"About an hour ago," Old Billee answered. "I happened t' notice it when I come up here t' try for a fish." "Fish!" cried Nort. "Can you get any fish _here_?" "Sartin sure!" asserted the old cowboy. "They come in from th' river, under th' mountain, though how they like the dark I can't say, an' they come out of this pipe. I've caught many a good one." The eastern lads looked to Bud for confirmation, and their cousin, nodded, rather gloomily, though. "Yes," said Bud, "fish do come through the pipe. But if we don't get any more water they'll all die off soon." "Maybe the water will come back--as it did before," asserted Dick. Bud did not answer. He appeared to be figuring out something on the back of an old envelope with the stub of a pencil. "We'll have enough for a week, I think," finally announced the boy rancher. "Then, if the water doesn't come back, we'll have to drive all the stock over to Diamond X. Can't take a chance letting 'em die of thirst here, even if they didn't stampede, which they'd be sure to do." Two things are vitally necessary on a ranch--grass and water for the stock. Of grass there was plenty in Flume Valley, and, had the stream continued to come through the pipe, there would have been a goodly supply of water, even for the extra stock added from Square M. But when no fluid spurted from the mouth of the black pipe, the other end being hidden in the opening of the natural water course, it spelled ruin for Diamond X Second. "I wonder--I just wonder--if this has anything to do with the threat we received?" mused Bud, as he and his cousins went down the slope to the little table of land where the tents were pitched. "Granting that it has, who sent the warning?" asked Nort. "Who else but the man who doesn't want to see any water diverted from Pocut River?" asked Bud, in turn. "I mean Hank Fisher, and the gang he trails along with! If anyone stopped this water, he did!" "But how?" asked Yellin' Kid, who had strolled up to take part in the general conversation. "He couldn't do it at th' river end of th' pipe, without bein' found out, and he hasn't been around _here_, I'll gamble on that--not since we started keepin' watch at night." "No, he hasn't been here," admitted Bud, slowly. "It sure is a puzzle. Well, let's have grub, and talk about it later. It may come back. If it doesn't we have enough for a week--maybe longer." It was drinking water for the cattle that was mostly needed, since the occasional, slight rainfall was now sufficient to provide for the grass, though some water was used to irrigate certain sections that would be called "meadows" in the east. This drinking water was conducted to distant troughs by pipes running from the reservoir, the pipes being controlled by means of valves, or water gates.