"I mean you aren't getting up some stunts for the rodeo--oh, I
forgot--that's off," the veteran puncher hastened to add. "But none of
you youngsters did this, I hope."

"Dropped that warning?" questioned Dick. "I should say not! I didn't
do it!"

"Nor I!" voiced Nort. "I picked it up, and I can see, Billee, you
might naturally be suspicious of me as one who knew just where to
locate this piece of paper. But I had nothing to do with it."

"Nor I!" said Bud. "'Tisn't my idea of the right kind of a joke to
play."

"You never can tell what young fellows will do," murmured Old Billee.
"But I'm glad to hear you three say you had nothing to do with it.
Sort of relieves me."

"'Tisn't my kind of writing," went on Dick as though he thought,
because he had given the first alarm and had been, in fact, the only
one to view the midnight intruder, that more suspicion might attach to
him as the joker than to any one else.

"I'm not much on writin' myself," declared Yellin' Kid, "and while I
might say I'd be proud if I could sling a pen the way this feller did,
I want it distinctly understood I didn't have nothin' to do with it."

"You needn't tell the folks in the next county about it," gently chided
Billee. Then he took the paper from Snake Purdee, who was curiously
examining it, and subjected it to a close scrutiny.

"Make anything of it, Billee?" asked Yellin' Kid endeavoring to put the
soft pedal on his voice.

"The writin' ain't that of anybody I know," said the veteran, "and I
can't, offhand, recall anybody whose initials are S.T. But Tim
Mellick, who keeps the store over at Palmo, has paper bags of the same
kind of stuff as this."

"I don't believe that will be much of a clew," said Dick. "Most paper
bags are alike, and store keepers get their supply of them from a
wholesale house that supplies a hundred customers."

"No, I don't reckon we can do much toward pickin' up the trail of this
fellow from that scrap," admitted Billee. "So the next best thing to
do is to get breakfust."

"That's right--let's eat!" exclaimed Snake.

"But you aren't going to throw that away; are you?" asked Dick as he
saw Billee folding the ragged piece of brown paper containing the
sinister warning.

"Throw it away? Oh, no! Of course I'm not. I'm going to keep it
until I can find out what it means."

"What it means is plain enough," said Bud. "Somebody doesn't want us
to go on to Death Valley and Dot and Dash ranch."