CHAPTER XXIII
TESTING THE GOLD MINE
Any suspicions which the boy ranchers held against the old man vanishedquickly as they saw the eagerness with which he went to work to save,if possible, the men on guard at the cave gold mine. Bud and hiscousins had, naturally, held back a little against approaching thestark, prostrate forms too closely. They were still young enough tobe, at a time like this, unduly impressed by death.
But Old Tosh, as he was generally called, went at the business as if hewere a doctor intent on saving lives in desperate danger. He opened abottle of his Elixer, and, though the boys thought it pitifully weakstuff for the occasion, he appeared to have unbounded faith in it.Raising the head of Sam Tarbell, the old man placed the bottle to thesilent lips, tipped it up and managed to force a little into the cowpuncher's mouth.
"Come on, you boys!" Tosh called to Nort, Dick and Bud. "You got tohelp. I can't do this all alone. I'm just in time. I knew this wouldhappen. They're on the verge of death but I'll save them."
"I'm afraid you're too late," said Bud.
"No, I'm not. These men are alive yet. All they need is a littlestimulant to bring 'em around. They didn't get much of a dose of thepoison gas. If they had, not even my Elixer could save 'em. But itcan now. Come on, there's another bottle in my coat pocket. Reach itout and get busy, boys!"
Bud made a jump to do as directed. And as he was taking the secondbottle from the old man's coat, while Tosh was still administering themedicine to Sam, Bud could not help wondering whether the queer hermithad anything to do with loosing the flood of gas against the mineguards. It was no time, now, however, to make such an inquiry.
Bud and his cousins gave Ned Frosh and Bill Dungan each some of theElixer, raising the men's heads and forcing the liquid between theirlips as they had seen Tosh do. As for the hermit, he went from Sam toa puncher who rejoiced in the name of Slippery Mike, giving him a gooddose.
And then, strange as it may see, each of the four guards revived,opened his eyes and sat up. They had dazed looks on their faces, butwere unharmed.
"What happened?" asked Bud of Sam, who was the leader in charge of theforce guarding the gold mine. "Did those fellows come back and shootgas at you?"
"I don't rightly know what did happen," Sam answered. "If thosefellows came back we didn't see 'em. But there was sure some gas, forit hit us all of a sudden and keeled us over before we knew it. Howdid you get here, and what's he doing here?" Sam pointed at the oldman.
"He got here soon after we did," Nort explained. "And I guess it'slucky he did. That stuff he gave you brought you fellows back to life."
"It's strong enough to make a mud turtle race with a jack rabbit!"chuckled Slippery Mike. "But it isn't bad, at that. If I could haveanother swig of it----"
Old Tosh hospitably held out the bottle.
"'Twon't hurt you," he said. "It's Life's Elixer."
"But how'd you know we was knocked out?" asked Sam when each of theguards had taken some more of the medicine. "It only happened a littlewhile ago."
"And we only came a little while ago," said Dick. "We were out on therange and we saw some dead cattle. Right away we jumped to theconclusion that you had been poisoned with gas same as the steers. Sowe came here and found you stretched out. Then along came Mr. Tosh andhe did the right thing, it seems."
"Did you know this had happened?" asked Bud of the old man.
"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 goneaway from my cave--the cave where they drove me out. I wanted to useit again, for there's no better place for brewing my Elixer. I went inthe cave from the other end, and when I got here I saw you menstretched out. I knew what had happened, right away."
"But did you see any of those rustlers, holdup men, or whatever theyare, with their gas cylinders?" asked Bud.
"No, I didn't," was the reply. "I don't know anything about gascylinders. 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 whenwe 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 youbrewing 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 cavebecause it was so sheltered. Only, sometimes, I couldn't stay in it onaccount of the gas."
"That's the gas we mean," explained Nort. "The poison gas these mensprayed out of cylinders to keep us away so we wouldn't find there wasgold in the cave. But we got gas masks and drove 'em out."
Again Old Tosh shook his head.
"I don't know anything about gas in cylinders," he said. "But then Ibeen away a long time, in another county, getting different kinds ofherbs. My Elixer is better than ever now and stronger."
"I'll say it's strong!" declared Slippery Mike.
"So I came back to see if I could use my cave," went on Old Tosh. "Nowabout this gas----"
But he was not allowed to go on, for Bud, seeing the effect of theElixer on Sam and his companions had a new thought.
"Will that save the dead steers--I mean the steers that seem to bedead?" he asked the hermit. "There's half a dozen of 'em out on thehill, and----"
"No," replied Tosh, "this stuff won't bring the dead back to life. Itwill only revive where a spark of life remains. And, in any case, itisn't effective on animals. It is only for humans."
"Then our steers are dead," sighed Dick.
"Guess that's a foregone conclusion," agreed Nort. "But what do youthink of him, anyhow?" he asked Bud in a whisper, indicating Tosh.
"You mean do I have any suspicions against him?"
"Yes. Do you think he may have gotten hold of a cylinder of the poisongas and sprayed it on these men so as to get a chance to use his Elixerto revive them?"
Before Bud could answer there was a noise as of men and horses comingup the defile, and, thinking it was some of the former gang returning,guns were whipped out. But they were not needed. Two mild-manneredand inoffensive appearing men rode into sight. They had the look ofcollege professors. Behind them rode Billee Dobb.
"Hello, boys!" greeted Billee, all unaware of the recent sensationalhappenings. "Here's the mine experts your dad sent out to look overour gold prospects, Bud. They're going to test the quality of the ore,and see how much it assays to the ton. That's the right way to expressit; ain't it?" He turned to the older of the two men.
"That is perfectly correct, Mr. Dobb. And if you will show us the minewe can soon tell you, approximately, how valuable it is."
"It's in that cave. You'll find lots of gold there. And the first lotthat comes to me is goin' to be spent for a self-playin' piano. Butwhat happened here?" Billee asked, for he was now aware that somethingunusual had taken place.
"The darn scoundrels!" he exclaimed when he had been told of the deathof the cattle and the plight of the men. "So they come back; did they?Well, we'll soon have a big force here takin' out gold and we'll keepbetter guard."
Meanwhile the mining experts went into the cavern to test the gold mine.