"I wonder if there is any gold up there?" asked Julian.
"There is more gold up there than you can see in Dutch Flat in a year's steady digging. The men who have been down in the mine say so."
"Well, when we come back you may expect to see us rich," said Julian, compressing his lips. "And you may be sure that the spooks won't drive us out, either."
This was all that was said on the subject—that is, by those in the cabin; but when the men had eaten their suppers they all crowded into it, and the stories that would have been told of ghosts interfering with miners who tried to take away their precious belongings would have tested the boys' courage; but Mr. Banta did not allow them to go on.
"As I told these boys down at Denver, I am telling them nothing but facts in regard to this mine, and I want you to do the same," said he. "Don't draw on your imagination at all."
Before the miners returned to their cabins, it came about that the boys were going to have a small army go with them on the morrow. At least a dozen miners declaimed their readiness to go with Banta "and see him through," and Banta did not object.
"The more, the merrier," said he, when they had been left alone and he turned down his bedclothes. "Now, you boys can spread your blankets on the floor in front of the fire and go to sleep; I will have you up at the first peep of day."
CHAPTER XXII.
THE HAUNTED MINE.
Mr. Banta kept his word the next morning, for the day was just beginning to break when he rolled out on the floor and gave the order to "Catch up." All the miners were astir soon afterward; but there was no joking or laughing going on in the camp, as there usually was. The men went silently about their work of cooking breakfast, or sat smoking their pipes in front of the fire, for their thoughts were busy with that mine up in the mountains. Even the talkative Mr. Banta had nothing to say. He seemed to have run short of stories, all on a sudden.