The boys spent the day with the men getting acquainted, and by night they were calling a good part of them by their first names and they were Bob and Jack to them all. It had not been an idle day for them by any means, as they had worked nearly as hard as any of the men, although they had not exerted themselves for fear of lamed muscles.
“We’ve just got to lay that ghost if he shows up again,” Bob declared, as they were trudging back in the rapidly falling dusk. “He’s apt to stampede the whole works if the men once get a look at him. Of course it’s a put up job of Big Ben’s but we’ve got to catch him with the goods in order to prove anything.”
That night Tom Bean and the two boys again watched the window of the office but when nine o’clock came no ghost had appeared.
“I guess either he’s a periodic ghost and we haven’t got on to his periods or else he got discouraged after his first appearance,” Bob declared as he stifled a yawn.
“I don’t think a ten-inch gun would keep me awake tonight let alone a few snores,” Jack declared as they were walking slowly back to the bunk house.
Jack’s guess went for both of them, for they fell asleep almost as soon as they struck their beds and neither woke until the cook blew the rising horn at six o’clock.
After breakfast was over and most of the men had left the mess room, Tom motioned to the boys to follow him to the office.
“I’m goin’ ter take a look through thot tract and I thought mebby ye’d keer to go along,” he said, as soon as he had closed the door.
“We sure would,” both boys eagerly accepted the invitation.
“All right thin: we’ll wait a bit till the men have gone to their work. I don’t want them to know thot there’s inything in the air. Nothin’ hinders the work so much as to have them fellers git an idea into their heads thot something’s goin’ ter happen.”