"Shucks, yes! I'm all right now! I'd a leetle mite ruther lick a bunch of sheep herders than jest plain onery cattle rustlers," went on Yellin' Kid, "but anythin' for a fight!"
"You said it!" chimed in some of the other rough but ready and earnest punchers.
"I s'pose there will be a fight," mused Dick.
"Unless they quit and run," said Bud. "You don't mind a little thing like a fight, do you?" he asked his cousin. "Of course not! I was only joking!" he quickly added as he saw a look on Dick's face.
"It won't be the first time we've had a scrap," remarked Nort.
All this while they were riding hard toward the distant group which, at first had been but a cloud of dust, but which now resolved itself into forms of horsemen and cattle.
And as the outfit from Diamond X approached nearer, it could be seen that the drivers of the cattle were not regulation cowboys from any ranch north of the Rio Grande. There was an air and manner about the horsemen urging on the weary cattle which betokened them as irregulars—rustlers, in other words.
The advantage—such as it was—appeared to be with the boy ranchers and their friends, for they were on fresh horses, and could ride hither and yon without having to drive before them, and keep from stampeding, a bunch of cattle. As for the rustlers the success of their raid depended on keeping the cattle they had stolen. Once the small herd got beyond their control, they might as well cut and run for it, since it would be a case of everyone save himself, and every man for himself.
"Some of you cut out the cattle, boys," advised Old Billee, as he spurred along with the youngest rider. For though this veteran more than doubled the years of the boy ranchers, he was almost as "spry" as any of them. "Cut out the cattle, and we'll look after these rustlers."
There were members enough in the outfit from Diamond X to provide for a division of forces—enabling them to execute a flank movement, as it were, though this does not exactly describe it.