HOW A MINE WAS HAUNTED.
"Well, boys," said Mr. Fay, when they had reached the street and were
walking toward their hotel, "I have somehow taken a great interest in
you, and I am anxious to see you come out all right. It is the most
remarkable thing I ever heard of. You did not know what was in that
box when you bought it, did you?"
"No, sir," replied Julian; "it was all sealed up. The auctioneer said
something about a miner having hidden the secret of a gold-mine in it,
and I bought it for thirty cents."
"The auctioneer happened to hit the matter right on the head. I will
go with you in search of a cheaper boarding-house than the one at
which you are now stopping, and you had better remain there until Mr.
Gibson hears from those people in St. Louis. That will be two weeks,
probably. If, at any time, you grow weary of walking about our city,
looking at what little there is worth seeing, come down to the office,
and we'll sit there and swap a few lies."
Mr. Fay continued to talk in this way while they were walking along
the streets, meanwhile turning several corners, and the longer he
talked the more the boys saw the traits of his Western character
sticking out all over him. He talked like a gentleman, and then
spoiled it all by remarking that they would "swap a few lies" when
they came around to his office. He had probably been out West so long
that he had become accustomed to Western ways of conversation.
At length Mr. Fay turned off from the sidewalk, ascended the steps
that led to the door of a house, saying, as he did so, "Now we will go
in here and see what we can do," and rang the door-bell. It was a very
different-looking house from the one they had been in the habit of
living in when in St. Louis. There were no broken-down doors to be
opened before they went in, nor any rickety steps to be climbed, but
everything was neat and trim, and kept in perfect order. A
motherly-looking old lady answered Mr. Fay's pull at the bell.
"Ah! good-morning, Mrs. Rutherford," was the way in which Mr. Fay
greeted her. "Let me introduce Julian Gray and John Sheldon. They are
looking around for a cheap boarding-house,--not too cheap, mind
you,--and I have called to see if you have any place in which to hang
them up for the night."
Mrs. Rutherford was glad to meet Julian and Jack, invited them into
the parlor, and asked them if they wanted a room together. The boys
replied that they did, and she conducted them upstairs, to show them a
room that was vacant. They were gone not more than five minutes, and
when they came downstairs again Mrs. Rutherford was putting some bills
away in her pocket-book, and the boys acted as though they were well
satisfied.
"Well, you have found a place, have you?" said Mr. Fay. "Have you
jotted down the street and number?"
No, the boys had not thought of that, and Julian quickly pulled his
note-book from his pocket.
"Your city is somewhat larger than we expected to find it," began
Julian.
"You don't find many wigwams around here now," answered Mr. Fay. "We
keep spreading out all the time. Can you boys find the way back to
your hotel?"
Julian and Jack thought they could find it if they were given time
enough, but Mr. Fay thought he had better go with them. It was right
on the road to his office, and he walked off so rapidly that his young
companions were obliged to increase their speed in order to keep up
with him. Before they had gone a great way, Julian, who was anxious to
learn all he could about their surroundings, asked how far it was to
the mountains behind them. Mr. Fay had evidently answered such
questions before, for all he said in reply was,
"How far do you think it is?"
"I think two miles would cover the distance," he answered, for he was
determined he would guess enough while he was about it.
"How far do _you_ say it is, John?" said Mr. Fay, turning to Jack.
"I would rather be excused from expressing an opinion, but I think we
could walk out there in two hours."
"And come back the same day?"
"Why, yes; certainly."
"Now, let me tell you," said Mr. Fay: "If you have made up your minds
to go out to the mountains, hire a good, fast walking-horse, and go
out one day and come back the next."
"Is it as far as that?" exclaimed the boys, looking at each other with
amazement.
"It is all of twelve miles. You must take into consideration that the
air is very rare up here, and that things appear nearer than they are.
You are 5135 feet above the level of the sea."
"My goodness! I didn't think we were so far out of the world!"
"We have awfully uncertain weather here," continued Mr. Fay, "but
still we regard our climate as healthy. Our thermometer sometimes
changes as much as forty degrees in twenty-four hours. Since
Professor Loomis took charge of the matter, the mercury has changed
forty-five times in one day. What sort of a place did you expect to
find Denver, anyway?"
"Well, I did not know what sort of a place it was," said Julian. "We
thought we should find more wigwams here than houses, and you can't
imagine how surprised we were when we found ourselves in a depot full
of people."
"Denver used to be full of wigwams, but it is not so now. Until the
year 1858 the Indians lived in peace; but in that year gold was
discovered by W. G. Russell, a Georgian, on the banks of the river
Platte, which is but a little way from here, and that settled the
business of the Indians in a hurry. Denver, Black Hawk, Golden City,
and many other cities that I can't think of now, were founded in 1859,
and a host of immigrants appeared. Since that time we have been
spreading out, as I told you, until we have a pretty good-sized city."
"It shows what Western men can do when they once set about it," said
Jack. "Now, answer another question while you are about it, if you
please. If the mercury changes forty degrees in twenty-four hours,
working in the mines must be dangerous business."
"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 nobody 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.