Before Dick could reply there was a disturbance among the tetheredponies as though something had alarmed them. In a flash it came toDick that the intruder he had seen was trying to steal a horse. Theponies did not dream. When they saw anything they knew it was real.Accordingly the boy sharply called:

"A horse thief, Billee!"

This warning was enough to set any Westerner on the alert in aninstant, for, in spite of the progress of automobiles, the horse isstill, in the cattle reaches of the west, a thing most vitally needed.

"Horse thieves, eh?" cried Billee in ringing tones. "The varmints!

Come on, boys! We'll get 'em!"

His cries and the voice of Dick served to rouse the others in camp andin a few moments Nort, Bud, Yellin' Kid and Snake Purdee had unrolledfrom their warm blankets and had grabbed their guns. Bud threw somelight cottonwood on the embers and the blaze that at once resultedshowed objects up fairly plainly, though there was sufficient shadow tomake the picking out of any particular horse thief very difficult.

"Where is he – which way did he go?" shouted Yellin' Kid.

"Over there!" and Dick pointed the trail along which they had riddenthat day. Quickly he told his story – how he had been awakened by themidnight visitor kicking the boy's foot as he strode over him.

"Come on!" called Snake and in a moment the entire camp was trailingafter him in the direction where Dick had seen the old man vanish.

But it was like pursuing one of the shadows of the night, and it didnot take long, after emerging from the circle of illumination of thefire into the blackness of the surrounding night, to impress all withthe idea that a capture was out of the question.

"How many horses did he get?" asked Bud. "Gee! Why didn't you wakeme, Dick?"

"I did as soon as I got my wits about me," was the answer. "It allhappened so suddenly."

"Horse thieves don't generally send word they're comin'!" chuckled

Billee. "But it strikes me you've made a mistake, Dick."

"A mistake, how?"

"Callin' this old man, as you say he was, a horse thief."

"What else was he?"

"I'm not sayin' he wasn't. But he didn't take any of our ponies.

Count for yourself."

It took only a few moments to enumerate the riding and pack animalstethered near the camp and the count was found to total correctly. Notan animal was missing.

"Guess you were too quick for him," commented Nort to his brother.

"It's lucky you woke up."

"It's lucky he kicked my foot!" chuckled Dick. "Lucky for us andunlucky for him."

"Somewhat," admitted Billee Dobb. "Well, he come here and he wentaway, and we aren't none the worse off as far as I can make out. GuessI was a little out when I said not to stand guard. But I didn'timagine we were in horse-thieves' country."

"Hadn't we better have sentry-go from now on?" suggested Bud.

"'Twouldn't be a bad idea," admitted Billee.

"I'll take first shot at it," said Dick. "I'm wide awake now and since

I saw this old man I'll know him again if he comes sneaking back."

Nort and Bud were as eager to take the first watch as was Dick, but heinsisted that it go to him. So, after another supply of light wood wasplaced near the fire in readiness to throw on and produce a quickblaze, in case of another alarm, the others retired to their blanketsand Dick was left on guard.

Once more the silence of the night settled over the camp, a silencebroken only by the occasional howl of a distant coyote. Dick madehimself as comfortable as possible and at first he was able to keepwidely awake. Then as the fatigues of the day manifested themselves ina desire to go to sleep once more he found himself wishing that theintruder would come back again to furnish excitement to keep him awake.

But nothing like that happened. The night continued quiet and in duetime it came the turn of Bud to relieve Dick. Later Nort relieved Budand finished the night watch which came to an end when a rosy tint inthe east announced, the coming of a new day.

"Well, you didn't catch anybody I see!" chuckled Billee as he sauntereddown to the water hole to wash for breakfast.

"No, nothing happened while I was on duty," announced Bud.

"He knew better than to come while I was sitting up waiting for him,"added Nort.

"You didn't see anything; did you, Dick?" asked Yellin' Kid of theremaining sentry. "I mean after the first scare."

"No, nothing. He didn't come back – whoever he was."

"Wonder what he came for, anyhow?" mused Bud who had started to follow

Billee to the water hole.

Suddenly Nort, who was walking near his cousin, stooped and pickedsomething up off the ground. It was a soiled bit of paper, evidentlypart of what had once been a grocery bag.

"Maybe he came to leave this!" suggested Nort as he turned the paperover.

"Came to leave that – what is it?" asked Bud.

"It's some sort of a warning, I guess," was the answer. "Look!"

He held the soiled scrap out to the others. The writing was large andstraggling, but it was plain. The warning said:

KEEP AWAY FROM DEATH VALLEY IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU. S. T.

CHAPTER VI
AT DOT AND DASH

Silently the little circle of ranchers, young and old, gazed at theominous warning Nort had picked up. Yellin' Kid was the first tospeak, following the reading of the message on the dirty piece of bagpaper.

"Well, I'll be horn-swoggled!" voiced the Kid in his usual loud tones.

Billee Dobb looked sharply from Nort to Dick and then at Bud.

"This any of your doin's?" he asked.

"Our doings! What do you mean?" challenged Bud.

"I mean you aren't getting up some stunts for the rodeo – oh, Iforgot – that's off," the veteran puncher hastened to add. "But none ofyou youngsters did this, I hope."

"Dropped that warning?" questioned Dick. "I should say not! I didn'tdo it!"

"Nor I!" voiced Nort. "I picked it up, and I can see, Billee, youmight naturally be suspicious of me as one who knew just where tolocate this piece of paper. But I had nothing to do with it."

"Nor I!" said Bud. "'Tisn't my idea of the right kind of a joke toplay."

"You never can tell what young fellows will do," murmured Old Billee.

"But I'm glad to hear you three say you had nothing to do with it.

Sort of relieves me."

"'Tisn't my kind of writing," went on Dick as though he thought, because he had given the first alarm and had been, in fact, the onlyone to view the midnight intruder, that more suspicion might attach tohim as the joker than to any one else.

"I'm not much on writin' myself," declared Yellin' Kid, "and while Imight say I'd be proud if I could sling a pen the way this feller did,I want it distinctly understood I didn't have nothin' to do with it."

"You needn't tell the folks in the next county about it," gently chidedBillee. Then he took the paper from Snake Purdee, who was curiouslyexamining it, and subjected it to a close scrutiny.

"Make anything of it, Billee?" asked Yellin' Kid endeavoring to put thesoft pedal on his voice.

"The writin' ain't that of anybody I know," said the veteran, "and Ican't, offhand, recall anybody whose initials are S.T. But TimMellick, who keeps the store over at Palmo, has paper bags of the samekind of stuff as this."

"I don't believe that will be much of a clew," said Dick. "Most paperbags are alike, and store keepers get their supply of them from awholesale house that supplies a hundred customers."

"No, I don't reckon we can do much toward pickin' up the trail of thisfellow from that scrap," admitted Billee. "So the next best thing todo is to get breakfust."

"That's right – let's eat!" exclaimed Snake.

"But you aren't going to throw that away; are you?" asked Dick as hesaw Billee folding the ragged piece of brown paper containing thesinister warning.

"Throw it away? Oh, no! Of course I'm not. I'm going to keep ituntil I can find out what it means."

"What it means is plain enough," said Bud. "Somebody doesn't want usto go on to Death Valley and Dot and Dash ranch."

"All the more reason why we should go on there and see what it means!"cried Nort.

"That's the talk!" echoed his brother and cousin.

"If they're trying to scare us away, they'll find we don't scare wortha cent," added Bud.

"It goes to prove, though," remarked Dick, "that Billee's story islikely to be borne out. I mean that there's something queer going onat Death Valley."

"Queer is right!" assented Bud. "Though whether this is a warning inour interests, sent by one who doesn't want to see any of us get putout of business with the poisoned water, or whether it's a warning tokeep away so we won't discover some crooked business – that's somethingwe can't answer."

"Not yet," said Billee Dobb significantly. "But we'll soon be able to.I've got my mind made up, now. I'm going to see this thing through tothe finish!" and he smote his right fist into his open left hand with asound like the report of a small gun.

"That's the way to talk!" cried Yellin' Kid. "I wish I'd had a sightof the fellow who dropped that warning," he went on. "He would besitting down here now talking Turkey and tellin' what it was all about.Why didn't you call me first, Dick?"

"I raised the alarm as soon as I could wake myself up," was the answer.

"But I guess we were all sleeping pretty sound."

While Snake was frying the bacon and making the coffee, some of theothers cast about the camp in a circle, seeking some clew to themidnight visitor. But nothing could be found that shed any light onthe mystery. It was evident that the man, whoever he was, had riddento the camp, had picketed his horse out some distance and then hadsneaked in among the prostrate, sleeping figures. Evidently his objectwas merely to leave the warning, and not to rob or commit some moreserious crime. And his touching the foot of Dick was an accident.Then, seeing he had caused an alarm, the man slipped away, dropping hisnote.

Puzzle their heads as they did, none of the six could recall any one, either among their friends or enemies, whose initials were S.T. andDick's suggestion, that the symbols of a name were only assumed, seemedto be generally accepted.

Breakfast was eaten, camp was broken and once more, after anothercasual casting about for possible clews to the intruder, the cavalcadewas under way. But one more night separated them from the vicinity ofDeath Valley and the new ranch.

"And the sooner we can get there and begin checking up on some of thethings we've heard the better I'll like it," remarked Bud.

"I guess we all will," echoed Nort.

"I only hope we'll find something tangible, and not a lot moremysteries," spoke Dick.

"It'll probably turn out to be poisoned springs or bad water,"suggested Yellin' Kid. "That's the most reasonable explanation."