“I don’t see what all that has got to do with that wandering tramp,” said the colonel, who was by no means pleased with this history of his property.

“I’ll tell ye.  A few days after Raintree took it over, he was lookin’ round the garden, which old Sobriente had always kept shut up agin strangers, and he finds a lot of dried-up ’slumgullion’* scattered all about the borders and beds, just as if the old man had been using it for fertilizing.  Well, Raintree ain’t no fool; he allowed the old man wasn’t one, either; and he knew that slumgullion wasn’t worth no more than mud for any 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!”