"Oh, keep your shirt on!" burst out Dick. "I'm not going to run away—not just now," he added as a qualifying phrase.
Whether the man understood the words, or guessed that Dick had no intention of escaping, was not made clear, but he offered no further objection to the act of the boys in pulling aside the flaps of the tent and looking out.
They saw that the cattle which had been taken from the Diamond X ranch—stolen as Dick and Nort believed—were being driven into a small, and evidently hastily-constructed corral, where they could get to the stream to drink.
"They've got a regular system," remarked Nort, as he saw the cattle being quieted down, once they were inside the improvised pen.
"Making a business of it," agreed Dick. "But you wouldn't think such men as these two professors would frame it up to be cattle rustlers; would you?"
"That isn't all they are," said Nort. "That digging and blasting means something!"
He pointed to where, on the side hill at the scene of the first explosion, the two scientists were evidently directing operations looking to another blast. Professor Wright and his aide seemed to pay no attention to the cattle that had been brought in.
"This is a queer sort of game," said Dick to his brother, as they went back in the tent and sat down on boxes at the heads of their cots. "I can't see to the bottom of it."
"Nor I, except that these fellows are doing something they don't want known. Rustling cattle isn't all of it, by any means, but if the other isn't digging for gold, or something valuable, I give up."
"But if they were after gold, why would they deny it?" asked Dick.