Frank felt certain he had struck close to the truth when he made that assertion; for surely the large room could not have been used for any other purpose.
So they quietly rode through the whole village, stopping at the farther end, while Mr. Wallace conferred with the other two men.
"Now I wonder," Paul said as he stared around, sometimes having to repress an involuntary shudder, everything was so dreadful, "what all those queer little mounds can mean—they are side by side, too, as if meant for stepping stones to some temple the miners meant to build, after they'd all gotten to be millionaires."
Lanky made an odd grimace.
"Hobble your horse, Paul, and take another look. You'll guess then what they stand for. Every mining camp started a cemetery the first thing; because, you know, the mortality ran high in those lawless days, when each man carried a big six-shooter on his hip and the one who could draw the quickest lived to see another sun rise."
Paul could not hold back the shiver that ran over him.
"Why, there must be all of a hundred graves, if there's one," he said, and then added weakly, suspicion having awakened in his mind, knowing Lanky's inveterate liking for playing jokes on innocents: "If you're not stringing me, I mean."
"Give him the air, Frank! After I vowed not even to grin while in this haunted camp. Those are what I said, and yet Jerry told us the camp didn't hold out more than one year. Life was held cheap in such crazy times, Paul, and they planted somebody every other day, I reckon."
Mr. Wallace just then turned to the three boys; the other men were dismounting, as though not meaning to use the ponies any more that day.
"I'm going off with Jerry and Zander," said the gentleman, "to scour the neighborhood for what has always been known as 'Lost Mountain,' though it's hard to understand how such a vast elevation could escape notice. Plenty of eyes have doubtless fallen on it, but without knowing that it was anything out of the ordinary. But we believe it contains the mine Kinney worked."