Canady shook his head. "I am afraid they are too far gone," he said. "But I'll try. I've got all kinds of medicines in my tent. I'll run and get them."
He was back in a minute with a box full of pint bottles. Then followed hours of anxious labor, holding and dosing the sick animals, but it was all in vain. Before daylight one mule stiffened out in death and a half hour later the other one died.
It was a sorrowful little party that stood around the dead animals. To the little party of chums it meant the loss of $500 and the tying up of the machine until a new team could be procured. To the teamster it meant the loss of two animals to which he had really grown attached.
"This was no accident," declared the Captain, as they stood around discussing the affair. "It comes right at the time the wood piles were fired. That ain't no coincident, I reckon."
"You're right," Charley agreed. "Their aim was to tie up the machine by cutting off our wood supply, and it looks as though they have succeeded. No doubt the mules were poisoned, but the thing that puzzles me is how the poison was administered. Mules are the most particular animals in the world about what they take into their mouths."
"Let's have a look at the feed boxes," Walter suggested; "there ought to be some clews in them."
The teamster uttered an oath as he held his lantern over the feed boxes, for each was still partly filled with wheat. "That's what done it," he swore savagely. "All animals love the taste of wheat, but it is sure death to them if they eat any quantity of it. It swells so fast in their stomachs. Lord, I wish I had hold of the fellow who did this thing."
"Bring your lanterns," called Walter, who had stepped away a few paces from the crowd. "There's something lying here on the ground. I believe it's a man."
In a second his companions were by his side with their lanterns. As the lights flashed down on the prostrate object, an exclamation of horror burst out from the little party, for, lying on his back, his head in a pool of blood, lay a man, one side of his skull entirely crushed in.
"He's the one that fixed the mules," declared the teamster excitedly. "One of the mules killed him. Serves him right. I'm glad he got his."