The ghost of a Chinaman who had been murdered and
flung down, was said to float up from its depths at night to range the
earth, seeking the perpetrator of the fiendish deed.
Charlie wished that he had led a more blameless life that he had not so
thoroughly beaten the Indian who had sold him a salted mine; that he had
not made Lizzie plow; that, above all, he had married the Widow Schmitt
when she had so plainly shown her liking for him.
Well, it did not matter much. He would fall in forty feet of water and
they would never find him. He wished that he had drunk that which the
jug contained. It was growing daylight. What was the day, then, to him?
He would never live to see it. His arms were numb. He must soon let go
and fall to his doom.
He heard voices but was too spent to call out. As a crowd of men came
running over the hill, his arms were slipping - slipping. It was almost
broad day.
He made one last, herculean effort to hold fast, turning his head over
his shoulder to glance into the deathtrap below and - just as his
repentant rescuers reached him, he gave a disgusted snort and fell -
three feet to the bottom of the hole!
In the darkness he had safely passed the Rosenhammer shaft and had
fallen into the six-feet-deep prospect hole of his own claim.
Pages:
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65