"THAT IS GOLD."
"Jack, come up here; I have something to show you."
"What is it? Have you made yourself rich by washing out the last
bucket of earth I sent up?"
"I have something, and it looks like gold. Wait until I haul this
bucket up, and then I'll send it down for you."
This conversation took place between Julian and his chum on the third
morning after their arrival at the mine. The hole that led into the
cave which the lions had made their habitation had been filled up so
tight that even a ground-squirrel would have found it a hard task to
work his way through; all the little rocks had been cleared away from
the floor of the pit, making it an easy matter for them to carry the
earth in a basket to the bottom of the shaft, and the digging had been
going on for two days without any signs of "color" rewarding their
anxious gaze. The buckets of dirt, as fast as they were sent up, were
washed in the brook by the aid of a "cradle" which the boys had
brought with them, but their most persistent "rocking" failed to leave
a sediment behind. All the dirt went out with the water, and the
cradle was as clean when they got through rocking it as it was before
they began.
"I believe the fellow who wrote that letter must have taken all the
gold in the mine," remarked Julian, one night, after they had spent a
hard day's work at the pit. "Fifty thousand dollars! That's a heap of
money to take out of one hole in the ground."
"I think so myself," replied Jack; "but we will keep it up until our
provisions are gone, and then we will go back to Dutch Flat."
But on this particular day Julian, who was washing the dirt at the
head of the shaft, thought he saw some settlings in the bottom of his
cradle, and forthwith began to handle it a little more carefully. The
longer he rocked the more the sediment grew, until at last he had a
spoonful, which he gathered up and then approached the mouth of the
pit.
"If you have any gold to show me I'll come up before the bucket does,"
declared Jack; "the bucket can wait."
"I have enough here to buy another block of houses," exclaimed Julian,
as Jack's head and shoulders appeared. "What do you think of that?"
"Is it gold or not?" asked Jack, who was inclined to be suspicious.
"Maybe it is some of that iron that Mr. Banta told us about."
"That is just what I was afraid of," said Julian; "but I reckon iron
pyrites comes in lumps, don't it? If it does, this is gold, sure
enough."
The boys did not know what to make of it, and they finally decided
that they would put it away until Mr. Banta came up to see how they
were getting along, which he had agreed to do at the end of two weeks.
The boys spoke of their "find" as iron pyrites, for they did not like
to think they would be lucky enough to dig gold out of the ground,
and this was not the only spoonful of dust that went into their bag.
The bag grew in size as the days wore on, and finally, at the end of
two weeks, it was almost full.
"I tell you, Jack, I don't like to show this to Mr. Banta," declared
Julian, holding up the bag, and looking ruefully at it. "Perhaps we
have done all our best digging all for nothing."
"Well, it can't be helped," was Jack's reply. "They were inexperienced
when they first came out here, and there was nobody to tell them
whether they had iron pyrites or gold. But we have done one thing that
he can't laugh at--we have worked the haunted mine."
Two weeks had never passed so slowly to the boys before. They worked
early and late, but they found time now and then to glance toward the
entrance of the valley, to see if Mr. Banta was approaching. All this
while the bag grew heavier and fuller, until Julian declared that it
would not hold another spoonful.
"Then we must tie it up tight and hide it somewhere," said Jack.
"What is the use of hiding it?" asked Julian. "Nobody knows that we
have been so successful in our haunted mine."
"No matter; such things have happened, and we want to be on the safe
side. We must hide it a little way from the lean-to, for there is the
first place anybody will look for it."
Julian readily gave in, although he could not see any necessity for
it, took a spade, and went with Jack to what he considered to be a
good hiding-place. A hole was dug, the bag put in, some leaves were
scattered over the spot, and then Jack drew a long breath of relief.
"One would think we are surrounded by robbers," said Julian. "Who do
you suppose is going to steal it?"
"I don't know; but I have never had so much money, or what is
equivalent to money, in my charge before, and, as I said before, I
think it best to be on the safe side."
"Our two weeks have passed, and Mr. Banta ought to be here to-morrow,"
observed Julian, leading the way back to the lean-to. "I expect he
will look for us to be all chawed up."
The very next day Mr. Banta appeared. The boys had found an extra
"find" that morning. Julian was rocking the cradle back and forth, and
Jack was leaning over his shoulder to see what gold there was in it,
when they heard the sound of horses' hoofs on the rocks, and looked up
to find the miner and his partner, Pete, standing in the entrance to
the valley.
"Now we will soon have this thing cleared up," exclaimed Julian,
joyfully. "Mr. Banta, you don't know how glad we are to see you
again!"
Mr. Banta did not say anything in reply. He and his partner rode
slowly toward them, looking all around, as if they expected to
discover something.
"Is it the ghosts you are looking for?" asked Jack. "Come along, and
we will show them to you."
"Boys," stammered Mr. Banta, as if there was something about the
matter that looked strange enough to him, "you are still on top of
the ground. Put it there."
The boys readily complied, and they thought, by the squeeze the miner
gave their hands, that he was very much surprised to see them alive
and well, and working their mine as if such things as ghosts had never
been heard of.
"Did you see them?" he continued.
"You are right, we did," answered Julian. "Jack, pull off your shirt.
He has some marks that he will carry to his grave."
Jack did not much like the idea of disrobing in the presence of
company, but he divested himself of his shirt and turned his back to
the miners. On his shoulder were four big welts, which promised to
stay there as long as he lived.
"It was a lion!" exclaimed Mr. Banta.
"That is just what it was. Now come with me and I will show you the
skins. We have something to prove it."
The miners followed after the boys, when, as they were about to pass
their pit, Julian said he wanted to see them about something that had
been worrying them a good deal ever since they first discovered it.
"What do you call that?" he asked, gathering up a pinch of the
sediment that still remained in the cradle.
"Good gracious! Do you gather much of this stuff?" exclaimed Mr.
Banta, who was all excitement now.
"It is not iron pyrites, is it?"
"Iron your grandmother!" retorted Mr. Banta. "It is gold, and a bag
full of that stuff will be worth about ten thousand dollars to you!"
"We have a bagful of it hidden away," asserted Julian; while Jack was
so overcome with something, he didn't know what, that he sat right
down on the ground. "Jack thought we had best hide it, but I will get
it and show it to you."
"Well, well! this beats anything in the world that I ever heard of!
Don't it you, Pete?" asked Mr. Banta, dismounting from his horse.
"Here's you two, come out here as tenderfeet from St. Louis, who never
saw or heard of a gold-mine before, and you come up to this pit,
which has all manner of ghosts and other things wandering about it at
will,--so much so that they scared away two of the best men we had on
Dutch Flat,--and then you get the upper hand of the spirits and make
ten thousand dollars out of the mine in two weeks! I tell you that
bangs me; don't it you, Pete?"
Jack came up to take the horses and hitch them to swinging limbs, and
Mr. Banta turned to Julian and told him he was anxious to see that bag
with the ten thousand dollars in gold in it; whereupon Julian caught
up a spade and hurried out, and Jack, who had returned to the lean-to,
was told to sit down and tell them the story about the haunted
gold-mine.
"There isn't much to tell," said Jack, who, like all modest fellows,
disliked to talk about himself. "I went down to see what the inside of
the mine looked like, and one of the lions pitched onto me and I shot
him."
"There's more in the story than that comes to," declared Mr. Banta.
"Let us go out and look at the skins; we will hear the straight of the
matter when Julian comes in."
The skins were rolled up,--they had been stretched on the ground until
the sun dried them,--but Jack quickly unrolled them, and the miners
looked on as if greatly surprised. They could not understand how one
ball, fired in the dark, had finished the lion so speedily.
"It is a wonder she did not tear you all to pieces," said Pete. "You
must have made a dead-centre shot."
The other skin was unrolled, too, and by the time the miners had
examined it to their satisfaction Julian came up with the bag. Mr.
Banta untied it, and one look was enough.
"That is gold," said he; "there is no iron pyrites about that. Now,
Jack, you go on and get dinner for us, and we will listen while Julian
tell us about those ghosts."
"I told you I did not believe in such things," remarked Julian. "And
the whole thing has come out just as I said it would."
"What have you in this pack?" asked Jack. "It looks like provisions."
"That is just what it is. We thought you must be nearly out by this
time, and so we brought some along. Let the mule go home, if she
wants to; she misses that old bell-mare."
The story which Jack did not tell lost nothing in going through
Julian's hands. He described things as nearly as he could see them
before Jack's light went out, and told of the lucky shot and the
savage shrieks that came up to him through the pit.
"Those shrieks were what got next to me," declared Julian, with a
shudder. "I can't get them out of my mind yet. I thought that the
ghost had Jack, sure."
"Well, go on," said Mr. Banta, when Julian paused. "There were two
lions there--how did you get the other one?"
When Julian told how Jack had taken charge of the matter, and had gone
ahead in order to hunt up the other ghost, Mr. Banta acted as though
he could scarcely believe it; while Pete thrust his spurred heels out
before him and broke out into a volley of such quaint oaths that
Julian threw back his head and laughed loudly.
"If you had not done anything else since you have been up here but go
to hunt up that lion with revolvers, I should know you were
tenderfeet pure and simple," declared Mr. Banta. "Why, boys, that was
the most dangerous thing you ever did!"
"Well, we did not know what else to do," explained Julian, modestly.
"Jack said the lion would not let us work the mine if he could help
it, and so we had to go and find him."
"I know some miners down at Dutch Flat who would think twice before
going for that lion with their Winchesters," declared Pete, "and you
had nothing but little popguns!"
"They did the work, anyhow," asserted Julian.
"Well, boys, you have been very lucky," said Mr. Banta. "Take your bag
of dust and hide it where nobody will ever think of looking for it.
And remember--if any person comes here and asks you for money, you are
to give him what is in the other bag, and keep still about this full
one."
Julian's eyes began to open wide as this hint was thrown out. He
looked at Jack, who was by this time engaged in dishing up the
dinner; but the latter only shook his head at him, as if to say,
"Didn't I say we had better hide that gold while we had the
opportunity?"
"Who do you think is going to rob us?" asked Julian, as soon as he
could speak.
"I am sure I don't know; but we have some men down at the Flat who
would not be any too good to come up here and see how you are getting
along. Of course this thing will get all over the Flat in less than
five minutes after we get there. We must tell just how we found you;
for, if we try to keep it secret, the miners will suspect something
and come up here in a body. But if they do that, then you will be
safer than if you were alone."
"We don't want any truck with such people," declared Jack. "If we
shoot as well as we did at the lion that wore that big skin, you will
hear something drop. Now sit up and eat some dinner."
"Jack, I believe you have the most pluck," said Pete.
"He has it all," replied Julian. "He don't say much, but he keeps up a
dreadful lot of thinking."
Dinner over, the miners lit their pipes, and then Mr. Banta said they
wanted to go down into the mine to see how it looked.
"It is my opinion that you won't get much more gold out of here," said
he, as he stepped into the bucket. "You are gradually working your way
toward the ravine, and when you break through the wall, you will find
no color there."
"I don't care," replied Julian. "If it will hold out until we get
another bag filled, that will be all we want. We can say, when we get
back to Denver, that we have been in the mines."
"And had some adventures there, too," remarked Mr. Banta. "Lower
away."
Julian and Pete followed Mr. Banta down to the bottom of the mine, and
Jack stayed up above to manage the bucket. They were gone a long time,
for Julian was obliged to tell his story over again; and, when they
were pulled up, Mr. Banta repeated what he had said before he was let
down, namely, that the boys had about reached the end of their vein.
"But even with these bags full, you have got more than some men have
who have been on the Flat for two years," said he. "Now, boys, is
there anything we can do for you before we bid you good-bye?"
No, Julian and Jack could not think of anything they wanted. They
thanked the miners for bringing them some provisions, and offered
payment on the spot; but Mr. Banta said they would let that go until
the boys had got through working their mine. They shook them by the
hand, wished them all the good luck in the world, turned their faces
toward home, and in a few moments the sound of their horses' hoofs on
the rocks had died away in the distance.