The boys had not stopped to eat any dinner, and for that reason they were hungry. They spent a long time in cooking and eating their bacon, and Julian said there was just enough for two more meals. He did not like to think of what might happen when it was all gone, and, after replenishing the fire, bade his companion good-night, wrapped his blanket about him, and laid down to rest; but sleep was out of the question. A dozen times he got up to see the time, and there was Jack, snoring away as lustily as he had done at the haunted mine. Julian wished that he, too, could forget his troubles in the same way, but when morning came he had not closed his eyes.
Julian proved to be an invaluable guide, for that night they slept in the first camp they had made after leaving the haunted mine. If he had always known the path, he could not have brought his companion straighter to it.
"Now keep your eyes open for the trail we made when we came down from our mine, and then we are at home. But I say, Julian, I shall not be in favor of staying here. All our money is gone, I don't feel in the humor to work for any more, and we will go down to Dutch Flat."
"And we'll stay there just long enough to find somebody starting out for Denver, and we'll go with him," replied Julian. "I don't want anything more to do with the mines as long as I live."
The night passed away, and the next morning, without waiting to cook breakfast, the two boys started to find the trail that led up the bluff to the haunted mine. They were a long time in finding it—so long, in fact, that Julian began to murmur discouraging words; but finally Jack found it; and now began the hardest piece of work they had undertaken since they left the robbers. The cliff was as steep as it looked to be when they gazed down into its depths from the heights above, and they did not see how they had managed to come down it in the first place.
"Are you sure the mine is up here?" asked Julian, seating himself on a fallen tree to rest. "I should not like to go up there and find nothing."
"Didn't you see the trail we made in coming down?" inquired Jack. "Of course we are on the right track; but if you spend all your time in resting, we shall never be nearer the top than we are this minute."
Julian once more set to work to climb the hill, and in half an hour more Jack pushed aside some branches that obstructed his way and found himself in plain view of the mine. Julian was satisfied now, but declared he could not go any farther until he had recovered all the wind he had expended in going up the bluff; but Jack wanted to see that everything in the camp was just as they left it. He walked on toward the lean-to, and the first thing that attracted his attention was that his goods had been disturbed. The skins were gone, some of the blankets were missing, and there were hardly provisions enough to get them a square meal. Julian came up in response to his call, and was obliged to confess that there had been other robbers while they were absent.
"Let us dish up the few provisions left, take those things we want to save, and dig out for the Flat," said Julian. "I am sure there is nothing here to keep us, now."
"And we'll leave the dirt-bucket here for somebody else to use," added Jack. "If he thinks there is a lead down there, let him go and try it. I did not send up enough dust the last time I was down there to pay for the rope."