CHAPTER XVI
QUEER ACTIONS
What effect this announcement had on Dick and Bud can easily be imagined. Both leaped from their saddles, as Nort had done, and gathered close to him as he held the branding iron in his hand.
It was of the usual type, an iron plate, which had been cast in a mould, so that the device—two Z letters—formed a depression in the smooth surface of the iron plate. On the outer edge was a circle, so that when the brand was heated, and pressed on the hide of a steer, calf or maverick it would burn the impression of a double Z inside a ring—the mark of Hank Fisher's cattle.
"Whew!" exclaimed Dick. "This makes it look bad for them, Bud!"
"Oh, not necessarily, though I'm glad we found it," spoke the western lad.
"Why isn't it suspicious?" asked Nort, whose high hopes had been rather dashed by Bud's somewhat cool reception of Dick's statement.
"Oh, it's suspicious all right!" Bud hastened to say, "and don't imagine I'm making light of you finding this, Nort! I'm mighty glad you did! Only we can't make it look bad for Hank Fisher, or the Double Z crowd unless we can fasten this on them."
"You mean we can't prove they dropped it here during the raid last night?" asked Nort, as he vaulted into the saddle.
"That's it," spoke Bud. "It does look suspicious, I'll admit. But you see while this is our range, we couldn't make a fuss just because some cowboy from Double Z rode over it. That wouldn't be right. And what's to hinder this having been dropped by some cowboy who was merely riding over our range?"