they can be shipped to market. Believe me, Death Valley is a good place to stay away from!"

"How is it, then, Billee," asked Mr. Merkel, "that nothing happened to
me? I just came from there. I don't buy a pig in a poke. I went to
Dot and Dash and sized the place up before I closed the deal with Jed
Barter. How is it Death Valley didn't get me, Billee?"

Nothing daunted the old man replied:

"You didn't stay there long enough."

"Well, there may be something in that," admitted Bud's father. "But it won't take me long to tell you boys," and he indicated his son, Dick, Nort and all the other punchers.

"For some time past," he went on, "I've had the notion that I wanted to spread out a little. Neither Diamond X nor Happy Valley is quite large enough. To make any money in the cattle business nowadays you got to do business on a large scale. So I've been looking around, and making inquiries, and in that way heard that the Dot and Dash ranch was in the market. I'd looked at several others before I got word about this and didn't like 'em, for one reason or another.

"But when I got to Los Pompan, which is the nearest town to where Dot and Dash is located, it struck me that here I'd found just what I was looking for. The ranch wasn't too near the town, and yet it wasn't too far from the railroad, and I took the trouble to find out if the railroad branch line I'd have to use had good cattle pens and loading chutes. Lots of lines haven't."

"You spilled a mouthful of good beans right there," commented Snake
Purdee.

"So," resumed Mr. Merkel after nodding at Snake, "liking the first once-over I gave the ranch, I investigated further. It had plenty of good grazing ground, lots of water, and there's a range of hills that will keep off the cold winds in winter. Barter's cattle—what I saw of 'em—looked to be in good shape. So, having satisfied myself, I made him an offer for the place, we dickered a bit and then closed. So he vamoosed off Dot and Dash and I went on and took possession."

"But did you come away, Dad, and leave no one in charge?" asked Bud, in surprise.

"Oh, no," was the answer. "I hired Tim Dolan, the foreman who worked for Barter, to remain in charge until I could send you boys down to get your hands in."

"Was this here Dolan anxious to stay?" asked Billee, slowly.

"Well, no, now you mention it, he did seem in a hurry to get away," admitted Mr. Merkel. "Though I didn't pay any attention to it at the time. He said he had another job, and——"

"Most everybody that goes to Death Valley does get another job," commented Billee, dryly. "But go on, Boss."

"Well, that's about all there is to tell," said Mr. Merkel. "I bought Dot and Dash and hurried home here to get Bud, and some of the boys to go down and take charge. And when I get here I find you practicing circus stunts."

"I'm through that stuff, Dad, if you got a real job for me!" exclaimed
Bud.

"You'll get a real job all right, and then some," muttered Old Billee.

"Go on! Spill it!" begged Bud. "What you talking to yourself for?
Broadcast it, Billee!"

"Oh, I'll tell you all I know, if your father is through," voiced the veteran puncher.

"Yes, I'm through, Billee," said Mr. Merkel. "Let's hear your good news."

"'Tain't good news, and there's no use pretendin' it is!" snapped the aged cowboy. "If I'd known you was dickerin' for any ranch near Los Pompan, Boss, I'd 'a' told you to lay off. But it's too late for that now, it seems, so I can only warn you to keep away."

"But I've bought it and paid for it. Barter has my money and——"

"Let him keep it, Boss."

"And lose the ranch and the cattle on it?"

"Better to lose your money than to lose your life," muttered Billee. "As for the cattle, you'll find fewer of 'em there when you go back than you left there."

"Oh, stop croaking, Billee, and spill the beans!" begged Nort.

"'Twon't take long," Billee answered. "I forget just how many years ago it is," he said, looking off toward the distant hills that bordered Diamond X, "when, in the course of my wanderings, I struck Los Pompan. There was a ranch there then, called Dot and Dash, just as there is now, but it was run by a fellow named Golas. Maybe he was a Mex. Anyhow I signed up with him and started to ridin' herd. But I didn't stay long."

"Couldn't you hold down the job?" chuckled Babe Milton, who was Slim
Degnan's assistant, and as fat as Degnan was lean.

"None of your wise cracks!" snapped Billee. "I can cut out a bunch of cattle better'n what you can any day and I'm a heap sight older 'n' wiser. No, the reason I quit was on account of what kept happenin' at Dot and Dash."

"And what happened?" asked Dick.

"Death is what happened!" said Billee, solemnly. "Mysterious death!"

"Death can happen on any ranch," observed Mr. Merkel quietly. "We have, unfortunately, had deaths here."

"Yes, but they were natural deaths!" declared Billee. "And they didn't keep happenin' one after another like at Dot and Dash."

"How many deaths were there?" Bud wanted to know.

"I don't rightly remember, but there was plenty."

"You said they were mysterious," commented Nort. "In what way?"

"That's what nobody could find out," resumed the veteran puncher. "First some poor devil of a puncher would be found dead off in some lonely swale. Then we'd find a bunch of cows stretched out, and then we'd find another dead man."

"Rustlers," suggested Slim.

"Rustlers nothin'!" scoffed Billee. "Rustlers drive off cattle—they don't kill 'em—what would be the good?"

"I meant the rustlers did up the cowboys," suggested the foreman.

"Well, if these fellows, who were found dead, got shot, why wasn't there bullet holes in 'em?" asked Billee, teasingly.

"Wasn't there?" asked Dick.

"Not a hole."

"How about a knife thrust?" Nort wanted to know.

"Not a scratch or any kind of mark on 'em!" declared the old man. "And yet their faces showed they'd died in agony. That's what I meant by mysterious deaths."

"It does sound rather queer," admitted Mr. Merkel. "But didn't you find out what caused all this, Billee?"

"No, Boss, I didn't stay long enough. And neither did nobody else I ever heard of, who worked at Dot and Dash. I vamoosed."

"Well, maybe there was something queer about the ranch years ago," admitted Mr. Merkel. "But that doesn't say, because fifteen or twenty seasons back something queer happened, that it's still going on."

"Oh, but it is!" declared Billee. "Not a month ago I met a puncher who was lookin' for a job. He come here but I knew we was full up so I told him to go over to Circle T, and he done so. But he'd been down Death Valley way recent like, and he said it was just the same."

"You mean about mysterious deaths?" asked Dick.

"That's it, boy! So what I says is, lay off that place, Boss!"

"Hum!" mused Mr. Merkel. "It doesn't sound very jolly. I don't want anybody to take any unnecessary risks and yet I hate to lose my money."

"You shan't lose it, Dad!" cried Bud.

"What do you mean, son?"

"Just