cle Fred. "And, as
usual, my trouble is like that a lot of ranchers have. Some one has been
taking my cattle."

"Didn't you want them to?" asked Russ.

"No, indeed," answered his uncle. "I raise my cattle to sell, so I can
make money to pay my cowboys and live on some of it myself. If bad men
take my cattle away in the night, as they do, without paying me, I lose
money. And that's why I came on East here."

"Surely you didn't come all the way from Moon City to find out who was
taking your cattle at Three Star Ranch!" exclaimed Mother Bunker.

"Oh, no. The men who are doing that are right out there. I've left some
of my cowboys to attend to them," answered Uncle Fred. "What I came on
for, besides getting you to go back with me, is to get some books about
springs and streams of water, and also to talk with some engineers about
a queer spring on my ranch."

"What sort of queer spring?" asked Daddy Bunker. "I thought all springs
were alike."

"Well, I s'pose they are, in that they have water in 'em," said Uncle
Fred. "But mine isn't that kind. Sometimes it has water in it, and again
it hasn't."

"What do you mean?" asked his sister. "Does the spring go dry? That used
to happen to the spring where we lived when we were children. Don't you
remember, Fred?"

"Yes, but that spring only went dry when there was no rain--say in a
dry, hot summer. The spring on Three Star Ranch goes dry sometimes in
the middle of a rainy season."

"What makes it?" asked Daddy Bunker.

"That's what I came on to find out about," replied Uncle Fred. "None of
my cowboys can tell what makes it, and the Indians are puzzled, too.
It's like one of Laddie's riddles, I guess."

"That's what we thought about the ghost at Great Hedge," said Mrs.
Bunker. "But we finally found out what it was, and very simple it was,
too. Perhaps this spring of yours will turn out the same way."

"Well, I hope it does," said her brother. "All I know is that sometimes
the spring will be full of fine water. We use it for drinking at the
ranch house and for watering some of the horses. The cattle drink at a
creek that runs through my place. That never goes dry.

"But sometimes there will be hardly a drop of water in the spring, and
then there is trouble. Everybody is sorry then, for we have to haul
water from the creek in barrels, and it isn't as good to drink as the
spring water."

"Is that the only queer thing?" asked Daddy Bunker.

"No. The most remarkable th