"I don't know," Bud replied. "Anyhow, here's some of the cattle. Look out you don't run into 'em!" he called sharply, as he pulled in his pony.
He spoke just in time to warn Nort and Dick, for, in another instant, they found themselves among the tail-enders of a bunch of cattle that had run from them at first.
No men were in sight--not even Babe--and there was a haze of clouds over the moon now, and a sort of fog close to the ground, that prevented clear vision.
"Tell you in a minute," responded the young cattleman. He rode up alongside one of the animals and focused on its rump the gleam from an electric flash light. Bud carried one of these mighty handy pocket articles, which are much more effective than matches for making observations at night. In the bright gleam of the little light the boy ranchers saw, plainly branded in the hide of the animal, a large diamond, with the letter X in the centre.
"Dad's stock--all of 'em, I reckon!" exclaimed Bud, as he flashed his torch on others in the bunch, revealing more of the Diamond X brand.
"But where are the rustlers?" asked Nort, in a tense whisper, and his hand sought the holster where his newly-acquired weapon rested.
"I don't know," began Bud. "They may have ridden off, or it may be that----"
He stopped suddenly and listened. Dick and Nort heard, as did Bud, the rapid approach of a horseman. In an instant Bud had switched off his pocket electric light, and then in the half hazy light of the partly obscured moon he and his cousins peered forward. Nort and Dick had drawn their guns, an example set them by Bud.
"Don't do any shooting until you hear me," ordered Bud. "There may be no need of it!"
The rider, unseen as yet, was coming nearer and nearer, the thud of his horse's feet pounding hard on the turf. He seemed to be approaching from the direction in which Babe had disappeared.
In another instant the rider was pulling his horse to a quick stop beside Bud's animal, and when a beam of misty moonlight flashed out from beneath a cloud it was seen that the assistant foreman of Diamond X ranch had returned.
"Oh!" exclaimed Nort, and there was almost a note of disappointment in his voice because the rider did not develop into a cattle rustler.