156 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



of) had passed so near without paying them a visit. 

 It would cost me nothing, he assured me: the boys 

 would regard me as a boon and take care of me as 

 long as I would stay. So, too, I found it at Dale. At 

 the first house on the stalrway-like street I asked 

 where I might find lodging, supposing that there 

 must be something in the nature of an Inn. "Well, 

 the Superintendent is away," I was told: "you'd 

 better go and see the cashier. He'll fix you up." 

 That friendly chap at once took charge of me as of 

 an expected guest: insisted on my taking his room 

 for my own, and quartered Kaweah In the Com- 

 pany's stable. Other conveniences were offered by 

 the resident doctor, and In effect I was made free of 

 the camp. 



This Dale, I learned, was Dale the Third. As old 

 "leads" or veins of ore "peter out" and new ones 

 are discovered, the mining camp "follows the lead" 

 in a literal sense. The present camp is about a dozen 

 years old, and is supported by one good-sized gold 

 mine, named the Supply, though there are a few 

 smaller mines In the locality. Fifty or sixty men, half 

 a dozen women, a half-score of children, and one 

 badly spoiled baby made up the population at the 

 time of m.y stay. The mine is a highly organized 

 affair, with electric-lighted buildings and a water 

 supply pumped from wells six miles away. Day and 

 night the whirr and crash of engines goes on un- 

 ceasing. It was strange to wake at night and hear 

 the roar of machinery in that remote place, all the 

 more so after weeks of Nature's quietude. 



The village consists of (beside the mine structures) 



