"Right here," declared Bud. "Course we haven't any ranch house yet. But we've got a tent--there it is," and he pointed to a white canvas shelter not far from the dam. "A tent! Oh, boy! better and better!" yelled Dick, as he urged his pony forward. As the three boy ranchers neared their headquarters, represented by two or three tents grouped together, there emerged from among them the figure of a man on horseback. "There's old Buck Tooth," said Bud. "Who?" asked the eastern cousins. "Buck Tooth--a Zuni Indian that dad picked up somewhere. He's one of the best herd-riders you'd want, and he and I are great friends. Wonder what's the matter, though? He acts as though something had happened." Bud pulled rein, to allow a better observation of the figure that was, obviously, riding out to meet him. Nort and Dick also halted their ponies. But Buck Tooth rode to meet them at great speed, sitting in the saddle as though part of it and the horse. He rode in a manner that made Nort and Dick envy him. "What's the matter, Buck?" asked Bud, as soon as the Indian was within hailing distance. And then Nort and Dick could see why he was called that. A large, yellow-stained tooth protruded from his mouth, giving him not exactly a pleasant expression. "What's wrong, Buck, you ride so _pronto_ like?" demanded the young western ranch boy. "Heap wrong!" came the answer in guttural tones. "You no shut off water in pipe; eh?" "Shut off the irrigation water? I should say not!" cried Bud. "Why, has anyone?" "Water no come! All gone! No run splash-splash now!" and Buck Tooth waved his hand toward the reservoir made by a dam that curved out in a half circle from the wall of natural rock. "The water gone!" cried Bud. "This is strange! Let's have a look!" He and his cousins rode at top speed to the reservoir that had reclaimed Flume Valley from the semi-desert it had long been. Dismounting, they climbed the slope and saw that from the great iron pipe, which was wont to spout a sparkling stream, there came only a few drops and trickles. "It's disappeared!" said Bud in a low voice. "The water has taken another course! This means the end of Flume Valley, I reckon!" CHAPTER II A NIGHT RIDE The boy ranchers stood looking down into the reservoir, which was almost full of water, but which was slowly running out through the different gates, some to concrete drinking troughs where thirsty cattle congregated, and some to distant meadows where it supplied moisture for the grass on which the steers of Diamond X Second fed. From the slightly ruffled surface of the reservoir, as the evening wind blew across the water, the gazes of Bud, Nort and Dick sought the faces of one another. "This looks had!" murmured Bud, while Buck Tooth, the Zuni Indian, grunted something in his own incomprehensible dialect.