The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley Part 29

"Boy howdy! I can't hardly believe it!" shouted Yellin' Kid. "First time I was ever on a ranch that developed gold!"

"It's the first for me, too," said Bud.

"What's the best thing to do?" asked Nort, of no one in particular.

"Hadn't the boss better file a claim of discovery?" suggested a cowboy who said he had once lived in California.

"He don't need to file nothin'!" declared Billee. "This gold is found on Mr. Merkel's land. Everything on the land is hissen. He can work the gold mine same as he can his cattle ranges."

That seemed to be the consensus of opinion and it was decided that all remaining to be done was to inform Bud's father of the discovery, start to work the claim and take the profit.

"And clean out them rascals!" added Billee.

"Oh, sure!" agreed Bud. "It's queer, though," he went on as he flashed his light about the cave, "that if gold has been here since the beginning, as it must have, that the secret of it only just now got out. And if the gang that's been working this mine has been shooting out poison gas to keep people away from here, why didn't some rumor of this gold strike filter out before?"

"There's something wrong," declared Billee. "I don't believe the deaths that took place in this here valley, from the time I knowed about 'em, had anything to do with this gold cave. I'm sure they didn't. And, what's more, this claim has only been worked recent like.

You can tell that by the fresh marks of the digging."

This was plain to all, and the more they thought of it the more of a puzzle it was. Clearly poison gas, if such it was, had only recently been used to guard the approach to the cave. What, then, was the explanation of the former mysterious deaths?

But the boys and their friends were so excited over the discovery of the yellow metal that they gave little heed to this phase of the matter. All the talk had to do with getting out the ore and finding how much it a.s.sayed to the ton.

"But we can't let the cattle business slide; can we?" asked d.i.c.k, as he and most of the others prepared to depart. A guard was to be left in the cave, and sufficient food and supplies would be sent them to enable them to remain on constant duty.

"Oh, no, we won't give up the cattle business," decided Bud. "We'll work that and the mine, too."

Mr. Merkel was duly astonished when, that night, his son succeeded in getting in touch with him over the long-distance telephone from Los Pompan. Bud found a booth to talk from which insured his conversation not being broadcast in the town. If news of the gold strike got out it might mean a rush. Not that any land around the gulch or cave could be preempted by others, for it was all on Mr. Merkel's ranch. But not everybody would respect his property rights and there might be trouble.

"Are you sure it's gold, son?" asked the ranchman over the wire.

"Why of course it is, Dad. What else could it be?"

"I don't know. But I'm going to make sure before I start a torch-light procession. I'll send you out a good mining man. Don't do anything until he arrives, and keep your s.h.i.+rts on--all of you."

"All right, Dad. I know what you mean. We won't broadcast it."

"Better not. There might be a slip-up, you know."

"I don't see how there can be, but we'll keep it mum."

Busy days followed at Dot and Dash. While the cattle business was not pa.s.sed up, Bud and his cousins devoted all their time to the discovery in the cave, and let the new cowboys attend to the s.h.i.+pping and care of the cattle. Some of the yellow ore was dug out and taken to the ranch house to await the arrival of the mining expert. Meanwhile it was carefully guarded.

Covering several days a careful exploration of the cave had been made without discovering any of the enemy. There were several exits from the cavern, and it was surmised that the "gas gang," as they were dubbed, had escaped by one of these.

"But as long as they're gone, we haven't anything to worry about," said Bud. "We're sitting pretty now."

"Nothing to worry about," added Nort.

"And I guess we won't find any more dead cattle," said d.i.c.k. "It must have been some of the gas they were experimenting with that killed the cows and Sam's horse."

"Sure!" a.s.sented Bud.

Thus were the boys lulled into a false security, and their fond dreams were not shattered for several days. It was on the afternoon of the day before the mine expert was to arrive that Bud, Nort and d.i.c.k, riding toward the cave to find out how matters were progressing there, saw, on a hillside some distance away from the glen, a number of motionless lumps.

"Looks like some of the steers from the main herd had strayed and were taking a siesta," suggested Nort.

"Yes," admitted Bud, slowly. "But I wonder----"

Suddenly he put spurs to his pony and dashed toward the dark objects.

His cousins followed and as they got near enough they saw that the cows, far from taking a siesta, were in their last sleep.

"They're dead!" exclaimed Bud. "Dead same as the others were--from gas, or something. Boys, that gang is back again!"

"Then it's all up with the men on guard at the mine!" cried Nort.

CHAPTER XXII

TO THE RESCUE

There was no use wasting any time or sympathy over the dead cattle.

They were dead beyond a doubt, a fact which was easily proved. And yet, as before, there was not a sign of anything that showed how they had met their death. The bodies lay in a natural position, as though the animals had been overcome when grazing and had sunk gently down.

Or as if they had succ.u.mbed to some gentle poison that brought a painless death.

"Well, if this isn't the limit!" cried Bud while his cousins looked at him and at each other with wonder on their faces.

"Of all the rotten things to do!" snapped out Nort. "To kill these poor cattle! Why doesn't that gang fight like men if they want to give battle--not spray their dirty poison gas around dumb beasts?"

"It is pretty rotten," agreed d.i.c.k.

Bud was carefully scanning the ground in the vicinity of the dead cattle, at the same time cautiously sniffing the air to detect any possible taint. But he seemed to discover nothing. d.i.c.k and Nort followed his example, but were unable to come upon any clew.

However, not far from where the half dozen valuable animals had dropped dead there was a little crack or rift in the earth. It was a sort of opening between two long ridges of rocks, there being an outcropping of stone at this point. It was part of the two ridges which, suddenly rising higher, formed the walls of Smugglers' Glen farther to the south. d.i.c.k was the first to notice it.

"See anything there?" asked Bud, noting that his cousin was bending over the cleft in the surface.

"No, I can't see anything and I can't smell anything," he added, as he bent closer.

"But I can hear something!" added Nort.

"Hear something?" questioned Bud.

"Yes, the sound of running water down there. Listen!"

He bent with his ear over the crack in the rocks. And in the silence, broken only by the slight movements of their ponies, from which they had dismounted, the boys heard the murmur as of water flowing along far under ground.