“I suppose that’s right, Merry,” he confessed; “but it doesn’t seem right to me. The Consolidated Mining Association of America tried to take your Queen Mystery Mine from you on a shabbier claim than you have on this mine here.”
“But I defeated them, Bart. You must not forget that.”
“I haven’t forgotten it,” Hodge declared, nodding his head. “All the same, you had hard work to defeat them, and, later, Milton Sukes made it still harder for you.”
“But I triumphed in both cases. Right is right, Bart; it makes no difference whether it is on my side or the other fellow’s.”
“That’s so,” Hodge confessed. “But it would be an almighty shame to find some one else squatting on that claim. I’d like to get down into that valley now!”
“It can’t be done before nightfall, so we will go back to camp.”
They set out, and an hour later they reached their camp in a small valley. There they had pitched a tent near a spring, and close at hand their horses grazed. As they approached the tent, little Abe came hobbling up to them.
“I am glad you’re back,” he declared. “That man has been going on just awful.”
“Who? Worthington?” questioned Merry.
“Yes; he said over and over that he knew his ghost would be lost. He declared his ghost was in danger. He said he could feel the danger near.”