Miners' Stories; I. An Arizona Ghost Story [pp. 24-26]

2Miiners' Stories.
MINERS' STORIES.
I.-AN ARIZONA GHOST STORY.
NE night
on com ing upto
t7]' ~,'3~ the old
tS X~~~AX Ap e x
mine, I
was sur
p ri se d
t o find
that our
tent had
been removed from the gulch near the
water hole to the mesa, - so necessitating a trip up and down the bluff for
water. I asked my partner, who had
remained in camp, why he had shifted.
"Because that'ere gulch is haunted,"
was the reply, "and I want no ghosts
around me."
I laughed at the idea of ghosts or
haunted gulches; and intimated that we
were out of the longitudes that ghosts
inhabit, and hinted that he ought to
know that the "ould counthry" was all
right enough to have such superstitions
in, but to import them to the Colorado
desert, and locate them more especially
around the camp where nobody but ourselves ever lived, not to mind died, was
rather incredible.
"Well, if you saw how Tommy, the
burro' you left, acted, you would not
think so. Why, he jumped into the tent,
and I licked him with a pick handle, and
still he would not budge until I threw a
burning stick at him. Then he ran out,
gave a frightful scream, more like a
wolf's howl than a bray, and rushed up
the bank, and I hain't seen him since.
O yes, that burro saw a ghost, sure."
"0 pshaw!"
"There's no'O pshaw' about it.
Maybe you don't believe in such things.
Well, I did n't once myself; but now I
know better, and after supper I'll tell
you what I know about ghosts."
After supper, instead of the usual calculations of how many millions of dollars
we would get out of the Apex when we
struck the "chamber," which we fondly
imagined was somewhere about four feet
deeper down at the end of each day's
work, George Tracy (my partner'spresent name) told me his story:
"I was working on Jim Cassidy's
ranch in western Arizona, and you know
Drigh, the cattle king around there?
well, one day he asked me to trade my
sorrel mare for a buckskin pony he had.
I willingly made the trade, as Buck was
just the sort of an animal for roughing
it, and a first class fellow around cattle.
Although he was inferior in size and
condition to my mare, I knew I had the
best of the trade. Drigh found the
same thing out in a few days; and one
morning when I was chopping wood in
Cassidy's corral, in came Drigh with the
mare.
"'George,' said he,'this mare ain't
no use around cattle, and I want my
buckskin back.'
"' A trade's a trade,' said I,' and you
keep the mare,- Buck's mine.'
"' You just bring me out Buck,' said
Drigh, putting his hand on his gun.
"'Well, all right, but I think it ain't
the fair thing,' said I, making a motion
to go for the pony. I slipped back of
the house, and in the back door, and
coming out the front got the drop on
Drigh before he saw me. I called out,
'See here, Dri,h,' said I,'that Buck's
mine, and you just make one motion to
shoot, and I'11 fill you with lead.'
"' Well,' said Drigh, with a frightful
[Jan.
24