The Haunted Mine

by Harry Castlemon

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  "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 lastbucket of earth I sent up?"

  "I have something, and it looks like gold. Wait until I haul thisbucket up, and then I'll send it down for you."

  This conversation took place between Julian and his chum on the thirdmorning after their arrival at the mine. The hole that led into thecave which the lions had made their habitation had been filled up sotight that even a ground-squirrel would have found it a hard task towork his way through; all the little rocks had been cleared away fromthe floor of the pit, making it an easy matter for them to carry theearth in a basket to the bottom of the shaft, and the digging had beengoing on for two days without any signs of "color" rewarding theiranxious gaze. The buckets of dirt, as fast as they were sent up, werewashed in the brook by the aid of a "cradle" which the boys hadbrought with them, but their most persistent "rocking" failed to leavea sediment behind. All the dirt went out with the water, and thecradle was as clean when they got through rocking it as it was beforethey began.

  "I believe the fellow who wrote that letter must have taken all thegold in the mine," remarked Julian, one night, after they had spent ahard day's work at the pit. "Fifty thousand dollars! That's a heap ofmoney to take out of one hole in the ground."

  "I think so myself," replied Jack; "but we will keep it up until ourprovisions are gone, and then we will go back to Dutch Flat."

  But on this particular day Julian, who was washing the dirt at thehead of the shaft, thought he saw some settlings in the bottom of hiscradle, and forthwith began to handle it a little more carefully. Thelonger he rocked the more the sediment grew, until at last he had aspoonful, which he gathered up and then approached the mouth of thepit.

  "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 ironpyrites comes in lumps, don't it? If it does, this is gold, sureenough."

  The boys did not know what to make of it, and they finally decidedthat they would put it away until Mr. Banta came up to see how theywere 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 liketo 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 oftwo weeks, it was almost full.

  "I tell you, Jack, I don't like to show this to Mr. Banta," declaredJulian, holding up the bag, and looking ruefully at it. "Perhaps wehave done all our best digging all for nothing."

  "Well, it can't be helped," was Jack's reply. "They were inexperiencedwhen they first came out here, and there was nobody to tell themwhether they had iron pyrites or gold. But we have done one thing thathe can't laugh at--we have worked the haunted mine."

  Two weeks had never passed so slowly to the boys before. They workedearly and late, but they found time now and then to glance toward theentrance of the valley, to see if Mr. Banta was approaching. All thiswhile the bag grew heavier and fuller, until Julian declared that itwould 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 wehave been so successful in our haunted mine."

  "No matter; such things have happened, and we want to be on the safeside. We must hide it a little way from the lean-to, for there is thefirst place anybody will look for it."

  Julian readily gave in, although he could not see any necessity forit, took a spade, and went with Jack to what he considered to be agood hiding-place. A hole was dug, the bag put in, some leaves werescattered over the spot, and then Jack drew a long breath of relief.

  "One would think we are surrounded by robbers," said Julian. "Who doyou suppose is going to steal it?"

  "I don't know; but I have never had so much money, or what isequivalent to money, in my charge before, and, as I said before, Ithink 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 hewill 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, andJack 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 upto find the miner and his partner, Pete, standing in the entrance tothe 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 youagain!"

  Mr. Banta did not say anything in reply. He and his partner rodeslowly toward them, looking all around, as if they expected todiscover something.

  "Is it the ghosts you are looking for?" asked Jack. "Come along, andwe will show them to you."

  "Boys," stammered Mr. Banta, as if there was something about thematter that looked strange enough to him, "you are still on top ofthe ground. Put it there."

  The boys readily complied, and they thought, by the squeeze the minergave their hands, that he was very much surprised to see them aliveand well, and working their mine as if such things as ghosts had neverbeen 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 ofcompany, but he divested himself of his shirt and turned his back tothe miners. On his shoulder were four big welts, which promised tostay 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 theskins. We have something to prove it."

  The miners followed after the boys, when, as they were about to passtheir pit, Julian said he wanted to see them about something that hadbeen worrying them a good deal ever since they first discovered it.

  "What do you call that?" he asked, gathering up a pinch of thesediment 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 bagfull of that stuff will be worth about ten thousand dollars to you!"

  "We have a bagful of it hidden away," asserted Julian; while Jack wasso overcome with something, he didn't know what, that he sat rightdown on the ground. "Jack thought we had best hide it, but I will getit 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 neversaw 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 atwill,--so much so that they scared away two of the best men we had onDutch Flat,--and then you get the upper hand of the spirits and maketen thousand dollars out of the mine in two weeks! I tell you thatbangs me; don't it you, Pete?"

  Jack came up to take the horses and hitch them to swinging limbs, andMr. Banta turned to Julian and told him he was anxious to see that bagwith the ten thousand dollars in gold in it; whereupon Julian caughtup 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 hauntedgold-mine.

  "There isn't much to tell," said Jack, who, like all modest fel
lows,disliked to talk about himself. "I went down to see what the inside ofthe mine looked like, and one of the lions pitched onto me and I shothim."

  "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 thematter when Julian comes in."

  The skins were rolled up,--they had been stretched on the ground untilthe sun dried them,--but Jack quickly unrolled them, and the minerslooked on as if greatly surprised. They could not understand how oneball, fired in the dark, had finished the lion so speedily.

  "It is a wonder she did not tear you all to pieces," said Pete. "Youmust have made a dead-centre shot."

  The other skin was unrolled, too, and by the time the miners hadexamined 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 Juliantell us about those ghosts."

  "I told you I did not believe in such things," remarked Julian. "Andthe 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 thistime, and so we brought some along. Let the mule go home, if shewants to; she misses that old bell-mare."

  The story which Jack did not tell lost nothing in going throughJulian's hands. He described things as nearly as he could see thembefore Jack's light went out, and told of the lucky shot and thesavage shrieks that came up to him through the pit.

  "Those shrieks were what got next to me," declared Julian, with ashudder. "I can't get them out of my mind yet. I thought that theghost had Jack, sure."

  "Well, go on," said Mr. Banta, when Julian paused. "There were twolions there--how did you get the other one?"

  When Julian told how Jack had taken charge of the matter, and had goneahead in order to hunt up the other ghost, Mr. Banta acted as thoughhe could scarcely believe it; while Pete thrust his spurred heels outbefore him and broke out into a volley of such quaint oaths thatJulian threw back his head and laughed loudly.

  "If you had not done anything else since you have been up here but goto hunt up that lion with revolvers, I should know you weretenderfeet pure and simple," declared Mr. Banta. "Why, boys, that wasthe 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 helpit, and so we had to go and find him."

  "I know some miners down at Dutch Flat who would think twice beforegoing for that lion with their Winchesters," declared Pete, "and youhad nothing but little popguns!"

  "They did the work, anyhow," asserted Julian.

  "Well, boys, you have been very lucky," said Mr. Banta. "Take your bagof 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 areto give him what is in the other bag, and keep still about this fullone."

  Julian's eyes began to open wide as this hint was thrown out. Helooked at Jack, who was by this time engaged in dishing up thedinner; 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 theopportunity?"

  "Who do you think is going to rob us?" asked Julian, as soon as hecould speak.

  "I am sure I don't know; but we have some men down at the Flat whowould not be any too good to come up here and see how you are gettingalong. Of course this thing will get all over the Flat in less thanfive 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 somethingand come up here in a body. But if they do that, then you will besafer than if you were alone."

  "We don't want any truck with such people," declared Jack. "If weshoot as well as we did at the lion that wore that big skin, you willhear 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 adreadful lot of thinking."

  Dinner over, the miners lit their pipes, and then Mr. Banta said theywanted 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," saidhe, as he stepped into the bucket. "You are gradually working your waytoward the ravine, and when you break through the wall, you will findno color there."

  "I don't care," replied Julian. "If it will hold out until we getanother bag filled, that will be all we want. We can say, when we getback to Denver, that we have been in the mines."

  "And had some adventures there, too," remarked Mr. Banta. "Loweraway."

  Julian and Pete followed Mr. Banta down to the bottom of the mine, andJack 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 theywere pulled up, Mr. Banta repeated what he had said before he was letdown, 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 havewho have been on the Flat for two years," said he. "Now, boys, isthere anything we can do for you before we bid you good-bye?"

  No, Julian and Jack could not think of anything they wanted. Theythanked the miners for bringing them some provisions, and offeredpayment on the spot; but Mr. Banta said they would let that go untilthe boys had got through working their mine. They shook them by thehand, wished them all the good luck in the world, turned their facestoward home, and in a few moments the sound of their horses' hoofs onthe rocks had died away in the distance.