Part 13 (1/2)

”Why, it is a teeks' journey,” said Too over that long traain ”I never could find my way back there in the world”

”Who sent you into the et?”

”Theer”

”Why, who are you?”

”I ao, and who intends to have it back if he has to kill every man this side of the country you came from; and where's that?”

Toer began to put on his coat, stared fixedly at the speaker, and then sat down again

So this was Elaet than anybody else in the world! He was a boy, not e, but he had a face on him which expressed the utmost resolution And he had the physical power, too, to carry out his deter away his tools where he could readily find them, he showed muscles which said that it would not be a safe piece of business for anyone to interfere with that nugget

”Where did you come from, I asked you?”

”I came from down in Mississippi, where ers,” answered Tom, who did not like the way the boy eyed hiht to have stayed,” said Elaet down there?”

”Of course not,” replied Too to Texas, but got on the wrong boat and was brought up here I couldn't do anything else, and so Mr Parsons grub-staked me and sent me into the mountains He lives out that way a short distance”

”How far do you call a short distance?”

”Fifteen or twenty miles, maybe”

”Haw-ha! Man, you're just about a hundred ht his breath, but could say nothing in reply

”You have been going further and further away from him ever since you lost your horse,” continued Elaet your rifle”

”You say that nugget of yours was lost twenty years ago,” said To else ”You are not that old, are you?”

”Well, not so long as that!” laughed Elaood portion of the evening to listen to it I will tell it to you to-night Now, then, which canyon did you come down?”

Toullies, which came down and met at that one point He said he didn't know, but Ela around a little, started up one with as h he had seen To froer than a needle, which he had brushed off in his hurried flight after he had thron his gun; and a short distance farther on he found the weapon, which Tom, in his excitement, had tossed clear across the creek Tom was surprised when Elam stepped across the stream and picked up the weapon, and relieved when it was handed over to him with the assurance that it had suffered no injury in its collision with the rocks

”Noill let the bundle go,” said he ”There is nothing in it that will pay us to go back after it, and I areat ways from here”

Elam replied that for him it was ”just a juriave Tom a small supply of the corn bread and bacon which he had left over fro it he sat by on a rock with his elbows resting on his knees To for a month, and when his repast was ended, Elam took his spade and pick under one arm, shouldered his rifle with the other, and set off in a way that was calculated to tire anyBut Toet home,--any place was better than the bare canyon,--where he could lie down and sleep with nothing to bother him Once in a while Elam turned around and said to hiin such places as this! I ought to have been fifty miles from here, for I know about where that canyon of yours is”

”Do you think that that Red Ghost, or whatever you call it----”

To him, and was astonished at the expression that came upon his countenance He would not have believed that one as so sensible on every other point should be willing to admit that the apparition that had visited him in the pocket and robbed hiency

”I kno you, Tender-foot, feel about this, but wait until you have a chance to shoot it pluets aith it all, and then tell me what you would think,” said Elas in the settlen that they aint found out here”