends it ought to bring
us right to the secret door. Where the splinters end there is the
entrance.”

“That was my idea,” said Professor Snodgrass with a smile.

They followed the “splinter trail,” as they called it, until it came to
an end right where the two sides of the big stony V came together.

“Here ought to be the door--here or hereabouts,” the professor said as
he drew a geologist’s hammer from his pocket, for he was a geologist as
well as a botanist and a “bugologist.”

He began to tap gently on the walls of the defile. They were of rough
stone, and so cunningly had the concrete coating been made for the
wooden door that it could not be detected by an difference in hue or
texture.

But suddenly the hammer, instead of giving back a sharp, thudding
sound, produced a hollow boom.

“There it is!” cried Jerry.

“Right,” assented the scientist. “And you can see the outline of the
door,” and he pointed to an irregular crack starting at the floor of
the gorge, rising up about five feet, always irregular, then down again
until it reached the rocky floor once more, the space between being
roughly shaped like an inverted U with about ten feet distance between
the two points.

“But how does it open?” asked Ned. “If we can’t get through we aren’t
much better off than before.”

“It is only a light wooden door, covered on the outside with expanded
metal lath and that, in turn, with concrete,” said the professor. “It
was made in this irregular shape so that the crack, where it fitted
into the opening of the tunnel, would look like a crack in the wall.
But now we know what the crack means we can pry the door open.”

Ned ran to get the necessary tools, and while he was coming back with
them Jerry and Bob looked at the secret door. It was so cunningly
devised that from the gorge few would have guessed its existence. They,
in their previous searches, had probably stared right at the crack but
uncomprehendingly.

Ned returned with a short iron bar, sharp and flat at one end. With
this, and an axe, they attacked the secret door. As the professor
had said, having gained his knowledge from overhearing the thieves
talk while he was a captive, the portal was really but a shell. It was
quickly forced open, the secret lock on the inside being broken.

Though they worked quickly they made as little noise as possible, for
they feared, from what Professor Snodgrass had said about the two
entrances being guarded, that someone would be stationed near the
secret door.

But no alarm was raised, for while it was true that a guard was usually
kept at the farther end of the tunnel, where it opened into the valley,
on this occasion the man had been called away to help in re-branding
the cattle.

So, thus favored by fortune, the Motor Boys and the professor were
able, undetected by those whom they sought to capture, to force open
the door. As it swung back on iron hinges set in the inner face of the
rock, a dark tunnel was revealed. Hesitating a moment, to make sure
none of the rustlers was there, they stepped in.

“Look! here’s the stone-boat and the ropes and pulleys they used to
haul the cattle over a space so all trace of them would be lost,”
exclaimed Bob, pointing to the contrivance that was at the opening of
the tunnel, which, in reality was a large cave.

“Yes, that’s what I had my midnight ride on,” laughed Professor
Snodgrass, who seemed to take huge delight in leading a raid on his
former captors. “This is a new one they had just finished making in the
woods when, unexpectedly, they caught me.”

“Hadn’t we better wait for the cowboys?” asked Bob, as Jerry and Ned
seemed inclined to lead the way farther along the tunnel. “Besides,
it’s so dark we can’t see more than a few feet,” and he pointed to the
black void beyond.

“Yes, it is dark, and we’ll need lanterns,” said the scientist. “But we
have time to go along a little way and explore. The raiding party won’t
be here for some time yet.”

“We have plenty of electric flashes on the airship,” Jerry said. “We’ll
get them and have a look.”

Presently they were going forward. It was new ground to the professor,
as well as to the others, for he had never been in the tunnel. This
latter was evidently a hollow shaft under the mountain, caused by an
earthquake perhaps, or, more probably, by the erosion of an underground
river.

The tunnel was about ten feet high and about as broad, being oval in
shape. There was room to drive many cattle along it, and there were
evidences that many had been so driven.

“Go a bit easy,” advised Ned. “We don’t want to burst out of the other
end of this shaft into the midst of the rustlers.”

“Oh, the tunnel is about a mile long,” said the professor. “And the end
is screened by bushes, so you’ll have plenty of chance to be on your
guard.”

They hurried silently along the big rocky shaft, their electric
flashlight casting queer, flickering shadows on the walls. The
professor took the lead when they judged they had covered nearly the
distance estimated, and presently he came to a halt.

“We’re near the end,” he said, indicating a glimmer of daylight.
“Better put out your electrics.”

This the boys did. Then, proceeding still more cautiously, they
presently found themselves looking through a screen of bushes at a
curious sight.

Down in a sort of gigantic bowl of a valley, the presence of which they
had not detected in their wanderings, as it was the depressed top of
a big, deeply wooded hill, they saw a score or more of cowboys and a
herd of steers, the latter being driven hither and yon in the process
of having the brand of the Square Z ranch obliterated, and another
substituted.

“The rustlers!” whispered Jerry.

“There they are!” murmured Bob.

“The secret solved at last!” cried Ned, in a suppressed voice. “Now dad
will say we’re some pumpkins, I guess!”

“Only we haven’t got ’em yet,” remarked Jerry, cautiously.

“I guess they won’t get away,” came grimly from the professor. “And
then I can get back my precious specimens I had to abandon. I hope they
haven’t destroyed them.”

Marking the conformation of the valley, and noting the spot the
professor pointed out as the egress, the boys and the scientist
returned to the tunnel entrance. They had not long to wait before
Hinkee Dee and the other cowboys came riding up.

“Are they there?” the assistant foreman asked eagerly, and he addressed
Ned, Bob and Jerry in the most cordial tones he had ever used.

“All ready to go in and get,” Jerry replied.

“That’s good! Come on now, fellows!”

The situation was quickly explained, and plans for a rush made. The
cowboys rode their horses into the tunnel, preceded by the boys and the
professor with lights. At the far end they halted and then, after some
whispered instructions from Hinkee Dee, the whole force went cautiously
out and was posted behind the screening bushes.

“All ready now?” asked Hinkee Dee, as he scanned his waiting horsemen.

“All ready,” was the answer. Bob, Ned and Jerry had managed to get
places in the front rank. The professor, as soon as he saw the
preparations completed, went to one side in a quiet chase after some
big bug he saw.

“Let her go!” said Hinkee Dee. “But don’t begin to yell or ride hard
until they’ve seen us. Then rush ’em!”

This advice was followed. And so busy were the rustlers branding the
steers that the attacking cowboys had ridden a quarter of the way
toward them before the alarm was given.

And then it was too late to make a strong resistance. With a fusillade
of revolver shots, with wild yells and waving of hats, while the ponies
galloped on unguided by rein, the raiders rushed to the attack. The
rustlers could not have been taken at a greater disadvantage. Not one
of them was armed, all having laid aside their guns to work at the
branding.

“Throw up your hands!” came the stern order from Hinkee Dee, his two
guns pointed at the outlaws, and the order was sullenly obeyed. One
rustler tried to make a dash for his horse, probably intending to seek
the egress. But a shot fired over his head caused him to stop, and in a
short time the whole gang was captured.

“Well, we’ve got you at last!” exclaimed Hinkee Dee, as he and his
friends looked around the discomfited gang, many of whom were known,
at least by reputation, to the cowboys. “Caught you in the act, too.”

“Yes, I guess you’ve got the goods on us,” admitted one of the outlaws.
“But I’d like to know how you found us.”

“I showed them the way!” exclaimed a mild voice at Hinkee Dee’s
stirrup. “And now I’d thank you for my specimens. They’re very
valuable. There’s one red bug that----”

“Jumpin’ molasses barrels!” cried Black Henderson, the leader. “It’s
the bug-house chap! So you got away, did you?”

“Yes. And I came back again. Now for my specimens,” and the professor
hurried off to the shack where he had been held prisoner, coming back
presently with several boxes under his arms and a happy smile on his
face. He had done his part to aid his friends, and the specimens he
secured afterward proved to be of great scientific value.

“Got them--every one!” he called, and from then on he took no more
interest in the raid.

The prisoners were bound and driven out of the tunnel and eventually
to town where they were locked up. The stolen cattle were gathered
together, and headed for their home range.

“Well, boys,” said Hinkee Dee to Ned, Bob and Jerry as they were on
their way to the ranch after the prisoners had been disposed of, “I
want to congratulate you and say I was wrong in calling you tenderfeet.
You’re one of us from now on. I was hopin’ to assimilate these rustlers
myself, but you and the professor got ahead of me.

“Hello, what was the reason you didn’t come along with us, Munson?” he
asked, as he dismounted at the corral and saw the cattle buyer standing
near. “We needed all the help we could get.”

“I had business elsewhere.”

“Couldn’t have been more important business than roundin’-up the
rustlers, to my way of thinkin’.”

“I was doing a little rounding-up myself,” was the smiling answer.

“You! Who’d you round up?”

“The Parson,” was the quiet answer.

“The Parson!” was yelled by a score.

“Yes, the head of the rustling gang, its prime mover and the man who
gave them information when and where to make their raids on Square Z
ranch.”

“Whew!” whistled Hinkee Dee; and the others expressed their surprise in
different ways. “How’d you come to do that, Munson?”

“Peck’s my name,” was the quiet rejoinder. “Henry Peck, and I’m a
detective. I was sent out here from New York.”

At this the boys started and looked at one another.

“I was sent on by your father,” said Mr. Peck, smiling at Ned, “to see
what I could do. Evidently he didn’t take much stock in your efforts.
But I shall tell him he was wrong. I did only a little end of it.”

“And you got the Parson,” murmured Gimp, amazed.

“Yes, I got the Parson! He is one of the most notorious cattle
swindlers known, and the authorities have been looking for him a long
time. I heard of him in Des Moines, and then I came on here. I guess
you boys didn’t think much of me at first, did you?” Mr. Peck asked
Jerry.

“No; not an awful lot. We thought you were a rustler yourself.”

“Especially after that fake about your leg,” added Ned.

“Well, that _was_ a fake--part of it, anyhow,” admitted the detective.
“I did see the rustlers drive off the cattle and they fired at me. They
didn’t hit me; but I saw a chance to pretend to be wounded so I could
have a good excuse for staying around the place here. That’s what I
did, and in that way I got evidence against the Parson. I intercepted
some messages he sent to the rustlers, made copies of them and they’ll
be used for evidence. He was the real head of the gang.”

“Whew!” exclaimed Ned. “And we thought he was so good!”

“I guess you thought _I_ was sort of mean, didn’t you?” asked Hinkee
Dee.

“Yes,” admitted Jerry.

“But I want to say it wasn’t me who changed horses on you that time,”
went on the assistant foreman. “I saw the Parson do it, but I wasn’t
going to squeal. I didn’t know what his game was but I see now. He
wanted to discourage you.”

“Of course not,” Jerry agreed. “I guess he had his reasons for trying
to get us away from here.”

“The very best!” laughed Henry Peck. “And now I think you’d better
send word home. The main credit belongs to you boys, for if you hadn’t
rescued the professor you’d never have known where the rustlers’
headquarters were. I doubt if I could have forced the Parson to tell.

“I stayed away from the raid to-day to get the last bit of evidence
against him I needed. And I got it--and him. He’s in jail with the rest
of his gang now.”

There is little more to tell. The workings of the cattle thieves were
revealed with the arrest of the entire gang. As has been related, they
would run off a bunch of cattle when the signal was sent them by the
Parson, who, working at the ranch, knew all its operations. Then the
steers would be held in the secret valley until a favorable time to
send them out to innocent buyers.

The detective’s boast that he had bought Square Z stock under the
market price was not a vain one, as he had done so in order to get
evidence, though it was worthless at the time. Eventually, the lawless
men received their punishment.

Mr. Peck, or Mr. Munson, a name he often went by, had been sent out to
Square Z ranch by Mr. Baker as soon as the boys started. He traveled
faster than they, and knew when they were to arrive in Des Moines. His
attempt to make friends with them was more a joke than anything else,
so as to be able to send word back to their parents that they were all
right.

He learned of their arrival at the ranch, and, after having worked up
some clues himself, he came on, surprising them at their airship. The
detective tried to solve the mystery of where the stolen cattle were
hidden, but was unsuccessful. He did, however, suspect the Parson, and
with good reason, and laid his plans to trap him. The latter was a
“slick” rustler, though, and, for a time, baffled the efforts of Mr.
Peck.

It was soon learned that one of the rustlers, who had been sent by the
others to spy on the deserted camp of the cowboys on the mountain top
had fired at the airship.

“Well, I suppose we’ll have to be going back to Boxwood Hall soon
now,” said Bob one day, following the receipt of letters from home, in
which were many congratulations on their achievements.

“Yes, but there are worse places,” commented Ned, and Jerry nodded.

“I’m glad that dad and Mr. Slade decided not to sell the ranch, and
that Mr. Slade found funds for his new business enterprise somewhere
else,” observed Bob.

“Well, while we have a chance, let’s take a trip in the airship,” said
Jerry. “Want to come, Professor?”

“No, I’m going to stay on the ground to-day. I lost a valuable jumping
spider from one of my boxes and I must search for it.”

And while the three chums are enjoying one of their last trips over
Square Z ranch we will take leave of them for a time, to meet them
again in the next volume, which will be entitled, “The Motor Boys in
the Army, or Ned, Bob and Jerry as Volunteers.”

It was about a week after the capture of the rustlers that Ned, Bob and
Jerry prepared to make their leisurely way back East in their big car.
The airship, after a last wonderful flight, which was witnessed by a
number of cowboys from neighboring ranches, had been taken apart and
shipped to Cresville.

“Well, come again, boys,” urged the foreman, as he shook hands with
the travelers. “Always glad to see you, though I can’t offer you any
more excitement like that you just went through.”

“We’ll be glad to see you, anyhow,” put in Hinkee Dee, and this was a
great deal, considering the way he had formerly regarded the boys.

The ranchmen gave them a cheer as the big car moved away, and the last
sight the boys had of Square Z ranch was the waving hats of their
friends.

“Well, it turned out all right,” remarked Ned, after a period of
silence.

“Yes, we succeeded better than I expected we would at one time,”
agreed Jerry. “It looked as though we were going to fail. What are you
thinking of, Chunky?” he asked the stout lad who had not said much.

“Something to eat!” challenged Ned.

“I was not! I was just thinking how the Parson fooled us all. No one
would ever have taken him for a rustler.”

“That’s the reason--he was so different,” commented Jerry, as he guided
the car over the trail toward the distant East.


THE END




THE BASEBALL JOE SERIES

BY LESTER CHADWICK

_12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, $1.00, postpaid_


[Illustration]

  BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS
  _or The Rivals of Riverside_

Joe is an everyday country boy who loves to play baseball and
particularly to pitch.


  BASEBALL JOE ON THE SCHOOL NINE
  _or Pitching for the Blue Banner_

Joe’s great ambition was to go to boarding school and play on the
school team.


  BASEBALL JOE AT YALE
  _or Pitching for the College Championship_

Joe goes to Yale University. In his second year he becomes a varsity
pitcher and pitches in several big games.


  BASEBALL JOE IN THE CENTRAL LEAGUE
  _or Making Good as a Professional Pitcher_

In this volume the scene of action is shifted from Yale college to a
baseball league of our Central States.


  BASEBALL JOE IN THE BIG LEAGUE
  _or A Young Pitcher’s Hardest Struggles_

From the Central League Joe is drafted into the St. Louis Nationals. A
corking baseball story all fans will enjoy.


  BASEBALL JOE ON THE GIANTS
  _or Making Good as a Twirler in the Metropolis_

How Joe was traded to the Giants and became their mainstay in the box
makes an interesting baseball story.


  BASEBALL JOE IN THE WORLD SERIES
  _or Pitching for the Championship_

The rivalry was of course of the keenest, and what Joe did to win the
series is told in a manner to thrill the most jaded reader.


  BASEBALL JOE AROUND THE WORLD
  _or Pitching on a Grand Tour_

The Giants and the All-Americans tour the world, playing in many
foreign countries.


  BASEBALL JOE: HOME RUN KING
  _or The Greatest Pitcher and Batter on Record_

Joe cultivates his handling of the bat until he becomes the greatest
batter in the game.


  _Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_

  CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers      New York




THE KHAKI BOYS SERIES

BY CAPT. GORDON BATES

_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full color_

_=Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid=_


[Illustration]

_True-to-life stories of the camp and field in the great war._


  1. THE KHAKI BOYS AT CAMP STERLING
     _or Training for the Big Fight in France_

Two zealous young patriots volunteer and begin their military training.
Together they get into a baffling camp mystery.


  2. THE KHAKI BOYS ON THE WAY
     _or Doing Their Bit on Sea and Land_

Our soldier boys having completed their training at Camp Sterling are
transferred to a Southern cantonment from which they are finally sent
aboard a troopship for France.


  3. THE KHAKI BOYS AT THE FRONT
     _or Shoulder to Shoulder in the Trenches_

The Khaki Boys reach France, and, after some intensive training in
sound of the battle front, are sent into the trenches.


  4. THE KHAKI BOYS OVER THE TOP
     _or Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam_

A spirited tale, telling how the brave soldier boys went over the top
in the face of a fierce fire from the enemy.


  5. THE KHAKI BOYS FIGHTING TO WIN
     _or Smashing the German Lines_

Another great war story, showing how the Khaki Boys did their duty as
fighters for Uncle Sam under tremendous difficulties.


  6. THE KHAKI BOYS ALONG THE RHINE
     _or Winning the Honors of War_

Telling of the march to the Rhine, crossing into Germany and of various
troubles the doughboys had with the Boches.


  _Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_

  CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers      New York




THE COLLEGE SPORTS SERIES

BY LESTER CHADWICK

_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in Colors_

_=Price per volume, $1.00, postpaid=_


[Illustration]

_Mr. Chadwick has played on the diamond and on the gridiron himself._


  1. THE RIVAL PITCHERS
     _A Story of College Baseball_

Tom Parsons, a “hayseed,” makes good on the scrub team of Randall
College.


  2. A QUARTERBACK’S PLUCK
     _A Story of College Football_

A football story, told in Mr. Chadwick’s best style, that is bound to
grip the reader from the start.


  3. BATTING TO WIN
     _A Story of College Baseball_

Tom Parsons and his friends Phil and Sid are the leading players on
Randall College team. There is a great game.


  4. THE WINNING TOUCHDOWN
     _A Story of College Football_

After having to reorganize their team at the last moment, Randall makes
a touchdown that won a big game.


  5. FOR THE HONOR OF RANDALL
     _A Story of College Athletics_

The winning of the hurdle race and long-distance run is extremely
exciting.


  6. THE EIGHT-OARED VICTORS
     _A Story of College Water Sports_

Tom, Phil and Sid prove as good at aquatic sports as they are on track,
gridiron and diamond.


  _Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_

  CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers      New York




THE JACK RANGER SERIES

BY CLARENCE YOUNG

_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in Colors_

_=Price per volume, $1.00, postpaid=_


[Illustration]

_Lively stories of outdoor sports and adventure every boy will want to
read._


  1. JACK RANGER’S SCHOOLDAYS
     _or The Rivals of Washington Hall_

You will love Jack Ranger--you simply can’t help it. He is bright and
cheery, and earnest in all he does.


  2. JACK RANGER’S WESTERN TRIP
     _or From Boarding School to Ranch and Range_

This volume takes the hero to the great West. Jack is anxious to clear
up the mystery surrounding his father’s disappearance.


  3. JACK RANGER’S SCHOOL VICTORIES
     _or Track, Gridiron and Diamond_

Jack gets back to Washington Hall and goes in for all sorts of school
games. There are numerous contests on the athletic field.


  4. JACK RANGER’S OCEAN CRUISE
     _or The Wreck of the Polly Ann_

How Jack was carried off to sea against his will makes a “yarn” no boy
will want to miss.


  5. JACK RANGER’S GUN CLUB
     _or From Schoolroom to Camp and Trail_

Jack organizes a gun club and with his chums goes in quest of big game.
They have many adventures in the mountains.


  6. JACK RANGER’S TREASURE BOX
     _or The Outing of the Schoolboy Yachtsmen_

Jack receives a box from his father and it is stolen. How he regains it
makes an absorbing tale.


  _Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_

  CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers      New York




 Transcriber’s Notes:

 --Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_); text in
   bold by “equal” signs (=bold=).

 --Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

 --Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

 --Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.

 --The Author’s em-dash and long dash styles have been retained.

 --The Chapter XVI title in the Table of Contents (The Wrong Way) was
   changed to reflect the title within the contents (The Wrong Pony).






End of Project Gutenberg's The Motor Boys on a Ranch, by Clarence Young