"Well done!" cried Bud. "That was a dandy!" "Wish I could do that!" sighed Dick. "Oh, you will, some day," consoled his cousin. The three runaway steers were thus secured, and as there was no place to care for them at the Fort one of the cowboys was delegated to haze them back to the main herd at Diamond X. Another day passed in quietness, with no sign from the south of Spur Creek that any hostile band of sheep herders was on the way to lay waste, in a sense, the fertile lands of Mr. Merkel. In the meanwhile there was telephone communication twice a day, or oftener, between the Fort and the main ranch house. Nothing new had transpired at Diamond X, and the boy ranchers were told that matters in Happy Valley were peaceful. Of course there were the usual occurrences as there were always such on a big ranch. One or more of the cowboys was continually getting hurt, more or less seriously, and being doctored in the rough and ready fashion that, perforce, prevails in the unsettled part of the West. For though the life of a cowboy may seem very picturesque when you view it from a seat in a tent or say from Madison Square Garden, in New York, the real facts of the case are vastly different. No one can ride horses in the slap-dash style the cowboys ride them, and they can not handle cattle--often vicious ones--the way the beasts are handled, without accidents happening. Nor are cowboys the ones to favor themselves for the sake of avoiding risks. Rather they go out of their way to look for trouble, as it were. They are filled with bravado. So it was that while I have said matters were quiet at the two ranches, yet small accidents were continually happening. But, as the boys reported, after a talk over the wire, nothing of great moment had taken place. "Your dad hasn't heard anything about his stolen papers, has he?" inquired Billee. "Nary a thing," answered Bud in the vernacular of the west, "and he's beginning to wonder if anything is going to happen down here." Almost as Bud spoke there came a hail from one of the cowboys who was on the watch, and his cry was instantly taken up with the shout: "Somebody's coming!" At once there was an exodus, and as our heroes and their cowboy friends lined up in front of the shack, they saw, coming toward them on the opposite side of Spur Creek, several horsemen, and at the sight of one rider Bud cried: "It's Professor Wright!" CHAPTER IX A CALL FOR HELP This announcement, calling attention to the approach of the scientist, rather overshadowed other matters for a moment. But the interest was made more intense when the identity of the men accompanying the professor was made known. "He's in with a bunch of Greasers!" cried Snake Purdee. "And look who one of 'em is!" added Nort. "It's the _spy_!" Without doubt one of the approaching party was the same Mexican who had so airily bidden our friends "_adios_," on the occasion of his first visit.