"Don't let 'em shoot, Professor!" chimed in another voice. "If I only had my long poker here——"
"Be quiet, Zeb," spoke the one who had offered to surrender. "You aren't attending the school furnace now."
"I only wish I was," came the rueful comment.
"Did you hear that?" spoke Bud to his cousins.
"It's Professor Wright!" exclaimed Nort and Dick in a sort of surprised duet.
"But what's he doing here, and at night, and why did he run?" asked Bud.
However, these questions could be answered later. Just now Slim and his bunch of cowboys were interested in discovering the object or motive of the strangers of the night—strangers in that the foremen and his helpers had not recognized the identity of the two men. And, in fact, Professor Wright—he of the pre-historic monster fame—was the only one known to the boys, and then only by his voice. Who "Zeb" might be they could only guess.
"Except that I'd say, first shot, he was janitor in some small college where the professor taught," remarked Nort, and this proved to be the case.
"What do you want?" queried Slim of the two former fugitives, though really they were that no longer, being now surrounded by the cowboys.
"We were looking for the ranch of Mr. Merkel—Diamond X it is called, I believe," said the taller of the two strange riders.