"If you can find it—yes. Go up there, and if nobody else is working it, pitch in and take fifty thousand dollars more out of it."
"And what will we do if somebody else is working it?"
"You had better give up to them, unless you think you are strong enough to get the better of them. But you need not worry about that. The mine is haunted, and you won't catch any of the miners going around where ghosts are."
"Who do you suppose are haunting it?" asked Julian. "That letter says the writer worked the mine alone, and took lots of money out of it, and never saw a thing to frighten him."
"Perhaps somebody has been murdered up there; I don't know. You won't see anything until you get down in the mine, and then you want to look out. I heard of a mine up at Gold Cove that was haunted in that way. There were a dozen miners tried it, and each one came away without getting anything, although the gold was lying on top of the ground. As often as a miner went below (it was about thirty feet down to the bottom), he was sure to see somebody at work there before him. He was picking with a tool at the bottom of the shaft in order to loosen it up, accompanying every blow he made with a sonorous 'whiz!' which showed that he was an Irishman. Some of the miners retreated to their bucket and signaled to their helper to pull them up, and you couldn't hire them to go into the mine again. Others, with a little more bravery than they had, went up to put their hands on the man, but as fast as they advanced he retreated; and when they got to the end of the shaft, the phantom miner was still ahead, and picking away as fast as ever."
"Then the mine is deserted?"
"Yes, and has been for years. It is one of the richest mines around here, too."
"Why, I should think somebody would shoot him," said Jack.
"Shoot him! He has been shot at more times than anybody could count; but he pays no attention to it. He is a ghost, and he knows you can't hurt him. I never saw it, and, what is more, I don't want to; but I would not go down into that mine for all the gold there is in the hills."
"Did anybody think a murder had been committed somewhere around there?" said Julian.