style="font-size:15px;"> "But you just said you vamoosed from Death Valley because you wereafraid," said Bud.
"Well, what I mean I was afraid!" admitted Billee. "It was a mightyskeery feelin', I'm tellin' you, to start out in the mornin' an' notknow whether you'd come acrost some dead puncher 'fore you'd riddenhalf way round the herd. I sure was scared!"
"Then why would you be willing to go back?" asked Nort.
"To look after you kids – that's why – if so be your Pa thinks it fittento send you out to Dot and Dash. An' you heard me, too, the firsttime!" snapped Billee with a trace of temper which was unusual in hisgentle nature.
"Well, I don't believe I'm going to send them – that's the answer to onequestion," said Mr. Merkel. "After what you told me, Billee, I can'tsee that it would be wise to take a chance. I'll put up with my loss, and – "
"Did you pay much for the new ranch, Dad?" asked Bud.
"Well, I thought I was getting a bargain," his father relied. "Butmaybe I'm going to be left holding the bag after all. It strikes menow that Barter was pretty anxious and quick to sell. I ought to havesmelled a rat, but I didn't. And, by and large, it was a pretty goodsum I paid. But, as I said, I'm willing to lose if – "
"You aren't going to lose, Uncle Henry!" cried Nort.
"Not if we have anything to say about it!" chimed in his brother.
"And you got to count on me!" added Bud.
"The smallest roosters always have the loudest crow!" chuckled Snake
Purdee.
"Hey, you! Cut that out!" growled Yellin' Kid. "There ain't a yallerstreak in these boys an' you know it!"
"Course I know it!" chuckled Snake. "I was only kiddin'! Me, I aim togo 'long with 'em an' see what caused them mysterious killin's. Sure,I'm goin'!"
"Go easy, boys!" chuckled Billee. "If you all leave Diamond X, how's
Slim an' Babe goin' to run things?"
"Don't fool yourselves!" snapped the lanky foreman. "I run Diamond X'fore any of you fellers ever forked a bronc an' I can do it again."
"He's got me!" chimed in Babe.
"Ho! Ho!" chuckled Yellin' Kid. "You must 'a' been readin' the funnypapers!"
There was an ominous note, now, in some of the voices and Mr. Merkel, knowing how easily tempers of even the best of punchers are ruffled, interposed a soothing word or two.
"This isn't getting us anywhere," he said. "If what Billee states istrue, and I know he is telling the truth as he sees it, or as he heardit, why, I'm not going to send anybody to Dot and Dash."
"Oh, Dad!" cried Bud, beseechingly, while Nort and Dick chimed in with:
"Uncle Henry, we just got to go!"
"We'll have another talk about it," went on the ranch owner. "This isall news to me, Billee, and surprising news, too. I don't know what todo. I wish I had heard some of these stories before I went to LosPompan."
"You'd 'a' heard 'em all right if you had asted me," said the old man, thoughtfully scratching his head near where a bald spot was plainlyshowing. "But I had no idea you'd ever locate there."
"Oh, I won't locate there!" Mr. Merkel made haste to say. "I'd neverlive anywhere else than at Diamond X – my wife wouldn't move. But Ijust have to branch out and this struck me as being a good place tostart."
"Ain't no better place in all the west for raisin' cattle than theneighborhood of Los Pompan," interposed Billee. "And if it wasn't forwhat happened in Death Valley I'd be there yet."
"But what, actually, did happen?" asked Bud.
"That's what I don't know – what nobody knows," said Billee, "and that'swhat makes it all the more mysterious. Shucks! If we could 'a' foundout what caused the deaths it would have been easy to stop it – whetherit was Indians, rustlers or some disease. But we couldn't find out.That was the trouble, boys," and his voice sank to a whisper, "wecouldn't find out."
"Then we will!" cried Bud.
"You'll do what?" asked his father.
"We'll solve the mystery of Death Valley. Come on, Dad," he pleaded,"you just got to let us go!"
"I'll think about it," was all Mr. Merkel would say, and there was amore serious air about him than he had worn in many a day.
Gone, now, on the part of the boy ranchers, was any interest they mayhave had in the coming rodeo at Palmo. All their talk and ideascentered about what the ranch owner had told them, and the bad newsblurted out by Billee Dobb. While Mr. Merkel went in the house, wherehe talked to his wife and daughter, speaking only sketchily of theresult of his trip and Billee's remarks, the boys began to question theveteran puncher. It developed that other hands on Diamond X had alsoheard rumors of sinister stories about Dot and Dash.
"But we never had no reason, before, for speakin' of 'em," remarked
Squinty Lewis. And that, generally, was the sentiment. But though he could not have guessed his employer was on a mission to Los Pompan,
Billee reproached himself for not having sounded a warning.
"Do you honestly mean to say, Billee," asked Bud while his cousinslistened eagerly, "that there wasn't any way of tellin' how thosepunchers and the cattle died?"
"Absolutely not, boy!" was the reply. "They'd be all right one day, and the next they'd be dead."
"Maybe lightning struck 'em," suggested Nort.
"Lightning leaves a mark," Billee replied. "Besides, these things – Imean the deaths – would happen in clear weather. We didn't have manystorms, though lightning did kill some cows and I remember one puncherwho cashed in his chips that way. He was a nasty looking object, too, let me tell you. But Death Valley don't depend on lightning to getyou. There's some other way."
"Well, we're going to find out what it is!" declared Bud and hiscousins backed him up so forcefully that, in the end, Mr. Merkel atlast consented to the boy ranchers going to Dot and Dash, at least tolook the place over.
"I'm not going to ask you to try and sell it for me, so I won't bestuck," the ranchman said after his decision was made. "I'm not goingto palm off a death-dealing place on somebody the way Barter, so itappears, loaded me up with it. But I don't yet admit anything iswrong. However, if you boys find there is, just close up shop andwe'll forget it."
"No, Dad, we won't!" said Bud in a low voice, but with greatdetermination.
"What'll you do then?"
"We'll find that death-dealing ghost and lay him, or her or whatever itis!" cried the lad.
"And we'll be with you from the drop of the hat until the last gun isfired," cried Nort, while Dick nodded his agreement.
"Well, I like to hear you talk that way," Mr. Merkel said. "But I dohope nothing happens," he added anxiously, when the boys left to makepreparations for taking the trail to Death Valley.
"Something is bound to happen!" said Billee, who had been present whenthe decision was made. "But maybe
