"Oh, there's always more or less going on like this," said Bud. "If it isn't one thing it's another, though I must say we haven't had anything like those queer professors in some time."
"I'd like to know what their game really is," remarked Dick.
"So would I!" exclaimed his more impulsive brother. "And I'd like to catch 'em at it when I had my gun loaded," and he tapped significantly the .45 on his hip.
"Don't be too fast with gun play," advised Bud calmly. "You'll find, if you ever become a rancher, that you'll use more powder on coyotes, rattlers and in driving cattle the way you want 'em to go, than you will on humans. There isn't so much shooting out here as the writers of some books would make out."
"Well, if there's only a little, I'll be satisfied," said Nort.
They reached the headquarters of Diamond X ranch without mishap, save that Dick's pony stepped into a prairie dog's hole, and threw his rider over his head. But Dick was rather stout, and cushioned with flesh as he was, a severe shaking-up was all the harm he suffered.
"They're nasty things at night—prairie dogs' burrows," said Bud. "But mostly a pony can see 'em in time to side-step. Yours just didn't—that's all."
"Yes, he—didn't!" laughed Dick, as he climbed back into the saddle.
There was enough excitement at Diamond X ranch to please even excitable Nort. As the other cowboys had said, one of Mr. Merkel's men from a distant ranch—Square M, to be exact—had ridden in to report that during the early morning hours several head of choice steers, that were being gotten ready for a rising market, had been driven off by rustlers. Leaving his companions in charge of the remaining cattle, Tar Blake—who got his name from his very black whiskers—had ridden to headquarters to give the alarm.
"Well, we'll see if we can trail these scoundrels!" declared Mr.
Merkel, as Bud and his cousins rode up.