“Just as gritty as you do,” was the prompt reply.
“All right then,” laughed Ruth. “We all must have grit enough to hurry along and reach this Handy Gulch before the storm bursts.”
Min told them that there was a “sure enough” hotel at the settlement they were approaching. It was a camp where hydraulic mining was being conducted on a large scale.
“The claims belong mostly to the Arepo Mining and Smelting Company. They have several mines through the Hualapai Range,” said the guide. “This Handy place is quite a town. Only trouble is, there’s two rum sellin’ places. Most of the men’s wages go back to the company through drink and cards, for they control the shops. But some day Arizona is goin’ dry, and then we’ll shut up all such joints.”
“Dry!” coughed Helen. “Could anything be dryer than Arizona is right here and now?”
The seemingly tireless ponies carried the girls at a lope, or a gallop, all that forenoon. It was hard to get the eager little beasts to walk, and they never trotted. Miss Cullam claimed that everything inside of her had “come loose and was rattling around like dice in a box.”
“Dear me, girls,” sighed the teacher, “if this jumping and jouncing is really a healthful exercise, I shall surely taste death through an accident. But good health is something horrid to attain—in this way.”
But in spite of the discomforts of the mode of travel, the party hugely enjoyed the outing. There were so many new and strange things to see, and one always came back to the same statement: “The air is lovely!”
There were certainly new things to see when they arrived at Handy Gulch just after lunch time, not having stopped for that meal by the way. The camp consisted of fully a hundred wood and sheet-iron shacks, and the hotel was of two stories and was quite an important looking building.
Above the town, which squatted in a narrow valley through which a brawling and muddy stream flowed, was the “bench” from which the gold was being mined. There were four “guns” in use and these washed down the raw hillside into open sluices, the riffles of which caught the separated gold. The girls were shown a nugget found that very morning. It was as big as a walnut.