"They couldn't get any cattle, for there aren't any to get,"
observed Dick. This was true, as all the animals had been driven
from Happy Valley over to Diamond X. Later such as were not
shipped away, and many of the calves and mavericks would be
returned to fatten up and grow in readiness for the spring
tallying.

"I don't just like this!" murmured Bud, as he again urged his
pony forward. "Have your guns ready, fellows!"

And while they are thus riding toward the place where a strange
tunnel pierced Snake Mountain, I shall take this opportunity to
present, more formally than I have yet had a chance to do, my new
readers to the boy ranchers. For that is what Bud Merkel, and
Nort and Dick Shannon called themselves, being that, in fact.

Bud was a western lad, the son of Henry Merkel, who had been a
ranchman all his mature years. He lived at Diamond X ranch, with
his wife and daughter Nell. Some time before this present story
opens Bud's cousins from the east had come to spend the summer
with him, while their father and his wife made a trip to South
America.

Nort and Dick, though "tenderfeet" at the beginning, had quickly
fallen into the ways of the west, and in the first volume of this
series, "The Boy Ranchers," I was privileged to tell you how they
helped solve a mystery that revolved around Diamond X.

This mystery had to do with two college professors, and a
strange, ancient animal. But it would not be fair to my new