CHAPTER XXII.

THE HAUNTED MINE.

Mr. Banta kept his word the next morning, for the day was just beginning to break when he rolled out on the floor and gave the order to "Catch up." All the miners were astir soon afterward; but there was no joking or laughing going on in the camp, as there usually was. The men went silently about their work of cooking breakfast, or sat smoking their pipes in front of the fire, for their thoughts were busy with that mine up in the mountains. Even the talkative Mr. Banta had nothing to say. He seemed to have run short of stories, all on a sudden.

"Say, Julian," remarked Jack, as they stood by the stream washing their hands and faces, "why don't Banta talk to us the way he usually does? I'll bet he is thinking about what is going to happen to us."

"I was just thinking that way myself," replied Julian. "But we have gone too far to back out; we have got to go on."

"Of course we have. I wouldn't back out now for anything."

Breakfast was cooked and eaten, and the same silence prevailed; and that same silence did more to shake the boys' courage than all that had been said against their mine. Mr. Banta answered their questions in monosyllables, and when he had satisfied his appet.i.te he put the dishes away unwashed and went out to catch his horse.

"Take hold of the bell-mare and lead her up the path," said he, addressing the miners who were getting ready to accompany him. "We have to take her and all the stock along, or the boys' pack-horse won't budge an inch."

The miners were talkative enough now, when they saw the boys getting ready to start on their journey. They crowded around them, and each one shook them by the hand.

"Good-bye! kids," said one. "The next time I see you, you will be so badly scared that you won't be able to tell what happened to you up there; or, I sha'n't see you at all. I wish you all the good luck in the world, but I know that will not amount to anything."

"Do you think they can whip all these men?" asked Jack, running his eye over the miners, who were getting on their horses and making ready to go with Mr. Banta.

"That ain't the thing; you won't see anybody; but the sounds you will hear when you get fairly on the floor of that pit you will never want to hear again."

The bell-mare was caught and led along the path, the stock all followed after her, and the miners brought up the rear. Then Mr. Banta opened his mouth and proceeded to talk all the way to the mine.

"You boys may come along here pretty sudden, some time, and if you don't find Dutch Flat you will stray off into the mountains and get lost; so I will just blaze the way for you."

As Mr. Banta spoke he seized a handful of the branches of an evergreen and pulled them partly off, so that they just hung by the bark.

"Now, whenever you see that, you are on the right road," said he; "but if you don't see it, you had better turn back and search for a blaze until you find it."

For once the boys did not pay much attention to Mr. Banta's stories, for their minds were fully occupied with their own thoughts. At last--it did not seem to them that they had ridden a mile--the man with the bell-mare sung out "Here we are!" and led the way into a smooth, gra.s.sy plain which seemed out of place there in the mountains, and to which there did not appear to be any outlet except the one by which they had entered it. It was surrounded by the loftiest peaks on all sides except one, and there the plain was bounded by a precipitous ravine which was so deep that the bottom could not be seen from the top. Near the middle of the plain was a little brook, placed most conveniently for "washing" their finds, which bubbled merrily over the stones before it plunged into the abyss before spoken of; and close on the other side were the ruins of the mine--a strong windla.s.s, which had hauled up fifty thousand dollars' worth of gold--and the rope that was fast to the bucket, or rather to the fragments of it, for the bucket itself had fallen to pieces from the effects of the weather, and lay in ruins on the ground. Still farther away stood the lean-to--firmly built, of course, but not strong enough to stand the fury of the winter's storms. Taken altogether, a miner could not have selected a more fitting camp, or one better calculated to banish all symptoms of homesickness while they were pulling out the gold from the earth below. Mr. Banta kept a close watch on the boys, and saw the pleased expression that came upon their faces.

"I know it looks splendid now, but it will not look so before long,"

said he, with a knowing shake of his head. "Now, boys, let us get to work. We want to get through here, so as to get back to Dutch Flat to-night."

The miners unsaddled their horses, grabbed their axes and spades, and set in manfully to make the "mine all right," so that the boys could go to work at it without delay. Some repaired the lean-to, others laboriously cleared the mouth of the pit from the gra.s.s and brush which had acc.u.mulated there, and still another brought from the boys'

pack the new bucket and rope which they expected would last just about long enough for one of them to go down and up--and they were positive that the boy would come up a great deal faster than he went down. The boys did not find anything to do but to get dinner, and they were rather proud of the skill with which the viands were served up.

"I didn't know you boys could do cooking like this," said Mr. Banta, as he seated himself on the gra.s.s and looked over the table--a blanket spread out to serve in lieu of a cloth. "If the cooking was all you had to contend with you could live like fighting-c.o.c.ks as long as you stay here."

"We had hardly enough money to pay for a housekeeper while we were in St. Louis, and so we had all this work to do ourselves," said Julian.

"You must give Jack the credit for this. We kept bachelor's hall while we were at home. He cooked, and I swept out and helped wash the dishes."

"Now, boys," said Mr. Banta, after he had finished his pipe, "I guess we have Julian and Jack all ready to go to work whenever they feel like it. Look over your work, and see if there is anything you have missed, and then we will go back to Dutch Flat. I tell you, I hate to leave you up here in this sort of a way."

"You need not be," said Jack. "If you will come up here in two weeks from now, we will have some gold-dust to show you."

Mr. Banta did not say anything discouraging, for he had already exhausted all his powers in that direction. He inspected all the work, to satisfy himself that it was properly done, and then gave the order to "catch up."

"Of course your stock will go back with us," said he. "You could not keep them here away from that old bell-mare."

"That was what we expected," said Julian; "we may be so badly frightened that we won't think to bring our weapons with us."

"I am not afraid to say that I'll risk that," said Mr. Banta, leaning over to shake Julian by the hand. He told himself that the miner's heart was in that shake. It was very different from the clasp of the hand that he gave him when he was first introduced to him in Denver.

"Good-bye, Julian. That is all I can say to you."

The other miners rode up to take leave of them, and all looked very solemn. Some had a parting word to say, and some shook them by the hand without saying anything, the man with the bell-mare led off, the stock followed, the miners came last, and in two minutes more they were alone. Julian sat down on the gra.s.s feeling lonely indeed, but Jack jumped up and began to bestir himself.

"Come on, boy--none of that!" said he, beginning to gather their few dishes together. "We must get these things out of the way and I must get ready to go into that mine."

"Are you going down to-day?" asked Julian. The time had come at last.

For long months Julian had talked about going down into that mine--not boastingly, to be sure, but he had said enough to make people believe he would not back out, and now the opportunity was presented for him to do as he had agreed. "Why can't you let it go until to-morrow?"

"Because I am just ready to go now," said Jack; and there was a determined look on his face which Julian had never seen there before.

"I am fighting mad, now, and to-morrow I may be as down-hearted as you are."

"Do you think I am afraid?" exclaimed Julian, springing up and beginning to a.s.sist his chum. "I'll show you that I am not! If you want to go first you can go, and I will go the next time."

Julian went to work with a determination to get the dishes done as soon as possible. When they had got them all stowed away where they belonged, Jack stopped to roll up his sleeves, examined his revolver, which he strapped to his waist, lighted his lamp, and led the way toward the mine without saying a word. Julian gave a hasty glance at him and saw that his face was as calm as it usually was, and he began to take courage from that.

"It looks dark down there, does it not?" asked Julian, leaning on the windla.s.s and peering down into the pit.

"It is dark enough now, but it will be lighter when I get down there with my lamp," replied Jack. "Now, Julian, are you sure you can hold me up?"

"Of course I can. If I can't, we had better get another man up here."

Jack stopped just long enough to shake Julian by the hand, then seized the rope and stepped into the bucket, his partner holding the windla.s.s so that he would not descend too rapidly. Slowly he went down, until finally the bucket stopped.

"All right!" called Jack; and his voice sounded strangely, coming up from thirty feet underground. "This hole is bigger down here than it is at the top. Somebody has cut away on each side to try to find gold," and at last he started off toward the gully.

Julian leaned over the pit and followed his companion's movements by the light of his lamp. He saw him as he went around to the "false diggings," and finally his lamp disappeared from view as Jack went down toward the ravine. His face was very pale; he listened intently, but could not hear that rustling of feet nor that moaning sound that had frightened two men away from there, and his courage all came back to him.

"I wonder what those men were thinking of when they started that story about this mine being haunted?" Julian muttered to himself. "There is nothing here to trouble anyone."

Hardly had this thought been framed in Julian's mind than there came a most startling and thrilling interruption. The boy was leaning over the pit with his head turned on one side, so that he could hear any unusual sounds going on below, and all of a sudden he sprang to his feet and acted very much as though he wanted to go below to Jack's a.s.sistance. He distinctly heard that rustling of feet over the rocks below, some of them made by Jack as he ran toward the bucket, and the other by something else that made Julian's heart stand still. And with that sound came others--moans or shrieks, Julian couldn't tell which--until they seemed to fill the pit all around him. This lasted but a few seconds, and then came the report of Jack's revolver and the sound was caught up by the echoes until it appeared to Julian that a whole battery of artillery had been fired at once.

"There!" said Julian, greatly relieved to know that Jack had seen something to shoot at. "I guess one ghost has got his death at last!"

A moment afterward came Jack's frantic pull on the rope, accompanied by his frightened voice--

"Pull me up, Julian! For goodness' sake, pull me up!"

Julian jumped for the windla.s.s and put every atom of his strength into it. At first the resistance of the bucket was just about what it would have been if Jack had stepped into it; but suddenly the resistance ceased, the crank was jerked out of his hand, and Julian was thrown headlong to the ground.

"What was that?" exclaimed the boy, regaining his feet as quickly as he could. "Jack, did you fall out of the bucket?"