The Motor Boys on a Ranch; or, Ned, Bob and Jerry Among the Cowboys

“Better fly low,” said Ned to Jerry, who was guiding the airship. “If you go up too high,” he went on, as they were approaching the location of the mysterious gorge, “they may s...

“Well,” began Professor Snodgrass, whose strange appearance on account of his ragged and unshaven condition was a source of fascination to the boys, “I suppose you know about ho...

Mr. Slade glanced across the room at his friend Mr. Baker. The latter returned the look, and, had one observed carefully, he might have seen the shadow of a wink pass between th...

“Might have known it would turn out this way if we let _him_ manage things,” grumbled Ned Slade in disgusted tones as he slumped down on one of the forward lockers of a motor bo...

“Nor I,” added Bob. “What are our fathers doing around here now, when they were in such a hurry to be on their way that they couldn’t wait at Haredon when we were an hour or so...

If Mr. Sid Munson, as he had called himself, was at all surprised to see the boys under the present circumstances, he made no mention of it. From his manner and air one would ha...

Dejectedly, and fearing the worst, the boys piled out of the automobile into the pelting rain. They did not stop to put on their slickers, so eager were they to see the extent o...

“From the Bear Swamp range,” and he named a part of the Square Z ranch that lay to the southeast, a low tract that was wet part of the year.

During the meal at the hotel, Professor Snodgrass gave further details of how he had happened to become a stowaway in the big car. He had finished his work at Boxwood Hall and h...

Ned, Bob and Jerry were perhaps better fitted to attempt to solve a mystery of this kind than most young men would have been. They had traveled considerably, and had been in str...

“Then just depict it on these young chaps and you’ll have it individually so to speak. A lot of college Willies come out here to make us walk Spanish. Did you see a wrist watch...

“No,” answered Ned. “But dad intimates that we’ve fallen down on the job, so to speak, and he thinks we might as well give it up and let him send on a real detective. He says he...

“What was that?” asked Bob, and when it is added that he whispered the question it may better be understood what a hold the finding of the letter had taken on the boys. Already...

“It would be, only it’s too good to be true,” said Jerry. “But wait a bit. As long as he’s talking as loudly as he is no one can call it impolite if we stand here and listen. Ju...

“It sure is,” agreed the tall lad. “After all, in spite of the fact that we’ve had some cracking good times in our motor boat, and in the airship above the clouds, there’s nothi...

“But--but!” stammered the surprised Ned. “If they took him, why didn’t they take us? We weren’t far away from where they made the professor a prisoner, to judge by his voice. It...

“Except I don’t understand what contraption this is,” and Ned kicked a box that an expressman had just delivered at the Slade homestead in Cresville. “Must be something pretty p...

They were all standing with craned necks looking up at the object in the sky, momentarily growing larger. Now it began to circle about instead of keeping in a straight line.

Ned in the lead, the boys were hurrying to their ponies in order to set off on a gallop for the railroad station, about thirty miles away, to arrange about getting the airship w...

“It wasn’t there when we started out this morning,” said Jerry, “for I went over the propeller blades with a fine tooth comb, so to speak. And certainly the carburetor was all r...

For a moment Ned and his chums did not know whether or not to accept the word of the cowboys. They feared a trick. But, as the one called Hinkee Dee had said, the boys themselve...

For a moment he stood, fascinated by the thought of what it all might mean, and he did not realize that it was not exactly the proper thing to do. But Munson was without so much...

“To see if I can catch that imp of Satan before he does any mischief,” was the reply, shot back over Gimp’s shoulder. “I can’t see how Jerry took the wrong pony.”

“What’s that?” asked Jerry Hopkins, sharply. He had been reading over again a portion of his mother’s letter, and had not quite caught what Ned had said. The latter repeated his...

Below the boys in their airship there unrolled the fields and plains of Square Z ranch, as on some vast map. As the craft rose higher and higher the figures of the cowboys, gazi...

“Quiet!” commanded Jerry when he realized that it was vitally necessary to learn from which direction the call for help had come so they might go to the rescue. Bob and Ned unde...

“Whether we ought to go down to him or not. He may be waiting for us with a gun, hoping to get us into range so he can take a pop at us.”

Outside the shuffle of countless hoofs could be plainly heard, and there was the murmur of men’s voices, though the words were not distinguishable. In a whisper Jerry told what...

Silence followed this rather insolent remark of the cattle buyer; and apprehensive looks were on the faces of his auditors. For in the free and breezy ranch life such talk usual...

The boys sat silent in their saddles and looked down at the queer tracks left in a place where the earth was soft. The marks were like two shallow depressions in the ground, abo...