hey're all right--they're up wind, too!" shouted Yellin' Kid, whose
lungs did not seem to have suffered much.

This was true enough. The ponies, with the guard of cowboys, were to
the west of the gorge entrance and, as Snake had been quick to observe,
the strange, white mist which had so mysteriously floated out of the
cave toward the avengers, was drifting, now, out of the mouth of the
defile and off to the east.

"If any of the cattle get in the path of that they'll be killed!"
exclaimed Dick, noting how the mist clung to the ground and rolled
along as fog sometimes does when the clouds are low.

"The bunch isn't down there," said Billee.

"And I don't know as that gas is so very deadly after all," stated
Snake, breathing deep after a few cautious inhalations to make sure the
air was clear.

"Then what'd you run for?" Yellin' Kid wanted to know.

"Because I wasn't sure of what sort of stuff it was. There's lots of
kinds of gas, you know. We had one kind in the war that would just
knock a man out for a few hours. I reckon that's the kind they shot at
Bud and the kind they just now loosed at us. But I wasn't takin' any
chances!"

"I should say not!" cried Billee Dobb. "But now we're out of danger
for a while, what's to be done next?"

Nort had the answer ready in a moment.

"Gas masks!" he exclaimed.

"Gas masks?" echoed Billee.

"Sure! I get you!" cried Snake. "That's the ticket! Gas masks! Same
as we used in war when the Germans let their gas loose. Why didn't I
think of it before?"

"There's been so much happening!" remarked Dick, "that it's a wonder we
thought of half we did. But gas masks would be just what is needed
here. Only where are we going to get them?"

Up spoke one of the new cowboys to observe:

"There's a branch of the American Legion in Los Pompan. I belong to it
and so do some of the other boys. 'Tain't much of a branch, but they
got some war relics hangin' around the meetin' room, and I seen some
gas masks there the last time I was in. I reckon we can borrow them
without any trouble."

"Golly! That's the cheese!" cried Nort.

"But are the masks any good?" Dick asked. "If they're relics of the
war they're likely to be old and no good. And a gas mask that won't
keep gas out is worse than none at all."

"You're right there!" exclaimed Sim Roller, who had proposed the
matter. "Some of the masks are the same as the boys used in France.
But others are new ones they