rding the mine and
despatching those who found it the brothers laughed.

"You surely don't believe in ghosts?" inquired Tom, a tone of scorn
in his voice. "Who started the story about the ghosts, anyhow?"

"I don't know," responded the elder of the Wilder boys, rather
disappointed that the legend did not make more of an impression on
his friends. "We heard it when we came here. The cowboys all
believe it, and nothing would make them pass a night in those hills
if they could help it."

But ghosts were something in which the two brothers had been taught
not to believe, and Tom exclaimed:

"Huh! I'll bet some one has found the mine and started these
stories to keep other people from going there. Maybe there are
three or four mines," he added as his lively imagination began to
work.

"It's all right for you to laugh; you haven't been in the hills,"
snapped Horace. "If you'd heard Cross-eyed Pete tell about the
night he was camping there and was scared away by hearing men
shooting you might think differently."

"Just the same, I'd be willing to go and hunt for it," persisted
Tom.

"And so would I," chimed in his brother. "I say," he continued,
"why can't we go on a hunting trip? We needn't say anything about
trying to find the mine. Then, if we didn't, no one could laugh at
us and say we got scared."

The refusal of the boys from Ohio to believe in the haunted mine
had at first nettled Bill and Horace, but they had always been keen
to hear or see phantoms, and at Larry's proposal of the hunting
trip they became enthusiastic.

"It will be great sport, if father will let us," assented Horace.
"Come on, we'll ask him."

And abandoning their intention of roping ponies, they turned back
to the house in search of Mr. Wilder.

Finding him on the piazza, they lost no time in laying their plan
for a hunting trip before him.

As he beheld the eager faces and noted the lithe, supple bodies of
the boys, in whose eyes shone the light of fearlessness, the
ranchman replied:

"I have no objection, if you don't go beyond the foothills. Bill,
you remember the trails I showed you last spring, don't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right, keep to them. You boys certainly ought to be able to
take care of yourselves. Go and tell Hop Joy to put up some grub
for you. You had better camp on the plains to-night, so you won't
be able to shoot your food."

Delighted at the thought of going on a hunting trip, the boys
hurri