"What's the matter?" asked Dick in a whisper, for the silence of the night, and the strangeness of their surroundings, seemed to call for whispers.
"I thought I saw cattle moving," said Bud. "Yes, I do!" he went on, quickly. "Look, Babe!"
Babe broke off his song at a point where a dying cowboy was begging to be "toted back to the chuck house," and looked to where the boy rancher pointed.
"That's it, shore as rattlers!" the assistant foreman said. "It's about time they tried suthin' like this! Got your guns, boys?"
"What for?" asked Nort, a thrill of excitement leaping through his veins. "What is there to shoot?"
"Rustlers!" said Bud, grimly. "Somebody--Greasers, likely--are trying to run off some of our fat steers! Come on, we'll ride 'em down!" He clapped spurs to his horse, an example followed by Nort and Dick, but, quick as they were, Babe had shot ahead of them, and in the moonlight the city lads caught the gleam of his gun as he pulled it from the holster.
Needless to say that Nort and Dick were thrilled through and through. Having lived in a city nearly all of their lives, though with the usual city lad's dreamings of adventures in the open, of camps, of desperate measures against desperate men, they had never hoped for this.
"Crickity! Think of it!" hoarsely whispered Nort to his brother as they galloped along side by side. "We haven't been here a day yet, and we're run into cattle rustlers!"
"We haven't run into 'em yet, that's the trouble," spoke Bud grimly, as his pony worked in between the two brothers. "But we will in a little while--Babe'll fix 'em."
"Can't we take a hand?" asked Nort eagerly, as his hand sought the weapon at his side.
"We may have to," Bud admitted, "but dad doesn't think I'm old enough, yet, to mix up in a man-sized fight. Maybe he's right, but he always tells me to hold back until I'm needed."
"We can take a hand _then_, can't we?" asked Nort eagerly.
"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."