Alfonso’s enthusiasm for mining was greatly quickened by a fellow traveler, who was the owner of a large block of stock in the famous Homestake Mining Co. of Lead City, Black Hills, So.  Dakota.  This company possesses one of the largest gold mines and mills in the world.  The ore bodies show a working face from two to four hundred feet in width, and sink to a seemingly inexhaustible depth.  The Homestake has produced over $25,000,000 in bullion, and has divided over six millions in dividends to stockholders.

Three days’ journey brought young Harris to Montana, an inland empire state, which lies on both sides of the Rocky Mountains.  The Pacific Express was laden with a motley crowd of men and women in search of fame and fortune.  Alfonso soon caught their enthusiasm, and visions of castles with gilded domes floated in his imagination.

It was 1:35 P.M. when No. 1, the Pacific Express, pulled into thrifty Helena, capital of Montana, a commercial metropolis metamorphosed from a rude mining camp of twenty-five years ago.

The electric cars carried Alfonso to the Hotel Helena on Grand St., which he thought quite as good as any in his own city.  Here he was fortunate in meeting Mr. Davidson, a gentleman of large experience as owner, organizer, and locator of some of the best gold and silver properties in Montana and adjoining states.  Irrigating canals and water-rights were a special branch of Mr. Davidson’s business.  He never failed to make the round of the leading hotels after the arrival of the Overland.  In this way he met Alfonso Harris.  Davidson knew when to tell a good story, and when to be serious.  He took Alfonso to the Club, located in elegant quarters, and the secretary gave him a complimentary visitor’s card.  Davidson quickly discerned that Harris needed a week’s rest, and so took him on the motor line two miles out to the Hotel Broadwater and Natatorium.  No wonder the citizens of Helena take pride in their fine health resort, the Helena Hot Springs.

Mr. Davidson introduced Alfonso to Colonel Broadwater, who extended the hospitalities of his hotel on which he had expended a fortune.  The verandas were long and wide, the park was dotted with fountains, and the interior of the hotel was luxurious in all its furnishings.  The mammoth plunge bath was the largest in the world under a single cover.  Curative mineral waters, steaming hot, flowed in abundantly from the grotto.  In the natatorium fun-loving men and women slid down the toboggan planks, or jumped from the spring boards, while spectators in the gallery enjoyed the aquatic sports.  Elegantly appointed bathrooms in the hotel offered at one’s pleasure the double spray plunge, vapor, and needle baths.

Alfonso was not prepared to find in the mountains elegance surpassing what he had seen abroad.  Here he luxuriated for a week, and recovered his health, which had been somewhat impaired by the unfortunate experiences in Amsterdam, and the long journey from Holland.