"That's possible," admitted Dick.
"But I don't believe it," asserted Nort.
"Nor I," chimed in Bud. "But you got to go slow in making accusations out west, unless you're ready to back your opinion up with a gun; and we don't want to do that."
"No," Nort admitted. "But Old Billee and Snake said they were going to ride over to Double Z to-day, to sort of size up the situation. So what's to prevent 'em taking this branding iron along and asking, casual like, if they don't want it back?"
"Nothing to stop that," said Bud with a grin. "In fact that's just what we'll do. Come on, we'll hit the trail for the camp and make a sort of raid on Double Z—only we'll make it to-morrow instead of to-day, as it's too late for a long ride."
There were murmurs of surprise and excitement at the camp, when the boys rode in with the Double Z branding iron that Nort had picked up at the scene of the raid.
"They dropped that last night, sure as horned toads!" cried Snake Purdee, whose wound was excuse enough for not being out on duty.
"I reckon," agreed Pocut Pete, who likewise was off duty. "Let's see that," and he reached for the iron which had a wooden handle to enable a cowboy to manipulate the marker when the branding end was hot.
Bud, so Nort and Dick thought, looked rather curiously at Pocut Pete while the latter was examining the iron. And when the strange cowboy—strange in the sense that he had not been long in Mr. Merkel's service—took out his knife and began whittling away at the wooden handle, Bud uttered a sharp cry of:
"Stop!"