And then, strange as it may see, each of the four guards revived, opened his eyes and sat up. They had dazed looks on their faces, but were unharmed.
"What happened?" asked Bud of Sam, who was the leader in charge of the force guarding the gold mine. "Did those fellows come back and shoot gas at you?"
"I don't rightly know what did happen," Sam answered. "If those fellows came back we didn't see 'em. But there was sure some gas, for it hit us all of a sudden and keeled us over before we knew it. How did you get here, and what's he doing here?" Sam pointed at the old man.
"He got here soon after we did," Nort explained. "And I guess it's lucky he did. That stuff he gave you brought you fellows back to life."
"It's strong enough to make a mud turtle race with a jack rabbit!" chuckled Slippery Mike. "But it isn't bad, at that. If I could have another swig of it——"
Old Tosh hospitably held out the bottle.
"'Twon't hurt you," he said. "It's Life's Elixer."
"But how'd you know we was knocked out?" asked Sam when each of the guards had taken some more of the medicine. "It only happened a little while ago."
"And we only came a little while ago," said Dick. "We were out on the range and we saw some dead cattle. Right away we jumped to the conclusion that you had been poisoned with gas same as the steers. So we came here and found you stretched out. Then along came Mr. Tosh and he did the right thing, it seems."
"Did you know this had happened?" asked Bud of the old man.