a
neighbor boy, had slept all night in the tool-house shed, waiting for
game, and had seen only what Dolph was sure was a ghost--so sure that
he hurried Job home at daybreak with a vow that he would never stay at
Wright's Cove another night.

Job knew the place well, yet on this spring day he stopped and looked
mystified. There it was again! Who could be in the second tunnel with
a gun? Was it the spirit of some poor forty-niner come back again? He
doubled his speed, slid down through the mud and slush, grasped a
sapling and leaped down the short cut, ran up the bank and rocky sides
of the roaring torrent, walked carefully over the slippery iron rails
of the old rusty bridge, and made his way up the steep Tunnel Trail.

Soon he was close to the tunnel, so far up that the river's noise was
lost behind him. He stopped and listened. Not a sound. Then clean and
strong the ring of a gun, and a dull echo in the dim cavern!

All kinds of thoughts rushed through Job's head. He was not a
superstitious boy, yet this was enough to make anybody feel queer--all
alone in that deserted wilderness, with the echo of a gun coming out
of the lonely mine, unworked for years and into which no human
footstep had penetrated since the day that old Wright shot himself in
the tunnel when he found that the mine which had paid big at first and
into which he had put all his income, was a failure. Job had heard the
boys tell that Indian Bill, the trapper, said he had seen the old
fellow's skeleton marching up and down with gun in hand, two hundred
feet down the tunnel, defending it against all intruders. Perhaps that
was the ghost now! Would he dare to go? His flesh crept at the
thought. He wished Shot was with him, or at least some living thing.
Again he heard the report. His courage rose. He would face the thing,
whatever it was.

Creeping up slowly and noiselessly, he reached the entrance to the
tunnel and looked in. All was as dark as the grave. A cold draft
rushed out over him. He could hear the drip, drip, of water from the
roof. At first he thought he saw something moving in the distance,
then he was not sure. He decided he would turn back; then curiosity
was too much for him; he began to whistle and walked boldly into the
darkness, followed the rotten ties, when, lo! he saw a flash of
light, heard a thundering report, and, involuntarily giving a yell,
started to run, when a familiar voice shouted:

"Job, Job, come here!"

He turned,