CHAPTER XIV.
GOLDEN GULCH HOTEL.
The party were able to cover a greater distance on the second day than on the first, being now among the foot-hills, where travelling was attended with less difficulty.
In the mountain-cabin they had been solitary. Their only visitors had been Bill Mosely and his friend Tom Hadley, and such visitors they were glad to dispense with. Now, however, it was different. Here and there they found a little mining-settlement with its quota of rough, bearded men clad in strange fashion. Yet some of these men had filled responsible and prominent positions in the East. One of the most brigandish-looking miners had been a clergyman in Western New York, who had been compelled by bronchial troubles to give up his parish, and, being poor, had wandered to the California mines in the hope of gathering a competence for the support of his family.
"It seems good to see people again," said Ben, whose temperament was social. "I felt like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island when I was up on the mountain."
"Yes," answered Bradley, "I like to see people myself when they're of the right sort. When they're like Bill Mosely I'd rather be alone."
"I agree with you there," said Ben. "Poor company is worse than none."
Besides the mining-settlements there were little knots of miners at work here and there, who generally gave the travellers a cordial welcome, and often invited them to stay and join them.
"No," said Bradley, "we're in a hurry to get to 'Frisco."