efore me. But if I ever go again, I don't want to follow such a man as
went before me."

"Who was it? Was it somebody who was working on Parsons' place?"

"Yes. He was an elderly man, who seemed to take more interest in me than
anybody else. He told me that the only reason he didn't strike the
nugget was because he didn't dig in the right place."

"Haw-ha!" laughed Elam.

"And the only reason he didn't dig in the right place was because the
nugget couldn't be thrown out with two or three spadefuls of earth,"
continued Tom. "I followed along after him for two weeks, and in every
camping-place there were two shovelfuls of dirt flung out. If a hen had
been scratching for that nugget, she would have made better headway."

"He was on the right track, anyhow," said Elam. "If he had kept on till
he came to that pocket, he would have found it. That would have given me
a job, for I would a heap sooner find it in the dirt than take it out of
a man's pack."

"If a man was to find that nugget----"

"Yes, sir, I would," said Elam savagely. "It is mine, and I'm a-going to
have it, I don't care who unearths it. Do you suppose you could find
your way back to that pocket?"

"No, sir; I couldn't," said Tom, drawing a long breath of dismay. "In
the first place, there's the Red Ghost. If you had seen it----"

"Haven't I seen it?" demanded Elam. "It has got the marks of some of my
bullets."

"It must bear the marks of a good many bullets, and I don't see why some
of them did not hit it in the proper place. What do you suppose it is,
anyway?"

"Why, it's a ghost, I tell you. If it wasn't, some of those bullets
would have struck it in the proper spot, I bet you."

"If it's a ghost, you can't kill it."

"Can't, hey? I'll bet you that I can."

"It looked to me just like a camel," said Tom, who did not like the way
Elam glared at him every time he struck on this subject.

"A camel! What's them?"

"An animal they make use of in foreign countries to carry heavy burdens
for them. But, Elam, how came it to appear to you? It don't show itself
to anybody else who hunts in these mountains, does it?"

"Certainly it does. The history of this nugget is known all over the
country, and if any man has it on his mind, he may be a hundred miles
from here, but that makes no difference; it appears to that fellow and
scares him off. Now, wait till I tell you."

This brought Elam to his story, and he entered upon it a good deal as
Uncle Ezra