The Boy Ranchers in Camp: or, The Water Fight at Diamond X

But the boys sat about in the gleam of their lanterns, and, while they ate the sandwiches they had brought, they talked of the strange happenings that had led up to this venture in which they were now joined.

Suddenly Bud, who had just taken up a piece of fruit cake, part of a chunk that his pretty sister Nell had sent over from the main ranch house a day or so before, stopped chewing in order to listen better; for, as you doubtless know, the action of the jaws precludes keen attention to outside sounds.

"What's the matter?" asked Dick, noting his cousin's act.

"I heard something," Bud answered.

"I'm hearing things all the while!" declared Dick. "This is the most weird place for mysterious noises I ever struck!"

"But this is different," insisted Bud. "Listen!"

Nort and Dick stopped chewing and strained their ears to catch the sound that had attracted Bud's attention. A strange, rushing, whispering echo seemed to fill the tunnel.

"Doesn't that sound like rushing water?" asked Bud.

"Yes," agreed Dick, after a moment of intentness; "it does."

"Look out!" quickly yelled Nort. "It is water, and on the rush, too! Jump for your lives! It's a flood!" and making a grab for one of the lanterns, that they might not be left in total blackness, he sprang toward the rocky side of the tunnel, an example followed by his companions.

And the rush of waters filled the underground cave with a mighty, roaring sound.

CHAPTER XII

THE RISING FLOOD

Stumbling, slipping, sliding, half-falling, bruising themselves on the sharp rocks, but ever leaping forward toward the sides of the tunnel, and away from the depressed centre down which they could see the rush of waters coming, the boy ranchers at last managed to reach the granite wall. Nort had succeeded in grabbing up one of the lanterns, but there was no time for Dick or Bud to take one, and the food had to be abandoned.

"Climb up! Climb up, if there's a ledge!" shouted Bud. "We'll be drowned if we can't get above the water!"

He had, somehow or other, brought up in the rear. Though he did not admit it, this was because he had shoved his cousins ahead of him, hoping thus to enable them to gain a safe place.

And as Nort and Dick glanced back they saw, in the gleam of the one lantern left alight, a white mass of water bearing down on them, and, seemingly, filling the tunnel from wall to wall, as it rushed foaming and murmuring onward.

It was as though a dam had suddenly burst, or some obstruction had been removed, allowing the pent-up waters to rush along the accustomed channel. And if you have ever noticed a dammed-up stream, say in some gutter, thus quickly released, you can imagine what happened on a larger scale in the tunnel where the boys were.

The water, normally, flowed only in the four-foot channel. But now it spread out on either side, and, of course, was much deeper in the centre. But as the tunnel sloped from either wall, in a sort of V shape to the centre channel, naturally the parts nearest the side walls were less covered by water than the others.

It was because of this that Bud, Nort and Dick were enabled to maintain a footing, though they were knee-deep in water in an instant, and the one remaining lantern had to be held up to prevent it from being engulfed and extinguished in the sudden flood.

"Climb up! Climb up!" shouted Bud. "Isn't there some place – some rocky ledge – where you can find a footing? The water's getting deeper!"

And this was true. Either the flood was growing at its source (a place as yet unknown to the boys) or it was running too rapidly, and in too great a volume, to accommodate itself to the tunnel channel, and was thus piling up in the vicinity of the boys.

"What happened? What caused it?" cried Nort.

"Never mind that – now!" shouted Bud. "Find the highest place you can, and stick!"

"Suppose the whole tunnel fills?" asked Dick, trying to pierce the semi-gloom, and look for a refuge on the rocky wall.

"If it does we'll have to swim for it," grimly said Bud. "But isn't there some place where you can climb up?"

"This looks like a ledge," Dick answered, as he caught sight of a darker shadow on the rocky wall of the tunnel, above his head, when his brother swung the lantern.

"Just what we need!" exclaimed Bud, as he waded through the ever-deepening water to the side of his cousins. "Up with you! Here, Nort, I'll hold the lantern until you make it!"

Thus, again, Bud was seeing that his cousins reached a place of comparative safety before he looked to himself. For they found the ledge, once they had scrambled up to it, well above the water, and wide enough to give shelter and a safe perch for all three.

"Whew! That was touch and go!" murmured Bud, as he leaned back, half exhausted, against the rocky wall at the rear of the ledge.

"I should say so!" gasped Dick. "It all happened so suddenly that I don't know yet what it was all about."

"The stream suddenly started flowing again," spoke Bud. "That's all there was to it. Must have been dammed up some place, and suddenly released. It's still rising, too," he added, as he leaned forward and held the lantern down over the ledge where he and his cousins had taken refuge.

"Rising?" sharply inquired Nort, and there was a tone of anxiety in his voice.

"Yes," remarked Bud, as he swung the lantern to and fro. "We didn't get up here any too soon, fellows! Look, the water would be up to our waists down there now, in the most shallow place, and it's got speed like one of Christy Mathewson's curves!"

His cousins could see that he had not exaggerated the matter. The waters were rising. Inch by inch, and foot by foot, the flood was approaching the crest. Where the boy ranchers had sat in the almost dry bed of the stream, to eat their lunch, there was now a mad race of swirling waters. Where they had stood, before climbing up to the ledge of safety, there was now three feet depth of water. And, as Bud had said, it was flowing along so swiftly, like the stream which turns a mill-wheel, that the boys could hardly have been able to keep their feet had they been down in the current, or even on the weakest edge of it.

But, as they were, they were safe for the time being. How long that would be the case none could tell. They could see, in the gleam of the one lantern saved in the mad rush, that the stream was coursing along as it had never coursed before.

"There must be a powerful lot of water coming out of the reservoir pipe," Nort remarked.

"Biggest ever, with all this water behind forcing it out," agreed Bud. "I hope the pipe holds."

"It isn't as if the pipe were the only outlet," said Dick. "You know the water can flow out of the tunnel above, and on either side of the conduit."

"Yes," agreed Bud, "and dad had it put in that way on purpose, so if ever a big flood did come, the tunnel could relieve itself without ripping away the pipe and reservoir. There's a sort of spillway at one side of the reservoir, you know."

The boys from the east had noticed this. Up to now no water had run off through this auxiliary channel, but it was there for emergencies such as now had occurred. And the water could find a vent and outlet down the middle of Flume Valley, as, indeed, the surplus from the reservoir itself did, when there was any.

"Well, it sure is queer, and we had a mighty narrow escape," remarked Nort, as Bud leaned back again with the lantern. "But the fellows back at the camp will be scared."

"I reckon they will," admitted Bud. "They'll see the water spouting out, in a greater volume than ever before, and they'll imagine all sorts of things have happened to us."

"Well, nothing has happened yet – except we've lost two perfectly good lanterns, and what grub we didn't eat," asserted Nort.

"But something else may happen," said Bud in a low voice, as, once more, he leaned forward, and again held the lantern over the edge of the rocky ledge.

"What?" Dick wanted to know.

"Look," was what Bud replied. And his cousins, glancing down, saw that the waters were rising, rising, rising!

When would they stop?

CHAPTER XIII

WHERE DID IT GO?

Pressing back toward the rocky ledge, against which they leaned, gazing with fearsome eyes at the rising waters, on which the lantern-light shone fitfully, and almost holding their breaths at times, so great was the strain, the boy ranchers waited – for what they scarcely knew. And yet they did, in a measure.

For they waited to see if the waters would stop rising, a happening, as they well knew, which, alone, could save their lives.

As one of them had remarked, they might have to swim for it. But, looking at the foaming current, dashing along over jagged rocks on which the boys had more than once stumbled, they knew what a risk that effort to escape would bring.

And should the water fill the whole tunnel they would have no earthly chance!

For only a fish can exist in a hose or pipe completely filled with water, and that is what the tunnel would become if the water rose to the roof – merely a great, underground rocky pipe for the conveying of the liquid from Pocut River.

So you can easily imagine with what anxiety Bud, Nort and Dick watched the rising water. Every now and again one of them would lean over the ledge, swinging the lantern to and fro, so its gleams would be reflected in the hurrying, foaming stream, and indicate how fast it was rising.

At first the rate of rise had been rapid. But as the boys, again and again, made observations in the semi-gloom Bud, at length, uttered a joyful cry.

"Look!" he shouted, pointing with trembling finger at the foamy flood close, now, to the top of the ledge. "Look!"

"What – a big fish?" asked Dick.

"Fish nothing!" retorted his cousin. "But the water is going down! Look, it isn't as high as it was. I can see a wet mark where it came up to, and it's two inches below that now! The flood is going down!"

"Are you sure?" asked Nort, eagerly.

"Look for yourselves!" invited Bud, handing over the lantern.

Nort's observation was confirmatory of his cousin's.

"She is going down!" remarked Nort. "And just in time, too!"

How truly he spoke was evidenced by that fact that another inch of rise would have sent the flood over the ledge on which the boys rested!

So narrow had been their escape!

"If she only doesn't begin to rise again, after she starts going down – as you say she is – we'll be all right," said Dick. "But if she comes up – "

He did not finish what he started to say, but his companions knew what he meant, and they looked each other in the face with grave apprehensions.

"The question is now," went on Bud, as he again took an observation and noted that the flood was still on the descent, "how long we shall have to stay here."

"If it's too long we'll be wanting some of that grub which was washed away," asserted Diet. "In fact I dropped a sandwich half eaten."

"Same here," remarked his brother. "But let's hope that it will go down as suddenly as it came up."

That was all they could do – hope; but it bore fruits, for in about an hour, as they ascertained by glances at their watches, the flood was almost down to the normal channel of the underground stream.

"And if it will only stay there we can venture to keep on to the other end of the tunnel," spoke Bud.

"Will you do that?" Dick wanted to know.

"Why not?" asked Bud. "We want to see what happened, and where this water goes to when it disappears so suddenly; don't we?"

"Yes," agreed Dick. "But I thought, after our escape, that we had better head back for camp."

"It's about six of one and half a dozen of the other," asserted Bud. "We're almost half way through the tunnel, now, and we might as well keep on. I'd like to solve this mystery, and we can't if we call it off now."

"That's right," assented Nort. "We don't run any more danger going on to the river end of the tunnel than we would in going back to the camp end. That is unless we discover a big cavern, or hole through to China, in the other end of the tunnel. Even then we might be able to skirt around it."

"Let's go on!" suggested Bud, as he prepared to climb down off the ledge. "This thing has my goat!"

"Speaking of goats is most appropriate on a cattle ranch," laughed Nort, and the spirits of all the lads were lighter now. "But let's keep on to the end for which we started!"

This was agreed to and, after waiting a little while to make sure that the waters were not again going to rise, away started the boy ranchers. They were traveling lighter now, for they only had one lantern, and no food to carry.

The remainder of the tunnel was as the first part had been – a great, uneven tube through the mountain, twisting and turning here and there, sometimes the roof being so high that it did not show in the swinging lantern-light, and again being low enough, almost, for the boys to touch.

On all sides was evidence that the flood had been here, as it had been at the place where the boys took refuge. Now and then they came to deep pools, which they had to skirt, and, in one case, leap over.

Suddenly, as they were walking along, the lantern which Bud was carrying went out, leaving them in pitch blackness!

"Hello! What's the idea?" asked Nort.

"Did you do it on purpose?" asked Dick.

"Why, no, of course not!" asserted Bud. "The oil must be gone, though I filled it before we started, and it ought to have burned longer than this."

"Whew! This is tough!" bemoaned Nort. "Left in the dark!"

"Not altogether!" exclaimed Bud. "I brought some candles!"

"Great!" voiced Nort. "Light up!"

Which Bud did, placing a short length of candle inside the lantern, by fastening it, with some grease that hardened, on top of the oil reservoir of the wick.

"But I can't understand what happened to the lantern," went on Bud, making an examination by means of a second candle, from the store he had, luckily, placed in his pocket. "Oh, yes, I can!" he went on.

"What?" asked Dick.

"One of the soldered seams of the lantern oil tank started, and the oil has leaked out. Guess one of us must have banged it against a stone when we made the rush. But we'll be all right. A candle in the lantern is nearly as good as the regular wick."

It was not quite so good, but the boys made the best of it as they tramped on through the tunnel, hoping to reach the river end without another flood, or any mishap.

"The water seems to be behaving very nicely," observed Nort, as they all saw that the stream was well within its rocky channel.

"But what gets me," said Bud, "is where it goes to – when it goes. I mean where does it disappear to? We haven't come to a single branch tunnel, or any other passage that could drain off the river water."

"That's right," agreed his cousins.

"But maybe we'll find it further on," suggested Nort.

"We'll soon know, for we must be close to the other end now," observed Bud. "Our candles are holding out well."

They had come several miles, as they knew by the time consumed. The way through the tunnel had been uphill all the way, as it must needs be to allow the water to run down to the reservoir in Flume Valley. But, so far, they had seen nothing to indicate any side channel for the stream – any place that might drain off the water, and return it in such a sudden volume as to cause a flood.

"I can't understand it," Bud remarked as he swung the lantern to and fro. "It sure is a puzzle. Where does the water disappear?"

His cousins could offer no solution. All the way along they had carefully scanned the underground stream, but there appeared no break in its uneven, rocky bank in the middle of the tunnel.

"Well, let's keep on," suggested Nort. "We aren't at the end yet, and it may be close to the intake – I mean the mysterious influence – that shuts off our water supply and turns it on again, may be there. Forward, march!" he cried gaily.

Together they started off, having come to a momentary halt to inspect a place wider and deeper than usual, when Bud suddenly came to a stop and exclaimed:

"Some one is coming!"

CHAPTER XIV

A NIGHT ATTACK

Instantly the boy ranchers came to a halt, standing there in the tunnel, beside the running water. They had nearly reached the other end of the flume, and could dimly see, ahead of them, a faint glow, which told of daylight to come. Bud, who was carrying the lantern, made shift to hide it behind the bodies of himself and his cousins, so that the unknown, approaching, might not have them at a disadvantage, he being in the dark.

"Who you reckon it is?" asked Nort. He and his brother were rapidly falling into the custom of using the picturesque if not always elegant talk of the west. Nort spoke in a whisper, and Bud answered in the same tone.

"Can't imagine who it may be," spoke the western lad, "but if it's Hank, Del Pinzo, or any of their gang – "

He did not finish, but a slight movement told that he was freeing his .45 in its holster, an example quickly followed by Nort and Dick.

Meanwhile the steps continued to approach, echoing loudly in the vaulted tunnel, as if the maker of them had no design to conceal his movements. In another few seconds the boys saw, looming in front of them, as displayed by the gleam of their half-hidden lantern, a bulky figure. At the same moment the figure seemed to become aware of the presence in the tunnel of others besides himself.

"Who's there?" came in sharp challenge.

And what a relief it was to the boy ranchers when they heard that voice.

"Slim!" cried Bud. "Slim Degnan!"

"That you, Bud?" called the foreman of Diamond X ranch, as he recognized the voice of his employer's son, while Bud, in turn, sensed whom the looming figure was.

"Sure!" Bud joyously answered. "And Nort and Dick are here! Say, what's the matter with our water? Is there a stoppage at the dam?"

"Nary a stop, but your dad got a telephone from your side-partners at the valley camp, saying you'd started through the tunnel to see what caused the shut-off. I happened to be over near Square M, seeing if I could get on the track of that cattle epidemic, and they relayed your dad's message on to me. So I hit the trail for here."

"What was dad's message?" Bud wanted to know.

"Why, he said you, and them tenderfeet – No, I'll take that back!" Slim hastened to say as he recalled all that Nort and Dick had done. "Anyhow, he said they shouldn't have allowed you to come in the tunnel alone, and he asked some of the men, from this end, to go in and see if they could locate you."

"You found us," said Bud.

"Well," resumed Slim, "I just got here, heard the news and I started in. Some of the others are coming, but I guess we don't need to make any search. You're here!"

"And more by good luck than good management," asserted Dick.

"How's that?" asked Slim, as they all started for the opening at the river end of the tunnel, where daylight dimly showed.

"Why, when we started in at the other side the stream was dry," explained Bud. "There wasn't a drop coming through the pipe into the reservoir, and we left, early this morning, to see what the trouble was. When we got half way through the stream suddenly began flowing, and there was a regular flood. Only that we found a ledge to climb up on, we'd been drowned!"

"As bad as that!" gasped Slim.

"Every bit!" Dick asserted.

"But tell me," went on Bud, "did the water stop at the river end, Slim? Was there any stoppage at the dam or pipe?"

"Nary a stop, Bud," Slim answered. "They told me, when I started in, that the water had been flowing all night, as usual, and they didn't see why you claimed there was none at your end."

"By Zip Foster! But there's something mighty strange here!" cried the boy rancher.

"You intimated good and plenty that time!" declared Slim as he and the boys reached the river end of the tunnel, where the intake pipe took the water from the Pocut stream, delivering it to the tunnel.

"But here's a queer part of it," went on Dick, as they joined the other cowboys who were preparing to follow Slim in, and search for the Diamond X lads. "No such body of water, as so nearly overwhelmed us, ever came through this pipe," and he pointed to the one that tapped the dammed-up water of the river.

"That's right!" agreed Bud. "This thing gets worse and worse! We'll never get to the bottom of this mystery!"

"You're right!" declared one of the cowboys. "When you're dealing with them underground water-courses you never know what you're up against. The old Indians and Spaniards who lived here hundreds of years ago had their own troubles, and maybe they wished them same troubles on to you."

"What you mean?" asked Slim. "That's all bosh!"

"Bosh nothin'!" declared another. "You read history an' you'll get lots of cases where streams showed up, and then vanished under mountains, more than once."

"A heap sight you know about hist'ry!" laughed Slim in good-natured raillery.

"Well, this is sure queer, anyhow!" declared Bud. "Is there any history of the stream that waters our valley?" he asked the cowboy who had made the assertion.

"Not your particular one," was the answer, "but there's lots of just such cases mentioned – hidden water-courses and all that."

"Well, there's something wrong," agreed Bud, "and I believe there must be some place along the tunnel where our water shunts itself off at times, and turns itself on again. We were looking for just such a place."

"And you didn't find it?" asked Slim.

"Nary a find!" asserted Bud.

"But we aren't going to give up, just on that account!" said Nort.

"Bet you not!" added his brother. "We'll try it again, and take a canoe with us, so if the dry water-course suddenly turns wet, we can paddle along it."

"Well, it seems to be all right now," spoke Slim. "And you'd better 'phone your father that you're all right, Bud. He'll be anxious to hear."

And after Mr. Merkel had been assured, over the wire, of the safe transit of his son and nephews through the tunnel, the boys' camp was called up, to let Old Billee and the others know that no accident had happened.

"Gosh! I'm glad to hear that!" said the veteran cowboy over the wire. "When we see that there water come gushin' out, we thought sure you was goners, Bud!"

"Then the water is running again?" Bud asked.

"Absolutely!" declared Billee. "You comin' back here?"

"Sure! But over the mountain – not under it."

Bud and his boy rancher chums remained that night at the store settlement near the dam, getting beds in what passed for a hotel. It was too late to secure horses and ride over Snake Mountain trail back to Flume Valley.

While thus having a night of leisure, and seeing such sights as were to be viewed in the little town, Bud and his chums discussed the queer situation of the mysteriously disappearing and reappearing water. But, talk as they did, and venture opinions as they and their cowboy friends did, no one could hit on a solution.

"We'll just have to make another and more careful inspection," declared Nort.

"That's what!" agreed Bud.

They learned from Slim that the situation regarding the cattle epidemic at Square M ranch was not much better. All stock which had not been exposed to the infection had been removed, either to Diamond X, Triangle B or Flume Valley, and the infected steers remaining there were being treated by a veterinarian whom Mr. Merkel had engaged.

"But they're slowly dying off," Slim reported. "And I don't believe Square M ranch will ever be safe to use again."

"Why not?" asked Bud.

"Because there must be some infection in the grass there to have made so many of the cattle sicken and die."

"Maybe it was something else," suggested Nort.

"Well, maybe," assented the foreman. "It's about as mysterious as that underground river of yours. Had any more warnings, Bud?"

"No, I guess they're done with. And I believe it's a natural cause, and not due to any work of enemies, that accounts for the queer way our flume acts."

"Um!" spoke Slim musingly, and that was all he would say.

Borrowing horses from their friends, the boy ranchers next day made the trip over Snake Mountain and returned to camp, finding matters there in good shape. There was an abundance of water in the reservoir, and the pipe was flowing freely.