The Boy Ranchers in Camp: or, The Water Fight at Diamond X

CHAPTER IX
A SHOT IN THE NIGHT

Wheeling his pony, Old Billee rode back with the boy ranchers, until they reached the bottom of the reservoir wall. Then, dismounting, Bud, Nort and Dick scrambled up the earth slope on one side until they could look into the storage tank, and at the pipe which, connecting with the old underground water-course, kept the reservoir filled.

"She isn't spouting!" said Bud, in blank disappointment.

"Just a dribble," added Nort, mournfully.

"And if it does as it did before that'll stop in a little while," remarked Dick.

"When did it start to stop?" asked Bud, unconscious of the double meaning of his words.

"About an hour ago," Old Billee answered. "I happened t' notice it when I come up here t' try for a fish."

"Fish!" cried Nort. "Can you get any fish here?"

"Sartin sure!" asserted the old cowboy. "They come in from th' river, under th' mountain, though how they like the dark I can't say, an' they come out of this pipe. I've caught many a good one."

The eastern lads looked to Bud for confirmation, and their cousin, nodded, rather gloomily, though.

"Yes," said Bud, "fish do come through the pipe. But if we don't get any more water they'll all die off soon."

"Maybe the water will come back – as it did before," asserted Dick.

Bud did not answer. He appeared to be figuring out something on the back of an old envelope with the stub of a pencil.

"We'll have enough for a week, I think," finally announced the boy rancher. "Then, if the water doesn't come back, we'll have to drive all the stock over to Diamond X. Can't take a chance letting 'em die of thirst here, even if they didn't stampede, which they'd be sure to do."

Two things are vitally necessary on a ranch – grass and water for the stock. Of grass there was plenty in Flume Valley, and, had the stream continued to come through the pipe, there would have been a goodly supply of water, even for the extra stock added from Square M.

But when no fluid spurted from the mouth of the black pipe, the other end being hidden in the opening of the natural water course, it spelled ruin for Diamond X Second.

"I wonder – I just wonder – if this has anything to do with the threat we received?" mused Bud, as he and his cousins went down the slope to the little table of land where the tents were pitched.

"Granting that it has, who sent the warning?" asked Nort.

"Who else but the man who doesn't want to see any water diverted from Pocut River?" asked Bud, in turn. "I mean Hank Fisher, and the gang he trails along with! If anyone stopped this water, he did!"

"But how?" asked Yellin' Kid, who had strolled up to take part in the general conversation. "He couldn't do it at th' river end of th' pipe, without bein' found out, and he hasn't been around here, I'll gamble on that – not since we started keepin' watch at night."

"No, he hasn't been here," admitted Bud, slowly. "It sure is a puzzle. Well, let's have grub, and talk about it later. It may come back. If it doesn't we have enough for a week – maybe longer."

It was drinking water for the cattle that was mostly needed, since the occasional, slight rainfall was now sufficient to provide for the grass, though some water was used to irrigate certain sections that would be called "meadows" in the east. This drinking water was conducted to distant troughs by pipes running from the reservoir, the pipes being controlled by means of valves, or water gates.

Had there been natural water-holes in Flume Valley it would, long ago, have been used as a place to raise cattle. But it was the absence of drinking places that caused it to be passed by, until, by artificial means, tapping the river through the underground course, Mr. Merkel had enabled his son and nephews to become boy ranchers in earnest.

As Bud had stated, there was about a week's supply on reserve in the concrete reservoir. When that was exhausted, unless the water again started flowing through the pipe, the cattle would suffer from thirst.

"Well, she isn't spouting any," mournfully remarked Nort, as, with his brother and Bud, he ascended the slope, standing on the edge of the reservoir.

"No," agreed Bud. "She's as dry as an old buffalo skull now. I don't know what to do!"

The shadows of dusk were falling, and the boys felt that the night was coming with its gloom to match their own feelings. Failure seemed to stare them in the face.

"But I don't see how anyone – granting that somebody like Hank Fisher or Del Pinzo has it in for us – can shut off the water without operating at either end of the flume!" exclaimed Nort.

"That is queer," agreed Bud. "I wonder what's inside that tunnel where the old watercourse runs? I've been through it, but couldn't see much of anything. I've a good notion – "

He broke off his remarks to gaze intently ahead. There was a movement in the gloom, and a figure walked away.

"Who's there?" asked Bud sharply, his hand slipping to his .45.

"It's me," came quickly, if not grammatically, from Pocut Pete, whose voice the boys recognized. "I just moseyed up here t' see if she was runnin'."

"Well, she isn't," spoke Bud, a bit shortly.

"So I see," came the drawling answer, and it was followed by a faint tinkling of glass.

Bud started, and tried to pierce the night shadows. But all he saw was the figure of the strange cowboy becoming more and more indistinct. Bud was just going to say something when he was halted by the voice of Nort.

"I have an idea!" exclaimed the eastern lad.

"What is it?" asked his brother. "Anything to do with this?" and he waved toward the reservoir which was strangely still, now that the water no longer bubbled into it from the pipe.

"Yes," went on Nort. "Why not investigate and see where the stoppage is, Bud?"

"Investigate what?"

"The pipe line – the old underground water-course."

"You mean go through the tunnel?" Bud asked.

"Sure! Why not? You say it's big enough all the way through, and the water itself doesn't occupy much of the bottom. We could walk it in a day, easy!"

"Yes," agreed Bud, "it isn't more than five miles, though we'd have to carry lanterns, and we might get lost in some side passage."

"That's just what I want to find out about!" cried Nort. "If there is a branch passage maybe that's where the water goes! Come on, Bud, let's go through the tunnel!"

"I'm with you!" said Dick.

For a moment Bud hesitated and then, as he was about to reply, there came the sudden sound of a shot, which shattered the night with a sliver of flame, plainly visible to the boys.

Instantly a band of coyotes set up their weird howling, and the startled steers lowed and bellowed as they rushed about.

CHAPTER X
INTO THE TUNNEL

"What's that?" cried Bud.

"Who's there?" demanded Nort.

The hand of Dick went toward the .45 he wore in a holster at his belt, and, it might be added, the hands of the others did also.

"Keep your shirts on," came the somewhat drawling voice of Pocut Pete, who, it seemed, had returned after shuffling off in the darkness. "I just winged a coyote."

"Oh," murmured Bud. "You were shooting at them, were you?" he asked.

"Not exactly," answered Pocut Pete, as he sauntered up out of the gloom. "I saw something movin' down among th' cattle, an' I knew it couldn't be any of you fellows, so I let go at him."

"Him!" cried Nort. "Was it a man?"

"Looked like one," drawled Pete. "I heard you'd had trouble with rustlers before I came, so I wasn't takin' any chances. I didn't aim t' hit him, though, only t' scare him, an' I must have winged one of them night-owls!" He chuckled at this characterization of the coyotes.

"Let's take a look down there," suggested Bud to his cousins, their worried interest in the stoppage of the water momentarily eclipsed by the new excitement.

"Oh, you won't find anyone down there now!" Pocut Pete made haste to say. "If it was a rustler he's far enough off by this time, an' I'm not positive I really saw one – it was so dark."

"It won't do any harm to take a look," declared Bud, and his cousins were of the same opinion.

"Suit yourself," spoke Pete, easily. "If I did hit him let me know."

Again he moved off in the darkness, and the boy ranchers, after a moment of hesitation, started in the direction whence the shot had been heard and the sliver of flame seen. Pocut Pete had gone on the opposite trail after returning to the boys, a fact which caused Dick to remark:

"Wouldn't you think he'd want to see if he did wing anybody?"

"He knows well enough he didn't," declared Bud in a low voice, for he and the others realized that sounds, especially voices, carried almost as clearly in the night air as across a body of water.

"What made him talk that way then?" asked Nort.

"Oh, he's – queer, I guess," replied Bud. "I don't exactly just like the way he acts. Did you fellows hear the tinkle of glass just before that shot?"

"I did," answered Nort, but Dick was not so sure. "What do you make of it?" Nort wanted to know.

"Wish I knew," spoke Bud, and then he told them about having found the small, thin, broken phial of dubious-smelling mixture in the bunk tent of the older cowboys.

"Do you think he takes 'dope,' or medicine of some sort?" asked Dick.

"It's hard to say," was Bud's reply. "But let's look around and see what we can find."

Their search was unrewarded, however. The cattle quieted down after the shot, and the coyotes only occasionally gave vent to their blood-curdling yells. But as for finding anyone who had been shot – including even a miserable coyote – there was not a sign.

"Guess Pete didn't wing anybody after all," mused Dick, as he and his chums turned back toward the camp.

"I never s'posed he did," grunted Bud. "He's a four-flusher, that fellow is, in my opinion. I wish dad had sent me somebody else."

"He's a good cowboy," defended Nort.

"Yes, but I don't feel that I can trust him. I'd rather have one like Old Billee, slow as he is, than two Pocut Pete chaps," grumbled the boy rancher. "But we've got other worries besides him, fellows! What are we going to do for water, now that we have a double supply of cattle at our ranch? That's what's worrying me!"

"It's enough to worry anyone," Dick agreed. "Maybe the water will come back, Bud."

"I hope it does," added Nort.

"We'll take a stroll through that tunnel – it's the only way to find out what's wrong," decided Bud. "Talk about black rabbits! I begin to think Old Billee was more right than wrong!"

"But your bad luck, so far, isn't as bad as your father's in losing cattle from disease," remarked Nort.

"No, and I hope that the epidemic doesn't break out here at Diamond X Second," went on Bud. "If it starts, and we don't get the water back, we may as well give up!"

He was plainly discouraged, and no wonder. He was young, and it was his first experience as a rancher "on his own." Nort and Dick, too, were a little down-hearted.

"But maybe things will look better to-morrow," suggested Nort, as they turned in for the night, having discovered nothing alarming in the direction where Pocut Pete had shot.

"Maybe," half-heartedly assented Bud.

But there was no water coming through the reservoir end of the tunnel pipe when the sun shone again, and, after breakfast, the boy ranchers prepared to explore the dark cave-like opening which extended under the mountain.

"I hope we can turn it on," said Bud, and he looked at the concrete basin of water, trying to calculate how much longer it would last if the supply were not replenished. Already it was lower than it had been the night before, for the cattle had drunk freely during the darkness.

Lanterns were gotten ready, a supply of grub packed, weapons were looked to (for who knew what beast might not lurk in the tunnel?) and at last the boy ranchers were ready to start.

"Good luck!" wished Yellin' Kid as the little party started for the mouth of the tunnel.

"Thanks," chorused Nort, Dick and Bud.

Then they entered the black opening.

If you will imagine a hillside, with a hole, or tunnel, about ten feet high and as broad, but of irregular shape, opening into it, and on the bottom, or floor, a two-foot iron pipe out of which, at normal times, ran a stream of water, you will have a good idea of the place into which our young heroes were to enter.

The tunnel extended all the way through Snake Mountain, curving this way and that, as a brook curves its way through a meadow. In fact the tunnel had been made, centuries ago, by a stream forcing its way through the soft parts of the mountain, and it was this old, hidden, underground stream-way of which Mr. Merkel had taken advantage to bring water to Flume Valley.

The stream flowed along the bottom of the tunnel course, leaving room on either side for persons to walk, as they might walk along the banks of a stream in the open. The underground river was not more than four feet wide, and about the same in average depth, but in places it flowed with a very powerful current.

"Whew! It's black as tar here!" exclaimed Dick, as they walked in past the pipe, and found themselves in the tunnel proper.

"As bad as the Hole of Calcutta," added Nort, who had read that grim story of the Sepoy rebellion in India.

"Do you want to back out?" asked Bud, swinging his lantern so that it cast flickering shadows on the place where water had flowed, but where there was none now.

"Back out!" cried Nort. "I should say not! Lead on, Macduff!"

And they started off in the blackness of the tunnel, with only the faint gleams of the lanterns to illuminate their way. What would they find?

CHAPTER XI
THE RUSH OF WATERS

Echoes of the footsteps of the boy ranchers sounded and resounded as they tramped along the now dry water-course of what had, only a day before, been a life-giving stream of water. The rocky and roughly-vaulted roof overhead gave back the noises like the soundbox of a phonograph, and the lads had to speak loudly, in places, to make their voices carry above the echoes. These places were spots where the vaulted roof of the tunnel was higher than usual.

They had walked on, the semi-circular spot of light at the entrance near the black pipe growing more and more faint, until it was not at all visible.

"There she goes!" exclaimed Dick, looking back.

"What?" asked his brother.

"The last gleam of daylight," was the answer. "If anything happens to our lanterns, so that they go out, and we get mixed up in some branch passages – good night! That's all I have to say!" and Dick was very emphatic in this.

"By Zip Foster!" exclaimed Bud, using that expression for the first time in several days. "You're a cheerful chap to have along on a picnic like this, Dick! Not!"

"Well, might as well prepare for the worst and hope for the best," laughed Dick, while Nort inquired:

"Why don't you tell us more about Zip Foster?"

"Oh – you – say, did you hear anything then?" asked Bud, and his voice had in it such a note of anxiety that his companions did not, at the time, imagine he might have been putting them off from a much-wanted and often-delayed explanation of this mysterious Zip Foster personage.

"Hear what!" asked Dick.

"Something like water running," replied Bud. "I have a notion that our stream – I call it ours for it doesn't seem to belong to anyone else – our stream may just trickle off, now and then, into some other underground course."

"Maybe it does," agreed Dick. "But I don't hear any water running."

"Nor I," added his brother.

"Maybe I was mistaken," Bud admitted. "But I sure would like to come across that missing water of mine!"

He little realized, nor did the others, what fruit his wish was to bear, and that very shortly.

"I guess what you heard was the echoes," spoke Dick. "I never heard so many queer noises."

"It's like the cave of the winds," murmured Nort. "But it's a great adventure all the same, Bud! I mean it would be great if we didn't have to worry about the water not coming back," he made haste to add, for he realized what it would mean to their new ranch in Flume Valley if no drink could be had for the cattle.

"It beats the finding of the Triceratops all to slathers!" exclaimed Dick, "and that was no slouch of a happening, either."

"Yes, no telling what's ahead of us," spoke Bud, as he walked along, unsteadily enough for the way was rough and filled with stones. And, as the boys tramped along in the tunnel, part of the time in the very bed of the stream that had gone dry, their lanterns cast fantastic shadows on the rocky walls. I have said that the stream was dry, but this was not strictly true, for in places, where the uneven bed formed depressions, there were pools of water. And, in some places, there were even little rills trickling along. But they never would reach the iron pipe that discharged into the reservoir.

On and on tramped the boys, pausing, now and then, to hold up their lanterns and inspect the rocky walls of the underground tunnel which echoed so strangely to their footsteps, and through which swept strange, cold and clammy winds.

"Well, I reckon we'll have to go all the way to the end before we discover anything, if we do find it," said Bud, when they had walked on for over an hour. Their pace was slow because of the uneven footing.

"And when we get to the other end and find the water running into the pipe at the dam in Pocut River, what then?" asked Nort.

"We'll hardly find that, I think," said Bud. "Or, I mean, we won't have to go all the way to the other end if the water is found running there."

"Why not?" asked Dick.

"Because, if the water's running in from the dam end of the pipe, we'll meet the stream before we get all the way through the tunnel," Bud explained. "I meant to call up on the telephone and find out if everything was all right at the river end before we started out, but I forgot. My theory is that the stream gets into this tunnel from the river all right, but is shunted off before it reaches us," he added.

"How shunted?" Dick wanted to know.

"That's what I can't tell," spoke Bud. "But why try to puzzle this out until we get something better to work on? I'm hungry! What do you say that we eat?"

"Suits me," agreed Nort.

"I'm not going to vote in the negative," asserted Dick.

They judged that they were about a quarter way through the mysterious tunnel now, and, setting down the lanterns on the rocky floor, the boy ranchers took out the food they had brought with them. It would be risky to kindle a fire in that enclosed place, Bud decided, as the smoke might choke them, though so far they had found an abundance of fresh air, a current blowing part of the time in their faces, and part of the time in the opposite direction. This proved that there was a good draft in the elongated cave, but it was voted best not to take any chances, though there was plenty of dried driftwood on the tunnel floor, and this could have been used for a blaze.

But the boys sat about in the gleam of their lanterns, and, while they ate the sandwiches they had brought, they talked of the strange happenings that had led up to this venture in which they were now joined.

Suddenly Bud, who had just taken up a piece of fruit cake, part of a chunk that his pretty sister Nell had sent over from the main ranch house a day or so before, stopped chewing in order to listen better; for, as you doubtless know, the action of the jaws precludes keen attention to outside sounds.

"What's the matter?" asked Dick, noting his cousin's act.

"I heard something," Bud answered.

"I'm hearing things all the while!" declared Dick. "This is the most weird place for mysterious noises I ever struck!"

"But this is different," insisted Bud. "Listen!"

Nort and Dick stopped chewing and strained their ears to catch the sound that had attracted Bud's attention. A strange, rushing, whispering echo seemed to fill the tunnel.

"Doesn't that sound like rushing water?" asked Bud.

"Yes," agreed Dick, after a moment of intentness; "it does."

"Look out!" quickly yelled Nort. "It is water, and on the rush, too! Jump for your lives! It's a flood!" and making a grab for one of the lanterns, that they might not be left in total blackness, he sprang toward the rocky side of the tunnel, an example followed by his companions.

And the rush of waters filled the underground cave with a mighty, roaring sound.