t _might_ have happened," admitted the western lad,
but from the tone of his voice, as he made a hasty toilet, his cousins
could tell he was far from being convinced.

"You don't reckon it could be Buck Tooth, do you?" asked Dick,
following his cousin's example in attiring himself for the day's work.

"What? That Zuni Indian? I should say not! His idea of a joke would
make your hair stand on end--or it would in his wild and younger days.
Now all he cares about, after he gets through riding herd, is to sit in
the sun and smoke his Mexican cigarettes. Buck Tooth doesn't joke."

"Well, maybe it was Yellin' Kid," suggested Nort.

But when, a little later, they assembled in the meal tent, to partake
of breakfast, and Bud produced the scrawled board, Yellin' Kid was the
first to shake his head at the implied question.

"I like fun!" he remarked in his loud, good-natured voice, "but I don't
play such jokes as this. My idea of fun would be to help dig up
another one of them queer, slidin'-trombone insects with the three
horns that the professor fellers discovered. But this--why, Bud, this
may be serious business!"

"That black rabbit--I told you!" croaked Old Billee.

"Do you really think it means anything?" asked the boy rancher, while
his young partners in the new venture leaned eagerly forward to listen
to the answer.

"I sure do," declared Yellin' Kid. "All of us have known, Bud, an'
your father among 'em, that puttin' a dam in Pocut River, an' taking
water for you here, at Flume Valley, made the Double Z outfit mad
enough t' rear up on their hind legs an' howl! Hank Fisher has
claimed, all along, that th' Diamond X outfit hadn't any right t' take
water from th' river, t' shunt over on th' other side of Snake
Mountain, where we are, here."

"Yes, I heard dad say that," spoke Bud. "But if Hank Fisher had any
rights that we violated, why didn't he go to law about it?"

"That isn't Hank's way," commented Yellin' Kid. "He'd more likely try
some such tricks as _that_," and the cowboy nodded toward the warning
on the board.

"Do you think he left that?" asked Nort.

"And was he, or Del Pinzo, in our camp last night?" cried Dick.

"As to that I couldn't say," replied Yellin' Kid. "I slept like two
tops last night, after I got t' sleep. I didn't even hear you fellows
_snore_," he added, for the three boy ranchers had a tent to
themselves, while Old Billee and Yellin' Kid bunked in an adjoining
one, Buck