CHAPTER XXVII.
BOB TRIES STRATEGY.
"Well, what did you hear this time?" asked Bob, who lay on his blanketwith his hands under his head and a pipe in his mouth. "Everybody keptstill about the haunted mine, I suppose?"
"No, sir; I heard about it to-night for the first time," answeredClaus. "Banta is going up there to-morrow."
"Then we will know something about it when he comes back," remarkedBob. "I hope the boys have got the better of those ghosts in some way,and that they are working their mine. Go on, and tell us what you haveheard."
Claus did not have much to tell, for the miners had cut theconversation short; but what little he did say created greatexcitement between those who heard it now for the first time. The boyshad got the better of those unearthly spirits in some way, for if theghosts had driven them out and not allowed them to work their mine,the miners would have found it out long before this time.
"I don't see why Banta put it off for two weeks," said Jake; "I reckonhe was afraid of them spirits."
The next day was one which Claus often remembered. There was muchexcitement in the camp, although it did not show itself. There wasnone of that singing and whistling going on, but every man worked insilence. Banta and his partner had got off at daylight, and ten hoursmust pass away before they could look for their return; but eveningcame on apace, the camp-fire was lighted, and the miners gatheredaround it and smoked their pipes without making any comments on thelong delay of Mr. Banta and the man who had gone with him. There wasone thing that troubled them, although no one spoke of it--the mulewhich had carried their pack-saddle came home alone, and was nowfeeding in company with the old bell-mare. That looked suspicious, butthe men said nothing. For an hour they sat around the fire, and thenone of them broke the stillness. He was an old, gray-headed man,experienced in mining, and of course all listened to what he had tosay. He spoke in a low tone, as if there had been a patient there andhe was afraid to arouse him.
"Ten miles in ten hours," said he, knocking the ashes from his pipe."Boys, something's got the better of those two men. I remember thatseveral years ago I was waiting for a partner of mine who had goneaway to prospect a mine----"
"What was that?" exclaimed a miner, jumping to his feet.
"I heard something, but I don't know what it was," said another.
It was done quicker than we could tell it. In less than a second twohundred men sprang to their feet, and two hundred hands slipped behindthem and laid hold of as many revolvers. Of all those men, there wasnot one who would have hesitated to fight Indians with the fear ofdeath before their eyes, but there was not a single instance of aminer who did not change color at the sound of a noise which seemedto come upon them from no one could have told where.
"Which way did the noise come from?" asked a miner.
"What did it sound like?" queried another.
"There it is!" said the miner who had at first detected it--"it soundslike a horse's hoofs on the rocks. There! Don't you hear it?"
And so it proved. The noise was heard plainly enough by this time, andin a few moments more two men came out of the willows and rode intothe circle of light that was thrown out by the camp-fire. They wereBanta and his partner; and one look at their faces was enough--theywere fairly radiant with joy.
"Halloo! boys," cried Banta. "I declare, you act as though you hadlost your best friend; and some of you have revolvers drawn on us,too!"
"Say, pard," said one of the miners, shoving his revolver back whereit belonged and extending a hand to each of the newcomers, "wherehave you been so long? Your pack-mule has been home all the afternoon,and has kept the camp in an uproar with her constant braying. Sheacted as though she wanted to see your horses. Did you see the boys?"
"Yes, sir, we saw the boys," answered Banta. He did not seem in anyparticular hurry to relieve the suspense of his friends, which was nowworked up to the highest degree, but dismounted from his horse verydeliberately and proceeded to turn him loose.
"Well, why don't you go on with it?" asked another miner. "Were theboys all right?"
"The boys were all right and tight, and digging away as hard as theycould."
"Did they--did they see the ghosts?"
"Of course they did; and the ghosts are now lying up there with theirskins off."
"Were they animals?"
"You are right again. Now, hold on till I light my pipe and I'll tellyou all about it. Tony, you ought to have gone up there; you would beten thousand dollars better off than you are this minute."
Tony was a man who was noted far and near for his success in killingthe lions which were so abundant in the mountains. He would ratherhunt them than dig for gold, because he was almost sure to get theanimal he went after. He was filling his pipe when Banta was speaking,but he dropped it and let it lay on the ground where it had fallen.
"It is the truth I am telling you," declared Banta. "If you don'tbelieve it, you can go up there to that haunted mine and find out allabout it. The boys killed them with nothing but revolvers."
Banta had his pipe lit by this time, and the miners crowded aroundhim, all eager for his story. Bob and Jake were there, and no oneseemed to pay the least attention to them; but they were impatient tolearn all the particulars of the case. There was one question theywanted answered immediately, and that was, Did the boys really have abagful of dust, or was Banta merely joking about that? FortunatelyTony recovered his wits and his pipe at the same time and asked thequestion for them.
"Did the boys get ten thousand dollars in two weeks?" he asked.
"Well, they brought a bag out for us to examine, and they thought itwas nothing but iron pyrites," said Banta; and then he went on smokinghis pipe.
"We took one look at the bag," said his partner, "and we took a bigload off the boys' minds when we told them it was gold, and nothingelse. Yes, sir--they have it fair and square."
"The boys are going ahead as though there had never been any ghoststhere," said Banta; and then he went on to tell the miners everythingthat had happened during their trip to the haunted mine; and when hegot started, he followed Julian's narrative, and paid no attention toJack's. It was certain that the story did not lose anything by passingthrough his hands.
"Jack pulled off his shirt," said he, in conclusion, "and he has somewounds on his back that will go with him through life."
"And is the gold as thick as they say it is--so thick that one canpick it up with his hands?"
"It is not quite as thick as that," replied Banta, with a laugh. "Butevery time one washes out a cradleful he finds anywhere from ateaspoonful to three or four which he wants to put in his bag. I tellyou, the boys have been lucky."
"I am going up there the first thing in the morning," said a miner."Here I have been slaving and toiling for color for six months, and Ican hardly get enough to pay for my provisions, but I'll bet it won'tbe that way, now, much longer."
"Wait until I tell you something," answered Banta. "Neely, you can goup there, if you are set on it; there's no law here that will make youstay away. There are plenty of places where you can sink a shaftwithout troubling the boys any, but whether or not it will pay you isanother question. The boys will be down here themselves in less thantwo weeks' time."
"How do you account for that?"
"Their vein is giving out. It will end in a deep ravine that is upthere, and there their color ends."
"Why don't they go back farther and start another?" asked the miner.
"It won't pay. The man who started that shaft upon which they are nowat work was a tenderfoot, sure enough. There is not the first sign ofcolor about the dirt anywhere. He thought it was a pretty place and sowent to work, and the consequence is, it has panned out sixty thousanddollars. But go ahead if you want to, Neely."
Neely did not know whether or not he wanted to go ahead with such awarning in his ears. Banta was an experienced prospector, and he couldalmost tell by looking at the ground if there was any gold anywhereabout there. A good many who had
been on the point of starting for thehaunted mine with the first peep of day shook their heads, andconcluded they would rather stay where they were than go off to a newcountry. There were three, who did not say anything, whose minds werealready made up as to what they would do. They waited until theminers were ready to go to their blankets, and then Bob attracted theattention of those nearest him by saying,
"What Banta says throws a damper on me. The haunted mine is going toplay out in a day or two, this place here is not worth shucks, and weare going off somewhere at break of day to see if we can't do betterthan we are doing here."
"Where are you going?" asked one.
"I don't know, and in fact I don't care much. I'll go to the firstgood place I hear of, I don't care if it is on the other side of theRocky Mountains. I came out here expecting to get rich in a few days,and I am poorer now than I was ten years ago. These mountains aroundhere have not any gold in them for me."
"And I say it is good riddance," whispered the miner to some who stoodnear him. "If you had acted as you did last year, you would have beensent out before this time."
Having paved the way for the departure of himself and companions, Bobjoined them and led the way into his own cabin. They seatedthemselves close together, for they did not want to talk loud enoughto be heard by anyone who was passing their camp.
"Well, they have it!" exclaimed Claus, who was so excited that hecould not sit still.
"And it is gold, too," declared Jake. "Banta says so, and that isenough."
"In the morning, after we get breakfast," said Bob, "we'll hitch upand take the back trail toward Denver. We will go away from thehaunted mine, and that will give color to what I told them a whileago."
"What if you should chance to miss your way?" asked Claus.
"You can't lose me in these mountains; I have prospected all overthem, and I have seen where the haunted mine is located a hundredtimes. What a pity it was that I did not stay there. Sixty thousanddollars! Jake, if we had that sum of money we would be rich."
Jake did not say anything--that is, anything that would do to put onpaper. He stretched himself out on his blanket and swore softly tohimself, so that nobody but his companions could hear him.
"That will be three thousand three hundred dollars apiece," saidClaus, who did not like the way that Bob and Jake left him outentirely. "Remember, I am to have a third of it."
"Of course; and it will be more than that. The boys will have sometime to do more digging, and maybe they'll have another bagful. Iunderstood you to say that the boys were pretty plucky."
"You may safely say that," replied Claus. "The way they stood upagainst those lions, when they did not know what was onto them, isabundant proof of that. You will have to go easy when you tackle them,or some of you will get more than you want."
The three continued to talk in this way until they grew tired and fellasleep--that is, all except Claus, who rolled and twisted on hisblanket for a good while before he passed into the land of Nod. But hewas out before daybreak and busy with breakfast, while the othersbrought up the animals and packed them for their journey. There wasonly one man who came near them, and that was Banta, who wanted tomake sure they were not going toward the haunted mine.
"Well, boys, are you going to leave us?" he inquired. "Where are yougoing?"
"Not giving you a short answer, we don't care much _where_ we go,"replied Bob. "There is nothing here for us, and we will go elsewhere.We are going to take the back track."
"Are you not deciding on this matter suddenly?"
"We determined on it yesterday. We decided to go up to the hauntedmine if you came back with a favorable report of the condition ofthings, but you say the lead is played out, and of course that knocksus. Wherever we go, we can't find a much worse place than this."
"Well, boys, I wish you luck, and we'll all go away from here before agreat while."
"Why are you so anxious to find out about where we are going?" askedBob.
"Because I wanted to remind you to keep away from that mine up thegully," answered Banta, looking hard at Bob while he spoke. "The boyshave that mine all to themselves, and we are going to stand by them."
"We have no intention of going near that haunted mine," asserted Bob,rather sullenly. "If those boys have gold, let them keep it."
"All right! Then I have nothing further to say to you."
So saying, Banta turned on his heel and walked away. There was nothinginsulting in what he said, but Bob and his companions knew that he wasin earnest about it. They all kept watch of him as long as he remainedin sight, and then looked at each other with a broad grin on theirfaces.
"I guess Banta didn't make anything by trying to pump me," said Bob."When we get a mile or two down the gully, we'll save what littleprovisions we want, push our horses over the bluff----"
"What do we want to do that for?" exclaimed Claus, in great amazement."Can't we turn them loose?"
"Yes, and have them come back here and join the old bell-mare," saidJake, in disgust. "We have to be in a hurry about what we do, for wemust get a long start of the men here. If our nags appeared among theother horses here, the miners would know we had been fooling them andwould start for the haunted mine at once."
"Couldn't we tie them up?" asked Claus; "or, we could shoot them. Thatwould be an easier way than pushing them over the bluff."
"But there's the report our pistols would make," replied Bob, turningfiercely upon Claus. "The easiest way is the best. Now, if we haveeverything we want, let us dig out from here."
The men in the camp saw them when they mounted their horses andstarted down the gully toward Denver, but there was not one whoshouted a farewell after them. When they disappeared from view, Bantadrew a long breath of relief.
"It is just as well that they took themselves off before we had achance to tell them that their room was better than their company. Ido not like the way they have been acting since they have been here."