CHAPTER XXIV
A STRANGE DISCOVERY
Billee Dobb, having listened to the stories of Bud and his cousins, andthe tale told by Sam and his pals, shook his head dubiously.
"I can't figger it all out," he said. "But you sure done a noble job,Tosh, and we thank you for it. Can you tell us anything about thoserascals with their tanks of gas?"
"I don't know nothin' about gas tanks," said the old man. "But morethan once I've warned you men about----"
What the warning was he did not get a chance to explain, for at thatmoment Professor Dodson, the mine expert, with his assistant, ProfessorSnath, emerged from the interior of the cave, into whose black depthsthey had disappeared some time ago, while Bud and the others weretalking.
"By golly!" exclaimed Billee, suddenly changing the subject. "They gottheir report ready pretty quick. I reckon the gold's so thick in therethey don't need to make much of a test. Whoopee! I'll soon have myself-playin' piano!" He was as eager and excited as a boy. Indeed Budand his cousins were not a little excited as they looked at the twoscientists who came out carrying specimens of ore which they hadknocked off the walls of the cave with their peculiar hammers.
"Didn't take you long," commented Bud.
"No, this was an easy problem," answered Professor Dodson. "We don'teven need an assay to determine our findings."
"By golly! What do you know about that?" cried Billee. "About howmany dollars will she run to the ton?" he asked. "I only want to know_about_," he stipulated. "I won't pin you down by five or ten dollars,'cause I think that wouldn't be fair. But roughly about how much doyou think our mine will assay to the ton?"
"How much what?" asked Professor Dodson with a peculiar smile. "Howmuch what to the ton?"
"How much gold, of course!" exclaimed Billee. "What else? Gold's whatwe want; ain't it?" and he chuckled as he turned to his friends.
"Sure--gold!" was the murmur.
"Then I'm sorry to have to tell you that there is not one ounce of goldin any number of tons of ore and rock in that cave!" was the unexpectedand startling answer. "There isn't any gold at all."
"No gold!" cried Bud.
"No gold!" echoed his cousins.
"No--no--gold!" faltered Billee Dobb, his jaw falling. He saw hisself-playing piano fading back into the dim vista of his dreams.
"No gold," repeated Professor Dodson. "What we have here," and heindicated the ore specimens held by himself and Professor Snath, "is aselected lot of samples of iron sulphid. It is a yellow ore that looksvery much like gold, but which has none of the properties of real gold.In fact it is so often mistaken for the valuable metal that it has cometo be called 'Fools' Gold.' I am sorry, but such is the case. I shallso report to Mr. Merkel, who engaged me to come out here after hearinghis son's account."
"Fools' gold!" murmured Bud. "Well, it fooled us all right."
"Yes, and it fooled those other fellows," said Nort. "The men with thegas cylinders," he added.
As the two professors looked a little puzzled, Dick explained:
"There were some men hiding in this cave who must have thought, thesame as we did, that it contained gold. They drove out Mr. Tosh, whoused the cavern to brew his medicine. Then they drove us out. Theyused tanks of some poison gas, or at least gas that made a manunconscious. We had to put on gas masks, the kind used in the war, tofight 'em. But we drove 'em out."
"And a lot of good it did us," said Bud gloomingly, "if there isn't anygold in there."
"No, the evidence is too plain to be mistaken," said Professor Snath."It does not even require a laboratory test to prove that the cave isrich in iron sulphid, but not gold."
"Maybe it will turn out to be an iron mine instead of a gold mine!" putin Billee, with new hope showing on his face. "Iron's valuable. Notworth as much as gold, of course, but a good iron mine--say, boys,maybe I'll get that self-playin' piano yet."
But again his hopes were dashed.
"It wouldn't pay to work this section even for iron," said ProfessorDodson, and his assistant nodded his agreement.
"Well, then," remarked Nort, "we'll have to keep on raising cattle."
"But we can't do that if these fellows are going to let loose a floodof poison gas and kill them off every now and then!" bitterly criedBud. "We're beat either way you look at it. Just as you said, Billee,this is Death Valley."
"Tell me more about this!" suddenly suggested the older scientist."What is all this about poison gas in tanks killing cattle?"
"I can tell you!" came from Old Tosh. "I know all about it but nobodywould ever listen to me. They said I was crazy. But I know! Lookhere!"
He pointed to a crack, or fissure in the rocky floor of the glen, notfar from the cave entrance. It was just such a crack as Bud and hiscousins had noticed one day near the place where they had found somedead cattle.
"Listen to that! It's rising!" cried Old Tosh, bending over the crack.
The two professors, the boy ranchers and some of the punchers leanedover and listened. From somewhere down in the depths of the earth camethe rustle and swish of running water.
"An underground stream," said Professor Dodson. "They are not uncommonin this region. But----"
Suddenly he started back and withdrew his face quickly from above thecrack in the earth.
"Hurry away from here!" he cried. "The gas is rising. I begin tounderstand now. It is the secret you have been trying to solve. Hurryaway! It may not be deadly, but it will overcome all of us in a shorttime."
He ran down the defile, away from the long fissure, followed by theothers, Billee and his men driving the ponies before them. ProfessorDodson had made a strange discovery, after Old Tosh had put him on thetrack of it.
Boy Ranchers in Death Valley; Or, Diamond X and the Poison Mystery Page 24