"Yes, but they were natural deaths!" declared Billee. "And they didn't keep happenin' one after another like at Dot and Dash."
"How many deaths were there?" Bud wanted to know.
"I don't rightly remember, but there was plenty."
"You said they were mysterious," commented Nort. "In what way?"
"That's what nobody could find out," resumed the veteran puncher. "First some poor devil of a puncher would be found dead off in some lonely swale. Then we'd find a bunch of cows stretched out, and then we'd find another dead man."
"Rustlers," suggested Slim.
"Rustlers nothin'!" scoffed Billee. "Rustlers drive off cattle—they don't kill 'em—what would be the good?"
"I meant the rustlers did up the cowboys," suggested the foreman.
"Well, if these fellows, who were found dead, got shot, why wasn't there bullet holes in 'em?" asked Billee, teasingly.
"Wasn't there?" asked Dick.