"Watch me do better than that!" cried Dick, as he took his place where his brother had stood, and raised his gun. "I'll crack it first shot!"
His weapon was still in the air, and he had not brought it to a level with the bottle when there sounded, from somewhere out in the valley back of where the boy ranchers stood, the sound of a shot.
The bullet zipped viciously over their heads, and, as they instinctively ducked, they heard the crash of the broken bottle.
CHAPTER VI
MISSING STEERS
Like a flash Bud, who had been standing beside Nort, to watch the effect of Dick's try, turned and faced outward to view the darkening valley, whence had come the sound of that shot. Nort turned also, but Dick seemed to think one of his companions had played a trick on him.
"That isn't fair!" cried the stout lad. "What'd you want to go and bust that bottle for, Nort?"
"I didn't do it!" asserted his brother.
"Nor I," added Bud in a low voice. "The shot came from out there," and he indicated the long and fertile valley, over which the purple evening shadows were falling. "Duck, fellows!" he suddenly cried, and he pulled Nort beside him in the grass.
Dick, who caught the words of warning, and saw what his cousin had done, also dropped down, so that, a second or two after the firing of the strange shot that had shattered the bottle, only the heads of the boy ranchers showed above the grass, and then only slightly. "What's the idea?" asked Dick, as silence followed the measure of safety.