TO THE RESCUE
There was no use wasting any time or sympathy over the dead cattle.
They were dead beyond a doubt, a fact which was easily proved. And
yet, as before, there was not a sign of anything that showed how they
had met their death. The bodies lay in a natural position, as though
the animals had been overcome when grazing and had sunk gently down.
Or as if they had succumbed to some gentle poison that brought a
painless death.
"Well, if this isn't the limit!" cried Bud while his cousins looked at
him and at each other with wonder on their faces.
"Of all the rotten things to do!" snapped out Nort. "To kill these
poor cattle! Why doesn't that gang fight like men if they want to give
battle--not spray their dirty poison gas around dumb beasts?"
"It is pretty rotten," agreed Dick.
Bud was carefully scanning the ground in the vicinity of the dead
cattle, at the same time cautiously sniffing the air to detect any
possible taint. But he seemed to discover nothing. Dick and Nort
followed his example, but were unable to come upon any clew.
However, not far from where the half dozen valuable animals had dropped
dead there was a little crack or rift in the earth. It was a sort of
opening between two long ridges of rocks, there being an outcropping of
stone at this point. It was part of the two ridges which, suddenly
rising higher, formed the walls of Smugglers' Glen farther to the
south. Dick was the first to notice it.
"See anything there?" asked Bud, noting that his cousin was bending
over the cleft in the surface.
"No, I can't see anything and I can't smell anything," he added, as he
bent closer.
"But I can hear something!" added Nort.
"Hear something?" questioned Bud.
"Yes, the sound of running water down there. Listen!"
He bent with his ear over the crack in the rocks. And in the silence,
broken only by the slight movements of their ponies, from which they
had dismounted, the boys heard the murmur as of water flowing along far
under ground.
"I'm afraid that doesn't mean anything," said Bud when he had signified
that he, too, heard the ripple. "Dad said there were a lot of
underground streams around here. This one must come from the little
brook that flows through Smugglers' Glen. It takes a dip down under
the rocks and comes to the surface again farther on."
"I guess you're right," admitted Dick. "It doesn't mean anything. But
I didn't know there was underground water in this section."
"Oh, yes, plenty of it," Bud added. "I've seen other places with rock
fissures like this where you could hear water bubbling along beneath
the surface."
"Then this goes into the discard," spoke Nort, meaning that it was
useless to form any theory about the mysterious deaths if it was to be
based on the underground streams.
"But we'd better get on to the cave mine!" cried Bud. "If those
fellows are at their poison gas game again, it's likely that Sam
Tarbell and the fellows we left on guard are in as bad shape as these
cows. Darn the luck, anyhow!"
"That's what I say!" chimed in Nort as the three hastened to where they
had left their ponies. "Just as we thought we were sitting pretty,
with nothing to worry about, along comes this! Wonder how they worked
the game, anyhow?"
"They must have got back in the cave--probably from the end where they
ran out the time we chased 'em with our gas masks on," said Dick.
"They sneaked up on our fellows, let loose a cloud of gas, put them out
of business and then came down here to kill the cows."
"But that's what I can't understand," said Bud. "Why should they go to
the trouble of killing cows? Cows can't spy on those gold mine
jumpers. Cows can't get out any gold. It's all so useless, this
killing of our beasts."
"I guess they're just natural devils as Billee claims," suggested Nort.
"But we'll pay 'em back!"
"You bet we will!" exclaimed Bud. "And now to the rescue! We've got
to save Sam and his crowd if we can!"
They galloped their ponies in the direction of the Glen, and reached
the opening to the sinister defile in record time. Nor did they stop
to dismount. Rough as was the way, they rode their mounts up the
valley until they came within sight of the cave. Nor were they
stopped, and they detected no gas, though they were on the alert for it.
"Maybe it's a false alarm," suggested Nort. "Maybe our fellows didn't
suffer from a gas attack after all."
"Well, the cows certainly did!" exclaimed his brother.
However their worst fears were realized when, as they flung themselves
off their horses at the mouth of the cave they saw, just within, the
prostrate forms of Sam Tarbell and his companion guards. Stark and
silent the men lay there.
"We're too late!" muttered Bud sorrowfully.
"They're all dead!" echoed Nort.
"This is Death Valley sure enough!" came gloomily from Dick.
There was a movement within the cave. There sounded the rattling
echoes of dislodged stones.
"Some one's coming!" murmured Bud, drawing his gun.
A moment later there emerged from the cavern the form of Old Tosh. He
did not appear surprised to see the boys, nor to note the prostrate
forms of the men. In one hand he held a bottle of his Elixer and
waving it over his head he cried:
"I'm just in time! Come on, boys, help me! We'll save 'em yet!"