"Don't you want to find out what killed those cattle?" asked Dick, riding back to join his cousin.
"Sure!" Bud replied. "But I don't want to keel over myself. There must be something there that killed those cows, that is if they're dead. And what killed them may kill us, if we go too close, just as it has killed others and nearly did for Sam."
"Those cows are dead all right," declared Nort who, now that his pony was quiet, had taken a pair of field glasses from the case slung at his shoulder and was examining the silent forms. "They're as dead as a last year's sunflower."
"But maybe Bud's right about wanting to be careful before we go any closer," suggested Dick. "You know Uncle Henry warned us not to run our necks in any noose."
"But we got to find out what killed these cows, so we'll know how to guard the others against the same danger," declared Nort. "And if it was poison water they drank, or maybe poison grass they ate, why, we don't want our other animals to do the same thing, or get any poison water ourselves."
"No," agreed Bud, who, having taken the glasses from his cousin, was now making a careful observation, "we don't want to drink any poison water or have cattle eat any poison grass, if there are such things on the ranch. But we can stop a bullet just as easy as a cow can and with just the same bad results for us."
"Bullet?" questioned Nort, wonderingly.
"Do you think those cows were shot?" asked Dick.
"They might have been."
"Who'd do such a thing?" demanded Nort.