"They've got us!" yelled Billee. "We can't fight poison gas! Back up, boys! We've got to run!"

It was impossible to advance in the face of this mysterious surprise attack and the avengers were driven back. Gasping, and trying to keep from collapsing under the afflicting sensation, the Dot and Dash men were forced to retreat from their unseen foes.

CHAPTER XIX

GAS MASKS

"Hold on!" yelled Snake Purdee as he swung around a ledge at the edge of the narrow entrance to Smugglers' Glen and made a grab at Nort who was running as fast as he could under the weakening influence of the gas. "It's all right here--the wind will blow the stuff to the east.

Swing around here, everybody!" and he indicated a niche to the west of the entrance.

Nort stopped, his brain dully comprehending what Snake meant. Then the others in the wild, frightened retreat sensed what the words were intended to convey and, one after another, they gathered there in comparative safety with Snake, Nort and d.i.c.k.

"Whew!" gasped Billee Dobb whose age was telling on him, not only in the rapid, forced retreat, but in the effect of the gas. "That was tough! But what makes you think we'll be safe here, Snake?"

"On account of the wind blowing the gas away from us. Look, there it floats to the east. We're safe here. I didn't get nearly ga.s.sed in the war for nothing. We're safe here till the wind shifts and it won't do that right away."

"What about the horses?" gasped d.i.c.k, taking deep breaths to rid himself of the gas already breathed.

"They'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 d.i.c.k, 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 d.i.c.k, "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?" d.i.c.k 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 got from the gov'ment lately to decorate the meetin' room. I reckon they'd be fresh, with charcoal in and everything needed."

"Will you see if you can get some for us?" asked Billee, who was in charge during the forced absence of Bud.

"Sure!"

"Good!" cried Nort. "Then we'll come back and have another go at these fellows!"

"Yes, it will need another go," remarked Billee, looking at the entrance to the defile out of which a faint mist was still floating.

"We don't dare go back at 'em now, unprotected. They're regular devils, that's what they are! Devils!"

"Wonder what their game is?" mused d.i.c.k as he and his brother, with the other cowboys, moved to where their horses were picketed in charge of the guard.

"They want to keep us out of that glen," suggested Nort.

"But why?" went on d.i.c.k.

"So they can poison more cattle and bust up this ranch and rustle what stock they don't kill," was what Nort answered.

"It doesn't seem reasonable that they'd poison cattle," and d.i.c.k shook his head. "What good would dead ones be to them? They can't be sold, and it wouldn't pay to kill 'em just for the hides."

"No, that's so," admitted Nort. "But they evidently want to keep us out of that glen, and drive us away from the ranch if possible, so they can have it for themselves."

"Part of that seems like to be true," spoke Billee, taking a part in the discussion. "But this isn't the first time there have been queer doings at Dot and Dash. Years ago I'm pretty sure there was no band of devils up here with cylinders of gas. This is something new."

"Tell me, Billee," resumed Nort, "on what sections of the ranch did most of the deaths occur--I mean when you worked here?"

"Well," and the veteran scratched his head reflectively, "as near as I can remember they was all somewhere near this glen, come to think of it."

"And this is where Sam Tarbell's horse was killed and where Sam was knocked out--near this glen; wasn't it?" went on Nort.

"That's true enough."

"And it's from this glen that Bud got his dose of poison gas and where, just now, we got ours; isn't it?"

"Sure," Billee was forced to say.

"Well, then," went on Nort, "isn't it reasonable to suppose that this band--or some bunch like it--has been doing this right along?"

Here Billee shook his head.

"You can't make me believe," he said, "that this gang, or one like it, has been doin' this gas business all along. In the first place the earliest, mysterious death on Dot and Dash took place many years ago, before poison gas in war was thought of. I won't deny that this bunch back there," and he nodded in the direction of Smugglers' Glen, "I won't deny but what they may be usin' war gas. But it wasn't so years ago.".