The Boy Ranchers in Camp

k, 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