"I don't believe you heard any ghost there," said Julian; "they are so busy up there at the mine that they have no time to come down here to trouble you."
"All right, boys; sit down. What did Banta say the spirits looked like?"
Julian replied that he could not tell, for he had not seen them; and with this as an introduction he went on and repeated the miner's conversation as nearly as he could recall it. Mr. Fay listened, highly amused, and when Julian ceased speaking he said,
"If you can see them, what's the use of your being afraid? And as for that phantom miner, that happened a long ways from here. I ought to be kicked for trying to frighten you."
"It will take something more than that to scare us out," said Julian. "Now, Mr. Fay, we want to ask your advice."
"I am ready to give it. Do you want to invest some property in a gold-mine?"
No; Julian assured him that it had no reference to their property, which was not theirs yet until the court had passed upon it, but it was in regard to their going to school in order to learn something. Mr. Fay was all attention now, and when Julian spoke of joining some mercantile academy, he slapped his hands down upon his knees as if that was the best thing the boys could do.
"I have no fears that your money will not prove useful to you," said he; "the idea of your wanting to go to school is a big feather in your caps. Some young men, with such an amount of money as you have coming to you, would loaf around and do nothing until their funds were all gone; but you don't act that way. Believe me, there is an end to that hundred thousand dollars somewhere."
"That is just what the president of the bank told us when we called upon him," said Julian. "We have worked so hard for the little money we have that we intend to take care of it. But, Mr. Fay, we don't believe that Mr. Gibson did right in giving us these funds."
"What's the reason you don't?"