A night's refreshing sleep had an astonishing effect upon Dan and his father. They did not talk or act much like the frightened man and boy we saw running along the road a few hours before. They were as brave as lions. Twelve thousand dollars in bills and three hundred dollars in gold were well worth working for, and they repeatedly assured each other that they were willing to face any danger in order to obtain them for their own.
But there was one thing that Dan held to in spite of all the appeals and arguments that his father could bring to bear upon him, and that was, that the hant must be met and overcome, or outwitted, as circumstances might seem to require, by their united forces. He wasn't going philandering away in one direction, while his father went on a wild-goose chase in another, because that wasn't the way to fight ghosts.
"Then we'll stick together," said Silas, at length. "We'll hang around the house till that Joe of our'n goes away, and then we'll fire off our guns and load 'em up with heavier charges of shot, so't we'll be ready for anything that comes along."
"I did want powerful bad to live up there in the woods this winter with that Joe," said Dan, with something like a sigh of regret. "What he's going to get he's sure of, but we ain't. I am going into this thing to win, I tell you," he added, sticking out his lips and calling a very reckless and determined look to his face. "I ain't a-going to let no little brother of mine beat me. When I get started for that there money, I'm going to have it before I turn back."
"That's the way to talk," said Silas, approvingly.
"Joe's going to give all he earns to mam, but I ain't," continued Dan. "I am going to spend all my six thousand dollars for myself. I'm going to have good clothes, and a breech-loading bird gun, and a j'inted fishing-pole, and by this time next summer I'll be so much of a gentleman that the folks who come here to hunt and fish will be glad to hire me for a guide, 'cause they won't know that I am Dan Morgan at all. They'll take me for somebody else."
"Course they will!" exclaimed Silas, bringing his heavy hand down upon Dan's shoulder with such force that the boy shook all over. "Just bear that in mind, son, when we find the cave. I'm 'most certain that the hant won't show himself to us, for he'll be down the road somewhere, looking for the letter you lost yesterday; but if he does come out, you just say, 'six thousand dollars' to yourself, and walk right into him with the bird-shot that's in your gun."
"And what'll you be doing?" queried Dan.
"Oh, I'll be there, and I'll shoot, too," replied Silas; and a stranger would have thought that he was a man who never got frightened at anything.