"What, that these men had been gassed? No, I wasn't aware of it," answered the hermit. "I came back here to see if those men had gone away from my cave—the cave where they drove me out. I wanted to use it again, for there's no better place for brewing my Elixer. I went in the cave from the other end, and when I got here I saw you men stretched out. I knew what had happened, right away."
"But did you see any of those rustlers, holdup men, or whatever they are, with their gas cylinders?" asked Bud.
"No, I didn't," was the reply. "I don't know anything about gas cylinders. The poison gas doesn't come in cylinders. It comes out——"
"Oh, yes, it does come in cylinders, and it comes out of them," interrupted Bud. "We have some of the cylinders that we captured when we drove the men out of the gold mine."
"Gold mine?" excitedly cried the old man. "Where's a gold mine?"
"In that cave," and Bud pointed to it. "The cave where we saw you brewing your pot of herbs. Didn't you know there was gold there?"
Old Tosh shook his head.
"I don't take much stock in gold," he said. "But I liked that cave because it was so sheltered. Only, sometimes, I couldn't stay in it on account of the gas."
"That's the gas we mean," explained Nort. "The poison gas these men sprayed out of cylinders to keep us away so we wouldn't find there was gold in the cave. But we got gas masks and drove 'em out."
Again Old Tosh shook his head.