"Do you mean t' tell me you still believe in that old superstition?" laughed Snake Purdee, who had acquired this name because of his exceeding fear of rattlers and other reptiles. He had been bitten once, he declared, and had nearly died.
"There's more'n superstition!" declared Old Billee. "Look at that!" and he brought out the board warning, and related the incident of the mysterious disappearance of the water, and its equally strange reappearance.
"Oh, it's just one of those freaks of the old, underground river course," said Snake. "Of course I wouldn't put much past Hank Fisher and Del Pinzo, but if either of them sent these warnings it was t' play a joke, an' scare our boy ranchers. Guess Hank's jealous!" laughed Snake.
"But what has happened over at Square M?" asked Dick.
"Has Hank or Del Pinzo anything to do with that?" Nort wanted to know.
"I don't see how they could," spoke Snake. "It's just that——"
But at this moment Bud came out of the tent, having finished his telephonic talk with his father.
"There's an epidemic of disease at dad's Square M ranch," Bud explained to his cousins and the others. "It's so bad that a lot of the steers have already died, and dad is going to take off the rest of the stock before they catch the trouble. Some he's going to put at Triangle B, some at Diamond X and some he's going to haze over to us. We'll have to double up, fellows," he told Nort and Dick. "I guess dad is glad he's got Flume Valley now. It may save him a lot of money that otherwise he'd lose."
"Got t' double up, eh?" murmured Old Billee Dobb. "How many head's he goin' t' send here, Bud?"
"About five hundred he told me. They'll be stock that hasn't been near the infected cattle," he went on, "so there won't be any danger to our herds."