The Haunted Mine

"To say that I am disappointed, and angry, too, would not half express my feelings," said he, pulling off his hat with one hand and digging his fingers into his head with the other. "I did not suppose they would send those papers by express, for I know it is something that I would not have done. I would have kept them by me all the while, so that I could see that they were safe. Now, the next thing is to determine upon something else."

"Do you intend to make another effort to get the money?" asked Casper, very much surprised. "Your 'three times and out' did not amount to anything – did it?"

"No, I don't suppose it did," said Claus, who was evidently thinking about something else. "I guess you have done about all you can do, and so you had better go back to St. Louis."

This was nothing more than Casper expected. He had his ten dollars stowed away somewhere about his clothes, together with small sums which he had saved from the amount that Claus had paid him, and so he could pay his way back to St. Louis easily enough; but what should he do when he got there? He shuddered when he thought of it. Here was winter coming on, and unless he should obtain work very soon he would have to go out to where his mother lived, which was all of two hundred and fifty miles from there. And what should he say when he got home? He had gone to St. Louis with big boasts of what he intended to do when he got there, and for him to turn up penniless and friendless at his mother's house was rather more than he had bargained for.

"And what will you do?" asked Casper.

"I haven't had time to think the matter over," said Claus, who was rather surprised that his companion took his discharge, or whatever you might call it, so easily, "but I think I shall go on to Denver."

"And I can't be of any use to you there?"

"No, I don't think you can. I may not be back to the city before next spring."

"I wish you would tell me what you are going to do when you get there. You can't get the box; that will be safe in the bank."

"But perhaps I can pass myself off for Mr. Haberstro. I have some of his cards in my pocket."

"But you will only get yourself into trouble if you try that game. There are people out there who know Haberstro."

"Well, that is so," said Claus, looking reflectively at the ground. "I shall have to think up some way to get around that. At any rate, you cannot be of any further use to me, and so you had better start by the next train."

"Well, you had better give me some money before you turn me off in this way," said Casper. "How am I going to get back to the city without money?"

"Where is that ten dollars you got out of the telegraph office when your time was up?" asked Claus, who did not like it whenever the subject of giving some of his hard earnings was brought up before him. "You have not spent all of that, I know."

"Yes, I have. I have just a quarter, and there it is," said Casper, pulling out of his pocket the coin in question.

"I wish to goodness I had never seen you!" said Claus, shoving his hand into the pocket in which he kept his money. Casper heard the jingling of some silver pieces, and thought that perhaps his companion might be tempted to give him a few dollars. That would be better than nothing, and he would have some money left when he reached St. Louis. "If I had never seen you, I would have more dollars left in my pocket than I have now," said Claus, bringing out a handful of small change.

Casper said nothing in reply. He wanted to see how much Claus was going to give him; and, once he had the money in his hand, he could talk to him as he pleased.

"There are five dollars that I will give you, and you need not ask me for any more," said Claus, counting out the money; "for, if you do, you won't get it."

"I don't know whether five dollars will pay my fare to St. Louis or not," said Casper. "Give me six."

"No, sir; that's all I have to spare. It will take you so close to the city that you can easily walk in," said Claus, turning on his heel and starting toward the town they had just left. "You can walk twenty-five miles very easily."

It was right on the point of Casper's tongue to "open out" on Claus, and give him as good as he sent. Wouldn't he have had more dollars in his pocket if he had never met the man who was anxious at all times to play a game of billiards or pool with him, especially on pay-day, when Casper was known to have money in his pocket? But, on thinking the matter over, he decided that he would say nothing about it. Claus was a pretty big man, and there was no knowing what he would do if the boy made him angrier than he was now.

"He is going to be fooled again," said Casper, as he fell in behind Claus, who walked toward the town as if he were in an awful hurry to get there. "What good will it do him to go on to Denver? He can't get the box there, neither can he cheat Julian out of his money. Julian will find any amount of friends there – I never heard of a boy with a hundred thousand dollars in his pocket who could not find somebody to stand by him – and they will tell him what to do. Oh! why did I make so great a mistake! I ought to have started for Denver the moment I got my hands on that box. Well, I got five dollars out of Claus, anyhow."

Casper sauntered along behind Claus, who was walking rapidly, and when he reached the depot he looked all around for his companion, but failed to see him. Claus had gone off somewhere, and Casper was there alone.

CHAPTER XV

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.

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 Association."

"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," remarked the latter. "I have done it many a time, but I am not going to do it now, when there is no need of it."

"You act as though you had that money in your hands already," retorted Jack. "Now, I'll tell you what's a fact: I am going to have the same trouble with you that I had in St. Louis. There won't be any 'old horse' for you to spend your money on, but you will squander it in some other way."

"You will see," said Julian, with a laugh. "Come on, now; I am going to get a saddle-horse – one that can take me out there in an hour."

Jack reluctantly yielded to his companion, who made his way toward a livery-stable which he had seen when they came to their boarding-house. There they engaged a couple of saddle-horses which seemed to know what they were expected to do, for when allowed the rein they put off toward the mountains, and went along at a brisk pace. Jack could not get over grumbling about hiring horses to do what they could do themselves, but Julian did not pay the least attention to it. When they had gone a long distance on the road they met a teamster, and of him Jack inquired how many miles they had yet to travel to reach their destination.

"Them mountains?" asked the man, facing about in his seat. "They are a matter of six miles from here."

"If I had a good start for a run I believe I could jump that far," said Jack.

"Yes, it does look that way," said the man; "but it would be a mighty lengthy jump for you. I guess you are a tenderfoot – ain't you?"

"I never was so far West as this in my life."

The man had evidently heard all that he wanted to hear, for he started his team, smiling and nodding his head as if to say that Jack would learn more about distances on the prairie before he had been there long.

The distance was fully as great as the boys expected to find it; and, when they drew up in front of a little hotel in the foothills, the mountains seemed to be as far off as ever. The proprietor came to the door, bid them good-morning in his cheery way, and asked if there was anything that he could do for them.

"How far off are those peaks from here?" questioned Jack.

"Twenty miles," said the man. "You are not going out there to-day, are you?"

"Why, the folks in Denver told us that the mountains were twelve miles away," said Jack, greatly surprised.

"Well, you are twelve miles from Denver now. These little hills here are the beginning of the mountains."

"I guess you may feed our horses and give us some dinner, and then we will go back," said Julian. "Well, Jack, we've seen the mountains."

"Yes, and laid out six dollars for the horses besides," replied Jack, in disgust. "The next time you want anything to carry you, we will go on foot."

The man laughed heartily as he took charge of their horses, and the boys went into the hotel, where they found a fire on the hearth, and were glad to draw up close to it.

"I declare, I did not know it was so cold," said Julian. "I suppose it is warm enough in St. Louis. How high is that city above the sea-level?"

"I don't know," answered Jack, who could not get over the feeling that those people in Denver had played too much on his credulity. "Twenty miles! I guess we won't go up to the top of those mountains, yet a while, and look for California. I wish those horses were back in the stable where they belong."

"We will have them back there in three hours," answered Julian, "and if you don't want me to hire any more horses, I won't do it."

The boys got back to Denver without any mishap, and after that they were eager to see the city. Jack did not have anything to grumble about during the week that followed, for they went on foot, and there were no horses hired. Finally, after viewing all the fine buildings that were to be seen, they thought of the telegraph operator, and decided to take him in the next day; so on Monday they presented themselves at his office. Mr. Fay was there; and, unlike Mr. Wiggins, he did not seem to have much to do, for he was sitting in an easy-chair, with his feet perched upon the desk in front of him, playing with a paper-cutter. The boy who came forward to attend to their wants seemed to have made up his mind that Mr. Fay was the man they wanted to see, and so he conducted them into his private office.

"Halloo! boys," he cried, taking down his feet and pushing chairs toward them; "you are here yet, are you? Have you been out to look at your gold-mine?"

"No, sir," replied Julian; "we could hardly go out there and come back in a week – could we?"

"No, I don't believe you could. I have been thinking about you," continued Mr. Fay, depositing his feet on the desk once more, "and if you know when you are well off you won't go out there this fall. I was talking with a man who has come in from Dutch Flat, and he says it is getting most too cold up there to suit him. He has made a heap of money, and has come here to spend it. I suppose that is what you will be doing when you get to work out there – make all you want in summer, and come here in winter and spend it."

"No, sir," asserted Julian, emphatically; "we have worked hard for what little money we have, and we know how to take care of it. I thought it would not make any difference to us how cold it was if we were working under the ground; I thought you said something like that."