"Not much point to it," said Bud. "There's nothing to be learned up there. No, I guess it was some sort of queer weed or flower I smelled and which also frightened the ponies. I wish I knew more about botany. I might find out what it was," and he looked at the trampled grass over which they were now riding. But it gave no clew.
"If there's a weed, the mere smell of which causes a horse to bolt," said Nort, "it may be the thing that's causing the cattle to die. Maybe it's the poison weed that caused so many deaths here."
"I can't believe anything as strange as that," declared Bud. "But after we get things running well I'm going to have a doctor, or a chemist or somebody who knows about such things come out here and look the place over. We've got to get to the bottom of this puzzle."
His cousins agreed with him. However there was nothing they could do at present. So they rode back to the ranch where they told their strange experience, and suggested to Billee, Snake and the other cowboys that it would be well for them to be on the watch, to find out if any strange weed or flower growing in Death Valley was responsible for the sinister manifestations.
"It may be a new brand of loco weed," suggested Yellin' Kid in his big voice. "Some of that's deadly."
"To eat, yes, but not to smell," Bud reminded him. "But you may be right at that. Keep your eyes open, boys."
"Loco weed!" exclaimed Billee. "I've had experience with that—I mean some ponies I once owned went crazy from it. It sure is queer stuff." He referred to a species of bean plant, growing in some sections of the west. Horses and cattle who inadvertently eat this weed with their other fodder run madly about as if insane and often have to be shot. Sometimes loco weed is powerful enough to kill, it is said by some, though there is a doubt on this point. But none of the cowboys had ever heard of the odor from loco weed doing any damage.
The incident of the ponies running away was soon forgotten in the rush and detail of work that soon piled up at Dot and Dash ranch. More cattle were put out to graze, to thus fatten up for market. More hands were hired and the place soon was almost as busy, big and important as the boys' ranch in Happy Valley, or the original one at Diamond X.
There was one thing Bud and his cousins noticed and spoke of, however, and this was that all their cowboys came from distant places, with the exception of Billee, Kid and Snake. All the hands hired gave their addresses as of ranches far removed from Death Valley. And though when they first started business the boy ranchers had endeavored to hire hands in Los Pompan, they were not successful.
"Why don't you want to sign on with us?" Bud asked more than one.