FALSE SECURITY
Only those, probably very few of you, who have ever taken part in a
gold rush can understand and appreciate the wild excitement that
prevailed when the flashing lights revealed the rock of the cave to be
seamed and studded with yellow veins and patches. It aroused even the
most lethargic of the cowboys. And, truth to tell, none of them were
very strongly of that type. They were accustomed to live amid
excitement of one kind or another, and this was but a new sort.
"Gold! Gold!" was the exulting murmur on all sides.
"There's enough here to make us all rich!" cried Yellin' Kid, his loud
voice echoing through the cavern.
"No more ridin' fence for me!" cried Snake.
"Me, I'm going to have one of them pianos that plays itself!" declared
Billee, whose soul, hitherto, had been obliged to get its feast of
music from a mouth organ.
"And look where them hombres have been takin' out our gold!" exclaimed
Yellin' Kid as he flashed his light on a wall where, unmistakably,
excavating had been going on. There were signs of new digging in the
rock and dirt of the cave's sides and the ground beneath showed a
litter of debris.
"You ought to make 'em pay for all they took out!" declared Snake to
Bud.
"Maybe it would be a good idea to catch 'em first," suggested Dick,
quietly.
"Well, that's so. We'll do that after we have begun to dig out the
gold," decided the cowboy. "Oh, boy! Look at the yaller stuff!" and
he picked up what seemed to be a nugget of great value. It was of
gleaming yellow and heavy in his hand.
The boy ranchers were no whit less excited than their older companions.
But perhaps the finding of the gold mine, in which, knowing Mr.
Merkel's generosity, the cowboys believed they all would share, meant
more to the older men than it did to the boys. The latter were, in a
sense, owners of the ranch and were not doomed to days and nights of
hard work on the range. There was a brighter future before them,
because of their advantageous position, than there was ahead of Billee
and the others. Up to now the old cowboys had seen nothing but a hard
life (though there were enjoyable spots here and there) and they
counted on dying with their boots on, not from violence, perhaps, so
much as from wearing out at their labors. Now they saw a chance of
getting rich quickly, or, if not exactly rich, at least of gaining a
competence.
No wonder they were excited.
"Boy howdy! I can't hardly believe it!" shouted Yellin' Kid. "First
time I was ever on a ranch that developed gold!"
"It's the first for me, too," said Bud.
"What's the best thing to do?" asked Nort, of no one in particular.
"Hadn't the boss better file a claim of discovery?" suggested a cowboy
who said he had once lived in California.
"He don't need to file nothin'!" declared Billee. "This gold is found
on Mr. Merkel's land. Everything on the land is hissen. He can work
the gold mine same as he can his cattle ranges."
That seemed to be the consensus of opinion and it was decided that all
remaining to be done was to inform Bud's father of the discovery, start
to work the claim and take the profit.
"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?"
"I don't know. But I'm going to make sure before I start a torch-light
procession. I'll send you out a good mining man. Don't do anything
until he arrives, and keep your shirts on--all of you."
"All right, Dad. I know what you mean. We won't broadcast it."
"Better not. There might be a slip-up, you know."
"I don't see how there can be, but we'll keep it mum."
Busy days followed at Dot and Dash. While the cattle business was not
passed up, Bud and his cousins devoted all their time to the discovery
in the cave, and let the new cowboys attend to the shipping and care of
the cattle. Some of the yellow ore was dug out and taken to the ranch
house to await the arrival of the mining expert. Meanwhile it was
carefully guarded.
Covering several days a careful exploration of the cave had been made
without discovering any of the enemy. There were several exits from
the cavern, and it was surmised that the "gas gang," as they were
dubbed, had escaped by one of these.
"But as long as they're gone, we haven't anything to worry about," said
Bud. "We're sitting pretty now."
"Nothing to worry about," added Nort.
"And I guess we won't find any more dead cattle," said Dick. "It must
have been some of the gas they were experimenting with that killed the
cows and Sam's horse."
"Sure!" assented Bud.
Thus were the boys lulled into a false security, and their fond dreams
were not shattered for several days. It was on the afternoon of the
day before the mine expert was to arrive that Bud, Nort and Dick,
riding toward the cave to find out how matters were progressing there,
saw, on a hillside some distance away from the glen, a number of
motionless lumps.
"Looks like some of the steers from the main herd had strayed and were
taking a siesta," suggested Nort.
"Yes," admitted Bud, slowly. "But I wonder----"
Suddenly he put spurs to his pony and dashed toward the dark objects.
His cousins followed and as they got near enough they saw that the
cows, far from taking a siesta, were in their last sleep.
"They're dead!" exclaimed Bud. "Dead same as the others were--from
gas, or something. Boys, that gang is back again!"
"Then it's all up with the men on guard at the mine!" cried Nort.