anything to do with the break in the pipe?" asked
Nort.

"You've got me again," confessed his western cousin. "We'll have to
make a night ride of it and find out."

They rode back to the camp tents, to find Buck Tooth calmly smoking his
red-stone Indian pipe, and gazing off in the darkening distance at
nothing at all, as far as the boys could determine.

"Anybody been around, Buck?" asked Bud.

"Nope!" was the answer. "You catchum dead man?"

"Not a sign, Buck! Beckon he must have dug a hole and pulled it in
after him. But we've got to find out what's the matter with the pipe
line. There's only a few days' supply of water in the reservoir.
Rustle out some grub, and we'll ride over the mountain."

"Um," grunted the Zuni, and a little later, after a hasty meal of
flapjacks, bacon and coffee, the boy ranchers, with the old Zuni
Indian, started on a night ride over the mountain trail, in the general
direction of the pipe line, the supply of fluid for which had so
mysteriously stopped.

But strange events were only just beginning to happen in Flume Valley.
There were others in store for the boy ranchers.

CHAPTER III

THE WARNING

"Will it be safe to leave our camp alone, like this?" asked Nort, as he
and his companions rode off, leaving behind them the white tents,
gleaming in the wondrous light of a full moon.

"Why not?" inquired Bud. "It won't walk away."

"No, but some one might come in and take everything."

"There isn't much worth taking. You brought your old stuff with you,
we have our ponies, so all they could snibby would be the camp dishes,
and they aren't worth the risk."

"Could they drive off any of your cattle?" asked Dick.

"Why don't you say _our_ cattle?" asked Bud with a smile, which was
plainly to be seen in the brilliant moonlight. "You fellows are in
this venture with me, you know."

"We haven't yet gotten used to thinking of it that way," remarked Nort,
as he rode beside Buck Tooth. The old Zuni Indian managed to keep pace
beside the boys without ever urging his pony forward, a trick of riding
which even Bud envied.

"Well, you'd _better_ get used to it," was the laughing retort. "Your
dad staked you to part of the expenses of this deal, same as mine did
me, and of course you'll share in the profits--if there are any," Bud
added rather dubiously. "And if we don't get that water back there
won't be enough to make you need a hat to carry 'em off."

"As bad as that