Many heads were now crowded together, peering into the dimness of the shaft. It sloped inward and downward into a wider opening that was almost like a small chamber in its dimensions. Another entrance led to this chamber, a passage of a few feet in length, burrowed beneath the ground and opening upon the hillside beyond. Through this little tunnel came fresh air and light; and within the chamber had been collected the odds and ends of things which had caught the half-wit's fancy. A bundle of straw and a worn-out horse-blanket which somebody had discarded formed his bed. Some bits of broken crockery furnished his table, a board wedged against the rock. A spring of water gushed from one wall of the chamber and trickled into the depths below, and a curious odor escaped from the spring.
The leather jacket, the glazed hat with its bedraggled scarlet feathers, lay carefully folded upon the straw pallet, and its owner sat beside the jacket shamefaced and terrified by this intrusion upon his retreat. But it was something else that caught Dorothy's attention—a simple suit of denim that had once been blue but was now faded by sun and water to a ghostly white. Peter wore these now and—she recognized them.
"Peter! Peter! So you are the good 'Ghost' that came in the night and tilled my garden for me! Come out, come out and let me thank you!"
Though he had obstinately refused to answer the call of Seth Winters, the voice of the girl he had so secretly served, because she had been kind to him, was instantly obeyed. He climbed out of the shaft and, taking hold of her skirt as he had done once before, stood foolishly smiling while his good friend, the blacksmith, gayly announced:
"Behold the 'Haunt' of Skyrie! The honestest, most innocent, most grateful of Ghosts! During the years it was vacant he made Skyrie his home, sleeping of winters in its hillside room, and in summer seeking this cool retreat where we have just unearthed him. He must, he will, haunt no more; for if I judge aright the new master of old Skyrie will at once engage him to take the place of Pa Babcock, resigned. A better gardener there isn't 'up-mounting.' A more devoted servitor no man can find, once his affection is won as our little Dorothy has won it. What say, neighbors Chester? Will you secure your greatly needed 'hired man' and forever 'lay the ghost' of Skyrie at one 'fell swoop'?"
"Aye, aye! Hear!" cried father John, entering fully into the blacksmith's spirit, even while he did not fully understand, till Dorothy explained all the mysterious, yet beneficent, happenings of the past few weeks; and then not only he but mother Martha bade the poor waif welcome to their home, while all the others standing by applauded vigorously.
"But this isn't all we came to see. The gold mine, the gold mine! Peter may be human gold, but the rich yellow metal is what we want!" cried Herbert, when the cheers had died away.
"Who'll go first?" asked somebody.
"Why, I, of course!" returned young Montaigne, springing recklessly into that rough shaft which veered from the wide safety of the upper chamber.
Whereat a strange thing happened. Peter dropped the fold of his new mistress's skirt and stepped hastily forward, warning by gestures and his uncertain mumbling that Herbert should not go. Alas! the warning was useless. The spirit of adventure was on the whole party, an eager desire to be the first who should unearth a "nugget," and even cautious Jim Barlow caught the infection, while Dorothy ran forward as lightly as if she were to cross only the smooth meadow.