"That Elixer of Life the old gazaboo sold for a dollar a chunk. There was three bottles of it, you know."
"Yes, I know," assented Bud with growing uneasiness.
"Well," went on Snake, "you know I started to take a swig from the bottle I bought, but Nort wouldn't let me. Then Old Billee locked the three bottles in a cupboard."
"That's right," assented Bud.
"Well," resumed the cowboy, "we discovered, a little while ago, and soon after Fah Moo arrived to take charge of the kitchen, we discovered that those three bottles were gone. We found 'em in the new cook's department and the last one was empty."
"You mean he drunk all that Elixer?" cried Dick.
"Onless he used it for bathin', which I doubt!" chuckled Snake. "He must have been nosing around, discovered where the stuff was hid and he drunk every last drop. That's what makes him sing so, or cry—whichever way you take it."
"He's poisoned!" cried Bud, no less excited, now, than were his two cousins. "Poor Fah Moo is poisoned. We just discovered some of our cattle dead over on the south range. And we found a cave where the old man brews that Elixer. It's poison, sure. I guess it's all up with the Chink, but we'll try to get a doctor to save him. I'll 'phone in to town!"
Bud disappeared into the ranch house while the cowboys looked at each other's startled faces, and, meanwhile, Fah Moo continued to yelp, yap and yip in his high, falsetto voice.