ny good it would do the garden. So he put this yer together with
Sobriente's good luck, and allowed to himself that the old coyote had
been secretly gold-washin' all the while he seemed to be standin' off
agin it! But where was the mine? Whar did he get the gold? That's what
got Raintree. He hunted all over the garden, prospected every part of
it,--ye kin see the holes yet,--but he never even got the color!"

* That is, a viscid cement-like refuse of gold-washing.

He paused, and then, as the colonel made an impatient gesture, he went
on.

"Well, one night just afore you took the place, and when Raintree was
gettin' just sick of it, he happened to be walkin' in the garden. He was
puzzlin' his brain agin to know how old Sobriente made his pile, when
all of a suddenst he saw suthin' a-movin' in the brush beside the house.
He calls out, thinkin' it was one of the boys, but got no answer. Then
he goes to the bushes, and a tall figger, all in black, starts out afore
him. He couldn't see any face, for its head was covered with a hood, but
he saw that it held suthin' like a big cross clasped agin its breast.
This made him think it was one them priests, until he looks agin and
sees that it wasn't no cross it was carryin,' but a PICKAXE! He makes
a jump towards it, but it vanished! He traipsed over the hull
garden,--went though ev'ry bush,--but it was clean gone. Then the hull
thing flashed upon him with a cold shiver. The old man bein' found dead
in the well! the goin' away of the half-breed and the girl! the findin'
o' that slumgullion! The old man HAD made a strike in that garden, the
half-breed had discovered his secret and murdered him, throwin' him down
the well! It war no LIVIN' man that he had seen, but the ghost of old
Sobriente!"

The colonel emptied the remaining contents of his glass at a single
gulp, and sat up. "It's my opinion, sah, that Raintree had that night
more than his usual allowance of corn-juice on board; and it's only
a wonder, sah, that he didn't see a few pink alligators and sky-blue
snakes at the same time. But what's this got to do with that wanderin'
tramp?"

"They're all the same thing, colonel, and in my opinion that there tramp
ain't no more alive than that figger was."

"But YOU were the one that saw this tramp with your own eyes," retorted
the colonel quickly, "and you never before allowed it was a spirit!"

"Exactly! I saw it whar a minit afore nothin' had been standin', and a
min