CHAPTER XII--MIN SHOWS HER METTLE
There were means to be obtained at the Handy Gulch Hotel for the bathsthat the tourists so much desired, even if tiled bathrooms and hot andcold water faucets were not in evidence.
The party lunched after making fresh toilets, and then set forth to viewthe "sights." Ruth inquired of Tom for Min; but their guide haddisappeared the moment the party reached the hotel.
"She's acquainted here, I presume," said Tom Cameron. "Maybe she doesn'twish to be seen with you girls. Her outfit is so very different fromyours."
"Poor Min!" murmured Ruth again. "Do you suppose she has found herfather?"
Tom could not tell her that, and they trailed along behind the others,up toward the bench where the hydraulic mining was going on.
Only one of the nozzles was being worked--shooting a solid stream threeinches in diameter into the hillside, and shaving off great slices thatmelted and ran in a creamlike paste down into the sluice-boxes. Half ahundred "muckers" were at work with pick and shovel below the bench. Theman managing the hydraulic machine stood astride of it, in hip boots andslicker, and guided the spouting stream of water along the face of theraw hill.
The party of spectators stood well out of the way, for the work ofhydraulic mining has attached to it no little danger. The force of thestream from the nozzle of the machine is tremendous; and sometimes thereare accidents, when many tons of the hillside unexpectedly cave downupon the bench.
The man astride the nozzle, however, took the matter coolly enough. Hewas smoking a short pipe and plowed along the face of the rubble withhis deadly stream as easily as though he were watering a lawn.
"And if he should shoot it this way," said Tom, "he'd wash us down offthe bench as though we were pebbles."
"Ugh! Let's not talk about that," murmured Rebecca Frayne, shivering.
"Oh, girls!" burst out Helen, "see that man, will you?"
"What man?" asked Trix.
"_Where_ man?" demanded Jennie Stone.
"Running this way. Why! what can have happened?" Helen pursued. "Look,Tom, has there been an accident?"
A hatless man came running from the far end of the bench. He wasswinging his arms and his mouth was wide open, though they could nothear what he was shouting. The noise of the spurting water and fallingrubble drowned most other sounds.
"Why, girls," shouted Ann Hicks, and her voice rose above the noise ofthe hydraulic, "that's the feller that guided us up here. That'sPeters!"
"Flapjack Peters?" repeated Tom. "The man acts as if he were crazy!"
The bewhiskered and roughly dressed man gave evidence of exactly themisfortune Tom mentioned. His eyes blazed, his manner was distraught,and he came on along the bench in great leaps, shouting unintelligibly.
"He is intoxicated. Let us go away," Miss Cullam said promptly.
But the excitement of the moment held the girls spellbound, and MissCullam herself merely stepped back a pace. A crowd of men were chasingthe irrepressible Peters. Their shouts warned the fellow at the nozzleof the hydraulic machine.
He turned to look over his shoulder, the stream of water still plowingdown the wall of gravel and soil. It bored directly into the hillsideand down fell a huge lump, four or five tons of debris.
"Git back out o' here, ye crazy loon!" yelled the man, shifting thenozzle and bringing down another pile of rubble.
But Peters plunged on and in a moment had the other by the shoulders.With insane strength he tore the miner away from the machine and flunghim a dozen feet. The stream of water shifted to the right as thehydraulic machine slewed around.
"Come away! Come away from that, Pop!" shrieked a voice, and the amazedEastern girls saw Min Peters darting along the bench toward the scene.
Peters sprang astride the nozzle and shifted it quickly back and forthso that the water spread in all directions. He knew how to handle themachine; the peril lay in what he might decide to do with it.
"Come away from that, Pop!" shrieked Min again.
But her father flirted the stream around, threatening the girl and thosewho followed her. The men stopped. They knew what would happen if thatsolid stream of water collided with a human body!
"D'you hear me, Pop?" again cried the fearless girl. "You git off thatpipe and let Bob have it."
Bob, the pipeman, was just getting to his feet--wrathful and muddy. Buthe did not attempt to charge Peters. The latter again swept the streamalong the hillside in a wide arc, bringing tons upon tons of gravel andsoil down upon the bench. The narrow plateau was becoming choked withit. There was danger of his burying the hydraulic machine, as well ashimself, in an avalanche.
The tourist party was in peril, too. They scarcely understood this atthe moment, for things were transpiring so quickly that only seconds hadelapsed since first Peters had approached.
The miners dared not come closer. But Min showed no fear. She plunged inand caught him around the body, trying to confine his arms so that hecould not slew the nozzle to either side.
This helped the situation but little. For half a minute the stream shotstraight into the hillside; then another great lump fell.
At the same moment Peters threw her off, and Min went rolling over andover in the mud as Bob had gone. But she was up again in a moment andmade another spring for the man.
And then suddenly, quite as unexpectedly as the riot had started, it wasall over. The hurtling, hissing stream of water fell to a wabbling,futile out-pouring; then to a feeble dribble from the pipe's nozzle. Thewater had been shut off below.
The miners pyramided upon him, and in half a minute Flapjack Peters was"spread-eagled" on the muddy bench, held by a dozen brawny arms.
"Wait! wait!" cried Ruth, running forward. "Don't hurt him. Take care----"
"Don't hurt him, Miss?" growled Bob, the man who had been flung aside."We ought to nigh about knock the daylights out o' him. Look what hedone to me."
"But you mustn't! He's not responsible," Ruth Fielding urged.
The miners dragged Peters to his feet and there was blood on his face.Here is where Min showed the mettle that was in her again. She sprang inamong the angry miners to her father's side.
"Don't none of you forgit he's my pop," she threatened in a tone thatheld the girls who listened spellbound and amazed.
"You ain't got no call to beat him up. You know he can't stand redliquor; yet some of you helped him drink of it las' night. Ain't thatthe truth?"
Bob was the first to admit her statement. "I s'pose you're right, Min.We done drunk with him."
"Sure! You helped him waste his money. Then, when he goes loco like healways does, you're for beatin' of him up. My lawsy! if there's anythingon top o' this here airth more ornery than that I ain't never seen it."