"There's no telling. I'm not going to pass up anything until I find out there's nothing in it!" retorted Bud. "Dot and Dash isn't going to ruin if I can help it!"
"That's the idea!" echoed his cousins.
They rode about the place but could discover nothing wrong. The cows seemed to have dropped in their tracks, dying without a struggle, though the ground around them was considerably cut up by their hooves, as though the animals had "milled" restlessly before death overtook them.
The remaining and live members of the herd showed no uneasiness and no signs of having been injured or disturbed as far as the boys could see by riding among them.
They rode over to the stream, which the ponies showed an anxious desire to drink from, but as Dick was riding his horse toward the clear water, evidently to let the animal plunge its nose in, Bud cried:
"Do you think it's safe?"
"Why not?" Dick asked, momentarily pulling his pony back, and it was not easy, for the creature was thirsty.
"Maybe this is the poison water the cows drank."
"Running water like this couldn't very well be poisoned," declared Dick. "A stagnant pool or a water hole might be, but not this. And horses won't touch bad water. Watch mine."
The pony fairly got beyond control, now, in its mad desire to quench its thirst and was soon drinking greedily, an example followed by the other two.