This mystery had to do with two college professors, and a strange, ancient animal. But it would not be fair to my new readers to disclose, here, all the secrets of that book.
So successful was the first summer which Nort and d.i.c.k spent at their uncle"s ranch, that they were allowed to repeat it the following season. But this time there was a change. As related in the second volume, "The Boy Ranchers in Camp," Mr. Merkel had, by utilizing an ancient underground water-course beneath Snake Mountain, and by making a dam in Pocut River, brought water to a distant valley he owned.
This valley was originally called Buffalo Wallow, the source of the name being obvious. But once water was brought through the underground course, and piped to a reservoir, whence it could be distributed to drinking troughs for the cattle, and also used to irrigate the land, it enabled a fine crop of fodder to be grown.
With the bringing of the water to Buffalo Wallow, or Flume Valley, as Bud called the place, it was possible to do what had never been done before--raise cattle there. Bud"s father let him take this valley ranch as his own, and Nort and d.i.c.k were boy partners a.s.sociated with their western cousin, Mr. Shannon putting up part of the needed capital to make the start for his sons.
All would have gone well except for the mysterious stoppage of the flow of water, which stoppage, if continued, would mean disaster.
How the water fight at Diamond X Second (as the valley ranch was sometimes called) ended, and how the strange mystery was solved, is the story in the second volume, and I absolutely refuse to go into more details about it here. It would not be playing the game square.
At any rate the water was finally turned back into the underground tunnel, and then, in order to better guard this vital necessity, Mr. Merkel had the entrance to the tunnel boarded up--egress being possible only when heavy doors, at either end, were unlocked.
I might say that while the tunnel was the old water-course of a vanished river, the shaft under the mountain appeared, in.
ancient times, to have been used by the Aztecs, or some Mexican tribes, for hiding their store of gold away from the Spaniards.
There were secret pa.s.sages and rooms in the tunnel, to say nothing of hidden water gates.
Who had constructed these, and what actual use had been made of them was, of course, lost in the dim and ancient past. But that it was the Aztecs, or some allied race, was the statement of learned men who examined the tunnel.
After the water fight at Diamond X Second had terminated in favor of the boy ranchers, and great copper levers that operated the hidden water gates had been removed, the tunnel was boarded up, and was now seldom entered.
But now, as Bud and his cousins rode back from the big round-up, and the western lad had, as he thought, seen some one sneaking about the forbidden gate, there was a feeling of apprehension in the hearts of himself and cousins.
They had now reached the top level of the reservoir which held a storage supply of water. The reservoir was a great semi-circular bank of earth and atones, wide enough on top for two to ride abreast.
"I don"t see any one," remarked Nort, straining his eyes to pierce the gloom and shadows into which the face of the tunnel and the locked gate were thrown by the moonlight and clouds.
"Nor I," added d.i.c.k.
"Well, I saw some one!" insisted Bud. "It was a man, as sure as snakes, and he seemed to be trying to open the big gate."
This gate was made of heavy bolted planks and was set on hinges in a jamb of other planks and boards that closed the reservoir end of the tunnel water-course. A similar barrier and big door was at the Pocut River end.
"Well, if he was here, he seems to be gone," observed Nort "Maybe it was a sheep herder, Bud."
"Well, if any of that gentry think they can drive their flock over here, and water their woolies at my expense, they"re mistaken," declared Bud with emphasis. "Sheep men have to be, I reckon, but they"re out of place in a cow country. h.e.l.lo, there!"
he called, loudly. "Come on out and show yourself!"
But there was no answer, and the only sound, aside from the creaking of the damp saddle leathers, was the splashing of water as it flowed from the big pipe and into the reservoir.
"Guess he lit out," observed Bud, thrusting his gun back into the holster.
"Or else you didn"t see him," chuckled Nort. "Maybe your eyes are full of dust, same as mine are, from that round-up."
"Oh, I saw somebody all right!" declared Bud. "Might "a" been one of Buck Tooth"s Indian friends making a call, but--"
He suddenly ceased speaking and leaned over in his saddle to gaze earnestly at something on the ground. It was something that glittered and shone in the mystic moonlight as Nort and d.i.c.k could see. "What"s that?" inquired the latter.
In answer Bud slipped from his saddle and picked up the object which the moonlight had revealed.
"What in the world is this?" asked the boy rancher, as he held up a curious instrument. "Is this the start of another mystery!"
CHAPTER III
STARTLING NEWS
Leaping from their saddles, Nort and d.i.c.k hurried to the side of their cousin, chum and partner in the ranch venture. Eagerly they looked over his shoulder while he examined the strange object he had picked up, almost at the very door leading into the mysterious tunnel.
The instrument--for such it seemed to be--consisted of a shiny, nickeled part, which was what had reflected the moonlight, thus attracting Bud"s attention to it. In addition there were two flexible tubes, of soft rubber, joining into one where they met the shiny metal.
The two tubes each terminated in hard rubber ends, pierced with a tiny hole, and on the end of the single tube was a bright metal disk. The whole formed a strange object, picked up as it was from the ground, and especially when the boy ranchers feared they had some cause for alarm.
"What in the world is it?" asked Bud, as he dangled it in front of his cousins. "I never saw anything like it before. Wait! I have it! Yellin" Kid said he was going to send to Kansas City for a flute he could play on. This must be part of it! He dropped it here; though that couldn"t "a" been him sneaking around the tunnel. But this is Yellin" Kid"s musical instrument all right!
Oh, won"t I rag him, though! I wonder which end you blow in?"
"That isn"t a musical instrument!" declared Nort, taking it from Bud"s hand.
"Not What is it then?" asked the western ranch lad.
"It"s a stethoscope," declared Nort.
"Whew! x I didn"t know Yellin" Kid could play one of _them_!" exclaimed Bud. "He must be more musical than any of us thought!"
""Tisn"t musical, I tell you!" cried Nort, half laughing. "This is a _stethoscope_--it"s what a doctor listens to your lungs or heart with when you"re sick."
"He never listened to mine!" boasted Bud, "at least not since I can remember, for I"ve never been sick."
"Well, I have," admitted Nort, "and so has d.i.c.k. You remember Dr.
Thompson using one of these, don"t you?" he asked his stout brother.
"Sure I do! And there"s some other name for it besides plain stethoscope," declared d.i.c.k. "It"s a long word--bi--di--"
"Binaural stethoscope! That"s it!" broke in Nort. "I remember, now. I thought I"d never be able to say those words, but they come back to me now. Binaural stethoscope."
""Tisn"t good to eat, or shoot with, is it!" asked Bud, as he again took the instrument and turned it over and over in his hands.
"Eat! Shoot!" laughed Nort. "No, I tell you it"s to listen to your heart beats, or lungs. Binaural means, simply, that it"s fixed so you can listen with both ears at the same time. And stethoscope comes from two Greek words, stethos, the breast, and skopen, to view. It means, literally, to view inside the chest, but of course the doctors who use the stethoscope don"t really do that. They only listen through the ear pieces--these," and he held up the two rubber tubes ending in hard nipples, pierced with small holes.
"What"s the other end for!" asked Bud, indicating the shiny disk of metal that dangled from the single tube.
"That"s the part the doctor holds on your chest or over your heart," d.i.c.k answered. "Sometimes the doctor puts it to your back to listen to your breathing from that side."
"Well, who in the world would have a--a binaural stethoscope out here!" asked Bud. "Yon reckon Doc. Tunison dropped it!" he went on, referring to the local veterinarian. "Shucks no! Cow doctors don"t use "em, not that I ever heard of," declared Nort. "Though Doc. Tunison is up to date."
"He sure was in discovering that it was germs which caused the epidemic outbreak in our stock last year," remarked Bud.