The Haunted Mine Part 20

"That depends upon where you are working," said Mr. Fay. "If you are at work in a placer-mine, you stand a good chance of leaving your bones up there for somebody to bring home; but if you are working under the ground, it does not make any difference. Are you thinking of going out to Dutch Flat to try your hand at it? I don't know where that is, but you can find plenty of men here who can tell you."

"I have not said anything to Julian about it, but I think that would be one of the best things we could do. You see, we are not settled in that property yet."

"I see," said Mr. Fay. "Gibson may get word from those fellows in St.

Louis that you are impostors, and that you stole that box instead of buying it at a sale of 'old horse.' That would be rough on you."

The boys did not know how to take this remark. They looked at Mr. Fay, but he was walking along as usual, with his hands in his pockets, bowing right and left to the many persons he met on the streets, and did not seem to think anything of it. Perhaps it was his ordinary style of talking.

"I am not at all afraid of that," remarked Jack. "If he finds us impostors, we are willing to go to jail."

Mr. Fay threw back his head and laughed heartily.

"I have no idea of anything of the kind," said he, as soon as he could speak. "I was just wondering what you would think of it. But what were you going to say?"

"This property is not settled on us yet," replied Jack, "and we may want something to keep us in grub while we are here. We have a perfect right to work that mine, have we not?"

"If you can find it--yes. Go up there, and if n.o.body else is working it, pitch in and take fifty thousand dollars more out of it."

"And what will we do if somebody else is working it?"

"You had better give up to them, unless you think you are strong enough to get the better of them. But you need not worry about that.

The mine is haunted, and you won't catch any of the miners going around where ghosts are."

"Who do you suppose are haunting it?" asked Julian. "That letter says the writer worked the mine alone, and took lots of money out of it, and never saw a thing to frighten him."

"Perhaps somebody has been murdered up there; I don't know. You won't see anything until you get down in the mine, and then you want to look out. I heard of a mine up at Gold Cove that was haunted in that way.

There were a dozen miners tried it, and each one came away without getting anything, although the gold was lying on top of the ground. As often as a miner went below (it was about thirty feet down to the bottom), he was sure to see somebody at work there before him. He was picking with a tool at the bottom of the shaft in order to loosen it up, accompanying every blow he made with a sonorous 'whiz!' which showed that he was an Irishman. Some of the miners retreated to their bucket and signaled to their helper to pull them up, and you couldn't hire them to go into the mine again. Others, with a little more bravery than they had, went up to put their hands on the man, but as fast as they advanced he retreated; and when they got to the end of the shaft, the phantom miner was still ahead, and picking away as fast as ever."

"Then the mine is deserted?"

"Yes, and has been for years. It is one of the richest mines around here, too."

"Why, I should think somebody would shoot him," said Jack.

"Shoot him! He has been shot at more times than anybody could count; but he pays no attention to it. He is a ghost, and he knows you can't hurt him. I never saw it, and, what is more, I don't want to; but I would not go down into that mine for all the gold there is in the hills."

"Did anybody think a murder had been committed somewhere around there?" said Julian.

"I never heard that there was."

"Well, I just wish our mine would be haunted with something like that," said Jack. "I would find out what he was, and what business he had there, or I would know the reason why."

"Well, you may have a chance to try it. Does this look like your hotel? Now I will bid you good-bye, and I will see you again to-morrow, if you come around."

Mr. Fay departed, taking with him the hearty thanks of the boys for all his kindness and courtesy, and then they slowly ascended the steps to the office. They had secured one thing by his attentions to them--a boarding-house at which the money they had in their pockets would keep them safely for a month, if it took Mr. Gibson that long to hear from St. Louis; but, on the whole, Jack wished Mr. Fay had not used his Western phraseology so freely.

"Does he want us to work that mine or not?" asked Jack.

"I don't know. He talked pretty readily, did he not?"

"I wonder if that is the way all Westerners talk? Did he scare you out of going up there to that mine?"

"No, sir," replied Julian, emphatically. "Do you know that I rather like that man? He reminds me of Mr. Wiggins, and talks exactly like him."

"What do you suppose it was that those fellows saw in that mine?"

"I give it up. Some of these Western men are good shots with a revolver, and it seems to me they might have struck the fellow if they had had a fair chance at him."

"But he was a ghost, you know."

"Oh, get out! If they saw him there, you can bet that there _was_ somebody there. Some of the miners had their minds all made up to see something, and of course they saw it."

"But how do you account for that 'whiz!' that he uttered every time he struck with his pick?"

"They never heard any 'whiz!' coming from that man; they only imagined it."

"Do you think their ears could be deceived, as well as their eyes?"

"Jack, I am surprised at you. You are big enough and strong enough to whip any ghost that I ever saw, and yet you are afraid to go down in that mine!"

"Wait until we find it, and then I'll show you whether I am afraid or not. Now, if you will go on and pay our bill and have our trunk brought down, I'll go and get a carriage."

In five minutes this was done, and the boys were soon on their way to their boarding-house.

CHAPTER XVI.

GOOD NEWS.

For a week after Julian and Jack went to their new boarding-house they had much to occupy their attention--so much, indeed, they did not think of going down to the telegraph office and "swapping a few lies"

with the chief operator. Their new home charmed them in every particular. Mr. Fay had not forgotten that _he_ had been a boy in the not so very long ago, and the boarding-house he had chosen for them was such as he would have chosen for himself. The boarders were young men who, like themselves, had come out West to seek their fortunes, and they were all employed in various avocations in the city. Jack noticed one thing, and that was they did not run around of evenings to any extent; or, if they did, they went down to the library, where they spent their time in reading.

"Do you know that that is something that strikes me," said Jack one night when they went upstairs to their room. "We ought to join the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation."

"Have you forgotten our mine?" asked Julian.

"No, I have not; but I don't believe in going up there in winter. A thermometer that can change so many times within twenty-four hours is something that I want to keep clear of."

"Well, where is the money to come from?"

"Humph!" said Jack, who had not thought of that before; "that's so.

Where is it?"

The first thing the boys thought of, when they got up the next morning, was to take a trip to the mountains. Jack was in favor of walking. It was only twelve miles, and the amount they would have to pay out for a horse would keep one of them a week at their boarding-house. But Julian could not see it in that light.

"I tell you, you have never walked twenty-four miles in a day,"