s that?" suddenly asked Dick.

"It isn't one of our boys," declared Nort.

Bud suddenly sat upright in his saddle. He breathed deeply, and then
quickly spurred forward. His cousins saw him swinging his lariat
around his head.

In an instant it went swishing through the air, and, a moment later, as
the coils settled about the figure of a man who started to leap for his
pony, Bud let out a yell, shouting:

"Roped! Roped, by Zip Foster!"

CHAPTER XIX

AN EXPEDITION IN THE DARK.

There was a confusion of rope and man. Sock, Bud's pony, braced his
feet, including the white one that gave him his name, and the lariat
tightened. There was a scurrying among the cattle, and the lone pony,
without a rider, galloped off.

Nort and Dick, taken by surprise, had reined their steeds to a stop
when they saw Bud lassoing the unknown man, but now they spurred up to
their cousin.

"What is it?" demanded Nort.

"Who is he?" Dick wanted to know.

At that instant a shot cracked, and the fast-gathering darkness was cut
by a sliver of flame.

"Trying that, are you!" angrily shouted Bud, and he backed his pony
quickly, pulling the roped man along the ground, until the prostrate
figure let out a yell.

"My hands are up!" came desperately out of the darkness.

"They'd better be!" retorted Bud. "Can you get off and tie him, Nort?"
the boy rancher called to his cousin. "Get out your gun, Dick, and
cover him! He's going to be a bad actor, I'm saying!"

"I'm through!" came the sullen response from the man on the ground.
"My gun went off by accident."

"Such _accidents_ aren't healthy around here," grimly spoke Bud. "Get
at him, fellows!"

"Who is he?" asked Nort, as he slipped from his pony, throwing the
reins forward and on the ground as notice that the animal was to stand.

"And what's that funny smell?" asked Dick. "It's like--like the time
we found the five dead steers!"

"Yes, and there'll be more dead steers as the result of this!" said
Bud, and there was a choking in his voice.

A moment later Dick and Nort were standing over the prostrate figure of
Pocut Pete. His arms were bound firmly to his sides by the tight coil
of the lariat, held taut by Bud, and the other boys could see that the
cowboy's gun had slipped from its holster and lay some distance away
from him. Nort picked up the gun, and then, with quick motions, he and
Dick bound some coils of Bud's rope around the rascal's feet.

All the fig