Willard Baker - The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or, Diamond X and the Poison Mystery

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

"What do you reckon those boys are doing, Ma?" asked Nell Merkel as shepaused 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 achuckle. "They're always up to something. And, now that your Pa isaway – "

Mrs. Merkel's remarks were interrupted by louder shouts from thecorral, 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 ofher 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 akind 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 separatedthe main house from the other buildings of Diamond X and was soonapproaching the corral where were kept the cow ponies needed forimmediate use by the owner, his family or the various hands on the bigestate.

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

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

A moment later she received an answer to her question, for her brotherarose from the dust of the corral and started for the fence. He seemedto 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 andwatched what was going on. She saw Bud mount the fence near where thetwo Shannon boys were sitting, though hardly able to maintain theirseats 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 Nellwould have covered her ears only she knew, from past experience, thatYellin' Kid did not keep up his strident tones long. But this time hewent 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 upthe top rail and perched himself there in standing position while helooked over the dusty corral that was now a conglomeration of restlesscow 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 thetop rail, looked across the corral to where Old Billee Dobb was holdinga restless pony, and the lad called:

"Turn him loose, Billee!"

"Here he comes! All a-lather!" shouted the veteran cow puncher, as heslapped his hat on the flank of the pony and sent it galloping aroundthe 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 spiritedscene, Nell saw Bud poise himself for a leap. Then she understood whatwas about to take place.

"He's going to jump from the top rail of the fence and try to land onthe 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 thelooks 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 shewas not in the least afraid of what might be the consequences of herbrother attempting the aforesaid "circus trick." Nell was as eager tosee what would happen, as were any of the cowboys perched on the corralfence, and in furtherance of her desire she drew nearer.

By this time the pony, started on its way by the slapping from BilleeDobb's hat, was running fast. And its speed was further increased bywhat Dick, Nort and their companions, perched up there like rail birds, did and said. For the punchers, old and young, yelled and yipped atthe 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 bigrevolver, fired several shots in the air.

All this had the effect of further alarming the already startled ponyand 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 lowvoice. Nevertheless she did not call out to stop him, and her cheeksshowed rosy pink and her eyes were sparkling in the excitement of themoment.

"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 tightlythat the nails bit into her palms.

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

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

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

"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, hadgrasped 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 seemedto 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 supremeeffort he pulled himself up, managed to get one leg over the ridge-likebackbone of the pony and, a moment later, he was sitting upright on thesaddle blanket, both hands under the strap, while his heels played atattoo on the sides of the steed, urging him forward at even fasterspeed.

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

"He sure enough did!" echoed Yellin' Kid, reaching for his cigarettepapers 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 Mexicanborder. "Can't do a much more hair-raisin' trick than that!"

"I didn't think he could do it!" commented Old Billee coming aroundfrom 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: