There were two colored servants gliding about the room, and a pretty waiting-maid.

"O dear, no cook from Cathay," whispered Kyzie to Edith.

"I don't know what you mean."

"I mean I wanted a cook from Cathay or c.i.p.ango," went on Kyzie, laughing behind her napkin.

"I'm going to shake you," said Edith, who suddenly bethought herself that Cathay and c.i.p.ango were the old names for China and j.a.pan. This had been part of her history lesson a few days ago. How Kyzie did remember everything!

At that moment the colored man from Georgia stood at her elbow with a steaming plate of soup. Lucy looked at him askance. Why couldn't he have been a Chinaman with a pigtail? She had told Bab she was almost sure there would be a "China cook" at the mountains, and when he pa.s.sed the soup he would say, "Have soup-ee?" Bab had been in Europe and in Maine and in California, but knew very little of Chinamen and had often said she "wanted to eat China cooking."

The dinner was excellent. Eddo enjoyed it very much for a while; then his head began to nod over his plate, his spoon waved uncertainly in the air, and Maggie had to be sent for to take him away from the table.

The ride up the mountain had been so fatiguing that by eight o'clock all the Dunlees, little and big, were glad to find themselves snugly in bed.

They slept late, every one of them, and even the woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, tapping on the roof next morning, failed to arouse them with their "Jacob, Jacob, wake up, wake up, Jacob!"

After breakfast Edith happened to leave the dining-room just behind Mrs.

McQuilken, who held her two cats cuddled up in her arms like babies, and was kissing their foreheads and calling them "mamma's precious darlings." As Edith heard this she could not help smiling, and Mrs.

McQuilken paused in the entry a moment to say:--

"I guess you like cats."

"I do, ma'am. Oh, yes, very much."

"That's right. I like to see children fond of animals. Now, I've got a new kitty upstairs, a zebra kitty, that you'd be pleased with. It's a beauty, and _such_ a tail! Come up to my room and see it if you want to.

My room's Number Five. But don't you come now; I shall be busy an hour and a half. Remember, an hour and a half."

Edith thanked her and ran to tell Kyzie what the "knitting-woman" had been saying.

"Go get your kodak," said Kyzie. "Nate Pollard is going to take us all out on an exploring expedition. You know he has been in Castle Cliff a whole week, and knows the places."

"First thing I want to see is that mine," said Lucy, as they all met outside the hotel.

"The mine?" repeated Kyzie, and looked at Eddo. "I'm afraid it isn't quite safe to take little bits of people to such a place as that. Do you think it is, Nate?"

"Rather risky," replied Nate.

Eddo had caught the words, "little bits of people," and his eyes opened wide.

"What does _mine_ mean, Jimmum?"

"A great big hole, I guess. See here, Eddo, let's go in the house and find Maggie."

"Yes," chimed in Edith, "let's go find Maggie. There's a _beau_-tiful picture book in mamma's drawer. You just ask Maggie and she'll show you the picture of those nice little guinea-pigs."

Though very young, Eddo was acute enough to see through this little manoeuvre. It was not the first time the other children had tried to get him out of the way. They wanted to go to see a charming "great big hole"

somewhere, and they thought he would fall into it and get hurt. They were always thinking such things--so stupid of them! They thought he used to run after "choo choos" and talk to them, when of course he never did it; 'twas some other little boy.

"I want to go with Jimmum," said he, stoutly. "You ought to not go 'thout me! _I_ shan't talk to that mine. _I_ shan't say, 'Come, little mine, Eddo won't hurt oo.' No, no, not me! I shan't say nuffin', and I shan't fall in the hole needer. So there! H'm! 'm! 'm!"

It was not easy to resist his pleading. Perhaps Aunt Vi saw how matters were, for she appeared just then, bearing the news that she and Uncle James were going to drive, and would like to take one of the children.

"And Eddo is the one we want. He is so small that he can sit on the seat between us. Aren't the rest of you willing to give him up just for this morning? He can go to walk with you another time."

So they all said they would try to give him up, and he bounded away with Aunt Vi, his dear little face beaming with proud satisfaction.

III

LUCY'S GOLD MINE

The other children strolled leisurely along toward a place that looked like a long strip of sand.

"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.

"Why, the miners did it years ago. They ground up the rocks in the mine into powder just as fine as they could, and then washed the powder to get the gold out."

"Oh, I see," said Edith. "So these tailings are what's left after the gold's washed out."

"Yes, they brought 'em and spread 'em 'round here to get rid of 'em I suppose."

"Is the gold all washed out, every bit?" asked Jimmy. "Seems as if I could see a little shine to it now."

"Well, they got out all they could. There may be a little dust of it left though. Mr. Templeton says the folks in 'Frisco that own the mine think there's _some_ left, and the tailings ought to be sent to San Diego and worked over."

Jimmy took up another handful. Yes, there was a faint shine to it; it began to look precious.