y.

"Sure thing!" exclaimed Bud. "But there may not be any need of a
scrap. These rustlers know they're caught now, and they may run for
it. They can't get away with the steers, anyhow, without a fight. Of
course if they get Babe covered--and us--they'll make their getaway,
but he may bluff 'em off."

"What does it all mean, anyhow?" asked Dick, as the assistant foreman
spurred off through the night, following the trail of the now running
steers. If there were rustlers driving the cattle away the men
themselves gave no sign, but remained hidden.

"It means cattle rustlers--that's all," explained Bud, as he led the
way for his cousins to follow, since the young representative of the
Diamond X ranch knew the trail. "Rustlers are just men who take other
folk's cattle, drive 'em off, change the brands and sell 'em wherever
they can. Sometimes they get away with it and sometimes they don't!"

"And are they running off your dad's cattle now?" asked Nort.

"Looks that way," admitted Bud, "though I haven't seen any of the men
doing it. You know some of our cowboys drove in a bunch of fat steers
from one of dad's distant ranches the other day. They're being taken
over to the railroad to be shipped. Not the station where you fellows
came in, but another, about two days' trip from here. It's a bunch of
these cattle that's being hazed away from us, I reckon."

"I didn't know they hazed steers, like they do college Freshmen,"
ventured Dick.

"Hazing cattle means to sort of work 'em along easy like--drive 'em
where you want to go," explained Bud. "We have to do a lot of hazing
when we have the round-up--that's when the cattle owners send their
cowboys to collect the animals that have been feeding on the open range
during the year. Each man separates into a bunch the cattle with his
brands, and also the little calves, or the mavericks, and hazes them
toward his corrals."

"What's mavericks?" asked Nort. He could not forbear the question,
even though considerable excitement seemed just in the offing. He
wanted to learn all he could about ranch life.

"A maverick gets its name from an old Texas ranchman named Sam
Maverick," answered Bud. "He didn't brand his cattle, and one day,
during a stampede, his steers mixed in with a lot more that were
branded. He and his men cut them out and hazed over to his range all
cattle that weren't branded. Every cow, calf or steer that didn't have
a brand on was called one of