CHAPTER XXI
FALSE SECURITY
Only those, probably very few of you, who have ever taken part in a gold rush can understand and appreciate the wild excitement that prevailed when the flashing lights revealed the rock of the cave to be seamed and studded with yellow veins and patches. It aroused even the most lethargic of the cowboys. And, truth to tell, none of them were very strongly of that type. They were accustomed to live amid excitement of one kind or another, and this was but a new sort.
"Gold! Gold!" was the exulting murmur on all sides.
"There's enough here to make us all rich!" cried Yellin' Kid, his loud voice echoing through the cavern.
"No more ridin' fence for me!" cried Snake.
"Me, I'm going to have one of them pianos that plays itself!" declared Billee, whose soul, hitherto, had been obliged to get its feast of music from a mouth organ.
"And look where them hombres have been takin' out our gold!" exclaimed Yellin' Kid as he flashed his light on a wall where, unmistakably, excavating had been going on. There were signs of new digging in the rock and dirt of the cave's sides and the ground beneath showed a litter of debris.
"You ought to make 'em pay for all they took out!" declared Snake to
Bud.
"Maybe it would be a good idea to catch 'em first," suggested Dick, quietly.
"Well, that's so. We'll do that after we have begun to dig out the gold," decided the cowboy. "Oh, boy! Look at the yaller stuff!" and he picked up what seemed to be a nugget of great value. It was of gleaming yellow and heavy in his hand.
The boy ranchers were no whit less excited than their older companions. But perhaps the finding of the gold mine, in which, knowing Mr. Merkel's generosity, the cowboys believed they all would share, meant more to the older men than it did to the boys. The latter were, in a sense, owners of the ranch and were not doomed to days and nights of hard work on the range. There was a brighter future before them, because of their advantageous position, than there was ahead of Billee and the others. Up to now the old cowboys had seen nothing but a hard life (though there were enjoyable spots here and there) and they counted on dying with their boots on, not from violence, perhaps, so much as from wearing out at their labors. Now they saw a chance of getting rich quickly, or, if not exactly rich, at least of gaining a competence.
No wonder they were excited.
"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 assayed to the ton.
"But we can't let the cattle business slide; can we?" asked Dick, 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 preëmpted 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 shirts 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 passed up, Bud and his cousins devoted all their time to the discovery in the cave, and let the new cowboys attend to the shipping 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 Dick. "It must have been some of the gas they were experimenting with that killed the cows and Sam's horse."
"Sure!" assented 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 Dick, 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.