The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley; Or, Diamond X and the Poison Mystery

Excited shouts, mingled with laughter, floated on the sunlit and dust-laden air to the ranch house of Diamond X. Now and then, above the yells, could be heard the thudding of the feet of running horses on the dry ground.

"What do you reckon those boys are doing, Ma?" asked Nell Merkel as she paused in the act of laying the top crust on a raisin pie.

"Land knows," answered the girl's mother with half a sigh and half a chuckle. "They're always up to something. And, now that your Pa is away--"

Mrs. Merkel's remarks were interrupted by louder shouts from the corral, and Nell heard cries of:

"Try it again, Bud!"

"You missed him clean, that time!"

"How'd you like that mouthful of dust?"

"Git up an' ride 'im, cowboy!"

Like an echo to these sarcastic exclamations, Nell heard the voice of her brother Burton, commonly known as Bud, answer:

"I'll do it yet! Just you wait!"

"I wonder what Bud's trying to do?" murmured Nell.

"Oh, run along and look if you want to," suggested Mrs. Merkel, with a kind regard for Nell's curiosity. "I'll finish the pie."

"Thanks!" And Nell, not even pausing to clap a hat over her curls, hastened out into the yard, across the stretch of grass that separated the main house from the other buildings of Diamond X and was soon approaching the corral where were kept the cow ponies needed for immediate use by the owner, his family or the various hands on the big estate.

Nell saw several cowboys perched on the corral fence, some with their legs picturesquely wound around the posts, others astraddle of the rails. Among them she sighted Dick and Nort Shannon, her two "city" cousins, who had come west to learn to be cowboys. And in passing it may be said that their education was almost completed now.

"Why, I wonder where Bud is?" asked Nell, as she made her way to the fenced-in place.

A moment later she received an answer to her question, for her brother arose from the dust of the corral and started for the fence. He seemed to have been rolling in the dirt.

"That's a queer way to have fun!" mused Nell.

Without making her presence known, she stood off a little way and watched what was going on. She saw Bud mount the fence near where the two Shannon boys were sitting, though hardly able to maintain their seats because of their laughter.

"Going to try it again, Bud?" asked Dick.

"Surest thing you know!" snapped back the boy rancher.

"Wait till I go in and get you a bit of fly paper!" suggested Nort.

"Fly paper! What for?" demanded Bud.

"So you can stick on!"

"Ho! Ho! That's pretty good!" shouted such a loud voice that Nell would have covered her ears only she knew, from past experience, that Yellin' Kid did not keep up his strident tones long. But this time he went on, like an announcer at a hog-calling contest, with: "Fly paper! Ho! Ho! So Bud can stick! That's pretty good!"

"Go ahead! Be nasty!" commented Bud good-naturedly as he climbed up the top rail and perched himself there in standing position while he looked over the dusty corral that was now a conglomeration of restless cow ponies. "But I'll do it yet!"

"I wonder what in the world Bud is trying to do?" asked Nell of herself.

She learned a moment later. For Bud, after balancing himself on the top rail, looked across the corral to where Old Billee Dobb was holding a restless pony, and the lad called:

"Turn him loose, Billee!"

"Here he comes! All a-lather!" shouted the veteran cow puncher, as he slapped his hat on the flank of the pony and sent it galloping around the inside fence toward the waiting youth. "It's now or never, Bud!"

"It's going to be now!" shouted Nell's brother.

Fascinated, as any true girl of the west would be, by the spirited scene, Nell saw Bud poise himself for a leap. Then she understood what was about to take place.

"He's going to jump from the top rail of the fence and try to land on the back of the pony when it gallops past him!" murmured Nell. "Regular circus trick that is! I wonder if he can do it? But from the looks of him I should say he'd already fallen two or three times. Billee gave him a fast one this round."

Nell referred to the horse. And it was characteristic of her that she was not in the least afraid of what might be the consequences of her brother attempting the aforesaid "circus trick." Nell was as eager to see what would happen, as were any of the cowboys perched on the corral fence, and in furtherance of her desire she drew nearer.

By this time the pony, started on its way by the slapping from Billee Dobb's hat, was running fast. And its speed was further increased by what Dick, Nort and their companions, perched up there like rail birds, did and said. For the punchers, old and young, yelled and yipped at the steed.

"Come on there, you boneyard bait!" shouted Snake Purdee.

"Faster there, you spavin-eyed son of a Chinaman!" roared Yellin' Kid.

Nort gave vent to a shrill whistle, while Dick, drawing his big revolver, fired several shots in the air.

All this had the effect of further alarming the already startled pony and when it neared the place where Bud was perched on the top rail, ready to make a flying leap, the animal was, as Old Billee had said, "all a-lather."

"Bud is crazy to try anything like that!" exclaimed Nell in a low voice. Nevertheless she did not call out to stop him, and her cheeks showed rosy pink and her eyes were sparkling in the excitement of the moment.

"Go on, now! Ride 'im, cowboy!" came in stentorian tones from Yellin'

Kid.

"Oh, I hope he makes it!" voiced Nell, clenching her hands so tightly that the nails bit into her palms.

A moment later, as the pony rushed around the confused bunch of its fellows in the center of the corral, Bud leaped for its back, for the animal was now opposite him. The pony carried only a blanket strapped around its middle. And there was nothing for the venturesome rider, or would-be rider, to cling to but this strap or blanket.

"If there was a saddle, Bud could make it!" whispered Nell in her excitement. "I guess that's why he must have fallen the other times."

For upon his clothes and person Bud Merkel bore unmistakable signs and evidences of having fallen not once but several times in the corral dust.

"Wow!" yelled Dick Shannon.

"He's on!" cried his brother Nort.

"And off ag'in!" roared Yellin' Kid.

Bud had made the leap from the fence, his hands, for a moment, had grasped the strap around the pony and then his fingers had slipped off. Likewise the one leg he managed to throw over the steed's back seemed to be about to slide off.

But just when it seemed that Bud would fall to the ground, his fingers, in a last, despairing grip, caught a fold of the blanket. By a supreme effort he pulled himself up, managed to get one leg over the ridge-like backbone of the pony and, a moment later, he was sitting upright on the saddle blanket, both hands under the strap, while his heels played a tattoo on the sides of the steed, urging him forward at even faster speed.

"By golly, he done it!" cried Old Billee.

"He sure enough did!" echoed Yellin' Kid, reaching for his cigarette papers and muslin bag of tobacco.

"That ought to get him something at Palmo," commented Snake Purdee, referring to a coming rodeo in a nearby town close to the Mexican border. "Can't do a much more hair-raisin' trick than that!"

"I didn't think he could do it!" commented Old Billee coming around from the far side of the corral to join his friends.

"Well, he tried hard enough before he managed to stick," exclaimed Nort.

In the excess of her enthusiasm Nell clapped her hands. And Dick, turning to ascertain the source of the noise, chuckled:

"Look who's here!"

"Got a ticket, little girl?" asked Bud, who, having demonstrated that he could do what he had said he could-leap from the corral fence to the back of a passing pony-was now slowing down his steed and riding him back to where the other punchers were perched.

"I'm a reporter," responded Nell with a smile. "I'm writing this rodeo up for the papers."

"Then we'll have to make a press box for you," said Nort.

He and his brother, with the half score of cowboys, and Nell were offering their congratulations to the daring boy rancher when a new voice, floating toward the corral from the direction of the house, called to ask:

"What's all the excitement about?"

"Oh, hello, Dad!" cried Bud, waving his hat toward a well set-up, bronzed specimen of a western ranchman who was walking slowly toward the fence. "Did you see me?"

"I saw you risk your neck, if that's what you mean," answered Mr.

Merkel with a half smile.

"You should have seen him when he missed!" chuckled Old Billee.

"Anything the matter, Dad?" asked Bud as he swung himself down off the saddle blanket and approached his father who was now leaning over the top rail of the corral fence. Something in Mr. Merkel's face showed that he had news to impart.

"You see," went on Bud, "we're all going to do stunts over at the Palmo rodeo, and I made up this one, of fence jumping, so Dick and Nort and I could horn in on some of the prizes. But if you don't want me to-" He paused suggestively.

"You seemed to make out all right this last time, which is the only time I saw you," chuckled Mr. Merkel. "But--"

"You needn't worry about the ranch work, Dad!" interrupted Bud, eagerly. "It's all been 'tended to. Herd riding, looking after fences, cattle all shipped off just as you left word when you went away and all that. We got everything cleaned up and I thought we could take a little time off to practice for the rodeo."

"Oh, sure! That's all right!" Mr. Merkel hastened to say. "I wasn't finding any fault with your bare-back riding. But what I wanted to say was that I've got a new job for you boys and if you take it on, which I hope you'll do, you won't have any time for a rodeo."

"A new job!" cried Nort, eagerly.

"Anything to do with Chinese smuggling?" asked Dick.

"No, I'm glad to say it hasn't," went on the owner of Diamond X. "This is right in the line of your regular work."

"Then you bought the new ranch; did you, Dad?" asked Bud, for his father had been away about a week on a mission known only to the immediate family, but which was now stated by his son.

"Yes," Mr. Merkel slowly replied, "I took over Dot and Dash, and if everything here at Diamond X and in Happy Valley is in as good shape as you boys seem to think, why, I'm going to send you there."

"Send us where?" Bud wanted to know.

"To the new ranch-Dot and Dash is its cattle brand-to get it in shape before winter sets in. You don't mind; do you?"

"Mind!" joyously cried Bud. "Sure not!"

"That's good news!" commented Nort.

"Right-o!" sang out his brother. "Things were getting slow around here, and if we didn't have the coming rodeo to think about--"

"Well, then if you're willing to take charge of Dot and Dash for a while you can pass up the rodeo," chuckled Mr. Merkel. "Not but what you won't have more excitement, maybe, than if you did try bulldogging and bare-back riding," he added to his son. "Only it will be sort of different, and your stunts will be doing some good instead of just endangering your necks."

"Aw, there wasn't any danger," murmured Bud.

"No!" chuckled Snake Purdee. "The dust is pretty soft to fall on," and his point was illustrated as Bud began whipping some of the accumulated soil from his chaps.

"Well, that's what I came out to tell you, the news about buying Dot and Dash," concluded Mr. Merkel.

"That's good news for us!" declared Nort. "It will give Dick and me a chance to show how much we have learned about cow punching since we came here."

"Sure, it's good news all right," echoed Dick.

And then Old Billee Dobb struck in with a few remarks which, most distinctly, were in the category of bad news. For the veteran puncher said:

"Excuse me, Boss," and he looked at Mr. Merkel to ask: "Did I understand you to say you'd taken over the old Dot and Dash ranch?"

"That's right, Billee."

"Is that the outfit not far from Los Pompan, near the Mexican border?"

"That's the place, Billee."

"Hum!" The old man seemed lost in thought for a moment. Then he went on with: "It's in a valley; ain't it, Boss?"

"Yes, Billee, in the prettiest valley, outside of Happy, that I ever laid eyes on. It's an ideal place for a cattle ranch. I'm lucky to get hold of it at the price I did. But Jed Barter was anxious to sell out and--"

"'Scuse me once more, Boss," and Old Billee seemed very anxious and much in earnest now, "but did you hear any rumors or talk about Dot and Dash before you bought it?"

"No, Billee, I didn't. What do you mean?"

"Didn't anybody tell you the local name of the place 'fore you took it over?"

"The local name! Why, no. What's the name got to do with it?"

"Nothin' much, maybe," slowly answered Billee while the boy ranchers regarded him curiously. "Only Dot and Dash ranch is located in what has always been called Death Valley, and nobody has ever been able to make a success of it as long as I can remember. I wish, Boss," he went on earnestly, "that you'd 'a' told me 'fore you bought this ranch. I'd 'a' put you wise to what it really is-Death Valley!"

"Death Valley?" echoed Bud Merkel. "What do you mean? Who died there, and how come?"

An ominous hush fell over the assemblage of cowboys on the corral fence and they looked from Billee Dobb to the owner of Diamond X. The bad news, clearly, had startled him from his usual calm.