"A sand beach," said Kyzie.
"No," said Nate; "it isn't a beach and it isn't sand."
"What can you mean? What else is it, pray?"
She stooped and took up a handful of something that certainly looked like sand. The others did the same.
"What do you call that?" they all asked, as they sifted it through their fingers.
Nate smiled in a superior way.
"Well, I don't call it sand, because it isn't sand. I thought it was when I first saw it; I got cheated, same as you. But there's no sand to it; it's just tailings."
"What in the world is tailings?" asked Kyzie, taking up another handful and looking it over very carefully. Strange if she, a girl in her teens, couldn't tell sand when she saw it! But she politely refrained from making any more remarks, and waited for Nate to answer her question. He was an intelligent boy, between eleven and twelve.
"Well, tailings are just powdered rocks," said Nate.
"Powdered rocks? Who powdered them? What for?" asked Edith.