“Well, here we are,” came in Eph’s voice, “and if the stuff is worth all you say it is, we ought to get enough out in a couple of nights to make us rich.”

“Gee!  I can hardly wait till it’s time to start digging,” said Sam Higgins.  “Here we are, on Tom Tiddler’s ground, picking up gold and silver.”

“Wait till we get it before you start hollering,” said Masterson gruffly.

“What time will we start over?” asked Sam.

“About midnight.  It will be plenty of time.”

“But how are we going to locate it?” objected Eph.

“We can see where they’ve been digging, can’t we?” said Bill Masterson, “or if they haven’t started yet, we can hang around and watch till they do.”

The three worthies sat under a rock not far from where the boys were and talked.  It appeared that Bill Masterson had read up on mining and claim law and knew that the boys could not order them off the island.  They had a right to take all of the mineral-bearing earth that they could.

Suddenly, however, their talk stopped.

“What are you doing, Eph?” demanded Sam indignantly.

“Nothing.  What do you mean?” asked Eph in an astonished voice.

“You threw a rock at me.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did.  Ouch!  There’s another.”

“One hit me, too,” cried Eph, springing up, and at the same moment a yell came from Masterson.

Jack and Tom, as much surprised as the three marauders, heard the rocks pelting around them.  Suddenly they looked up.  Standing on a high rock above the place where Masterson and his cronies were talking, was a strange-looking figure in tattered clothes outlined in the moonlight.

He was busily hurling rocks down at the intruders.  Suddenly a demoniacal laugh split the air and the creature vanished, running swiftly, crouched, with long arms hanging.

“It’s the wild man!” gasped Tom, while the three worthies on the beach uttered a startled cry.

“It’s ghosts, that’s what it is,” declared Sam Higgins shuddering.

“Nonsense.  It’s those kids.  That’s who it is,” said Bill, but his voice was rather shaky.

“I never heard anything human laugh like that,” declared Eph.  “Ugh! it makes my blood run cold.”

“Maybe we’d better go back,” said Sam.  “If we’ve got a right here I’d just as soon land in the daylight.”

“You’re a fine pair of babies,” growled Bill.  “I’m sorry I brought you along.  Ghosts indeed—­Wow! what was that?”

Another long ringing peal of laughter sounded through the night.  It reverberated against the steep walls of the canyon and was flung mockingly from crag to crag.  The boys felt their blood chill as they heard it.  There was something diabolical in the merriment of the wild man who, they knew, was making the hideous sounds.

“I’m going back to the other island,” declared Sam.

“If you move I’ll knock your head off,” said Masterson.  “It’s just a trick of those kids to scare us, that’s all it is.”