CHAPTER XI.
UNWELCOME VISITORS.
"I did think for a time that I should find my father and the nugget together, and even gave it out among the sheep-and cattle-growers who would listen to me," continued Elam, taking a few long pulls at his pipe. "But I have since given that idea up. I didn't say anything to the men hereabouts, for it kinder ran in my head after a while that they thought I was luny on the subject; so I just kept my ideas to myself. You see, the thing couldn't have gone through so many hands without my hearing something of my father, but, search high or low, I never heared a word about him. The old man is dead. He was killed when the robbers made their assault on the train, and the nugget has been doing all this of itself."
"All what of itself?" asked Tom.
"Why, it has been bobbing up and bobbing down," replied Elam. "One day you know where it is, and by the time you get on the track of it it has gone up, nobody knows where."
For a long time Tom did not say anything. The story seemed so real—as real as that he was sitting on his couch of furs, with his feet tucked under him, gazing hard into the fire. It did not seem possible that the story could get abroad, and so many men believe it, and here this one was known two hundred miles away. There must be something in it.
"Well," said Elam, "do you think I am crazy?"
"I don't know what to think," said Tom. "Such a story never got wind in the settlements."
"Of course it didn't. There's a heap more things that happen out here than you think for. There isn't one man in ten who would believe about that ghost."