ning to listen to it. I will tell it
to you to-night. Now, then, which canyon did you come down?"

Tom looked up and found himself confronted by three gullies, which came
down and met at that one point. He said he didn't know, but Elam, after
looking around a little, started up one with as much confidence as
though he had seen Tom when he came out. After some questioning from Tom
he showed him a little twig, not larger than a needle, which he had
brushed off in his hurried flight after he had thrown down his gun; and
a short distance farther on he found the weapon, which Tom, in his
excitement, had tossed clear across the creek. Tom was surprised when
Elam stepped across the stream and picked up the weapon, and relieved
when it was handed over to him with the assurance that it had suffered
no injury in its collision with the rocks.

"Now, we will let the bundle go," said he. "There is nothing in it that
will pay us to go back after it, and I am too tired to go a step
farther. I hope your camp isn't a great ways from here."

Elam replied that for him it was "just a jump," but he would walk slowly
so as not to tire the pilgrim. He stopped at his camp where he had been
digging, and gave Tom a small supply of the corn bread and bacon which
he had left over from his dinner, and while Tom was eating it he sat by
on a rock with his elbows resting on his knees. Tom ate as though he
hadn't had anything for a month, and when his repast was ended, Elam
took his spade and pick under one arm, shouldered his rifle with the
other, and set off in a way that was calculated to tire any man, no
matter how well equipped he might be for travelling. But Tom did not
care for that. He wanted to get home,--any place was better than the
bare canyon,--where he could lie down and sleep with nothing to bother
him. Once in a while Elam turned around and said to him:

"To think that I have been wasting my time for the last month in digging
in such places as this! I ought to have been fifty miles from here, for
I know about where that canyon of yours is."

"Do you think that that Red Ghost, or whatever you call it----"

Tom happened to look up and saw that Elam was facing him, and was
astonished at the expression that came upon his countenance. He would
not have believed that one who was so sensible on every other point
should be willing to admit that the apparition that had visited him in
the pocket and robbed him of his horse was not due to sup