“Is that so? Just for that I’ll bear down as heavily as I can on him,” declared Jennie. “I’m not going to let any little cowpony nibble at me!”
The party started away from Yucca with Min Peters ahead and Pedro bringing up the rear with his burros. Although the ponies could travel at a much faster pace than the pack animals, the latter at their steady pace would overtake the cavalcade of riders before the day was done.
The road they struck into after leaving town was a pretty good wagon trail and the riding was easy. There was an occasional ranch-house at which the occupants showed considerable interest in the tourists. But before noon they had ridden into the foothills and Min told them that thereafter dwellings would be few and far between.
“‘Ceptin’ where there’s a town. There are some regular gold washin’s we pass. Hydraulic minin’, you know. But they are all on this side of the Range. Nothin’ doin’ on t’other side. All the pay streaks petered out years an’ years ago. Even a Chink couldn’t make a day’s wages at them old diggin’s like Freezeout.”
“Well, we are not gold hunting,” laughed Ruth. “We are going to mine for a better output—moving pictures.”
“I’ve heard tell of them,” said Min, curiously. “There was a feller worked for the Lazy C that went to California and worked for them picture fellers. He got three dollars a day and his pony’s keep an’ says he never worked so hard in his life. That is, when the sun shone; and it most never does rain in that part o’ California, he says.”
The prospect of camping out of doors, even in this warm and beautiful weather, was what most troubled Miss Cullam and some of the girls.
“With the sky for a canopy!” sighed Sally Blanchard. “Suppose there are wolves?”
“There are coyotes,” Helen explained. “But they only howl at you.”
“That’s enough I should hope,” Rebecca Frayne said. “Can’t we keep on to the next house and hire beds?”