"Who, me? Not a thing!" and, putting spurs to his mount he was off and away.

"I don't want to be impolite," murmured Babe as he watched the puncher disappear in a cloud of dust, "but I think you're a liar!"

Meanwhile the boy ranchers were on the trail. What they would find in
Death Valley not even Billee Dobb could tell.

CHAPTER IV

A NIGHT ALARM

"Well, Dick, how they coming?"

Bud Merkel urged his pony up alongside the mount of his cousin and gave young Shannon a friendly poke in the ribs.

"Oh, everything's fine, Bud," responded Dick.

"How about you, Nort?"

"I'm sitting pretty," was the response from the other boy rancher.