did, beginning with the massacre of the soldiers who were
sent out to pay the garrison at Grayson, and ending with the fight
between the two miners in the mountains. He seemed to know right where
the nugget had been ever since it was unearthed. At any rate, he told a
pretty straight story, and when it was ended filled up his pipe and
looked at Tom to see what he thought about it.

CHAPTER XI.

UNWELCOME VISITORS.

"I did think for a time that I should find my father and the nugget
together, and even gave it out among the sheep-and cattle-growers who
would listen to me," continued Elam, taking a few long pulls at his
pipe. "But I have since given that idea up. I didn't say anything to the
men hereabouts, for it kinder ran in my head after a while that they
thought I was luny on the subject; so I just kept my ideas to myself.
You see, the thing couldn't have gone through so many hands without my
hearing something of my father, but, search high or low, I never heared
a word about him. The old man is dead. He was killed when the robbers
made their assault on the train, and the nugget has been doing all this
of itself."

"All what of itself?" asked Tom.

"Why, it has been bobbing up and bobbing down," replied Elam. "One day
you know where it is, and by the time you get on the track of it it has
gone up, nobody knows where."

For a long time Tom did not say anything. The story seemed so real--as
real as that he was sitting on his couch of furs, with his feet tucked
under him, gazing hard into the fire. It did not seem possible that the
story could get abroad, and so many men believe it, and here this one
was known two hundred miles away. There must be something in it.

"Well," said Elam, "do you think I am crazy?"

"I don't know what to think," said Tom. "Such a story never got wind in
the settlements."

"Of course it didn't. There's a heap more things that happen out here
than you think for. There isn't one man in ten who would believe about
that ghost."

"No, sir," said Tom emphatically. "And I don't know what to believe
about it, either, and I have seen it. Are you going up there to that
pocket?"

"I am going to start day after to-morrow if you will show me the way.
When I strike the nugget, I will give you half."

The proposition almost took Tom's breath away. All that amount of money
for facing the Red Ghost! Now that he had got safely out of reach of it
and had heard so much about its going ever