With that the four punchers were off again, doubtless to attend to some of the duties they were hired to perform. The four boys stood there exchanging significant looks, as the sun drew near the distant western horizon. "Looks some serious, don't it?" remarked Harry. "Both bosses have gone away just as that message said," Jack observed. "I wonder, now, if these conspirators will try to send another communication to their rustler friends." "I'm afraid that has already been done," Ned told them, "and we were powerless to stop it. Because just as we rode up, I saw a pigeon flying in by circles high up in the air; then, as if it had gotten its bearings, it went off on a straight line into the northwest. That bird must have carried the news that the time to strike had come." CHAPTER XI. THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS. The scouts were now confronted by conditions calculated to keep them guessing at a lively rate. With both owners of the ranch away, to whom were they to communicate their alarming news? How could they know that in this telling the story, they might not be giving themselves away to one of the suspects? It was a situation calling for considerable head work and reasoning, so that a serious mistake might not be made in the start. What made it still more difficult to manage was the fact, which Harry seemed to be aware of, that there was no real foreman on the place; Colonel Job himself filling that position, while James Henshaw took other duties upon his shoulders. "How about telling your Aunt Mehitabel about it, Harry?" Ned asked, as they exchanged views and seemed to get no nearer a definite arrangement. "Just what we'll have to do," replied the other chum, "and say, if only she'll agree to let us have a free hand, and tell the boys to do what we want, p'raps we might find some way yet to upset the game of the rustlers." "You just bet we will that!" said Jimmy, with all the confidence of one whose lexicon knew no such word as fail. "The first thing we must do," ventured Ned, seriously, "is to find out who it is sends these treacherous messages to parties that have evil designs on the herds of the Double Cross Ranch." "Them, you mean, don't you, Ned," added Jack, "because that message spoke of there being five all told who would look out and see that things were made easy picking." "Well," spoke up Jimmy, with a cunning leer, "sometimes you think I'm sleepy, but I notice that now and then I manage to wake up long enough to do my little stunt. His handle, it's Ally Sloper, by the same token." "Who's that?" asked Harry. "The dub that owns the homing pigeons," came the ready reply, which caused Ned to smile and nod his head in approbation. "Good work, Jimmy!" he remarked, "you must have asked the fellow you rode in behind?"