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.
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