“Give it up; but we’d better wear our guns.”

Bob laughed.

“I’d have a healthy show against a man who really wanted to get me with a gun.  Presumably he’d be an expert, or he wouldn’t be sent.”

It was agreed, however, “in view of the unsettled state of the country,” as Bob gravely characterized the situation, that the young men should stick together in their work.

“There’s no use taking chances, of course,” Bob summed up, “but there’s no sense in making fools of ourselves, either.  Lord love you, I don’t mind being haunted!  They can spring as many mysterious apparitions as they please, so long as said apparitions don’t take to heaving bricks.  We’d look sweet and lovely, wouldn’t we, to go back to headquarters and tell them we’d decided to come in because a bad man with whiskers who’d never been introduced came and looked at us out of the trees.”

In pursuance of this determination Bob and Elliott combined forces closely in their next day’s work.  That this was not a useless precaution early became apparent.  As, momentarily separated by a few feet, they passed a dense thicket, Bob was startled by a low whistle.  He looked up.  Within fifty feet of him, but so far in the shadow as to be indistinguishable, a man peered at him.  As he caught Bob’s eyes he made a violent gesture whose purport Bob could not guess.

“Did you whistle?” asked Elliott at his elbow.  “What’s up?”

Bob pointed; but the man had vanished.  Where he had stood they found the print of moccasins.

Thrice during the day they were interrupted by this mysterious presence.  On each occasion Bob saw him first.  Always he gestured, but whether in warning or threat Bob could not tell.  Each time be vanished as though the earth had swallowed him the instant Elliott turned at Bob’s exclamation.

“I believe he’s crazy!” exclaimed Elliott impatiently.

“I’d think so, too,” replied Bob, “if it weren’t for the way everybody acted down below.  Do you suppose he’s trying to warn us out or scare us off?”

“I’m going to take a crack at him next time he shows up,” threatened Elliott.  “I’m getting sick of this.”

“No, you can’t do that,” warned Bob.

“I’m going to tell him so anyway.”

“That’s all right.”

For this experiment they had not long to await the opportunity.

“Hi, there!” shouted Elliott at the place from which the mysterious apparition had disappeared; “I give you fair warning!  Step out and declare yourself peaceably or accept the consequences.  If you show yourself again after five minutes are up, I’ll open fire!”

The empty forest gave no sign.  For an hour nothing happened.  Then all at once, when Elliott was entangled in a tiny thicket close at Bob’s elbow, the latter was startled by the appearance of the man not ten feet away.  He leaped apparently from below a rounded rock, and now stood in full view of its crown.  Bob had time only to catch cognizance of a blue eye and a long beard, to realize that the man was saying something rapidly and in a low voice, when Elliott’s six-shooter exploded so near his ear as almost to deafen him.  At the report the man toppled backward off the rock.