“Huh!  Guess you run, didn’t you, Jed?” asked Bill Slatterly.

“Course we did.  You’d a run too, if you seen a ghost comm’ at you, an’ firm’ a gun.”

“Ghosts can’t fire guns!” declared Bill.  “I guess you dreamed it, Jed.”

“Ghosts can’t fire guns, eh?  That’s all you know about it.  This one did, and to prove I didn’t dream it, there was a bullet hole in my hat next mornin’.  I could prove it, too, only I ain’t got that hat any more.  But that was Phantom Mountain, strangers, an’ my advice to you is to keep away from it.  I was on it but I didn’t exactly see it, ’cause it was dark at the time.”

“Was it near a peak that looked like a stone head?” asked Tom.

“It were, stranger, but I didn’t take much notice of it.  Me and my partner got out of them diggin’s next day, and I never went back.  I ain’t never said much about this place, but it’s called Phantom Mountain all right, and I ain’t the only one that’s seen a ghost there.  Other grub-stakers has had the same experience.”

“Why ain’t I never heard about it?” demanded Bill, suspiciously.

“‘Cause as why you’re allers so busy talkin’ that you don’t never listen to nothin’ I reckon,” was Jed’s answer, amid laughter.

“Can you tell us what trail to take to get there?” asked Tom, of the miner.

“Yes, it’s called the old silver trail, and you strike it by goin’ to a place called Black Gulch, about forty mile from here.  Then it’s twenty mile farther on.  But take my advice and don’t go.”

“Can it be reached by way of Indian Ridge?” asked Mr. Jenks, wondering how he had been taken to the cave of the diamond makers.  He did not remember Black Gulch.

“Yes, you can git there by Indian Ridge way, but it’s more dangerous.  You’re likely to lose your way, for that’s a trail that’s seldom traveled.”  Mr. Jenks thought that, perhaps, was the reason the gang had taken him that way.  “It’s easier to get to the stone head and Phantom Mountain by Black Gulch, but it ain’t healthy to go there, strangers, take my advice on that,” concluded the miner, as he prepared to go to sleep again.

Tom could scarcely contain the exultation he felt.  At last, it seemed, they were on the trail.  He motioned to Mr. Jenks, and they slipped quietly from the place, just as another dance was beginning.

“Now for Black Gulch!” cried Tom.  “We must hurry back to the airship, and tell the good news.

“It’s too late to-night,” decided Mr. Jenks, and so they waited until morning, when they made an early start.

They found Mr. Damon and Mr. Parker anxiously awaiting their return.  Mr. Damon blessed so many things that he was nearly out of breath, and Mr. Parker related something of the observations he had made.

“I think I have discovered traces of a dormant volcano,” he said.  “I am in hopes that it will have an eruption while we are here.”

“I’m not,” spoke Tom, decidedly.  “We’ll start for Black Gulch as soon as possible.”