"What's the matter, Bud?" asked Dick, as he urged his animal
forward in a jump, until he was beside his cousin,

"Some one's up there around the tunnel entrance," responded Bud
Merkel. "I saw 'em dodge back out of the light." Then, raising
his voice, he cried: "Come on, now! None of your tricks! I've got
you covered!"

"I don't see any one," spoke Nort.

"They're there, all right," asserted Bud. "Come on, fellows," he
exclaimed, "we'll have to look into this. There was trouble
enough with getting water to stay in Happy Valley, without
letting some Greaser in to queer the works again! Come on!"

He and his cousins rode their horses up the rather steep and
winding trail that led from the bottom of the reservoir to the
top, where a big iron pipe, sticking out under the mountain like
the head of some great serpent, brought from the distant Pocut
River a stream, without which it would have been impossible to
raise cattle in the valley the boy ranchers claimed as particularly
their own.

"Who you reckon it is?" asked Nort, as his pony scrambled up
between the animals of Dick and Bud.

"Oh, some prowler that may have been rustling our grub while we
were over at the round-up," was the answer.