"No, sir," said Tom emphatically. "And I don't know what to believe about it, either, and I have seen it. Are you going up there to that pocket?"
"I am going to start day after to-morrow if you will show me the way. When I strike the nugget, I will give you half."
The proposition almost took Tom's breath away. All that amount of money for facing the Red Ghost! Now that he had got safely out of reach of it and had heard so much about its going everywhere it pleased, here to-day and a hundred miles away to-morrow, Tom was obliged to confess that there was more of a ghost about it than he was at first willing to suppose. But there was his horse with the broken lariat! No ghost could do a thing like that.
"You see, I shall spend to-morrow in gathering in my traps," said Elam. "I may not come back, you know, and I don't want to leave them out where everybody can steal them, and when they are all in, I shall be ready to start."
When Elam said this, Tom picked up a burned chunk, threw it on the fire, and laid down again. If Elam thought he wasn't going to come back, what was the use of his visiting the pocket? Tom had about concluded that he would not go.
"No, I may not come back," said Elam, anxious that Tom should learn just how desperate the undertaking was, "and while I don't want to have my traps stolen, I want to leave them where someone can use them. Then I will pack my spelter on my horse and go to the nighest post—it is just a jump from here—and trade it off for provisions. We can easy get them as far as here."
"Yes; but what will you do from here on? You won't have any bronco to carry them for you."
"We will pack it on our backs. It's a poor hunter who can't go into the woods and carry provisions enough for two weeks."
"And what if the Red Ghost appears? The first thing it will pitch into will be ourselves. I don't think I will go. I have got all over prospecting for gold, and wish that summer might come so that I can go to work herding cattle."
"Well, I know what will happen to you then," said Elam.