Part 20 (1/2)

”Rattlesnakes, maybe,” was d.i.c.k's next contribution. ”Horses are afraid of rattlers all right.”

”Yes, and with good reason,” Bud said, ”though I don't know as I ever heard of a horse dying from a side-winder's bite. It may happen, but, personally, I can't prove it. All the same I don't believe it was rattlers, though there are plenty in this region.”

”Why couldn't it have been snakes?” asked d.i.c.k.

”Well, if any rattlers had sounded their warning, and they always do rattle before they strike, we would have heard them as well as the horses would, and I didn't hear anything.”

”No, I didn't, either,” d.i.c.k and Nort admitted in turn. ”But what was it, then?” Nort asked.

”It was something the horses smelled!” declared Bud with conviction.

”They got a whiff of something they didn't like and they lit out like all possessed.”

”Do you mean a bear?” asked d.i.c.k.

”Bear what?” came from Bud who had urged his pony somewhat ahead of the mounts of his cousins.

”Did the horses smell a bear, do you think?” went on d.i.c.k. ”You know a bear, even a tame circus one, will set a cow pony off quicker than anything else.”

”Yes,” agreed Bud. ”But I hardly think this was a bear. There are probably some back in the woods and hills, but they don't very often venture into the open, especially at this time of year. And if it had been a bear I think I would have winded him.”

”I don't know about that,” came from Nort. ”You know a horse, and almost any other animal, has a keener sense of smell than most humans.

The horses might have smelled something we didn't.”

”That's true enough,” a.s.sented Bud. ”But the fact of the matter is I noticed a queer sort of smell just before the horses bolted. It wasn't very strong, and was more like perfume than anything else. In fact I thought it might be some sort of flower or perhaps an herb the ponies stepped on and crushed. I was just going to mention it to you fellows when the rush began and I had my hands full, same as you did. Either of you notice any smell?”

Nort and d.i.c.k had to confess that they had not, but d.i.c.k added:

”You've lived out of doors more than we have, Bud, and you got a better nose--I mean for smelling, not for shape!” he added as Bud's hand went to his olfactory organ. ”So you might have caught a whiff of something we didn't.”

”There's something in that, though I don't like to boast,” said Bud.

”I'm pretty sure that's what it was--a queer smell the ponies didn't like, and feared, and so they ran away from it.”

”But what kind of a smell could it be?” asked d.i.c.k.

”Maybe we'll find out when we get back to where the thing happened--that is if the ponies will go back,” spoke Bud.

However there seemed to be no trouble on this score, for, as the boys came nearer and nearer to the place whence the animals had started on their dash, there was no sign of fear or nervousness. The steeds trotted on as they had done over any other stretch of the range, and the deepest breathing of which the boys were capable betrayed to their alert noses not the slightest taint in the air.

”This is mighty queer!” murmured Bud as he guided his mount to and fro around the locality. ”Mighty queer!”

”It's almost as if we had dreamed it,” remarked Nort.

”It was no dream the way I had to pull my horse back!” declared d.i.c.k, and the others agreed with him.

”Well, I guess we'll have to give it up and put it down as part of the unsolved mystery of Dot and Dash,” said Bud as he wheeled his horse around and headed for the ranch house.

”Unless you want to take a ride up there again,” suggested Nort.

”Where do you mean?”

Nort pointed to the defile--that gulch which the boys had named Smugglers' Glen--and added: