Here is my entry. I hope everypony likes it.

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               Sixty four years ago my grandfather, Golden Nugget, was a gold prospector in the Whispering Woods mountains. The mines and town no longer exist, officially being abandoned only twelve years after it was settled. The official story is that the gold and silver ran out, but many believe the mountains were cursed or haunted. There are many stories of strange activities, some more believable than others. I had the pleasure of interviewing my grandfather to document what he had witnessed.

               My grandfather is a no-nonsense, hard-working pony, who came from a generation of serious ponies. He is kind hearted, loving, and funny at times, but he is not the kind of pony to make up a story for the sake of attention. When he said something happened, it happened. Please listen to the interview with an open mind.

B: Hello Grandpa, thank you for taking the time to tell your story.

GN: I’m glad to.

B: So, you’ve told me this story, parts of it, at different times. You’d tell it to me and dad, or me when I was a foal. I wasn’t sure if they were true at first.

GN: But these stories are absolutely true.

B: Let’s start at the beginning. Tell us about your time in Whispering Woods. Remember this is for everypony, so pretend I don’t know any of this story.

GN: Right. Well, this was…sixty…four years ago. They had found gold a few years before that. Seemed like everypony was some way or another involved in the mining business. The government was handing out claims. I, along with three others, got ourselves a claim.

B: Tell us about those other ponies you worked with.

GN: There was Smokey, Twitchy, and Red. We was all about the same age. Young ponies looking to make a fortune prospecting. Anyway, we got ourselves a claim about a day’s hike down river from Washaway.

B: That was the name of the town. Why did they call it Washaway?

GN: Because the town was so slapdash that they said one good flood and it would get washed away. You see, you build your town close to the river and up stream. You use the river for water and transport, and as far upstream as possible so that any other camps are made downstream, so that you get the freshest water.

B: What was the town like?

GN: Not much to it. You had a couple stores for your food and supplies. Workshops, couple places to eat and drink, assayer’s office, post office, black smiths, a few rooms you could rent, and some offices and houses for officials and the more permanent residents. All wood shacks with mostly dirt floors. The café with the wood floor was considered the upscale establishment.

B: What was it like to first get there and stake your claim?

GN: It took us two days to haul our wagons up the dirt road. We was from Little Seed [a small settlement about forty miles from Ponyville], but I think Red was actually from Ponyville. First thing we did was take our paperwork to the town hall and register our claim. They gave us a map to our area. We had about twelve acres a day’s travel from town.

B: Is that a long way from town?

GN: Not as far as you’d think. That’s a day hiking through essentially a rabbit trail. Heavily wooded areas. But over time the trail got bigger and more worn, which made it easier. In our twelve acres there was about one of it that you could actually set up a cabin. So, we spent a few days just building that cabin, clearing brush and kind of settling in.

B: Not to give away the story, but did you notice anything strange in those first few days?

GN: No, nothing. Was just like camping, except more work. We had a couple tents until the cabin was built. Rough wood, stove, bought some old tables and stools. The plan was we would take turns going back to town for supplies.

B: You were there how long, total?

GN: Let’s see, the whole ordeal was maybe two and a half years.

B: Tell us what it was like prospecting for gold. Give us a day-to-day picture. Was it hard work? It sounds rough.

GN: Nah, not so bad really. Once the sluice was going, the day-to-day work was routine. You start digging your way inward from the river. You haul the dirt to the sluice and check for nuggets.

B: And a sluice is basically a water powered device that separates gold from rocks?

GN: Yes, pretty much. It has a shaker that settles out the heavier gold.

B: And the idea is to find a rich vein of gold, and then bring in more serious digging equipment?

GN: Yes. If you found gold, you would usually contract out a company with the equipment to mine it. Or you could just get smaller nuggets yourself, if there wasn’t enough to dig for. Or you could sell your claim.

B: Sell it once you found gold, and let somepony else do the work?

GN: Essentially, yes. You have all these small-time prospectors doing the initial exploratory work, which is time consuming. Then you cash out and sell a good claim to a bigger company. But that’s also a risk, because you don’t know how much you really have. You could think you have a small amount, sell it for a modest profit, and the big company could come in, dig, and find a whole lot more than expected. You missed out on selling for a lot more.

B: But the flip side is, the big company can’t risk spending a lot on what could be a bust. And you don’t want to risk spending too much to dig yourself, if there’s nothing there.

GN: Exactly. It’s all a gamble. I mean, if it were easy then everypony would do it.

B: Right. Tell us what was the first indication of something odd happening there.

GN: It was about a month after we got there. Apparently, somepony’s camp had been ransacked. His cabin had been raided and his gear broken. We thought there was a saboteur, trying to hurt other ponies’ work.

B: Why might somepony do that?

GN: Who knows. Jealousy, maybe try to scare ponies off their claims so they could take over.

B: What was the conclusion on that case?

GN: As far as I know, nothing was determined. It’s really hard to prove anything. We had to watch out for each other. You make friends and form alliances, in a way. There were some unwritten rules. Don’t tell ponies how successful you were, don’t go onto another claim, just be nice.

B: Was there much crime otherwise?

GN: Not a whole lot. We was all too busy to be causing trouble. Sometimes ponies would hit the cider too hard and spend a night in the pokey.

B: But there was an old legend about the mountains.

GN: Yes, the old legend. That’s how Whispering Woods got its name. They say that sometimes, when you’re alone in the woods, you hear whispers, like you was being watched. They said the spirits didn’t want you there messing with their mountains. I suppose they didn’t take kindly to us digging up half their mountain.

B: Tell us about some of the stories that happened before your first strange occurrence.

GN: A few of the same kinds of things, ponies’ camps getting trashed. Ponies would say they was being followed in the woods. Felt like they were being watched. Ponies started getting nervous after a while.

B: What happened to you?

GN: This was about two months in. We had everything running smooth, finding a few bits each day, nothing big. Enough to keep the operation going and make it worthwhile to stay. One night we were in the cabin eating and we heard something outside. We thought it was an animal, but it got real close to the cabin. It sounded like a pony walking around it, circling. We got all quiet and covered up the lamp. We had a couple open windows, and Red went to go look out. We could hear the hoofsteps, but didn’t see anything.

               The steps circled around once and stopped at the door. I thought maybe somepony had come to visit us for some reason, although that would have been very strange, especially at night. We just sat there, waiting for a knock on the door, but there never was. After a minute we looked at each other. Twitchy shrugged and went to the door. I grabbed the frying pan. I just had this bad feeling. He opened the door but there was nothing there. He stepped out, look around, but there was nothing.

B: And no sound of hoofsteps leaving?

GN: No, none. I tell you, I am one hundred percent certain we heard hoofsteps stop at that door. The ground is covered with branches, you’d have to be very careful to tip toe away without making a sound. And why bother being quiet then, if you’d already stomped your way up to the door. He closed the door and we all just stared at each other.

B: What did you do then?

GN: We talked about it for a bit, like, “You heard that, right?” “Yeah, there was definitely something out there.” “Did you heard him leave?” “No, I didn’t hear nothing.” Then we just finished our meal. For a while after that, we kept the doors and windows locked when we were there at night.

B: Did you tell other ponies about this?

GN: I think it was Red who was the next to go back to town, and he tried to get some information. He asked around, told our story. Apparently, a few others had similar experiences.

               At this point we all had figured there was some ponies trying to spook everypony. Like I said, maybe trying to scare somepony off their claim, maybe try to rob them. But nopony had gotten a look at anything. Not yet, anyway.

B: What else happened, before the next big event?

GN: Over the next few weeks, we would hear the hoofsteps almost every night. We tried looking out the window, opening the door right when the steps stopped there, but nothing. A couple times we called out, “Who’s there?” or, “You’d best leave. We got weapons. You’re looking for a heap of trouble.” But that didn’t seem to stop them.

               Then we started seeing lights outside. They were white balls, not orange like a lantern light.

B: Will o’ the whisps?

GN: Yeah, could be. We’d see three or four in a cluster, bobbing up and down in the woods at night. One night they’d be on the east side, the next night on the west. Different places each night. Four, five nights in a row. About a hundred feet into the woods. They would bob around, then go into the woods, like they were beckoning us to follow. Once, Red said he was going to see what they were, but I told him no. I just knew that if he went into those woods, we’d never see him again. He didn’t go, thank Celestia.

B: Did you ever see the lights and hear the hoofsteps in the same night?

GN: Hmm, yes, we did a few times. I don’t know what the connection was. Sometimes we heard the steps, sometimes saw the lights, sometimes both, but usually just one or the other.

B: How long did this go on?

GN: It lessened up a little, but it continued from then on, until the time I left. It would happen every few nights. Sometimes longer stretches with nothing. We kind of just got used to it.

B: What did you see during the day?

GN: During the day sometimes we would hear things. One time, I went into the woods to get some fire wood or something. I had lost sight of the cabin, due to the trees, but I knew where I was, not too far away. I heard somepony call my name, “Gold Nugget.” It was quiet, like maybe I didn’t hear right, you know? I looked around, didn’t see nothing. The others were back at the cabin, I think maybe somepony had even gone back to town that day. I went back to picking up wood and I heard it again. But this time the voice was deeper, darker. “Nugget!” like it was angry, and it was closer. I looked up quickly, but saw nothing. But it was quiet, too quiet. There were no sounds from animals. Anypony who’s spent time in the woods knows that when the animals stop making noise, something’s wrong.

               I stood there quietly. I had this intense feeling that I was being watched. I was starting to get scared. I slowly looked around. Did I see something in the trees, or was it my imagination? I took the bundle of wood that I had and quickly made my way back to camp. But when I tried to orient myself, I couldn’t figure out where I was. Now understand, I had been around this area a hundred times. I wasn’t that far from the cabin. I knew the trails we had cut, all I had to do was follow them, but for some reason I felt lost. I started to panic, I had this overwhelming urge to run, but I knew I couldn’t just take off in a random directly.

So, I started walking back the way I had come, best I could figure, and hoped it was the right way. I kept looking behind me because I just had this feeling I was being followed. I started trotting as fast as I could without breaking into a full sprint. Thankfully, I found the campsite. Smokey was there, cutting wood or something. He asked me, “what’s wrong? You look like you were being chased by timber wolves.” I told him I just panicked and I don’t know why, like I felt like I was being chased. He looked at me serious like and said he had the same experience some time before. We told the others, and we decided not to go into the woods farther than we could see the cabin.

B: Ponies seem to have an extra sense about certain things, don’t they? Some ponies would say it’s superstition, but you don’t think so?

GN: No, it’s definitely real. I think we’ve all felt it one time or another. A pony doesn’t just panic for no reason. Not when you weigh in all the other factors.

B: When things started to get strange, how did this affect your trips back to town? You were a day’s hike away?

GN: By this point we had established a somewhat passable road. It followed the river bank, and it led to other claims, so other ponies would travel it. It was a stone’s throw from the cabin. Sometimes we would see ponies walking the road, say hello, stop to chat. We nailed signs to trees, pointing the way. For us, we could leave in the morning, get to town by late afternoon, spend the night, then come back.

               Sometimes we would let ponies stay with us if they were coming from farther away and didn’t want to make the trip at night. That became pretty common as time went on, because other ponies would report feeling the same thing. In a way, it brought us all closer together as a community. We would talk more, check in on each other, trade stories.

B: So everypony was experiencing this? What other things did they report?

GN: A lot of the same. Hoofsteps at night, most ponies saw the lights too. A couple ponies claimed they saw a figure in the woods. Supposedly a dark figure, but it’s hard to say for sure.

B: Every year, ponies go missing in the forests under inexplicable circumstances. This happened to one of your group, didn’t it?

GN: Yeah, it did. It was three of us: Me, Smokey, and Red. Twitchy was in camp or gone to town. We needed some logs to add onto our cabin. We were starting to get more successful with our mining. We had more equipment and needed to build a shed for it. We took some axes and rope and went looking for logs.

               Normally we wouldn’t leave sight of the cabin, but we needed to find some good logs. So, we tied some rags to some trees to guide us back. I mean, normally we wouldn’t need to do that because we weren’t going that far, but in these woods we just wanted to be safe. We found a few good logs, not too big. We chopped off some of their branches, tied them up, and started dragging them back. Red was in front, I was behind him, and Smokey was behind me, each of us dragging a log. It was going to take us probably a half hour to get back to the cabin. About half way back I called to Red to stop so we could rest. He stops, drops his rope, but doesn’t turn around. I do the same thing, but I turn around to look at Smokey, and he wasn’t there.

B: He’s just gone?

GN: Without a trace! We had been walking fifteen, twenty minutes, dragging these logs, making all kinds of noise, but I think I had lost track of the noise he was making on account of the noise I was making. I never noticed him missing.

B: He wasn’t just farther down the trail, maybe behind some trees or something?

GN: There was a clear trail of where we were dragging the logs. I could see for several hundred feet. He would have to be about where we started if he hadn’t left the trail, and he would have called out to us. I turned to look at Red, afraid that maybe he would have disappeared too. He was still there, but when he saw Smokey was gone, he about panicked himself. “Where did he go?” he asked. At this point, I was scared and mad. “Red, I have no idea where he went! He’s just gone!”

B: Why were you mad?

GN: I was mad at those woods! I was getting sick of the whole thing. I wanted to tear down every tree, burn the place to the ground! Red and I back tracked all the way back to our starting point, calling for Smokey. We found his log, about a hundred feed behind me. His rope was there, like he’d just dropped it. There was no sign that he’d left the trail. He just disappeared.

               We searched until it started to get dark, then we had to go back. But you know what else is crazy? The rags that we tied to the trees were gone. We didn’t notice at first because we weren’t really needing them. But they were all gone.

We decided to go to town the next day to get a search party. We met Twitchy halfway coming back, and so we all went back to town. We got some pegasi to do a fly over, and Twitchy tried some locate spell, but we didn’t find anything. We spent that next night in the cabin, barely sleeping. But the next morning I went outside and there was Smokey, sitting on the stump by the fire pit.

               I said, “Smokey! Where have you been?” He looked at me like he didn’t know what was going on. He looked around, and then he asked me, “What’s going on?” I said, “Smokey, you tell me. You’ve been missing for almost two days.” He said, “Two days? No, I just wandered into camp. I don’t know what’s going on.”

               I asked him what he remembered. He said he was pulling the log and just suddenly felt lost. He looked up and I was gone, so he dropped the log and tried to make his way back to camp. But he didn’t know where he was, so he stumbled around for a few hours and then stumbled into camp.

B: But he was gone for two nights? How does that make sense?

GN: It doesn’t! He was gone for two nights, but said he was walking for a few hours. So, we all went back to town to report the incident, have the doctor look at him. But they didn’t find anything wrong. It makes no sense.

B: Over the years there have been numerous cases of ponies going missing in the area there. Sometimes their belongings are found, sometimes not. Sometimes they are found a couple days later and they don’t remember where they were. Did this happen to others while you were there?

GN: Yes, it happened a couple times, as I recall. There was a story about sompepony going missing for a couple days—this was after what happened to Smokey—and he showed up in town not knowing where he was. Said he was being chased by something in the trees, but said he never got a good look at it.

               They said he kept babbling about the whispers in the woods, and seeing creatures watching him. He wasn’t sure if it was ponies or something else, but he said they would follow him but wouldn’t get too close. It took a couple days for him to calm down and he decided to leave the town and go home, never to return.

               But the creepiest event, so far, was a camp that went abandoned, and me and Twitchy went to go investigate it. We were in town one day, and somepony at the shop had said that an entire camp had gone missing. I remember it was three ponies. Anyway, the sheriff was looking for volunteers to go investigate.

               At that point, it was hard to find volunteers because, for one, ponies didn’t want to lose money by not working their claim for a few days. And two, a lot were scared to wander too far from town or their camps. The constant events were starting to wear us down, and erode the comradery that we felt earlier. But Twitchy and me decided to volunteer, because we had experienced enough of the strange goings on, we wanted to get to the bottom of it.

               So, we left a note with one of the ponies who was down stream from us. Remember I told you how other ponies might pass by our camp?

B: Yeah.

GN: There was a messaging system, where you could leave notes and stuff in mail boxes. So somepony would deliver a note to our camp that me and Smokey were gonna be gone for a couple days more.

               So anyway, we went to the sheriff’s office. He said he needed the two of us to go on over to this other camp since nopony had seen them in a few days, and letters from their family had arrived and they hadn’t come to get them, so ponies were getting worried.

               This camp was down a side branch to the main river, so it was out of our way. And it was too far to get to in one day, so the plan was to leave in the morning, investigate, spend the night there, and come back the next day.

B: Wasn’t there any other camps nearby?
GN: I don’t think so. Sometimes claims were too spread out, and you might not have ponies crossing paths. This was especially true for bigger claims, or ones on the edge of the area.

               Anyway, we got some supplies for over night and took a canoe down this branch. The day was overcast and damp. It must have been fall by that point, because I remember it being cool and the leaves were falling. The river was calm and slow, and we used the motor to get us there quicker. Took a few hours. Of course, going back up stream takes a lot longer, so you have to plan for that.

               We followed the directions. Ponies would nail signs to trees, or place them on posts at certain spots on the shore. That way, you would keep track of where you were. And sometimes they would make a note of certain land marks, like big boulders or big trees.

               I remember coming around a bend in the river and seeing the shore. What you did was find spots where the river bank was low, so you could beach your boats and get access to the water. That’s where you typically built camps, but you had to make sure to go up hill just in case the river flooded.

               So, we see the bank and we see some signs of a camp. Logs arranged around a fire pit, some buckets, then I saw the sluice. It was smashed, like something had pushed it over and broken it.

B: Could it have been an accident?

GN: I doubt it. For one, it would take two or three ponies to push it over. And the cross beams were broken. And the chutes that go up to the top of it were about ten feet away, like they was tossed aside.

B: How heavy are those chutes?

GN: All in one piece like that, a couple hundred pounds. You’re not just tossing those that far, and not in one piece. If you want to take it apart, you take off a section. You don’t take the whole thing.

B: So, in your assessment, that wasn’t done by a pony?

GN: Maybe a group of ponies, maybe a unicorn used magic to break it. Hard to say for sure, but I can tell you that it was not disassembled carefully.

B: So right away, you know something is wrong?

GN: Yeah, definitely. I kind of expected something like this, I just had a feeling. And it was real quiet, which is never a good sign. We beach the canoe and pull it up on shore. I then tied the canoe to a tree. Twitchy gets an axe and gives it to me. He takes a shovel. We look at each other and we know to be quiet. So we make our way up the bank.

               I notice the fire pit is kicked around. Something had kicked the logs out and kicked dirt into it. There were some stumps knocked over. Some pots and pans lying about. They had leaves and dirt on them, like they had been there a few days at least.

               Farther up we see the cabin and a shed. I look at Twitchy and I point to the shack. He nods and we start walking slowly. The sound of the cracking leaves and branches under out hooves was so loud. The door to the cabin was closed, we could see that much. And I remember it started to drizzle a bit. We got close to the front door and I pointed for Twitchy to look into the window that was on the front of the cabin, while I went to the door.

               He peeks in, looks around, then shakes his head at me. I lift the lever on the door and push it in. Nopony there.

 B: Tell us what it looked like.

GN: Oh gosh, most of these cabins were so similar. As I recall, there was a table in the middle, a stove off to the right, a cot against the other wall, and some chairs and smaller tables, shelves, a cabinet, and there was a bedroom past the main room.

               But here’s the kicker: there was food on the table, not finished.

B: You mean food on plates, not eaten?

GN: Yeah. It was cold. There was a pot of stew or something on the table, and it was cold. Glasses of water, bread that had gone stale. All set out, and I could see that they had started eating but stopped. I remember we were looking for three ponies and I counted three places. It was like something had caused all of them to get up and leave. But why was the door closed?

               Twitchy and I looked around. We found a coat on hooks by the door, and one set of boots. So, did two of them get dressed to go outside while the other stayed inside? Or did they have a spare set of boots? Impossible to say. The stove was long cold. I remember the sound of the rain tapping on the roof, and I remember just feeling confused and anxious.

               Twitchy pointed to the bedroom, and I went to follow him. He pushed the door slowly open with his shovel. He lit up his horn to give some light. He stuck his head in, looked around, then looked at me and shook his head. Nothing.

               He steps in, looks around a bit more, pulls the bed sheets back, and there was a giant monster that lunges at him!

B: What!? Really?

GN: Ha ha, no! There was nothing. Not a darn thing anywhere in the cabin. They had just disappeared. We looked at each other, and I nodded my head, indicating the shed that we hadn’t checked yet.

               We went back outside. It was raining a bit more now, and the shed was maybe two hundred feet away. I whispered to Twitchy, “You want to check the shed while I circle around the cabin.” He gave me this look like, heck no! So I nodded, “you’re right, let’s stick together.” We walked around the cabin. There was a window in the back, which was where the bedroom was. I saw in the dirt some indentations, like something was been standing there by the window. Then on the window pane there was some dirt streaks, like something had wiped muddy hooves on the glass. I pointed it out to Twitchy, and he shrugged. “Let’s check the shed,” I whispered.

               We walked over to the shed and we could see the door was open on it. Then I noticed marks on the ground. Deep gouges, like something had been dragged away from it. I tried to follow the trail. It went off into the woods, but I couldn’t follow it more than a little way. I got a closer look at the ground in the shed, and I saw large imprints.

B: Like hoof prints?

GN: But bigger.

B: Bear, timber wolf?

GN: Could be. I’m not an expert on that. But they were big. And the drag marks were next to them. Like something was dragging something—or some pony. Because I then found a button and some fabric.

B: Like it had been torn off?

GN: Exactly. And just inside the shed I found a pry bar on the ground. There was a bench in the shed with some tools on it.

B: What’s your best guess as to what happened?

GN: My best guess is the pony went to the shed to grab a pry bar, but he was dragged away by something and he dropped it. Twitchy had looked around the shed and said he didn’t find anything else.

B: So, you think the ponies were having dinner, heard something, one of them went to the shed to get a weapon, and he didn’t make it. But no signs of struggle anywhere else? Wouldn’t the other two have fought too?

GN: Well, that’s the thing. Things never make sense like they’re supposed to. You watch too many shows where there’s a crime, clues, motive, and the detective pieces everything together perfectly. But in the real world there’s so much that doesn’t make any sense.

And you know, that was the scary part. I mean, if they had been attacked by timber wolves or something, we would have seen signs of that. I wish we had found them, even if it was just their bodies, you know?

B: The not knowing is the worst part?

GN: Yeah, exactly. At this point, Twitchy says to me, “I don’t want to stay here tonight.” And I said that it would be really late if we tried to take the boat back. He said he’d rather take his chances on the river at night. He said, “If three ponies couldn’t face what was here, what chance do we have?”

               I thought for a minute and agreed. We went back to the shore, and we immediately saw that our canoe had been moved. It had been tied up to a tree, but the rope had been snapped.

B: Snapped, not a clean cut?

GN: That’s right. Like if you’d pulled it too hard and it snapped. The canoe was pushed back into the water, like someopony was trying to send it off into the river. But it was still partly on the shore and the water hadn’t pulled it all the way into the river.

               I said to Twitchy, “Let’s get the heck out of here.” We tossed our tools in and pushed the canoe in, facing it up river. As I was about to get into the canoe I looked back up toward the cabin, and I swear to you, I saw a face in the window. The cabin is far away, and it was late in the day, but I saw a face in the window. I turned to Twitchy, grabbed his shirt, and pointed toward the cabin. “Somepony’s up there! In the window.” But when we both looked back, the face was gone.

B: What did he look like? Was he one of the missing ponies?

GN: I don’t know, I’d never met the ponies from this camp. I might have passed by him in town without knowing. You lose track of faces after a while, and I didn’t get a good enough look at this face to say I could recognize him or not. And, to be honest, I’m not even sure the face was a pony’s.

               Twitchy looked at me and said, “You sure you saw somepony?” I said, “Yeah, absolutely positive. There’s some pony up there.” “Should we go back and look?” Twitchy asked. I thought for a moment, but said, “No way, let’s get out of here, right now.” He started the motor and we headed back.

B: You didn’t go back and look? What if it was one of the missing ponies?

GN: And what if it wasn’t? We talked about that. We searched that cabin thoroughly. There is no way somepony was hiding in the cabin. Which means he was hiding somewhere in the woods. Which means he didn’t want to be found. As far as I’m concerned, if he didn’t want to talk to us then I didn’t want to talk to him.

I barely got a glimpse of him, but there was something in his eyes. He had a blank stare. I had the strongest feeling that he didn’t want us to be there, and I was happy to oblige.

B: That’s creepy. How was the trip back?

GN: Frightening. We were both scared. We talked to ease the fear. We speculated on what could have happened at the camp. Did they hear something and one of them go out to investigate, disappear, and then the next went out, disappear, and then the third?

B: Seems an obvious theory was that one pony went crazy and killed the other two. Maybe to steal all the gold for himself.

GN: Could be, but there was just something about that face that I’m not sure it was a pony. And if that theory was true, then that pony was there for a few days. Why was the food still there, uneaten? Think about it. If that was the motive, then he would still be living there for those few days. And he would have come back to town to claim that his group had gone missing, you know, to create a cover story.

B: Maybe he just went crazy, maybe there was no motive.

GN: Could be. Our favorite theory was that one pony went out to the shed and got taken. Then the second pony went out and got taken. Then the third tried to stay inside, which is why his boots were still there. And that figure we saw was something else entirely.

B: But then why wasn’t the door locked from inside?

GN: Like I said, boy, things don’t always make sense like that. I don’t know. But that trip back up the river was frightening, as I said. It started to get dark so Twitchy tried to give us some light. The entire trip, we heard rustling in the woods, on both sides of the river.

               Then after the sun went down, we started to hear other things. We heard whoops and hollers from close to the shore and deeper in the woods, again, on both sides.

B: What were the sounds like? Were they pony, animal?

GN: I don’t know. Didn’t sound like an animal either. It could have been pony, but it wasn’t like normal talking. It was more like, “Woop! Woop!” and then something else would respond, “Ahh! Ahh!” or “Woo oop!” And sometimes it was more structured, like a language. Like a, “Ooga googa!” I can’t reproduce it exactly, but it had an intelligence behind it. And it was deeper than any pony I’d ever heard. We were terrified. They started throwing rocks or something into the river. We would hear splashes, and we would catch glimpses of the rocks in the light of Twitchy’s horn. It was odd that they never actually hit us. I don’t know if that was intentional or not.

               After a few hours, but felt like forever, we made it back to town. It was late, like one or two in the morning I’d say. The rocks and sounds stopped about a half hour before we saw the lights of the town. We were so relieved. We docked the boat and tied it up. We were so tired, we went to the inn, which was part of one of the shops.

               The town is eerie at night. The saloon usually has ponies there all night, but other than that, the stores are closed up. There are lanterns that stay lit all night, which cast an eerie orange glow.

B: You didn’t go to the saloon to tell ponies what you saw?
GN: No, we was too tired. We just went to the inn and knocked on the owner’s door. He was annoyed to be awoken at the hour, but we asked for a room. So, we paid him, he gave us a key, and we went to the room and pretty much collapsed on the floor.

               Next day, we told the sheriff what happened. I remember he scowled and shook his head, like he wasn’t surprised at our story. He said something about writing a letter to the families, telling them that the three ponies had gone missing. And he would have to eventually get a group together to go clear the site. He thanked us and we went back to our cabin.

B: Did you learn what happened to the site?

GN: No, I never followed up on it. But the next day Twitchy told us he was going home. He done had enough of the nonsense. As soon as he mentioned it, Smokey said he was leaving too.

B: So that was leaving you and Red?

GN: That’s right. Twitchy and Smokey spent one more night with us, and it was one of the worst, let me tell you.

B: This was, what, just a couple nights after you came back?

GN: Yeah, one or two. They packed up what they could carry. We tried to convince them to stay, but there was no changing their minds. So that last night it started to rain, pretty hard too. The wind started picking up, and it was knocking branches and whatnot against the windows.

               Red jokingly said, “See, the woods don’t want you to leave.” And old Smokey said, “No, it wants us all to leave.” We was eating dinner and we heard something making a ruckus outside, by our supply shed. At first, we thought it was the wind blowing stuff around. But we heard the wood pile collapse, all the logs tumbling over themselves. The wind wasn’t strong enough to knock those logs down.

               We froze and looked at each other. We started reaching for weapons. Somepony got the fire poker, I had a knife, the others were grabbing pans and clubs. We sat there listening. Every few minutes there was something.

               Sounded like stuff getting thrown against trees. Thud, thud. We heard splashes of hoof steps right outside. Then we heard those whoops. Not as many as we heard on the river, just a few. Whoop, whoop! Had to be just twenty feet from the cabin. Then on the other side, a response: Whooooo!

               Then stuff started slamming against the walls. Thud! My fear turned into anger. I felt like if something had a bone to pick with me, then just come out with it. I said to the group something like, “I’ve had about enough of this.”

               The others nodded. Red said, “What do you want to do, go out there?” I wasn’t sure, but then Red went to the door and flung it open and yelled out into the rain, “Hey you cowards! You come in here and fight like a pony! Huh? Come on!”

B: What happened?

GN: Nothing. The hollering stopped; the logs stopped getting thrown at the walls. He closed the door and locked it. He was scared, I could tell. But he was mad too. We all were. We sat around the rest of the night, eventually falling asleep.

               The next morning, we went out to investigate. We found the logs and branches that got thrown at the cabin. The stuff in the supply shed had been tossed around, the door was hanging off the hinges. And I don’t think the wind would have done that.

               So, Smokey and Twitchy were more than eager to leave. We said goodbye to them and they were off. The rest of the day, me and Red talked about calling it quits too. But we were in the middle of a good gold vein. We were pretty confident at that point that we could sell the claim. Well, I should rephrase that. Under normal circumstances, we would have been able to sell it. But with the strangeness going on, we didn’t know what was going to happen.

               We decided to spend a couple more weeks tapping out the vein, register our findings at the assayer’s office, and put our claim up for sale. If it got bought, good, if not, then we’d let it lapse.

B: Explain that, please.

GN: The government hands out the claims. If you don’t sell them to a contractor or continue to work them, then they revert back to the government. Then they can give them back out to somepony else, or sell them for development, or whatever they want. We had made decent profit, and we were ready to go.

               So, we fortified our cabin. Added a bar to the door, reinforced the shutters on the windows. We didn’t experience anything for the next week. Then we saw the lights again, but that was a welcome relief compared to the madness of that one night.

B: You had one final experience. Tell us about that.

GN: Yeah, that last one. And that was enough for me. Let me gather my thoughts on this.

B: How long had you been there by this point?

GN: This was a couple days before we left. So, two and a half years. I went up river to town to sell our latest batch of gold. Was a pretty good haul.

               I was going back down river on the boat. It’s much faster than walking and I expected to find our camp quickly. But after an hour, things didn’t look familiar. I had gotten used to the land marks and signs, and I didn’t recognize anything. I thought I had gone past the camp, but there’s no way I would have missed it. I decided to go on a bit farther before turning around. But something compelled me to keep going. I don’t know why, but I felt curious to see what was ahead.

               I came to site, a much bigger dig site. I’d never seen it before, and I don’t think I’d even heard of it. This would have been past the last camp in our area. The shore was wide in this spot, and there was a dock. Curious, I tied the boat to the dock and disembarked. I got a good look around. There area was clear, whether naturally or not, I’m not sure. It was early afternoon, and sunny, so I decided to explore.

               I noticed right away that this site was abandoned. There were a couple buildings to my left and a couple more to my right, and in the center was a mine. The buildings were bigger and better built than most cabins. This was a big operation, when it was running. There was a track running into the mine, which looked like it had started as a natural cave and had been expanded. The dark opening beckoned to me.

               But first I decided to explore the structures. The first building was some kind of dormitory. There was a common room, with tables and couches. The place had been abandoned for years. It was probably one of the first mines in the area. Most of the windows were broken. There were some dishes scattered about. An old boot, cans, junk like that. There was a kitchen area. The stoves and cookware were rusted.

               The room beyond the common area had bunks. I’d say about ten or so. The beds were rusted, the mattress all rotting. There were empty lockers and boxes, bits of clothing and bedding.

B: You weren’t scared?

GN: No, strangely. Like I said, I felt compelled to explore. The next building was a work shop. There were benches, a few rusted tools, some mine carts. The whole place appeared to have been cleared in an orderly fashion, which is to say they didn’t all run away at once. Most likely the ore had run out and the place was shut down.

B: So, not like the camp you had seen before, where the three ponies had disappeared suddenly?

GN: Right. This place was not like that. The other buildings held an office, with some desks and filing cabinets. There was scattered note books, but not enough remaining to read or make sense of. Probably just work orders or something like that.

               Next to the office was another storage shed with some barrels and crates. Closer to the mine entrance there was a processing building. There was a crusher, which is this steam powered machine that takes ore on a conveyor and drops it into this big box that has grinding wheels. The boiler was in the room next to it. It was completely rusted and worthless. There was nothing of value in this whole site.

               Now that left the mine itself. I went back to my boat to get a lantern, some matches, and a knife. I picked up an iron bar from the workshop. I lit the lantern and went into the mine. The tunnels were big enough to walk upright. The cart tracks went straight into the main shaft, and there was a branch in the tracks going to a side tunnel to the left. There were smaller tunnels going to the right and left, as well.

               I picked the first tunnel on the right, which had no tracks. Not too far in, and the sunlight didn’t reach, but it was not a deep tunnel. They were probably following a vein and it ran out. So, I went back and picked the tunnel on the left, the other one without the tracks. This one went deeper and got smaller. There were a couple short branches off this one, but eventually it came to an end, too.

               Back out to the main tunnel. I had two more paths to pick, each with tracks. This was good, because I figured I could just follow the tracks out. I went first into the smaller of these two remaining tunnels.

               Now this is where things get eerie. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard something down in the tunnels. Whispering. Boy, as I sit here and tell you this, I don’t know why I didn’t turn and run out of there as fast as I could. But for whatever dang blasted stupid reason, I just felt compelled to keep going.

               I think I had convinced myself that it was just the wind blowing outside, or maybe an airway in the tunnels. It’s common to cut air shafts into the ceilings of mines. But the sound had structure to it, like whispering. And on a few occasions, it sounded more substantial, like a real word or two. I couldn’t make them out, it was like a “ha” or “blah” kind of sound.

               The tracks came to an end and the tunnel didn’t go much farther beyond that. There were some rusted shovel heads, tin cans, gloves, trash like that lying about. That left one last tunnel to explore.

               I made my way back to the main branch, and I noticed the daylight getting weaker, as the sun was getting low. For whatever reason, I decided to keep exploring. The main tunnel went deep into the mountain. I must have explored for a couple hours. There was more trash. The sounds of whispers got louder. I would turn around, trying to catch somepony, but there was never anything there.

               I guess my curiosity and stupidity got the better of my fear, because I kept going. At the end of the tracks there was a mine cart, half full of ore. On the ground there were some pick axes and drills. They would use these drills to bore holes into the rock, where they would place explosives. But these tools were scattered about, like they had been dropped. You wouldn’t just drop your tools there and leave. I didn’t register these clues at the time, because it was like I was in a trance. I had to keep going.

               At this point, the tracks had ended and I went into a side tunnel. I found this wooden box. Maybe it was a dynamite box. I used my rod to lift the lid. When the lid hid the ground, at that exact moment, there was a crash behind me, back in the tunnel the direction I had come. I jumped! I turned around but I didn’t see anything.

               At this point, my fear overcame my stupidity and I made my way back out. But in my haste, I had lost track of which tunnel was out. I took some deep breaths to calm myself and thought. I tried to remember my turns: left, right, right, or whatever it was. I had settled on what I thought was the right way out.

               As I was making my way out, I heard more banging and crashing from the tunnels behind me. This was more motivation to push me in the direction I had chosen, which was away from the sounds. My heart was beating so hard, I’m sure that it was making as much noise as whatever was down in those tunnels.

B: Was the sound coming from one or multiple tunnels?

GN: Multiple directions. Like two or three directions. Eventually, I found the cart tracks and I booked it! But I tripped over a rock and crashed into the ground, my lantern tumbling out of my reach. At this moment I heard more sounds from behind me, like they were getting closer. I got back up, went to retrieve the lantern, and kept running.

               I finally made it to the tunnel entrance. By this time, the sun was almost set, so there wasn’t much light. The camp was so much creepier in the twilight. The black windows, the deep shadows around the buildings. Darn if I wasn’t scared stiff. What was I thinking? I ran toward the dock, and take a guess at what I had found.

B: Your boat was gone.

GN: My…boat…was…gone! Of course, it was at that point that I remembered what had happened to us back at that other camp. Again, I can’t explain to you how I was so stupid, except to again reiterate my compulsion to explore the camp.

               I panicked; I didn’t know what to do. I contemplated my options. Run up river along the bank? No, it was too dark and there wasn’t a trail. I would get lost or stumble into the river. I almost broke down in tears. Thankfully, I still had my lantern. I shook it to get an idea of how much fuel I still had. Not enough to last the whole night, I concluded. I cursed my stupidity; I cursed the fact that I was an earth pony and not a pegasus. I cursed the damned forest, the mine, Washaway, and everything I could think of.

               That left me the only other option: To hunker down for the night. It seemed the noises had stopped, at least for the moment. I decided upon the best spot to hole up, which was the office. It had one door in and only a couple windows. I ran to it and went inside. I closed the door, which was old and warped. It didn’t close as well as I’d hoped.

               I set the lantern on the floor. The desk, which was large and heavy, I shoved against the door. I pushed the filing cabinets against the windows. There was a table that I leaned against the other window, and I reinforced that with the chairs. The whole set up was not ideal, but it would have to do. I reached into my pockets and breathed a sigh of relief when I found my matches. I could then safely turn off the lantern. I figured this would conserve my fuel and also maybe the darkness would keep me hidden from whatever was out there.

               I sat there, in complete darkness, and waited. The sun had long gone down by this point. I tried to doze off, thinking that if something did come in, the noise would wake me, but I just couldn’t sleep. I sat there for probably a couple hours before I heard the first noise. Hoofsteps from outside. I could hear the walking in the gravel, like whatever it was, was searching the camp. My heart wanted to leave my chest, but I tried to take deep, calming breaths.

               The steps came my way. Thump, thump, then up onto the wooden porch. Clack, clack, on the wood. It pushed at the door. The door jiggled but the desk didn’t move, thankfully. I still had my knife, and I gripped it. The steps moved around the front of the building. It pushed on the window. The table moved a little, but didn’t fall over. I’m pretty sure that if that thing outside pushed hard enough, it could have knocked that table over and cleared the window.

               The figure then went back out to the middle of the camp and whooped. Whoop! Whoop! Then, a few moments later, an answer from deeper in the woods. Whoooo! I had never been so scared. The figure wandered around the camp more. It tried again to get through the door. It banged and pushed, but the desk held.

               I came to a decision at that point: I didn’t want to cower all night, because I thought eventually that thing would get in. So, this is what I did. I took my lantern and unscrewed the top, leaving me with just the can of fuel. I tore off some of my shirt and wrapped it around a piece of wood. I then went to the side window, which looked out onto the building next to me, which was a storage shed.

               I pulled the filing cabinet away from the window as quietly as I could. Then I poured the fuel onto my makeshift torch, lit it, and tossed it at the building next to me, which was really close. I then splashed the fuel as best I could onto the wall of the other building.

               My plan worked, and the building caught aflame. The flames grew until the entire structure was ablaze. That fire was my salvation. I heard the creature whoop, but it ran away from the fire. There was more whooping, but it was farther away. I prayed the fire would last all night. I even tossed the chairs into it. I told myself that if it died down, I would try to set my office alight too, but luckily that wasn’t necessary.

               I sat there until dawn as the remains of that building smoldered. Finally, as the sun came up, I pulled the desk away from the door and went outside. Glorious sun and freedom!

B: Obviously you made it back.

GN: Yes. In the light of day, I was able to follow the river bank. It took me all day, but I came to my camp. Red was so happy to see me. He said he heard the creatures by the cabin that night. I told him my story and he embraced me. “Thank goodness you’re safe.”

               Needless to say, that was our last night there. We packed what we could carry and left the rest. We put our claim up for sale. It was purchased, and we made a nice profit.

B: The mining operation in Whispering Woods eventually petered out and now everything is abandoned.

GN: Yes, it’s been years since anypony has been there, and I hope it stays that way. As I understand, there were a few stories since the time I left, but not enough to scare every pony away. It was the gold running out that really shut it down, I think.

B: Most ponies have heard that Whispering Woods is haunted, but I think most just take those as stories.

GN: I tell you this: There is something in those mountains. The word haunted implies ghosts or spirits. I don’t know what it is that’s there, but it doesn’t want us there, and I’m more than happy to leave it well enough alone. Modern civilization thinks it has everything figured out, but we don’t know half of what’s going on in this crazy world. Our greed for gold and resources pushes us into places we best leave alone.

               The old folk—well, back when I was young, they was the older folk—would tell us to respect the old legends. As I got older, I came to respect those legends, and I suggest you all do the same.

B: Well, Grandpa, I thank you for sharing your story with the readers. Your experiences will live on as lessons to the younger generation.

GN: Glad to be of help.