re called and the outfit from Diamond X ranch was on
its way again. Nort and Dick were eagerly questioning Bud about
western matters, learning to their delight that there would be chances
to go hunting and fishing after the big round-up, and Babe was
beginning on about the forty-seventh verse of his favorite song, when
Bud suddenly stopped in the midst of telling some incident, and gazed
intently across the rolling range.

"What's the matter?" asked Dick in a whisper, for the silence of the
night, and the strangeness of their surroundings, seemed to call for
whispers.

"I thought I saw cattle moving," said Bud. "Yes, I do!" he went on,
quickly. "Look, Babe!"

Babe broke off his song at a point where a dying cowboy was begging to
be "toted back to the chuck house," and looked to where the boy rancher
pointed.

"That's it, shore as rattlers!" the assistant foreman said. "It's
about time they tried suthin' like this! Got your guns, boys?"

"What for?" asked Nort, a thrill of excitement leaping through his
veins. "What is there to shoot?"

"Rustlers!" said Bud, grimly. "Somebody--Greasers, likely--are trying
to run off some of our fat steers! Come on, we'll ride 'em down!" He
clapped spurs to his horse, an example followed by Nort and Dick, but,
quick as they were, Babe had shot ahead of them, and in the moonlight
the city lads caught the gleam of his gun as he pulled it from the
holster.

CHAPTER VII

A CRY IN THE NIGHT

Needless to say that Nort and Dick were thrilled through and through.
Having lived in a city nearly all of their lives, though with the usual
city lad's dreamings of adventures in the open, of camps, of desperate
measures against desperate men, they had never hoped for this.

"Crickity! Think of it!" hoarsely whispered Nort to his brother as
they galloped along side by side. "We haven't been here a day yet, and
we're run into cattle rustlers!"

"Great!" commented Dick. "Oh, boy!"

"We haven't run into 'em yet, that's the trouble," spoke Bud grimly, as
his pony worked in between the two brothers. "But we will in a little
while--Babe'll fix 'em."

"Can't we take a hand?" asked Nort eagerly, as his hand sought the
weapon at his side.

"We may have to," Bud admitted, "but dad doesn't think I'm old enough,
yet, to mix up in a man-sized fight. Maybe he's right, but he always
tells me to hold back until I'm needed."

"We can take a hand _then_, can't we?" asked Nort eagerl