's everybody at my house?"

Nort looked at his western cousin, and then, with a deliberate motion
pretended to mop his face free of some imaginary perspiration, brought
out by the rapid-fire questions on his cousin's part.

"Say! Go a bit easy, will you, Bud?" he begged. "One at a time! Line
forms on this side!"

"We're going right out with you, and everybody's fine!" answered Dick,
summing up matters. "Your father said we were to ride out and meet you
here at the water-hole. We've got as much of our outfits as we'll need
for a few days, and so let's mosey along. Oh, but it's great to be
back out west!"'

"You got off a ripe one that time!" agreed Nort. "Who's that up
there?" he asked, pointing to the figure of a solitary horseman on the
hill down which Bud had ridden.

"Looks like Yellin' Kid," commented Dick.

"It's Old Billee," answered Bud. "He's going to be with us out at
Flume Valley. Did dad tell you of the new venture?" he asked his
cousins.

"Yes, and it sounds good. Must have been quite a trick to bring water
from Pocut River, Bud."

"Well, it would have been if Professor Wright hadn't showed dad how to
use an old underground water course for part of the way. Then it was
easy. And say--you ought to see what a difference water has made in
that valley! It was almost a desert before we irrigated."

"I'm anxious to see it!" said Nort.

"We can't get there any too soon to suit me," added Dick. "Just think!
We're going to be our own bosses--boy ranchers for fair!"

"You intimated plenty that time!" cried Bud. "Well, let's hit the
trail!"

The three boy ranchers started off, Nort and Dick accompanying Bud back
over the way the latter had come. As they rode up the hill Old Billee
passed on down another trail, leading to Diamond X proper.

"Howdy, boys!" called the old cowboy from the distance to Nort and
Dick. "See you a bit later over at your own ranch!" he added, and
then, with a friendly wave of his hand, he went down into a little
swale, or valley, and was lost to sight.

"Now for some good times!" cried Bud, as he rode between his two
eastern cousins, who had again come to spend the summer with him in the
great western outdoors.

"If it's anything like last year we sure will have a bang-up vacation!"
declared Nort.

"Well, I can't promise anything like that--with cattle rustling and
digging up animals ten million years old," laughed Bud. "But I think
we might have a little