“Naw they didn’t. I was in that party and I know just what they got. It was all in gold, too, but the old fellow had it hidden so that we could not find it. We took him off and put him in the army, but he was too old to be of any use there, and so we turned him loose. There’s been a power of men up there looking for it, but they stay just one night.”
“They see the ghosts, do they?” said Nat
“That’s what they do,” said the storekeeper, looking all around the room as if he expected to see something advancing upon him. “And I tell you they don’t wait until daylight comes. I have seen as many as two or three on my porch waiting for me to open the store, and the tales they told were just awful. They say—Whew! I’ll bet you don’t get me up there for no five thousand dollars.”
“What do they say?” asked Nat. “Is old man Nickerson among the ghosts?”
“Yes, he is there, and he is the worst one in the lot; but the worst of it is, he has been somewhere and got ten or a dozen other ghosts to help him along, and the screeching they keep up is enough to drive one crazy. But I reckon you boys ain’t going up as far as old man Nickerson’s.”
“That is the place where we are going,” said Nat. “We shall not stop until we get there.”
“Among all them ghosts?” exclaimed the storekeeper, and he staggered back from the counter as if Nat had aimed a blow at him. “Well, good-by. I shall never see you again,” added the man, as he straightened up and thrust his hand out toward Nat. “You need not think to be free of them for they come to see everybody that goes there.”
“But the others came back in safety and so can I,” said Nat.
“Yes; but the last time they appeared to a person they told him that the next one who came there he would leave his bones for the vultures to pick over,” said the man, and he tried to shiver when he uttered the words. “I would not go up there, if I was you.”
“I want to see what a ghost looks like. Come on, Peleg. We have wasted too much time already. You will have those things ready for Peleg tomorrow?”