‘What I am now going to tell you, boys, has never crossed my lips from that day to this, and most likely never would, if I hadn’t chanced to come along just now as Jack was speaking about the body those navvies found in the Devil’s Panniken.’
Being politely requested by his hearers to ‘Shell it out!’ Old Grizzly continued: ‘Whether you believe what I’m going to say is no matter now. I believe it, though I can’t understand how it all came about. Well, as I said before, the time was hard on twenty years ago, and the night was the last in October.’
‘Bedad, and it’s that same night now!’ put in Murphy.
‘So it is!’ acquiesced Old Grizzly; ‘but I never thought of it till this minute; and now the whole thing comes round again on All-Halloween, of all nights in the year. Those of you boys who’ve been raised in the old country will know what folks believe, in most villages and country places, of Halloween, and the strange things that happen then to men abroad at midnight, and to lads and lasses who try the Halloween spells for wives and husbands.’
‘Sure everybody knows them things,’ agreed Murphy, casting an uneasy glance over his shoulder as he spoke.
‘Well, true or false, I for one thought little enough of them when I was young; but as luck or fate would have it, I rode through the Devil’s Panniken on the 31st of October, that special night I’m going to tell you of. I wasn’t alone either; perhaps, if I had been, I shouldn’t have felt so jolly; for, not to speak of the loneliness of the place, with its great black rocks towering up on either side of you, and almost shutting out the sky, except for a narrow strip overhead, the place had an ill name both with the Injuns and with miners. Many a queer tale was told round camp-fires, and folks said the place was haunted; that miners had lost their way there many a time, and had never been seen or heard of again.
‘I’d been working all that season at a Claim—a new un then, but worked out and forgotten now—which we used to call Cherokee Dick’s, because a Cherokee Injun first showed us the place. There was perhaps a dozen of us all told; but I chummed and worked from the first along with a chap they called the “Flying Dutchman.” When we had been together a goodish bit, he told me his real name was Cornelius Vermudyn; and I acquainted him with mine and where I hailed from. He was a Dutchman, sure enough, but had travelled half over the world, I used to think from his talk; and he could speak as good English as you or me—or any here.’
A dubious smile hovered for an instant on Gentleman Jack’s lips at this naïve statement, but nobody observed him; they were all intent on Old Grizzly and his yarn, and that worthy continued: ‘We began to find our Claim about cleaned out, and we—that’s me and Vermudyn—reckoned to make tracks before the winter, and get down ’Frisco-way. Well, we each had a good horse and a nice bit of gold, and we was sworn mates—come what might—so we started, riding as far as we could by day and camping out at night, if we weren’t able to reach a settlement or diggings by nightfall.
‘On this night, it seemed as if we’d no luck from the beginning. We lost our way for a goodish bit, and were some time finding the track again; after that, night seemed to come on us suddenly like. We’d rode and rode that day without ever a sign of man or beast, and when we came to this place, Vermudyn says: “This must be the famous Devil’s Panniken, old boy.” I had been almost falling asleep on my horse’s neck; but I woke with a start, and answered all in a hurry: “Of course it is.” It seemed somehow as if I knew that place well, and I began to ride on quickly.
“Stop!” hollered Vermudyn, “unless you want to lame your horse or break his knees among those rocks.” As he came up with me, he put his hand on my arm, and I drew rein.