The Haunted Mine

"Be sure you make as good a shot as you did before," whispered Julian, whose face was as pale as Jack's was when he pulled him out of the pit. "It's a matter of life and death with us."

The revolvers cracked in quick succession, raising an echo that almost deafened them. Without a moment's delay they fired again, then threw themselves prone upon the floor of the cave, for they saw the lion coming. He had evidently got all ready for a spring, and when the first two bullets struck him he made it, jumping over them and landing in the pit beyond. The moment he touched the ground two more balls went into him, and then the boys jumped to their feet; for they did not want the lion to spring upon them while lying down. But the animal made no effort to recover his feet; he was too badly hurt for that. He struggled frantically, springing from the ground as high as the boys' heads, and his motions were so quick and rapid that there was no chance to shoot him again; but this lasted only for a few seconds. His struggles grew weaker, and he soon lay upon the floor, stone dead.

"There, sir," said Julian, who was the first to speak; "this is a haunted mine no longer. Our little 44-caliber revolvers did as good work as Banta would have done with his Winchester."

"Whew! I am glad it is all over, and that we were not frightened out of coming here. I don't believe in ghosts, anyway."

"How do you account for that man in the mine up the country who always gets farther and farther away every time anybody tries to touch him?" asked Julian.

"I believe that story originated in the minds of some miners who were afraid to go there. And as for their shooting at him, I don't take any stock in that, either. Now, I will finish what I was going to say when the old gentleman came in and interrupted me. After I have killed these cubs, we will go to work and fill this cave so full of the rocks which some of the miners have left scattered about that there won't be a chance for any other animal to make a commotion in this mine."

The work of dispatching the cubs was very soon accomplished, and then the boys wanted to get the lions above ground, so that they could see how they looked. But when they undertook to lift the "old gentleman," to carry him to the bucket, they found they had more than they could do; so they each took hold of a hind leg and dragged him to the shaft. When they came to put him in, they saw there was not room enough for the cubs, for the bucket would not hold any more.

"I'll go up and haul the old fellow out," said Jack. "I tell you, he is big enough to scare anybody – is he not?"

"Yes," answered Julian, with a laugh; "and if we had been frightened away, and somebody else had found out that they were lions, and not unearthly spirits, it would have been all over Denver inside of a month."

Jack, who said he thought that was so, seized the rope and began working his way toward the top. Then the bucket began to move, and presently Julian saw it go out over the top. In a few minutes Jack came down again, and they got the mother of the family ready to be hoisted up. Julian went up this time, tumbled the lion out beside his mate, and let down the bucket for the dead cubs and Jack, who, when he stepped out, found Julian with his hat off and drawing his shirt-sleeves across his forehead.

"I tell you, Jack, if the dirt you send up weighs as much as these ghosts did, the one who pulls it out will have the hardest part of the work," said Julian. "Now let us sit down and take a good look at them."

The longer the boys looked, the larger seemed to grow the animals that had created so great an uproar in the country for miles around. They regretted they had not brought a tape-line with them, that they might take measurements; but they came to one conclusion – if they found an animal like either of those in the mountains, they would give it a wide berth. They had read of encounters with them by men, and during their stay in Denver had listened to some thrilling stories, told by miners, of their fierceness, and they decided that those men had more pluck than they had.

"Let us take the skins off, and by that time it will be night," said Julian. "We can fill up the hole to-morrow."

"I don't know how to go to work at it – do you?" asked Jack, taking off his hat and scratching his head. "I never did such a piece of business in my life."

"We are not going to take them off with the intention of selling them; we are going to show them to the miners. If we tell them our story without anything to show for it, they will think we are trying to shoot with a long bow. If we make a few holes in the skins by a slip of our knives, who cares?"

The boys went to work on the cubs first, one holding the hind legs and the other doing the skinning, and they got along so well with them that they went to work on the big ones with more confidence. By the time it grew dark the skins were removed, and the carcasses were dragged away and thrown into the ravine. Then the boys began supper with light hearts. The mystery of the haunted mine had been unearthed, and Julian and Jack were ready to dig up the treasure – that is, if there was any there waiting for them.

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 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.

CHAPTER XXV

CLAUS, AGAIN

"There!" said Mr. Solomon Claus, as he entered at a fast walk the railroad depot, passed through it, and took up the first back street that he came to; "I guess I have got rid of him. Now, the next thing is to go somewhere and sit down and think about it."

Claus kept a good watch of the buildings as he passed along, and at last saw a hotel, into which he turned. He bought a cigar at the bar, and, drawing a chair in front of one of the windows, sat down to meditate on his future course; for this German was not in the habit of giving up a thing upon which he had set his mind, although he might fail in every attempt he undertook. He had set his heart upon having a portion of that money that Julian had come into by accident, and, although something had happened to upset his calculations, he was not done with it yet.

"That was a sharp trick, sending off the box by express, when they might as well have carried its contents in their valises," said Claus, settling down in his chair and keeping his eyes fastened upon the railroad depot. "Wiggins was at the bottom of that, for I don't believe the boys would ever have thought of it. I wonder how they felt when they found their valises gone? Now, the next thing is something else. Shall I go home, get my clothes, and spend the winter in Denver, or shall I go home and stay there? That's a question that cannot be decided in a minute."

While Claus was endeavoring to come to some conclusion on these points he saw Casper Nevins coming along the railroad and entering the depot. By keeping a close watch of the windows he discovered him pass toward the ticket office, where he made known his wants, and presently Claus saw him put a ticket into his pocket.

"So far, so good," muttered Claus, as he arose from his chair. "I guess I might as well get on the train with him, for I must go to St. Louis anyhow. Perhaps something will occur to me in the meantime."

Casper was sitting on a bench, with his hands clasped and his chin resting on his breast, wondering what in the world he was going to do when he got back to St. Louis, when he heard Claus's step on the floor. He first had an idea that he would not speak to him at all; but Solomon acted in such a friendly manner, when he met him, that he could not fail to accost him with.

"You were trying to shake me, were you?"

"Shake you! my dear fellow," exclaimed Claus, as if he were profoundly astonished. "Such a thing never entered my head! I simply wanted to get away by myself and think the matter over. Have a cigar."

"I don't want it!" declared Casper, when Claus laid it down upon his knee. "I don't believe I shall want many cigars or anything else very long."

"Disappointed over not finding that wealth, were you?" asked Claus, in a lower tone. "Well, I was disappointed myself, and for a time I did not want to see you or anybody else. I have wasted a heap of hard-earned dollars upon that 'old horse.'"

"Have you given it up, too?" inquired Casper.

"What else can I do? Of course I have given it up. I will go back home again and settle down to my humdrum life, and I shall never get over moaning about that hundred thousand dollars we have lost."

"Do you think we tried every plan to get it?"

"Every one that occurred to me. They have it, and that is all there is to it. What are you going to do when you get back to St. Louis?" inquired Claus, for that was a matter in which he was very much interested. He was not going to have Casper hanging onto him; on that he was determined.

"I suppose I shall have to do as others do who are without work," replied Casper. "I shall go around to every store, and ask them if they want a boy who isn't above doing anything that will bring him his board and clothes. I wish I had my old position back; I'll bet you that I would try to keep it."

"That is the best wish you have made in a long time," said Claus, placing his hand on Casper's shoulder. "If I was back there, with my money in my pocket, I would not care if every one of the express boys would come and shove an 'old horse' at me. I tell you, 'honesty is the best policy.'"

Casper was almost ready to believe that Claus had repented of his bargain, but he soon became suspicious of him again. That was a queer phrase to come from the lips of a man who believed in cheating or lying for the purpose of making a few dollars by it. For want of something better to do, he took up the cigar which Claus had laid upon his knee and proceeded to light it.

"Well, I guess I'll go and get a ticket," remarked Claus, after a little pause. "I don't know how soon that train will be along."

"'Honesty is the best policy,' is it?" mused Casper, watching Claus as he took up his stand in the door and looked away down the railroad. "Some people would believe him, but I have known him too long for that. I wish I knew what he has in his head. He is going to try to get his hands on that 'old horse'; and if he does, I hope he will fail, just as we have done. He need not think that I am going to hold fast to him. I have had one lesson through him, and that is enough."