anch 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