he ranchman. "Does he mean about the
mysterious spring, or the stolen cattle?"

"He didn't say," answered Mrs. Bunker. "But he wants you to come to see
him."

So Uncle Fred went. He stayed a long while in the room where Sam
Thurston, the strange cowboy, had been put to bed after his broken leg
was set, and when Uncle Fred came out he was much excited.

"Wait a minute, Captain Roy!" he called to his partner. "I can tell you
where to look for the cattle that were taken last night."

"Where?" asked the former army man, pausing at the head of his band of
cowboys.

"Over in the gully by the creek. They're hidden there."

"Who told you so?"

"Thurston, the strange cowboy. And he has also told me the secret of the
spring, so we won't have to do any digging, Daddy Bunker."

"We won't? Why not?" asked the children's father in surprise.

"Because the cowboy says the reason the water stops coming in at certain
times is because of something that happens back in the hills, where my
spring starts, in a brook that runs under ground after its first
beginning. Back in the hills the men, who have been taking the cattle,
turn the water into another stream. That's why it doesn't run into mine,
and that's why my spring dries up."

"But why do the men shut off our spring water?" asked Captain Roy.

"They do it to make a wet place so they can drive my cattle across it,
and no hoof marks are left to tell which way the animals have gone.
Then, when the cattle are safely away, the waters are let run down where
they always flow, and they come into my spring again. The taking of the
cattle and the drying up of my spring are all done by the same band of
men. That's why, whenever any cattle were taken, the spring dried up.
One went with the other."

"How did Sam Thurston know all this?" asked Daddy Bunker.

"This cowboy with the broken leg used to be one of the band of men who
took my cattle," went on Uncle Fred. "He just told me. He was on his way
to see about taking more of my steers when his horse threw him at the
bridge. That's why he didn't want to come to Three Star Ranch--because
he had treated us so meanly.

"But when he saw how good we were to him he made up his mind not to be
bad any more and to tell about the men. He knows where they hide the
cattle after they steal them, and he says if we go there now we can get
back the steers, and also catch the men who took them. And after this
the spring won't go dry any more."

"W