"Yes, if the ghosts don't run them away," answered Bob. "I understood you to say they are boys. Well, now, if they get the better of the ghosts, which is something I won't believe until I see it, and we should get there about a month or two after they do, and find that they have dug up dust to the amount of ten or fifteen thousand dollars—eh?"
"But maybe the gentleman is set on those two boys, and it would not pay to rob them," remarked Jake.
"No, I am not set on them," avowed Claus, smiling inwardly when he saw how readily the miners fell in with his plans. "I tried my level best to get those boys to stay at home, for I don't want them to dig their wealth out of the ground, but they hooted at me; and when I saw they were bound to come, I thought I would get up here before them and see what sort of things they had to contend with."
"What sort of relationship do you bear to the two boys?" asked Bob.
"I am their uncle, and I gave them a block of buildings here in Denver worth a hundred thousand dollars and this haunted mine; but, mind you, I did not know it was haunted until after I had given it to them. But, boy like, they determined to come up, brave the ghosts, and take another fifty thousand out of it."
Bob and Jake looked at each other, and something told them not to believe all that Claus had said to them. If he was worth so much money that he was willing to give his nephews a hundred thousand dollars of it, he did not live in the way his means would allow.
"And another thing," resumed Claus. "I would not mind their losing ten thousand dollars, provided I got my share of it, for then they would learn that a miner's life is as full of dangers as any other. But remember—if you get ten thousand, I want three thousand of it."
This was all that Claus thought it necessary to say on the subject of robbing the boys, and after finishing his cigar he got up and went out. Jake watched him until he was hidden in the crowd on the street, and then settled back in his chair and looked at Bob.
"There is something wrong with that fellow," he remarked. "His stories don't hitch; he has some other reason for wishing to rob those boys. Now, what is it?"
"You tell," retorted Bob. "He has something on his mind, but he has no more interest in that pit than you or I have. He never owned it, in the first place."