The Saddle Boys of the Rockies | Page 3

for neglecting your opportunities so long. Just you wait, and you'll hear
something drop. Couldn't I induce you to name a price on that black
beauty, Archer?"
"Domino is not for sale at any price," replied the other, quietly.
"Oh! all right then. So long, Frank. Go back home, and wait till I send
you word about what I've found out!" and with a careless wave of his
arm Peg whirled his horse around, and galloped off.
"Now, I wonder did he mean that; or was he just bluffing?" said Frank,
as he turned to his chum.
"He looked as if he might be in dead earnest," replied Bob; "but you
know him better than I do, and ought to be able to say whether he'd
have the sand to take up such a job as that."
"Oh! nobody doubts his grit, when it comes to that," Frank went on, as
though trying to figure the matter out. "And he seems to want to do
something everybody else lets alone. You know what I told you about
Thunder Mountain, Bob; and how it has been a mystery ever since the
country hereabout was settled by people from the East?"
"Yes," the Kentucky boy replied, "and somehow, what you told me
seemed to shake me up as I don't ever remember being stirred before. It
was like a direct challenge--just like somebody had dared me to look
into this queer old mountain, and find out what it all meant."
"That's just it," said Frank, watching the face of his chum with a show
of eagerness. "It struck me the same way long ago, and I can remember
often thinking what a great time a few of the right kind of fellows
might have if they took a notion to go nosing around that old pile of
rock, to see what does make all that row every little while."
"And you tell me nobody knows what it is?" demanded Bob.

"Why, don't you understand, the cowboys all keep away from Thunder
Mountain as much as they can. They're worse than the Injuns about it,
because while the reds say that is the voice of Manitou talking, these
fellows just up and declare the mountain is haunted. Lots of 'em
couldn't be hired to spend a night on the side of that big uplift."
"But Frank, we don't believe in any such thing, do we?" pursued Bob,
as if he had begun to suspect what all this talk was leading up to, and
wished to draw his chum on.
"We sure don't, and that's a fact," declared Frank. "Twice, now, one of
our boys has made out that he saw a ghost, but both times I managed to
turn the laugh on him. All the same, if you offered a lump sum for any
fellow to go and camp out half-way up the side of Thunder Mountain
for a week, I don't believe he could be found, not at Circle Ranch,
anyhow."
"I've seen the same kind of men myself; and the coons around our old
Kentucky home always carried a foot of a graveyard rabbit, shot in the
full of the moon, as a sure talisman against ghosts. I've seen many a
rabbit's foot. No use talking to any of them; it's in the blood and can't
be cured. But about that offering a sum for any fellow to go and camp
on the side of that old fraud of a haunted mountain, if you happen to
hear about such a snap you might just think of me, Frank."
The other saddle boy smiled broadly. He believed he knew Bob pretty
well by this time, and could no longer doubt what the Kentucky lad was
hinting at.
"Say, look here, would you take me up if I proposed something right
now?" asked Frank, his face filled with sudden animation.
"If you mean that we try and beat Peg Grant at his own game, and learn
what the secret of Thunder Mountain is, I say yes!" answered Bob,
steadily.
"Shake on that!" he exclaimed. "I'm just primed for something that's
out of the common run; and what could be finer than such a game? I

saw Billy Dixon in town; and we can send back word to father that
we've gone off for a big gallop; so he won't worry if we don't turn up
for a few days. Is it a go, Bob?"
"Count on me," replied the other. "I don't know how it is, Frank; but it
strikes me that I'd like to cut in on that boaster in this thing. If we
managed to find out what makes that fearful booming in the mountain,
and told about it before he got a chance to blow his horn, he'd feel
cheap, wouldn't he?"