Tom looked up and found himself confronted by three gullies, which came down and met at that one point. He said he didn't know, but Elam, after looking around a little, started up one with as much confidence as though he had seen Tom when he came out. After some questioning from Tom he showed him a little twig, not larger than a needle, which he had brushed off in his hurried flight after he had thrown down his gun; and a short distance farther on he found the weapon, which Tom, in his excitement, had tossed clear across the creek. Tom was surprised when Elam stepped across the stream and picked up the weapon, and relieved when it was handed over to him with the assurance that it had suffered no injury in its collision with the rocks.
"Now, we will let the bundle go," said he. "There is nothing in it that will pay us to go back after it, and I am too tired to go a step farther. I hope your camp isn't a great ways from here."
Elam replied that for him it was "just a jump," but he would walk slowly so as not to tire the pilgrim. He stopped at his camp where he had been digging, and gave Tom a small supply of the corn bread and bacon which he had left over from his dinner, and while Tom was eating it he sat by on a rock with his elbows resting on his knees. Tom ate as though he hadn't had anything for a month, and when his repast was ended, Elam took his spade and pick under one arm, shouldered his rifle with the other, and set off in a way that was calculated to tire any man, no matter how well equipped he might be for travelling. But Tom did not care for that. He wanted to get home,—any place was better than the bare canyon,—where he could lie down and sleep with nothing to bother him. Once in a while Elam turned around and said to him:
"To think that I have been wasting my time for the last month in digging in such places as this! I ought to have been fifty miles from here, for I know about where that canyon of yours is."
"Do you think that that Red Ghost, or whatever you call it——"
Tom happened to look up and saw that Elam was facing him, and was astonished at the expression that came upon his countenance. He would not have believed that one who was so sensible on every other point should be willing to admit that the apparition that had visited him in the pocket and robbed him of his horse was not due to superhuman agency.
"I know how you, Tender-foot, feel about this, but wait until you have a chance to shoot it plumb through the head, and it gets away with it all, and then tell me what you would think," said Elam sullenly. "You probably don't have such things in the settlements, but that's no sign that they aint found out here."
"I had as fair a shot at it as anybody could have," said Tom, "and it wasn't over ten feet from me. I saw the blood spurt out from a hole in its neck, and it flung the horse away from it, broke the lariat, and went into the bushes. But do you think it is guarding that treasure?"
"I know it, and nobody can't make me believe differently. I have seen it often enough, and it has got the mark of three of my bullets on it."
Elam faced about and went on his way at a faster gait than before, and Tom let him go. As eager as he was to learn something about the Red Ghost, he was still more eager to reach a permanent camp where he could lie down and rest. He found that he was pretty nearly barefooted. His sheep's-gray pants hung in tatters about his worn shoes, and Elam had a way of jumping from one stone to another and coming down on top of a log in a manner that he did not like. At length, when the sun began to go down, and Tom experienced some difficulty in finding a place for his feet, Elam stopped on the edge of a natural prairie, and pointed out something a short distance off.