oung man I don't remember to have seen
before, but all the same I am glad to meet him."

"Yes, he's a tender-foot, and we are taking him out to have the boss
grub-stake him."

"Ah! that's your business, is it? Fine business that. You may make a
strike some day and come back and buy us all out. You're going right in
the country for one, for there's a nugget worth eight thousand dollars
for you to pitch on to."

"Yes, Elam Storm's nugget," said Stanley. "I hope to goodness you'll get
it, for then we shall quit hearing so much about it."

"Oh, it's there, for one with such a reputation as that--why, man alive,
it extends through twenty years! And the Red Ghost, too; you want to
steer clear of him."

Tom laughed and said he would do his best to follow the clerk's advice.
He had heard of Elam Storm's nugget, had even found himself thinking of
it when awake, and dreaming about it when asleep. He knew that his
chances for digging it up were rather slim, for he did not suppose that
the man who had hid it had any idea that it would be unearthed by anyone
save himself; but if he should happen to strike it with one blow of his
pick! Wouldn't he be in town? He could then write back to his uncle that
he had made more than the sum he had temporarily lost, made it by the
sweat of his brow, and he was sure that the next letter he received from
his uncle would be one telling him to come back home, and all would be
forgiven. But the Red Ghost! Tom did not know what to think about him.
He had been seen, never in broad daylight, and he was a terrible thing
to look at. He roamed about after nightfall, tearing the mules and
trampling the teamsters to death, and the worst of it was he was always
to be found somewhere near the place where the nugget was supposed to be
hid. Stanley once had a partner that had been done to death, and even
Mr. Kelley's face grew solemn whenever he spoke of him. That was the
only thing that made Tom doubtful about taking a grub-stake.

The dinner-bell rang while they were talking, and when the meal was
ended Tom went out with the two cowboys to look at a horse that Stanley
had found for him in the morning. They were gone about two hours, and
when they came back, Tom told himself that he was a cowboy at last; a
horse, saddle, and bridle were waiting for him at the stable, and the
poncho which he carried slung over his arm was roomy enough for his
extra baggage. The first thing that attracted Stanley's notice