"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?"