illee
Dobb.

"Course they are!" answered Bud. "But they're a long shot from being
tenderfeet, now, since they helped get rid of Del Pinzo and his
cattle-rustling gang, and did their share in solving the mystery of the
Triceratops. Tenderfeet! Guess you'd better not let 'em _hear_ you
call 'em that!"

"Mebby not, son! Mebby not!" agreed Old Billee, rather mildly as he
tried to urge his slower-going animal to keep pace with Bud's. For the
pinto, responding to the spur of voice and heel, had shot ahead. "I
sorter forgot your cousins did have a hand in the lively doin's at
Diamond X last season. So they're coming out again, be they?"

"Yes, and we're going to make a camp of it, over in Flume Valley. I'm
going to raise there the finest bunch of steers you ever hazed to the
stock yards, and Nort and Dick are going to help me. I'm riding to
meet them now at the water-hole, and we're going back to stay all
summer in Flume Valley."

"Hum! Flume Valley!" mused the older cowboy, for both riders were of
that class, though Bud Merkel was the son of the man who owned Diamond
X, and other important western ranches. "Flume Valley! That's where
your paw started that irrigation scheme; ain't it?"

"Yes," replied Bud. "It was only a waste bit of land before dad ran
the water through the tunnel-flume from Pocut River, but now it grows
the best grass you ever rolled your bed in. And the steers--you ought
to see 'em, Billee!"

"Well, I'm aimin' to, right soon," responded the old man. "Your paw
was sayin' suthin' about putting me over there, but I didn't pay much
attention to it. So you and the eastern lads are going to camp in
Flume Valley, be you?"

"Yes, because, being an experiment, dad didn't want to build any ranch
houses there yet. But if we make good on the deal, and can raise
steers on the grass that's grown since the water was let in, why, I'm
to have it for my own ranch, when I come of age, and Dick and Nort will
be my partners. We'll call it Diamond X Second."

"Good name! Mighty good name! Look out there, you old piece of bacon
fat!" he called sharply to his animal, pulling the pony quickly up as
it stumbled. "There aren't any prairie dog holes here for you t' go
puttin' your foot in! What's the matter of yo'?"

But though Old Billee and Bud spoke thus in seeming harshness to their
horses, there was no unkindness in their treatment of the animals. It
was just their picturesque, western manner of