errick.

"That's right!" shouted the cattleman, for he had caught sight of the
animals bearing the Diamond X brand. "But what in the name of sour
dough biscuits are they doing?" he asked. "If these are rustlers
they're the queerest ones I ever saw!"

"Well, they're rustlers all right!" yelled several of the cowboys.
"Come on, fellows! Let's get at 'em!"

"Right you are, Buddy!" rang out savage, exultant yells on all sides.
The cowboys wished for nothing better than to come to hand grips with
lawless men who stole the fruit of others' labor. "Treat 'em rough!"

"Sit tight and ride hard!" called Bud to Nort and Dick. "There's going
to be some hot work!" and he spoke to his pony, which leaped forward as
if he, too, wanted to get into the fight.

"Will we need our guns?" asked Dick.

"Better have 'em handy!" advised Nort, as his hand went to the leather
holster at his hip.

"Look at 'em!" shouted Bud. "They're going to fight us all right!"

Indeed, it did appear that the party in the camp established by the
professors, taken by surprise as they were, meant to resist to the
utmost. Men could be seen running back to the tents, whence some
reappeared with guns or big .45s. Others, including the two professors
themselves, remained at the scene where some of the Diamond X cattle
were attached by ropes to the apparatus that looked like the derrick.

"Are they trying to brand your cattle over again, Bud?" asked Dick as
he and his cousin rode alongside of the young rancher.

"I don't know," was the answer. "If they are, they're going about it
in a new way. I wonder what they are up to, anyhow?"

Well might he ask that, for as the raiding party made its rush into the
valley several men near the professors, were urging forward the steers
that were harnessed, or yoked together in some manner, to cause them to
act as a lifting force. By means of ropes rigged over the derrick-like
structure, something heavy was being hoisted from a great hole in the
ground.

The steers, unused to this work, for which gentle oxen might have been
admirably fitted, were acting wildly, and the Greasers, and other
campers, were having their hands full. This with the shouts of the
attacking party, the thud of the feet of many galloping horses and the
firing of shots into the air by the wildly enthusiastic cowboys from
Diamond X, made the place one of great confusion.

"Rout 'em out, boys!"

"Haze 'em into the brook!"

"Cut out o