"Surely you didn't come all the way from Moon City to find out who was taking your cattle at Three Star Ranch!" exclaimed Mother Bunker.
"Oh, no. The men who are doing that are right out there. I've left some of my cowboys to attend to them," answered Uncle Fred. "What I came on for, besides getting you to go back with me, is to get some books about springs and streams of water, and also to talk with some engineers about a queer spring on my ranch."
"What sort of queer spring?" asked Daddy Bunker. "I thought all springs were alike."
"Well, I s'pose they are, in that they have water in 'em," said Uncle Fred. "But mine isn't that kind. Sometimes it has water in it, and again it hasn't."
"What do you mean?" asked his sister. "Does the spring go dry? That used to happen to the spring where we lived when we were children. Don't you remember, Fred?"
"Yes, but that spring only went dry when there was no rain—say in a dry, hot summer. The spring on Three Star Ranch goes dry sometimes in the middle of a rainy season."
"What makes it?" asked Daddy Bunker.
"That's what I came on to find out about," replied Uncle Fred. "None of my cowboys can tell what makes it, and the Indians are puzzled, too. It's like one of Laddie's riddles, I guess."
"That's what we thought about the ghost at Great Hedge," said Mrs. Bunker. "But we finally found out what it was, and very simple it was, too. Perhaps this spring of yours will turn out the same way."
"Well, I hope it does," said her brother. "All I know is that sometimes the spring will be full of fine water. We use it for drinking at the ranch house and for watering some of the horses. The cattle drink at a creek that runs through my place. That never goes dry.