The Boy Ranchers Part 21

"You can eat more, I have no doubt!" laughed Professor Blair, but his merriment seemed to be forced. "Well, fortunately our larder is well stocked. Come down and have something. How are all your friends?"

"Well, as far as we know, not having seen them since yesterday,"

answered d.i.c.k. "You see we're not regular ranchers or cowboys yet, we're just learning."

"One need not be told _that_!" sneered Del Pinzo, who had followed our heroes and the two professors down the slope.

Professor Blair turned and looked sharply at the half breed. Then the scientist, speaking, said:

"Del Pinzo, perhaps you had better return and watch that the next blast harms no one. We would not want an accident."

The half breed hesitated for a moment, and then murmured:

"_Si, senor!_" ("Yes, sir!")

He turned back up the hill, d.i.c.k and Nort continued down it toward the tents.

"Picket your horses and come in," invited Professor Wright, as he held open the flap of what was, evidently, the private dining tent of himself and his college companion. "I'll have Sing Wah fix you up a little feed."

"This is mighty kind of you," murmured d.i.c.k, as he and his brother sat at the folding camp table and ate hungrily.

"And now all we want is to be put on the trail to Diamond X," said Nort, as they finished. "We'll let the cattle go, for the time being."

He rose to leave the tent, followed by his brother, but, as the boys neared the flap a man, who, they remembered, had been called Silas Thorp, interposed his ugly bulk in front of them.

"Don't be in a hurry to leave, boys," he sneered.

"Why not?" hotly demanded Nort.

"Because we'd like to keep you here a while," Thorp went on. "I guess the professors would like to have you accept their hospitality a little longer."

"Is this true?" cried Nort. "Are we prisoners?"

"Well, that is rather a harsh word to use," said Professor Wright.

"But we feel we must detain you--at least for a while!"

CHAPTER XX

THE DIAMOND X BRAND

Nort and d.i.c.k admitted to one another, afterward, that at first they believed the two professors to be joking. They imagined that the cultured scientists were merely indulging in a bit of fun, from much of which they were necessarily barred while in the cla.s.s room. But a sharp look at the faces of the men who were at the head of an expedition, conducting a mysterious search, showed the boys that earnestness was the keynote.

"You--you're going to keep us here?" questioned d.i.c.k.

"For a while, yes," said Professor Wright, and there was more snap and decision in his voice than before.

"It is much your own fault," added Professor Blair.

"_Our_ fault!" spluttered Nort, his temper rapidly rising. "Why, what have we done except to help you when you needed it? And now all we ask is that you put us in the way of getting back to Diamond X."

"That is just it," said Professor Wright. "We don't want you to go back to Diamond X at once."

"Why not?" hotly demanded Nort. "What right have you got to hold us here? You can't! We'll get away in spite of you!" and his hand, half unconsciously, perhaps, moved toward his holster. But he was surprised to find his wrist seized in a firm grip, while he was violently swung around, his weapon being removed by some one who had come silently up behind him. And this some one was Del Pinzo, into whose sneering, crafty, swarthy face Nort angrily gazed.

Before he could say anything, Nort saw Silas Thorp slip up to d.i.c.k, and take that lad's weapon out of the holster. d.i.c.k had no time to draw it, even if such had been his intention, which, the lad said later, it was not.

"What do you mean? What's this game anyhow? What right have you to keep us prisoners here and take our guns?" shouted Nort. He took a step toward Del Pinzo, but there was something so sinister in the att.i.tude of the half breed, albeit he did not menace the boy with the weapon, that Nort shrank back.

"I think you had better submit quietly," said Professor Blair. "We intend absolutely no violence, or ill-treatment of you, unless you make that necessary. We admit that perhaps we are acting illegally, and in an unusual manner, but, in a way, you brought this on yourselves, boys.

You will not be detained long. In fact, if our plans work out right, you may depart for your ranch this evening."

"Acting illegally!" spluttered Nort. "I should say you _were_! We'll have you arrested for this, you--you--big----"

Then Nort stopped, for he realized that, though he might apply some well-deserved slang names to the two professors, neither of them was "big." They were small men--at least in stature.

"But you haven't any right to hold us here prisoners!" declared d.i.c.k, feeling that he must back up his brother in a firm protest. "We haven't done anything to you."

"Except to turn up where you aren't wanted!" broke in Silas Thorp. "If you'd minded your own business, and stayed away--let us alone--we wouldn't have to do this!"

In surprise at such a statement, Nort and d.i.c.k looked at the two professors.

Mr. Wright, with a wave of his hand toward his helper, to enjoin silence, made this statement:

"Mr. Thorp has put the matter rather crudely, perhaps, but that is the state of the case. Without going into details, boys, we are in this part of the country on a secret mission. We have almost accomplished what we are after, and, on the verge of the discovery, we do not wish to be balked. You happen to have stumbled upon us just when we are about to complete a wearisome search, which at least promises to be successful.

"We have enemies who would be glad to frustrate our schemes, and it is to prevent these enemies from obtaining knowledge of our movements, of our location, and the location of that which we are seeking, that we are forced to detain you. We hope soon to end our mission, and, once we have gained possession of what we are after, we shall be most happy to restore you to liberty."

He took breath after this somewhat lengthy address, and Nort and d.i.c.k looked at one another, more puzzled than before. What did it all mean?

What was the queer secret of the professors, a secret that, somehow, seemed to involve Diamond X?

"Do you mean that you're keeping us here because you're afraid we'll tell something about you?" burst out Nort.

"Yes," answered Professor Blair. "We simply must keep our secret safe, now that we are on the verge of discovery."

"But we wouldn't tell!" declared Nort. "In fact we don't know anything about you--except that we've seen you once or twice. We don't know what your secret is--that is, we can only _guess_ at it."

"That's just it!" interrupted Professor Wright. "You are the sort of lads who would make a correct guess, and then, when word of it got out, we would lose the fruits of many weary years of research."

"But we wouldn't tell anyone!" promised d.i.c.k. "All we know about it is that you're supposed to be prospecting for gold. There isn't any great crime, or secret, in that, unless you're trying to get gold off land that doesn't belong to you."

"No, it isn't gold, nor anything like gold," spoke Professor Wright, in rather dreamy tones. "It is much more valuable than gold. I never would have endured the hards.h.i.+ps I have for mere gold."

"Nor I," said his partner, and then, for the first time the same thought came to Nort and d.i.c.k--that these men might be lunatics, obsessed with a strange idea, and that they were searching for something that might be likened to a fading mirage.

The boy ranchers looked at one another. If this was the explanation their position might be more dangerous than appeared. To be held captives by men who were mentally irresponsible, aided by an unscrupulous gang, of which Del Pinzo was a fair specimen, was not at all a rea.s.suring thought. But Nort and d.i.c.k were not the ones to give up easily.

"Just what are you going to do?" asked Nort, when it was evident that, unarmed as they were, resistance was out of the question for the time being.