her. "Water's stopped runnin' ag'in, Bud!"

"Whew!" whistled the boy rancher. "And with a double lot of stock on
hand, too! This _is_ bad!"

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