"Death Valley?" echoed Bud Merkel. "What do you mean? Who died there, and how come?"
An ominous hush fell over the assemblage of cowboys on the corral fence and they looked from Billee Dobb to the owner of Diamond X. The bad news, clearly, had startled him from his usual calm.
"Look here, Billee," began Mr. Merkel as he leaned against the fence for he had just returned from a long journey and was rather weary. "Is this a joke or are you just stringing me?"
"No stringing, Boss, and not a joke either. You've bought a ranch in Death Valley as sure as shootin', and while I wish you good luck I don't see how you're going to have it--not if Death Valley is like what it was years ago."
"You aren't getting my new Dot and Dash ranch mixed up with Death Valley in the Panamint Mountains of California; are you?" asked Mr. Merkel. "I know that place--four hundred feet below sea level--alkali--borax and all that sort of stuff. Do you mean----?"
"No, I don't mean that Death Valley," interrupted Billee. "This Death Valley I speak of is only a local name for the region around Los Pompan. But it's as bad as the other."
"Suppose you tell me more about it, Billee," suggested the ranch owner.
"Sounds like it would be a good yarn!" commented Bud.
"The kind I like to read about," added Nort.
"This is no _yarn_!" declared the veteran puncher in an ominous voice. "It's gospel truth. I'll tell you all I know."
He hitched his heavy chaps around to make his legs more comfortable and then, selecting a place on the ground, where a shadow was cast by the cowboys on the fence, Billee Dobb began his narrative.
But before I give you that, I want to make my new readers somewhat better acquainted with Bud Merkel and his two cousins. They are the youths who are to be the heroes of this story, and they first came into prominence in the initial volume of this series, entitled: "The Boy Ranchers; or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X."
In that story was related how Norton and Richard Shannon had gone out west, from New York, and how they took up life on the ranch of their uncle Henry Merkel. There they found Bud, who had been among horses and cattle all his life. Nort and Dick soon assimilated the traditions of the west, became accomplished riders and able to punch cows with the best of the hands on Diamond X. The lads from the east also learned what it was to come to grips with rustlers, led by that notorious half breed Del Pinzo.