these stories before I went to Los
Pompan."

"You'd 'a' heard 'em all right if you had asted me," said the old man,
thoughtfully scratching his head near where a bald spot was plainly
showing. "But I had no idea you'd ever locate there."

"Oh, I won't _locate_ there!" Mr. Merkel made haste to say. "I'd never
live anywhere else than at Diamond X--my wife wouldn't move. But I
just have to branch out and this struck me as being a good place to
start."

"Ain't no better place in all the west for raisin' cattle than the
neighborhood of Los Pompan," interposed Billee. "And if it wasn't for
what happened in Death Valley I'd be there yet."

"But what, actually, did happen?" asked Bud.

"That's what I don't know--what nobody knows," said Billee, "and that's
what makes it all the more mysterious. Shucks! If we could 'a' found
out what caused the deaths it would have been easy to stop it--whether
it was Indians, rustlers or some disease. But we couldn't find out.
That was the trouble, boys," and his voice sank to a whisper, "we
couldn't find out."

"Then we will!" cried Bud.

"You'll do what?" asked his father.

"We'll solve the mystery of Death Valley. Come on, Dad," he pleaded,
"you just got to let us go!"

"I'll think about it," was all Mr. Merkel would say, and there was a
more serious air about him than he had worn in many a day.

Gone, now, on the part of the boy ranchers, was any interest they may
have had in the coming rodeo at Palmo. All their talk and ideas
centered about what the ranch owner had told them, and the bad news
blurted out by Billee Dobb. While Mr. Merkel went in the house, where
he talked to his wife and daughter, speaking only sketchily of the
result of his trip and Billee's remarks, the boys began to question the
veteran puncher. It developed that other hands on Diamond X had also
heard rumors of sinister stories about Dot and Dash.

"But we never had no reason, before, for speakin' of 'em," remarked
Squinty Lewis. And that, generally, was the sentiment. But though he
could not have guessed his employer was on a mission to Los Pompan,
Billee reproached himself for not having sounded a warning.

"Do you honestly mean to say, Billee," asked Bud while his cousins
listened eagerly, "that there wasn't any way of tellin' how those
punchers and the cattle died?"

"Absolutely not, boy!" was the reply. "They'd be all right one day,
and the next they'd be dead."

"Maybe lightning st