"Oh, I won't expect you," said Bud. "I've got everything all laid out for the camp there. Nort and Dick will be with me, but we'll be on the lookout for you to-morrow. Bring what things you need, and some grub. And if my mother has any pies baked, just pack a few of them."
"Only a few?" asked Billee, with a grin.
"As many as Nell will let you take," laughed Bud. "But there's Nort and Dick! Whoop! Oh, boy! Come a-runnin'!" and the young rancher beat a tattoo with his heels on the sides of his steed, and raced down the slope toward two other lads who, like himself, were attired in conventional western costume. Old Billee pulled his steed to a halt and watched the greetings.
"It's a great thing to be young!" sighed the old man. "The greatest thing in the world! But maybe I can do something yet! Only I don't like that black jack – I shore don't! Never heard of anythin' but bad luck followin' one of them nimble cusses! I don't like it for a cent!"
"Well, here we are!" cried Nort Shannon, flinging his broad-brimmed hat into the air, and catching it on the end of his .45 before the headpiece could touch the ground.
"Came right on time, too! Zip Foster couldn't 'a' made it better!" joyously declared Bud, clapping his palm into that of Nort.
"Haven't you run him off the ranch yet?" asked the other lad, who was rather short and stout, not to say fat.
"Run who off?" asked Bud.
"Zip Foster!" repeated Dick. "Last I heard of him – "
"Never mind him!" and Bud seemed somewhat annoyed at having mentioned the name. "Oh, but I'm glad you fellows are here! Have a good trip? Are you hungry? Did you have grub enough? Can you ride right out now? How's everybody at my house?"
Nort looked at his western cousin, and then, with a deliberate motion pretended to mop his face free of some imaginary perspiration, brought out by the rapid-fire questions on his cousin's part.
"Say! Go a bit easy, will you, Bud?" he begged. "One at a time! Line forms on this side!"
"We're going right out with you, and everybody's fine!" answered Dick, summing up matters. "Your father said we were to ride out and meet you here at the water-hole. We've got as much of our outfits as we'll need for a few days, and so let's mosey along. Oh, but it's great to be back out west!"'
"You got off a ripe one that time!" agreed Nort. "Who's that up there?" he asked, pointing to the figure of a solitary horseman on the hill down which Bud had ridden.
"Looks like Yellin' Kid," commented Dick.
"It's Old Billee," answered Bud. "He's going to be with us out at Flume Valley. Did dad tell you of the new venture?" he asked his cousins.
"Yes, and it sounds good. Must have been quite a trick to bring water from Pocut River, Bud."
"Well, it would have been if Professor Wright hadn't showed dad how to use an old underground water course for part of the way. Then it was easy. And say – you ought to see what a difference water has made in that valley! It was almost a desert before we irrigated."
"I'm anxious to see it!" said Nort.
"We can't get there any too soon to suit me," added Dick. "Just think! We're going to be our own bosses – boy ranchers for fair!"
"You intimated plenty that time!" cried Bud. "Well, let's hit the trail!"
The three boy ranchers started off, Nort and Dick accompanying Bud back over the way the latter had come. As they rode up the hill Old Billee passed on down another trail, leading to Diamond X proper.
"Howdy, boys!" called the old cowboy from the distance to Nort and Dick. "See you a bit later over at your own ranch!" he added, and then, with a friendly wave of his hand, he went down into a little swale, or valley, and was lost to sight.
"Now for some good times!" cried Bud, as he rode between his two eastern cousins, who had again come to spend the summer with him in the great western outdoors.
"If it's anything like last year we sure will have a bang-up vacation!" declared Nort.
"Well, I can't promise anything like that – with cattle rustling and digging up animals ten million years old," laughed Bud. "But I think we might have a little excitement."
"How?" asked Nort and Dick eagerly.
"Tell you later," promised Bud.
They rode on, talking over old times and planning new ones, and as the shadows began to lengthen they rode down into a triangular valley, at one end of which a rude dam could be noticed, while, scattered over the green carpeted floor, were hundreds of grazing cattle.
"Say, this is some slick place!" cried Dick.
"The best ever!" affirmed Nort. "And is this where we are to camp and ranch it?"
"Right here," declared Bud. "Course we haven't any ranch house yet. But we've got a tent – there it is," and he pointed to a white canvas shelter not far from the dam.
"A tent! Oh, boy! better and better!" yelled Dick, as he urged his pony forward.
As the three boy ranchers neared their headquarters, represented by two or three tents grouped together, there emerged from among them the figure of a man on horseback.
"There's old Buck Tooth," said Bud.
"Who?" asked the eastern cousins.
"Buck Tooth – a Zuni Indian that dad picked up somewhere. He's one of the best herd-riders you'd want, and he and I are great friends. Wonder what's the matter, though? He acts as though something had happened."
Bud pulled rein, to allow a better observation of the figure that was, obviously, riding out to meet him. Nort and Dick also halted their ponies. But Buck Tooth rode to meet them at great speed, sitting in the saddle as though part of it and the horse. He rode in a manner that made Nort and Dick envy him.
"What's the matter, Buck?" asked Bud, as soon as the Indian was within hailing distance. And then Nort and Dick could see why he was called that. A large, yellow-stained tooth protruded from his mouth, giving him not exactly a pleasant expression.
"What's wrong, Buck, you ride so pronto like?" demanded the young western ranch boy.
"Heap wrong!" came the answer in guttural tones. "You no shut off water in pipe; eh?"
"Shut off the irrigation water? I should say not!" cried Bud. "Why, has anyone?"
"Water no come! All gone! No run splash-splash now!" and Buck Tooth waved his hand toward the reservoir made by a dam that curved out in a half circle from the wall of natural rock.
"The water gone!" cried Bud. "This is strange! Let's have a look!"
He and his cousins rode at top speed to the reservoir that had reclaimed Flume Valley from the semi-desert it had long been. Dismounting, they climbed the slope and saw that from the great iron pipe, which was wont to spout a sparkling stream, there came only a few drops and trickles.
"It's disappeared!" said Bud in a low voice. "The water has taken another course! This means the end of Flume Valley, I reckon!"
CHAPTER II
A NIGHT RIDE
The boy ranchers stood looking down into the reservoir, which was almost full of water, but which was slowly running out through the different gates, some to concrete drinking troughs where thirsty cattle congregated, and some to distant meadows where it supplied moisture for the grass on which the steers of Diamond X Second fed. From the slightly ruffled surface of the reservoir, as the evening wind blew across the water, the gazes of Bud, Nort and Dick sought the faces of one another.
"This looks had!" murmured Bud, while Buck Tooth, the Zuni Indian, grunted something in his own incomprehensible dialect.
"What does it mean?" asked Nort, as he looked down the slope from the reservoir to the group of tents that was to form the home of himself, his brother and cousin for several months, while they were in camp.
"It