The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek: or, Fighting the Sheep Herders. Baker Willard F.
we'll get 'em back!" cried Bud. "On the trail, fellows!"
And catching up bundles of hastily prepared "snacks," the boy ranchers started on the trail after the thieves, for much depended on their success and an early start was essential.
Bud and his cousins had not ridden far beyond the corral when they heard behind them shouts of:
"Wait a minute! Wait! Come back!"
"What's up now?" questioned Bud, drawing rein.
CHAPTER IV
AROUND THE CAMPFIRE
Naturally impatient, the boy ranchers did not want to return once they had started on the trail of the robbers. They thought they should be allowed to rush off, and perhaps they had an idea they could soon "meet up" with the suspects and bring them back. But Mr. Merkel and the other ranchmen, as well as the veteran cowboys, had no such delusions. However, this was no time to discourage impetuous youth.
"What's the matter, Dad?" asked Bud, as he recognized his father's voice among those bidding him and his cousins to return. "Has someone telephoned in that they've rounded up the thieves?"
No surprise need be occasioned when I speak of telephones in connection with ranching in the far west. Times have changed since the early days of the buffalo and Indians. Both are almost extinct, though the Indians have lasted longer than the bison.
But the West has progressed with other parts of the country, and the advent of the cheap automobile and the spread of telephone wires, and even wireless now, has brought far distant ranches close together. So Bud knew it could easily have been the case that some distant ranchman might have telephoned to Diamond X that he had made a capture of suspicious persons. He may not have known of the theft of Mr. Merkel's Spur Creek papers, for this robbery had not yet been broadcast.
"No telephones, son," said Mr. Merkel easily, as he strode out to where the horses of the boys were pawing the ground, almost as impatient to be gone as were their masters. "But I want you to take one of the men with you."
"Oh, Dad! I don't want to do that!" protested Bud.
"We've hit the trail alone before," added Nort.
"It isn't a question of your ability," went on Mr. Merkel. "But you may have to split – very likely you will, and for this purpose four are better than three. Then you can pair it off."
"That's right," slowly admitted Bud. "Two of us might have to follow one trail, and it would be lonesome for just one to take the other. How about Old Billee?"
"You couldn't pick a better companion," agreed Mr. Merkel.
Billee Dobb was only too glad to get away from the routine work of the ranch – riding herd and helping in the round up and shipping – and quickly saddled to accompany the boys on their ride through the night, in an endeavor to pick up the trail of those who had committed the robbery at Spur Creek.
"Well, I guess we're off this time," remarked Dick, as once more they turned their horses' heads in the general direction supposed to have been taken by the robbers.
It was, as you may surmise, pretty much guess work, and yet there were some clues on which to work, and the boys hoped to pick up others as they went along, by stopping at different ranch houses and making inquiries. Then, too, cowboys would be met with here and there, and they might have seen some trace of the fugitives.
In the olden days, before the West was as much traveled as it is now, it might have been possible for pioneers, such as those featured in the novels of James Fenimore Cooper, to have followed and picked up the trail by the mere physical evidences left on the ground – a footprint here, a hoofmark there, the pressed down grass and so on.
But this was out of the question now, though some slight marks might be discovered in the daytime by the sharp eyes of Billee Dobb, who was a veteran cowboy and plainsman. In this Bud and his companions would have to rely on Billee, as the boys themselves had not had much experience in this line.
"Well, Billee, what do you think of it all?" asked Bud as he rode beside the old man, while Nort and Dick loped along in the rear.
"You mean what happened to-night, Bud?"
"Yep." Bud was clipping his words short to save time.
"Well," said the old man slowly, "I don't know just what to think. It's all mighty queer, but one thing I'll say – this didn't all happen just to-night."
"You mean it was planned in advance?" asked Dick.
"Sartin sure, son! It was a put-up job if ever there was one. Why, just look back over it. Here we all were in peace and quiet, and Mr. Merkel was entertainin' his friends, when up rides a bunch of onery Greasers, if I'm any judge."
"What makes you think they were Greasers?" asked Bud.
"'Cause no decent white men would act like they did. Up they rides, pretending to be sneakin' in on us, maybe to lift a few horses or else stampede a bunch of our cows. But that wasn't their intention at all."
"If it was, Slim and the rest of 'em spoiled their plans," observed Nort.
"Don't worry, they had no notion of takin' anything," declared Old Billee. "They just wanted to take our attention while some of their confederates sneaked in and got Mr. Merkel's papers; and they done that same."
"I'll say they did!" exclaimed Bud in disgust. "It was all too easy for them. But how did they know Dad's papers were in the safe?"
"Well, it's common knowledge that your paw claims the land around Spur Creek," observed Billee. "That's common knowledge. And it wouldn't take a Kansas City lawyer long to figger out that he had papers to prove his claim, an' that he kept these papers in his safe; it bein' equally well known that we haven't much time to fool with banks around here, 'specially in the busy season.
"So all the rascal had to do was to get the house clear, by creatin' some excitement away from it, and then he walked in an' skinned the safe. It didn't help matters any that th' perfesser happened along at the same time, either, and I don't care who knows it!" declared Billee Dobb emphatically.
"You don't mean to say you believe Dr. Wright had any hand in this?" cried Bud.
"Well, maybe he didn't 'zactly have a hand in it," grudgingly admitted the old cowpuncher, "but he played right into the hands of th' scoundrels."
"On purpose, do you mean?" asked Nort.
"Well, that's to be found out," remarked Billee musingly.
"Billee, you're 'way off there!" cried Bud. "Professor Wright is as right as his name – we proved that before when he was here after the prehistoric Triceratops bones."
"He may have changed since then," declared Billee. "What did he want to come in and lead us off on a false trail for, when we was hot after the robbers?"
"He didn't do it purposely," asserted Nort, who, with his brother, shared Bud's views as to the integrity of Professor Wright. "It was because he got lost."
"Yes, to hear him tell it," sneered Billee.
"Why, look here!" cried Bud. "What good would it do Professor Wright to get hold of Dad's papers proving ownership to the Spur Creek lands? Why would he want the land? If anybody wants it they must be those who are coming in under the new government ruling – sheep herders maybe, and it's to them we have to look."
"That Wright is just the kind of a chap who'd go in for sheep herding, and spoiling a cattle country," complained Billee, as he pulled up the head of his horse, when the animal showed a tendency to stumble over a prairie dog's hole.
"You're away off!" laughed Bud. "It may have been sheep herders who got Dad's papers, hoping thus to be able to claim a lot of land for their woolly feeders, but Professor Wright had no hand in it."
Billee's only answer was a sniff.
However, as the boy ranchers rode along in the darkness they realized that they could have had no better companion than Old Billee Dobb, for his very vindictiveness, though it might be wrongly directed, made him eager to keep after the robbers. That Professor Wright was other than he claimed to be, none of the boys doubted for a moment.
But