The Boy Ranchers in Camp: or, The Water Fight at Diamond X
TextCHAPTER XXIV
A POWERFUL STREAM
"Better look out!" came the high-pitched voice of Yellin' Kid.
"There may be a flood here!" added Old Billee.
"Can't we get those rascals?" cried Snake Purdee. "I'd 'a' had th' drop on 'em in another second if they hadn't doused that glim!"
As he spoke they could all hear the rush of iron-nailed shoes when the wearers of them scrambled over hard rocks in their effort to escape.
Mingled with that sound was the strange one of rushing water. Realizing that danger might come to them more through the agency of the strangely-acting underground stream than from the actions of the conspirators, Bud and Nort flashed their lanterns on the water-course behind them and around the bend which they had turned to behold the strange scene.
"It's going down!" cried Bud, for there was no longer any advantage in concealment or silence, as long as Del Pinzo and the others had fled. "It's receding!"
"Just as the other did!" added Dick. "They must have opened a gate here and let the water out!"
"They've done something!" cried Bud, "and we've got to find out what it is."
"Did you hear that about a fuse?" demanded Snake. "Maybe they're going to blow the place up!"
"If they do, and the tunnel caves in, good-bye to my water!" said Bud.
"Yes, and good-night to us!" grimly added Old Billee.
"Come on!" cried Yellin' Kid. "Let's see what's up there in that hole in the wall, anyhow!"
"And have your guns ready!" warned Snake Purdee.
However, as it developed, the weapons were not needed. When the boy ranchers and their friends managed to scramble up the rocky way, above and to the right of the second hidden, branching stream, and found themselves in what was virtually a little natural recess hollowed out of the rocky wall, they saw that it was deserted.
But there were plain evidences of the fact that the men they had seen had fled in a hurry, as, indeed, they had practically witnessed. Playing cards, cigarettes, tobacco and bottles were scattered on a rude wooden table, and there were several candle-ends stuck in the necks of flasks. The smell of the extinguished candles was heavy on the air.
"But where did they go?" asked Bud, when a hasty glance around the rocky room disclosed no occupants.
"What's that?" asked Dick, pointing to what seemed to be a hole in the floor at one corner.
"It's a passage!" cried Billee, holding his lantern above it. "An' big enough, even for me! I'm going down!"
"Will it be safe?" asked Nort. "It may lead into the stream, or to where they have planted a mine – they spoke of a fuse – "
"You've got to take chances in times like these!" declared Old Billee. "I guess if they went down it will suit us."
"Unless they can close it up, or turn water in," suggested Snake, dubiously.
"Git out! I'm going down!" stoutly declared the rather fleshy veteran cow puncher, and when he let himself down the hole the others followed.
There was a natural stairway, or what served the same purpose, leading down out of the stone room where the conspirators had been evidently plotting so far underground. The passage went down, at first, like a flight of steep, cellar stairs. Then it straightened out, and, after twists and turns, led upward.
"Where are we going?" asked Nort.
"Nobody knows!" grimly answered Bud. "But it's safe so far!"
"And we're right on their trail!" added Snake.
"How do you know?" asked Billee.
For answer Snake paused and pointed to a smouldering cigarette stub on the rocky floor of the passage that had led out of the conspirators' niche.
"That wasn't dropped many minutes ago," declared the cowboy. "They came along here."
This was evident, but it was also evident that Del Pinzo and his conspirators were sufficiently in advance to escape. For, with another sudden turn, the passage led to another natural, rocky stairway, and when this had been mounted the boy ranchers found themselves again in the main tunnel.
"What's this?" cried Bud, when it was evident that they had come back to the place whence they had started, but farther on, and nearer to the river end of the tunnel. "This is a regular maze!"
"But where is Del Pinzo?" asked Dick.
"Out there, I fancy," and Nort pointed to where the main tunnel extended under the mountain and beyond, to the dam in Pocut River. "They've gotten away!"
"And about time, too!" added Snake, "or they'd be trapped as we may be!"
"Trapped!" cried Old Billee. "What do you mean?"
"I mean there's a mine set here, somewhere! Don't you smell powder smoke?"
A sharp, acrid odor, once smelled never forgotten, came to the nostrils of all as they stood there in the tunnel, while the stream flowed beside them. Whatever the conspirators had done, they had, evidently, not shut off all the water.
"There it is!" cried Dick, and he pointed to where, in the light of the lanterns, there could be seen, slowly ascending, a thin wisp of smoke.
"Look out!" yelled Old Billee as Dick dashed forward. "It may explode!"
Then, as Dick rushed up with his lantern, they saw trailing over the floor of the tunnel, and on the same side of the stream as themselves, a thin white fuse, like a sinister snake. It was this burning fuse which caused the smoke.
It was the work of but an instant for Dick to step on it, and extinguish the smouldering spark, while it yet had some distance to travel before the fuse lost itself in a mass of rocks.
"Whew! That was a close call!" exclaimed. Bud, when the fuse was entirely out.
"Let's see where it leads to," suggested Snake.
They followed it up, and discovered a hidden mine of explosives, tamped down into a hole that had been drilled in the rocky floor. Iron bars, hammers and other mining implements showed that the perpetrators of the dastardly deed had evidently fled in a hurry.
"They were going to blow up the tunnel!" cried Nort.
"And when that collapsed it would mean the end of Flume Valley," spoke Bud soberly.
"We never could have opened the tunnel again, with all these strange, branching streams playing around inside."
"But we reached here just in time!" declared Old Billee. "Now let's get t' th' bottom of this. We know there's a main stream, an' two branching streams. One of th' branching streams is controlled by th' water gate with th' copper handle."
"And there must be another gate here, or else Del Pinzo and his crowd couldn't have shut off the water as they did before they ran away," went on Bud. "There must be a whole maze of water-courses in this old tunnel. Probably the Aztecs dug 'em to save their gold and other valuables. But I'd like to know what that roaring is?" and as Bud and the others listened they could hear a subdued murmur, a rumbling and roaring sound, that seemed to shake the whole tunnel near where they stood.
"Maybe this leads to it," suggested Dick, as he walked along and suddenly flashed his lantern across another opening – a natural stairway leading down into black depths.
"Let's try it," said Bud.
Down it they went, one at a time, carrying their lanterns. And as they advanced, descending until they came to a level passage, the murmur and roaring became louder.
"Would you look at that!" suddenly cried. Bud, in an awe-stricken voice, as he came to a stop and pointed ahead.
And then, as the others gathered about him and looked, they saw a wondrous sight.
They had entered a cavern, similar to the one where Nort had been found, but not so large. And from the very centre, it appeared, of the uneven rocky floor of the cave there spouted out a stream of water about three inches in diameter.
Solid white was this stream of water, like a bar of glass, and it shot out of a round hole in the floor as a stream comes from the nozzle of a fire hose. It was inclined at an angle of about forty-five degrees, was this strange stream of water, and whence it came and whither it went to the boys and their friends could only guess.
It was this powerful, rushing stream, under immense head and power it seemed, that caused the rumbling, roaring sound. It appeared to strike against some rocky wall a long distance off, so far that the light of the lanterns could not penetrate to it, and the searchers did not feel like venturing beyond the point where the terrific stream issued.
That it was of awful power was evidenced a moment later, for Bud, who had picked up one of the bars of iron, used by the conspirators to set their sinister mine, approached the stream and, raising the bar, brought it down with all his force on the white, spurting jet.
On an instant the heavy rod was torn from his grasp, and whirled forward into the blackness beyond. There was a ringing, metallic sound as it hit some distant rock, and then it came bounding back, sliding across the rocky floor to the very feet of the searchers.
"Look at that!" murmured Bud, as he stooped and picked up the bar. It was bent and twisted into a sort of combined S and U shape, mute evidence of the terrific power of the stream.
"That would bore right through a man!" said Dick.
"Like making a hole in cheese!" added Old Billee. "This is a terrible place! Let's get out!"
CHAPTER XXV
HAPPY VALLEY
Leaving behind them the roaring, rumbling jet of white water that came from the unknown and went thitherward, the boy ranchers and their friends made their way back to the main tunnel.
"Well, there are two things we have to settle," declared Bud, when they had sat down on convenient rocks, near the running stream, and began to consider matters.
"What are they?" asked "Nort.
"One is, what effect has the turning of that lever we worked on the main stream? The other is, where is the lever that Del Pinzo and his gang shifted to cause this second branch stream to stop running?"
"And when we find answers to those two questions," said Dick, "I think we'll have solved the mystery."
"Right!" cried Bud. "So let's get at them. In the first place some of us will go back and shift the lever on the big rock in the first cave, while some of us stay here to see what happens."
The party was divided and when watches had been adjusted to mark the same time, so it might be known how many minutes elapsed between the shifting of the lever and any noticeable effect, Dick, Old Billee and Snake went to the first cave – that of the huge boulder.
It did not take long to demonstrate that when the water flowed from the main stream into that side branch, the stream nearer the river end of the tunnel went dry. But even with that no water passed along the main tunnel so that it would flow into the reservoir of Flume Valley.
"The water must flow out of the first big cave by some outlet we know nothing about," decided Bud. "Now we'll look for the second water gate."
They found the lever that controlled this in a corner of the upper, rocky room where Del Pinzo and his conspirators had been plotting when discovered. And when this lever was pulled from the position in which the seekers found it after the Mexican half-breed fled, the second stream (by which I mean the one nearest the river end of the tunnel) filled with water. But this did not affect the first.
And not until both levers were set at positions which caused the branch streams to empty, did any water fill the end of the tunnel near Bud's ranch.
But when this had been done; when the secret of working the levers was discovered, and water was once again flowing along the valley end of the tunnel, where the stream bed had been dry for two days, then Bud cried:
"The fight is over and we've won!"
"I wouldn't say that yet," spoke Old Billee cautiously, "Del Pinzo an' Hank Fisher are still around an' above ground. But I guess you've put a crimp in 'em, boys!"
"I reckon!" shouted Yellin' Kid. "But are we sure that the water now goes to Flume Valley?"
"We'll soon find out," declared Bud. "We're almost out of the tunnel now, and we can 'phone back and ask."
And a little later they did emerge from the mysterious underground tunnel, with its still stranger water courses. But what was their surprise to find that night had fallen – in fact it was not exactly night, but nearly morning of the next day.
For a moment coming out into the dark night bewildered them. And then, as they stood at the mouth of the mysterious tunnel under the mountain, there was a sharp crack.
"Look out!" yelled Bud, as a bullet "zinged" viciously over their heads.
In an instant Old Billee had whipped out his gun and sent a shot toward a group of horsemen along the river bank.
"There they are! Del Pinzo and his gang!" yelled Dick, as another bullet sang over his head. "Come on! Let's get 'em!"
"No use!" drawled Snake. "They've got hosses – we ain't!"
And a moment later the gang of conspirators, firing another harmless shot, swept out of view.
A group of men swarmed from the store and adjacent shacks, roused by the early-morning shooting, and with amazement they greeted our friends and heard the strange story.
"What day is it?" asked Bud.
"Friday," some one answered.
The mystery-solvers looked at one another in amazement.
They had been in the tunnel nearly forty-eight hours without sleep, nor did they feel the need of it, so exciting were the events that transpired.
But late, or, rather, early as it was, they managed to get in the store to use the telephone. And when the gray dawn was breaking across Pocut River, Bud learned, over the wire, from one of his father's cowboys left at Flume Valley, that the reservoir was again being filled.
"Hurray! It's all right!" yelled Bud, almost as loudly as the Kid would have done. "I guess, from now on, we'll have no trouble. But I'm going to see if we can't get Del Pinzo. He and his gang certainly tried to blow up the place, and us with it."
"To say nothing of trying, as I believe, to drown, us like rats in there, by shutting off and turning on those queer streams," added Nort.
"Do you think they really meant to drown us or blow us up?" asked Dick.
That question was never answered, for Del Pinzo and his more intimate associates disappeared after their flight from the tunnel, when they fled following the shifting of the lever and the lighting of the fuse.
There was dynamite tamped in among the rocks, and but for the stamping out of the fuse the tunnel never would have carried any more water to Flume Valley, and those in it might never have come out.
Hank Fisher stoutly denied that Del Pinzo was acting for him either in planting the explosives or in shutting off the water from the reservoir of the boy ranchers. But everyone had their suspicions.
For that it was Del Pinzo who had sent, or caused to be sent the mysterious warnings, no one doubted. Nor did anyone doubt but that the vicious Mexican half-breed had played tricks with the water.
For that is what they amounted to – tricks. Who built the copper-lever-controlled water gates, putting them in to utilize the winding underground streams, no one could tell. It may have been the Aztecs. The powerful, slanting stream of water, it was discovered, formed the outlet of the shunted-in-river stream when the two side channels were opened so that Flume Valley's water supply was cut off.
The water gates and the underground streams formed the chief mystery, and these never could be fully explored. It was thought too dangerous. How Del Pinzo discovered the workings of the levers, utilizing them to try to end the rule of the boy ranchers in Flume Valley, was not disclosed for many years.
"You won't have any further trouble, now that the gates are closed and the levers taken off," Mr. Merkel said, for that had been done. "You'll get all the water you want in Flume Valley."
"Guess I'll call it Happy Valley," said Bud, "for everything is coming out right, now."
"In spite of black rabbits!" chuckled Old Billee.
"Yes, even with black jacks!" laughed Bud. "Everything is working fine, now."
And so it was. For with the discovery of the secret water gates and the disappearance of Del Pinzo, the epidemic died away. Though this, of course, was due to the arrest of Pocut Pete.
That scoundrel was found guilty and sentenced to a long term in prison. But he kept his counsel, and never actually confessed that it was Hank Fisher who set him to this dastardly trick – if, indeed, it was that unscrupulous ranchman of Double Z.
That it was rustlers from Double Z who had tried to drive off some of the boy ranchers' cattle was not doubted, the finding of the branding iron being regarded as telltale evidence. But this was not enough to cause any arrests.
"Well, what are we going to do next?" asked Dick, of his brother and cousin, when they were fishing in the reservoir one evening, as, with the closing of the hidden gates and the uninterrupted flow of the water, many more finny prizes could be hooked.
"Get ready for a big shipment of cattle," said Bud. "I never saw any finer stock than we have here in Happy Valley. That's our next move – reap the benefits of our hard work."
But the lads did more than that. And those of you who wish to follow their fortunes further may do go in the next volume of this series, which will be called: "The Boy Ranchers on the Trail; or Diamond X After Cattle Rustlers."
"Who's that down at camp?" asked Dick, as he pulled up a good-sized fish and put it beside him on the grass.
"Looks like Nell and your mother," said Nort to Bud.
"It is!" Bud cried. "They said they'd come over, and Nell promised to bring a pie! Come on; we got enough fish!"
And down the reservoir rushed the boy ranchers to greet their visitors.
"Any pie, Nell?" cried Bud.
"Sure," was the answer. "But it's for company – Dick and Nort!"
"Ho! I'd like to see 'em grab it all!" challenged Bud, as he reached for the basket his sister held. "By Zip Foster I would!"
"Say, who is Zip Foster anyhow?" demanded Nort.
"Oh, I'll tell you – later!" chuckled Bud, and, as he removed the cover of the basket, delighted "Oh!" and "Ah!" exclamations came from him and his cousins at the sight within.
Some of the cowboys came riding back to camp from the round-up, Old Billee cheerfully chanting:
"Oh, bury me deep on th' lone prairie!"
And with this happy mingling of the joyful and sad we will take leave of the boy ranchers for a time.