Most of the wagons were loading goods brought from the interiors of storehouses alongside the approach to the wharf. In these storehouses we recognized the hulls of ships, but so shored up, dismantled, and cut into by doors and stories that of their original appearance only their general shapes remained. There was a great number of these storehouses along the shore, some of them being quite built about by piles and platforms, while two were actually inland several hundred feet. I read the name Niantic on the stern of one of them; and found it to have acquired in the landward side a square false front. It was at that time used as a hotel.

"Looks as if they'd taken hold of Talbot's idea hard," observed Yank.

"Say!" cried Johnny, "will one of you drinking men kindly take a look and inform me if I've gone wrong?"

This remark was called forth by the discovery, as we neared the shore, of hordes of rats. They were large, fat, saucy rats; and they strolled about in broad daylight as if they owned the place. They sat upright on sacks of grain; they scampered across the sidewalks; they scuttled from behind boxes; they rustled and squeaked and fought and played in countless droves. The ground seemed alive with them. It was a most astonishing sight.

"And will you look at that dog!" cried Yank disgustedly.

Across an open doorway, blinking in the sun, lay a good-looking fox terrier. His nose was laid between his paws, and within two yards of that nose a large brown rat disported itself with a crust of bread.

"My Lord!" cried Johnny, his sporting blood aboil. "Here, pup, sic 'em! sic 'em!" He indicated the game urgently. The fox terrier rolled up one eye, wagged his stub tail—but did not even raise his nose.

"No use," observed the dog's owner, who had appeared in the doorway.

"What's the matter with him?" demanded Johnny indignantly; "is he sick?"

"No, he ain't sick," replied the owner sadly; "but he ain't got no use for rats. I bought him for damn near his weight in gold dust when the Panama came in last month. He was the best ratter you ever see. I reckon he must've killed a million rats the first week. But, Lord! he got sick of rats. I reckon a rat could go right up and pull his whiskers now, and he'd never mind."

We condoled with the blase dog, and moved on.

"Same old mud," observed Yank.

The place was full of new buildings, some of them quite elaborate two-story structures of brick; and elevated plank sidewalks had taken the place of the old makeshifts. Although the Plaza was still the centre of town, the streets immediately off it had gained considerable dignity and importance. There were many clothing stores, nearly all kept by Jews, and a number of new saloons and gambling houses. As we were picking our way along we ran into an old acquaintance in the person of the captain of the Panama. He recognized us at once, and we drew up for a chat. After we had exchanged first news Johnny asked him if he knew of a place where a fair price could be raised on the diamond.

"Why, the jewellery store is your ticket, of course," replied the captain.

"So there's a jewellery store, too!" cried Johnny.

"And a good one," supplemented the captain. "Come along; I'll take you to it."

It was a good one, and carried a large stock of rings, chains, pins, clocks, watches, and speaking trumpets. The latter two items were the most prominent, for there were hundreds of watches, and apparently thousands of speaking trumpets. They stood in rows on the shelves, and depended in ranks from hooks and nails. Most of them were of silver or of silver gilt; and they were plain, chased, engraved, hammered, or repoussed, with always an ample space for inscription. After Johnny had concluded a satisfactory arrangement for his diamond, I remarked on the preponderance of speaking trumpets. The man grinned rather maliciously at our captain.

"They are a very favourite article for presentation by grateful passengers after a successful sea trip," he said smoothly.

At this our captain exploded.

"Are they?" he boomed. "I should think they were! I've got a dozen of the confounded things; and as I've just got in from a trip, I'm expecting another any minute. Good Lord!" he cried as a group of men turned in at the door. "Here come some of my passengers now. Come along, let's get out of this!"

He dragged us out a back door into a very muddy back alley, whence we floundered to dry land with some difficulty.

"That was a narrow escape!" he cried, wiping his brow. "Let's go get a drink. I know the best place."

He led us to a very ornate saloon whose chief attraction was the fact that its ceiling was supported on glass pillars! We duly admired this marvel; and then wandered over to the polished mahogany bar, where we were joined by the half dozen loafers who had been lounging around the place. These men did not exactly join us, but they stood expectantly near. Nor were they disappointed.

"Come, let's all take a drink, boys!" cried the captain heartily.

They named and tossed off their liquor, and then without a word of farewell or thanks shambled back to their roosting places.

"What's the matter, Billy?" demanded the captain, looking about curiously. "Where's your usual crowd?"

"They're all down at the Verandah," replied the barkeeper, passing a cloth over the satiny wood of the bar. "Dorgan's got a girl tending bar. Pays her some ungodly wages; and he's getting all the crowd. He'd better make the most of it while it lasts. She won't stay a week."

"Why not?" I asked curiously.

"Married; sure," replied the barkeeper briefly.

"And the glass pillars will always be here; eh, Billy?" suggested the captain. "Nevertheless I believe we'll just wander down and look her over."

"Sure," said Billy indifferently; "that's where all the rest are."

The Verandah, situated on the Plaza, was crowded to the doors. Behind the bar slaved a half dozen busy drink-mixers. The girl, and a very pretty girl she was, passed the drinks over the counter, and took in the dust.

"She's straight," observed the captain sagaciously, after inspection; "if she wasn't there wouldn't be such a gang. The other sort is plenty enough."

We did not try to get near the bar, but after a few moments regained the street. The captain said farewell; and we hunted up, by his direction, the New York Tonsorial Emporium. There we had five dollars' worth of various things done to us; after which we bought new clothes. The old ones we threw out into the street along with a vast collection of others contributed by our predecessors.

"Now," said Johnny, "I feel like a new man. And before we go any farther I have a little duty to perform."

"Which is?"

"Another drink at the sign of the Glass Pillars, or whatever they call the place."

"We don't want anything more to drink just now," I protested.

"Oblige me in this one treat," said Johnny in his best manner.

We entered the Arcade, as the bar was called. At once the loafers moved forward. Johnny turned to them with an engaging air of friendliness.

"Come on, boys, let's all take a drink!" he cried.

The glasses were poured. Johnny raised his. The others followed suit. Then all drained them simultaneously and set down the empty glasses.

"And now," went on Johnny in the same cheerful, friendly tone, "let's all pay for them!"

The loafers stared at him a moment. One growled menacingly, but fell silent under his clear glance. One or two others forced a laugh. Under Johnny's compelling eye they all paid. Billy, behind the bar, watched with sardonic amusement. When Johnny proffered his dust, the barkeeper thrust it back.

"My treat here," said he briefly.

"But——?" objected Johnny.

"It's a privilege."

"If you put it that way, I thank you, sir," said Johnny in his grandest manner; and we walked out. "Those bums made me tired," was his only comment to us. "Now let's go hunt up Talbot. I'll bet my extinct toothbrush that he's a well-known citizen around here."

Johnny's extinct toothbrush was perfectly safe. The first man of whom we inquired told us where our friend lived, and added the gratuitous information that the Ward Block was nearing completion. We looked up the hotel, a new one on Montgomery Street. The clerk spoke with respect of Talbot, and told us we would probably find him at one of the several places of business he mentioned, or at the Ward Block. We thanked him, and went direct to the Ward Block first. All of us confessed to a great desire to see that building.

It was to be a three-story brick structure, and was situated at one corner of the Plaza. We gazed upon it with appropriate awe, for we were accustomed to logs and canvas; and to some extent we were able to realize what imported bricks and the laying of them meant. The foreman told us that Talbot had gone out "Mission way" with Sam Brannan and some others to look at some property, and would not be back until late.

Johnny and I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering about. Yank retired to the soft chairs of one of the numerous gambling places. His broken leg would not stand so much tramping.

We had lots of fun, and many interesting minor adventures and encounters, none of which has any particular bearing here. The town had spread. Most of the houses were of the flimsied description. Many people were still living in tents. The latter flopped and tugged in the strong wind. Some men had merely little cot tents, just big enough to cover the bed. An owner of one of these claimed stoutly that they were better than big tents.

"They don't get blowed away by the wind, and they're fine to sleep under," he asserted, "and a man cooks outside, anyway."

"How about when it rains?" I asked him.

"Then I go down to the Verandah or the Arcade or Dennison's Exchange and stay there till she quits," said he.

In the evening, as Talbot had not yet returned, we wandered from one place of amusement to another. The gambling places were more numerous, more elaborate, more important than ever. Beside the usual rough-looking miners and labourers, who were in the great majority, there were small groups of substantial, grave, important looking men conferring. I noticed again the contrast with the mining-camp gambling halls in the matter of noise; here nothing was heard but the clink of coin or the dull thud of gold dust, a low murmur of conversation, or an occasional full-voiced exclamation.

Johnny, who could never resist the tables, was soon laying very small stakes on monte. After a time I tired of the close air and heavy smoke, and slipped away. The lower part of the town was impossible on account of the mud, so I made my way out along the edge of the hills. The moon was sailing overhead. The shadows of the hills hung deep in the hollows; and, abroad, a wide landscape slept in the unearthly radiance. A thousand thousand cheerful frogs piped up a chorus against the brooding moon-stillness they could not quite break. After the glare of the Arcade and the feverish hum and bustle of the busy new city, this still peace was almost overpowering. I felt, somehow, that I dared not give way to it all at once, but must admit its influence trickle by trickle until my spirit had become a little accustomed. Thus gradually I dropped into a reverie. The toil, excitement, strain, striving of the past eight or nine months fell swiftly into the background. I relaxed; and in the calm of the relaxation for the first time old memories found room.

How long I had tramped, lost in this dreaming, I did not know; but at some point I must have turned back, for I came to somewhere near the end of Sacramento Street—if it could be said to have an end—to find the moon far up toward the zenith. A man overtook me, walking rapidly; I caught the gleam of a watch chain, and on a sudden impulse I turned toward him.

"Can you tell me what time it is?" I asked.

The man extended his watch in the moonlight, and silently pointed to its face—with the muzzle of a revolver!

"Half-past twelve," said he.

"Good Lord!" I cried with a shout of laughter. "Do you take me for a robber, Talbot?"



CHAPTER XLIII

THE GOLDEN WEB

He thrust away his watch and the pistol and with a shout of joy seized both my hands.

"Well! well! well! well!" he cried over and over again. "But I am glad to see you! I'd no idea where you were or what you were doing! Why couldn't you write a man occasionally?"

"I don't know," said I, rather blankly. "I don't believe it ever occurred to us we could write."

"Where are the others? Are they with you?"

"We'll look them up," said I.

Together we walked away, arm in arm. Talbot had not changed, except that he had discarded his miner's rig, and was now dressed in a rather quiet cloth suit, a small soft hat, and a blue flannel shirt. The trousers he had tucked into the tops of his boots. I thought the loose, neat costume very becoming to him. After a dozen swift inquiries as to our welfare, he plunged headlong into enthusiasms as to the town.

"It's the greatest city in the world!" he cried; then catching my expression, he added, "or it's going to be. Think of it, Frank! A year ago it had less than a thousand people, and now we have at least forty thousand. The new Commercial Wharf is nearly half a mile long and cost us a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but we raised the money in ten minutes! We're going to build two more. And Sam Brannan and a lot of us are talking of putting down plank roads. Think what that will mean! And there's no limit to what we can do in real estate! Just knock down a few of these hills to the north——"

He stopped, for I was laughing.

"Why not drain the bay?" I suggested. "There's a plenty of land down there."

"Well," said Talbot in a calmer manner, "we won't quite do that. But we'll put some of those sand hills into the edge of the bay. You wait and see. If you want to make money, you just buy some of those waterfront lots. You'll wake up some morning to find you're a mile inland."

I laughed again; but just the other day, in this year 1899, I rode in a street car where fifty years ago great ships had lain at anchor.

We discovered Johnny and Yank, and pounded each other's backs, and had drinks, and generally worked off our high spirits. Then we adjourned to a corner, lit cigars—a tremendous luxury for us miners—and plunged into recital. Talbot listened to us attentively, his eyes bright with interest, occasionally breaking in on the narrator to ask one of the others to supplement some too modestly worded statement.

"Well!" he sighed when we had finished. "You boys have certainly had a time! What an experience! You'll never forget it!" He brooded a while. "I suppose the world will never see its like again. It was the chance of a lifetime. I'd like—no I wouldn't! I've lived, too. Well, now for the partnership. As I understand it, for the Hangman's Gulch end of it, we have, all told, about five thousand dollars—at any rate, that was the amount McClellan sent down to me."

"That's it," said I.

"And the Porcupine Flat venture was a bad loss?"

"The robbers cleaned us out there except for what we sent you," I agreed regretfully.

"Since which time Yank has been out of it completely?"

"Haven't made a cent since," acknowledged Yank cheerfully, "and I owe something to Frank, here, for my keep. Thought I had about fifteen hundred dollars, but I guess I ain't."

"At Italian Bar," went on Talbot, "how much did you make?"

"Doesn't matter what I made," interposed Johnny, "for, as Frank told you, it's all at the bottom of the Sacramento River."

"I did pretty well," said I, and pulled out two hundred and sixteen ounces.

"About three thousand dollars," computed Talbot. "You're the plutocrat, all right. Well, I've done pretty well with this end of the partnership, too. I think—but I guess we'd better take a fresh day to it. It must be ungodly late. Good Lord, yes! Three o'clock!"

Nobody would have thought so. The place seemed nearly as full as ever. We accompanied Talbot to his hotel, where he managed, after some difficulty, to procure us a cot apiece.

Our sleep was short; and in spite of our youth and the vitality we had stored in the healthy life of the hills we felt dragged out and tired. Five hours' sleep in two days is not enough. I was up a few minutes before the rest; and I sat in front of the hotel basking in the sun like a lizard. The let-down from the toil and excitement of the past months still held me. I thought with lazy satisfaction of the two thousand-odd dollars which was my share of our partnership. It was a small sum, to be sure; but, then, I had never in my life made more than twelve dollars a week, and this had cost me nothing. Now that definitely I had dropped overboard my hopes of a big strike, I unexpectedly found that I had dropped with them a certain feeling of pride and responsibility as well. As long as I had been in the mining business I had vaguely felt it incumbent on me to do as well as the rest, were that physically possible. I was out of the mining business. As I now looked at it, I had been mighty well paid for an exciting and interesting vacation. I would go back to New York at a cost of two or three hundred dollars, and find some good opening for my capital and ability.

Talbot appeared last, fresh and smiling. Breakfast finished, he took us all with him to the new brick building. After some business we adjourned once more to the Arcade. There Talbot made his report.

I wish I could remember it, and repeat it to you verbatim. It was worth it. But I cannot; and the most I can do is to try to convey to you the sense of that scene—we three tanned, weather-beaten outlanders listening open-mouthed to the keen, competent, self-assured magician who before our eyes spun his glittering fabric. Talbot Ward had seized upon the varied possibilities of the new city. The earnings on his first scheme—the ship storehouses, and the rental of the brick building on Montgomery Street, you will remember—amounted net, the first month, I believe, to some six thousand dollars. With his share of this money he had laid narrow margins on a dozen options. Day by day, week by week, his operations extended. He was in wharves, sand lots, shore lots, lightering, plank roads, a new hotel. Day after day, week after week, he had turned these things over, and at each turn money had dropped out. Sometimes the plaything proved empty, and then Talbot had promptly thrown it away, apparently without afterthought or regret. I remember some of the details of one deal:

"It looked to me," said Talbot, "that somebody ought to make a good thing in flour, the way things were going. It all comes from South America just now, so enough capital ought to be able to control the supply. I got together four of the big men here and we agreed with the agents to take not less than a hundred and fifty thousand barrels nor more than two hundred thousand barrels at fourteen dollars. Each firm agreed to take seven hundred thousand dollars' worth; and each agreed to forfeit one hundred thousand dollars for failure to comply. Flour could be held to twenty-five to thirty dollars a barrel; so there was a good thing."

"I should think so," I agreed. "Where did you come in?"

"Percentage of the profits. They took and sold quite a heap of flour at this rate—sixty thousand barrels to be exact—on which there was a net profit of seven hundred thousand dollars. Then one of those freak things happened that knocked us all silly. Flour just dropped down out of sight. Why? Manipulation. They've got a smart lot out here. The mines had flour enough for the time being; and the only thing that held the price up was the uncertainty of just where the flour was coming from in the future. Well, the other crowd satisfied that uncertainty, and our flour dropped from about twenty-five dollars down to eight. We had sold sixty thousand barrels, and we had ninety thousand to take on our contract, on each one of which we were due to lose six dollars. And the other fellows were sitting back chuckling and waiting for us to unload cheap flour."

"What was there to do?"

Talbot laughed. "I told our crowd that I had always been taught that when a thing was hot, to drop it before I got burned. If each firm paid its forfeit it would cost us four hundred thousand dollars. If we sold all the flour contracted for at the present price, we stood to lose nearer six hundred thousand. So we simply paid our forfeits, threw over the contract, and were three hundred thousand ahead."

"But was that fair to the flour people?" I asked doubtfully.

"Fair?" retorted Talbot. "What in thunder did they put the forfeit clause in for if it wasn't expected we might use it?"

As fast as he acquired a dollar, he invested it in a new chance, until his interests extended from the Presidio to the waterfront of the inner bay. These interests were strange odds and ends. He and a man with his own given name, Talbot H. Green, had title in much of what is now Harbour View—that is to say, they would have clear title as soon as they had paid heavy mortgages. His shares in the Commercial Wharf lay in the safes of a banking house, and the dollars he had raised on them were valiantly doing duty in holding at bay a pressing debt on precariously held waterfront equities. Talbot mentioned glibly sums that reduced even the most successful mining to a child's game. The richest strike we had heard rumoured never yielded the half of what our friend had tossed into a single deal. Our own pitiful thousands were beggarly by comparison, insignificant, not worth considering.

Of all the varied and far-extending affairs the Ward Block was the flower. Talbot owned options, equities, properties, shares in all the varied and numerous activities of the new city; but each and every one of them he held subject to payments which at the present time he could by no possibility make. Mortgages and loans had sucked every immediately productive dollar; and those dollars that remained were locked tight away from their owner until such time as he might gain possession of a golden key. This did not worry him.

"They are properties that are bound to rise in value," he told us. "In fact, they are going up every minute we sit here talking. They are futures."

Among other pieces, Talbot had been able to buy the lot on the Plaza where now the Ward Block was going up. He paid a percentage down, and gave a mortgage for the rest. Now all the money he could squeeze from all his other interests he was putting into the structure. That is why I rather fancifully alluded to the Ward Block as the flower of all Talbot's activities.

"Building is the one thing you have to pay cash for throughout," said Talbot regretfully. "Labour and materials demand gold. But I see my way clear; and a first-class, well-appointed business block in this town right now is worth more than the United States mint. That's cash coming in for you—regularly every month. It will pay from the start four or five times the amount necessary to keep everything else afloat. Jim Reckett has taken the entire lower floor at thirty thousand. The offices upstairs will pay from a thousand a month up and they are every one rented in advance. Once we get our rents coming in, the strain is relieved. I can begin to take up my mortgages and loans, and once that is begun we are on the road to Millionaireville."

Once more he recapitulated his affairs—the land on the Plaza two hundred thousand; the building eighty thousand; the Harbour View lands anything they might rise to, but nearly a quarter million now; ten thousand par value of the wharf stock already paying dividends; real estate here and there and everywhere in the path of the city's growth; shares in a new hotel that must soon touch par; the plank road—as we jotted down the figures, and the magic total grew, such trifling little affairs as gold mines dropped quite below the horizon. We stared at Talbot fascinated.

And then for the first time we learned that the five thousand dollars we had sent down from Hangman's Gulch, and the sum left from the robbery, was not slumbering in some banker's safe, but had been sent dancing with the other dollars at Talbot's command.

"I didn't know just what you fellows intended," said he, "but we were partners up there at the mines, and I concluded it would be all right. You didn't mean——"

"Sure not!" broke in Johnny heartily. "You're welcome to mine."

"Same here," agreed Yank and I.

And then Talbot let us see that he considered us to that extent partners in the business.

"I have the date it arrived," he told us, "and I know just how much actual capital I had myself at that time. So I'm computing your shares in the venture on that basis. It comes to about one tenth apiece for Yank and Johnny. Frank and I have an agreement already."

Johnny stared at the paper on which the totals had been pencilled.

"Not any!" he protested vehemently. "It isn't fair! You've made this thing by sheer genius, and it isn't fair for me to take a tenth of it on the strength of a measly little consignment of gold dust. You give me your note for a thousand dollars—or whatever the sum is—at interest, if you want to, and that's all that is coming to me."

"I feel the same," said Yank.

"Boys," argued Talbot earnestly, "that doesn't go. That five thousand saved me. It came at a time when I had to have money or go down. I had been to every bank, to every firm, to every man in town, and I couldn't raise ten cents more. If you refuse this thing, you will be doing something that——"

"Oh, hush up, Tal!" broke in Johnny gruffly; "if that's how you feel——"

"It is."

"It is now," said Johnny firmly, "10:30 A.M., but I'm going to have bubbles. If you fellows don't want me all drunk and dressed up, you've got to help me drink them."



CHAPTER XLIV

PLUTOCRATS!

We felt very elated—and rather small. Talbot had alone and without, so to speak, moving from his tracks, made a fortune, while we, after going through many hardships, adventures, and hard work, had returned almost penniless. One of our first tasks was to convince Talbot of the injustice to himself in giving us shares based on a proportionate money investment. We made him see, after a while, that his own genius counted for something in the matter. He then agreed, but reluctantly, to reduce our shares to a twentieth each, and included me in this, despite our previous agreement. If we had adhered to that, my proportion would have been nearer a fortieth.

This having been decided—after considerable argument—we settled down to wait for the completion of the Ward Block. Once the rents from that structure should begin to come in, it was agreed we should take out ready money enough to return East. The remainder, less Talbot's expenses, would of course have to go back into releasing all the other interests. The formal opening had been arranged for the first of January.

In the meantime we loafed magnificently, and lived on my money. Now that our futures were all assured, Yank and Johnny condescended to temporary loans. Occasionally we could help Talbot in some of the details of his varied businesses, but most of the time we idled. I do think we deserved a rest.

Our favourite occupation was that of reviewing our property. To this end we took long tramps over the hills, hunting painstakingly for obscure corner stakes or monuments that marked some one of our numerous lots. On them we would gaze solemnly, although in no manner did they differ from all the other sage-brush hill country about them. In a week we knew accurately every piece of property belonging to Our Interests, and we had listed every other more intangible equity or asset. One of Johnny's favourite feats was to march Yank and me up to a bar, face us, and interrogate us according to an invariable formula. We must have presented a comical sight—I with my great bulk and round, fresh face alongside the solemn, lank, and leathery Yank; both of us drawn up at attention, and solemn as prairie dogs.

"How much is one twentieth of two thousand thousand?" inquired Johnny.

"One hundred thousand," Yank and I chorused.

"Is that a plutocrat?" demanded Johnny cryptically.

"It is!" we cried.

Our sense of our own financial importance being thus refreshed, we advanced in rigid military formation to the bar and took our drinks. Two million dollars was the amount we had chosen as representing the value of Our Interests. In deciding upon this figure we considered ourselves very moderate in refusing to add probable future increment. It might also be added that we equally neglected to deduct present liabilities. Nobody ever guessed what this mysterious performance of ours meant, but every one came to expect it and to be amused by it. In a mild way we and our fool monkeyshines came to be a well-known institution.

Having nothing else to do, we entered heartily into the life and pleasures of the place, and we met many of the leading citizens. Some of them have since become historical personages. Talbot was hand in glove with most of them, and in and out of dozens of their schemes. There was David Broderick, a secretive, dignified, square-cut, bulldog sort of a man, just making his beginning in a career that was to go far. I remember he was then principally engaged in manufacturing gold coins and slugs and buying real estate.[A] His great political rival, Dr. Gwin the Southerner, I also met; and Talbot H. Green, then and for some time later, one of the most liked and respected of men, but whose private scandal followed him from the East and ruined him; and Sam Brannan, of course, the ex-elder of the Mormons; and Jim Reckett, the gambler; and W. T. Coleman, later known as Old Vigilante, and a hundred others. These were strong, forceful men, and their company was always interesting. They had ideas on all current topics, and they did not hesitate to express those ideas. We thus learned something of the community in which we had been living so long.

We heard of the political difficulties attendant on the jumble of military and unauthorized civil rule; of the convention at Monterey in September, with its bitterly contested boundary disputes; of the great and mooted question as to whether California should be "slave" or "free"; of the doubt and uncertainty as to the status of California-made law pending some action by the Federal Congress; of how the Federal Congress, with masterly inactivity and probably some slight skittishness as to mingling in the slavery argument, had adjourned without doing anything at all! So California had to take her choice of remaining under military governorship or going ahead and taking a chance on having her acts ratified later. She chose the latter course. San Jose was selected as the capital. Nobody wanted to serve in the new legislature; men hadn't time. There was the greatest difficulty in getting assemblymen. The result was that, with few exceptions, the first legislature of fifty-two members was composed of cheap professional politicians from the South, and useless citizens from elsewhere. This body was then in session. It was invariably referred to as "The Legislature of the Thousand Drinks." I heard discussed numberless schemes for its control for this or that purpose; many of them, it seemed to me, rather unscrupulous.

These big men of the city talked of other things besides politics. From them I heard of the state of commercial affairs, with its system of consignments and auctions, its rumours of fleet clipper ships, its corners of the market, its gluttings with unforeseen cargoes of unexpected vessels, and all the other complex and delicate adjustments and changes that made business so fascinating and so uncertain. All these men were filled with a great optimism and an abiding enthusiasm for the future. They talked of plank roads, of sewers, of schools, churches, hospitals, pavements, fills, the razing of hills, wharves, public buildings, water systems; and they talked of them so soberly and in such concrete terms of accomplishment that the imagination was tricked into accepting them as solid facts. Often I have gone forth from listening to one of these earnest discussions to look about me on that wind-swept, sandblown, flimsy, dirty, sprawling camp they called a city, with its half dozen "magnificent" brick buildings that any New England village could duplicate, and have laughed wildly until the tears came, over the absurdity of it. I was young. I did not know that a city is not bricks but men, is not fact but the vitality of a living ideal.

There were, of course, many other men than those I have named, and of varied temperaments and beliefs. Some of them were heard of later in the history of the state. Terry, James King of William, Stephen J. Field, General Richardson were some of those whose names I remember. They were, in general, frank and open in manner, ready to offer or take a joke, and on terms of good-natured comradeship with each other; and yet somehow I always felt behind it all a watchful reservation. This was indefinable, but it indubitably existed. The effect on me was an instinct that these men would remain good-natured, laughing, joking, intimate, just as long as nothing happened to make them otherwise. They were a pack, hunting in full cry the same quarry; but were one of them to fall out, the rest would sweep on without a backward glance. As an individual human being no one of them was in reality important to any other. They pursued the same aims, by much the same methods, and they could sometimes make use of each other to the advantage of both. In the meantime, since they as the prominent men of a mixed community must possess qualities in common, they found each other mutually agreeable. Many called themselves friends; but I much doubt if the friendship that would render aid at a sacrifice was very common. Every man played his own game.

In the town outside we made many other acquaintances, of all classes of society. In 1849 no social stigma, or very little, attached to any open association. Gamblers were respectable citizens, provided they ran straight games. The fair and frail sisterhood was well represented. It was nothing against a man, either in the public eye or actually, to be seen talking, walking, or riding with one of these ladies; for every one knew them. There were now a good many decent women in town, living mainly with their husbands and children very quietly among the sandhills on the edges of the town. One saw little of them unless he took the trouble to search them out. We did so, and thus struck up acquaintance with a half dozen very pleasant households, where occasionally my New England heart was gladdened by a genuine homebaked New England pie. These people had children and religious beliefs; and for the one and the other they had organized churches and schools, both of which were well attended. Furthermore, such institutions were contributed to by many of the business men who never entered their doors. This respectable life was stronger than is generally known. It was quiet and in the background, and under the deep shadow cast by the glaring light of downtown, but it was growing in solidity and strength.

Among the others we came across the preacher we had seen holding forth on the wharf. He was engaged, with the assistance of two men of the Methodist persuasion, in building a church. The three had themselves cut and hewed the timbers. Mr. Taylor, for that was his name, explained to me that, having no money, that seemed the the only way to get a church. He showed us his own place, a little shack not unlike the others, but enclosed, and planted with red geraniums, nasturtiums and other bright things.

"As far as I know," he told us with pride, "that is the first garden in San Francisco."

In the backyard he had enclosed three chickens—two hens and a cock.

"I paid eighteen dollars for them," said he.

We looked at each other in startled astonishment. The sum appeared a trifle extravagant considering the just-acknowledged impecuniosity of the church. He caught the glance.

"Boys," he said quaintly, "San Francisco is a very lonesome place for the godly. The hosts of sin are very strong, and the faithful are very few. Mortal flesh is weak; and mortal spirit is prone to black discouragement. When I bought those chickens I bought eighteen dollars' worth of hope. Somehow Sunday morning seems more like the Sabbath with them clicking around sleepy and lazy and full of sun."

We liked him so much that we turned to at odd times and helped him with his carpenter work. While thus engaged he confided to us his intention to preach against the gambling the next Sunday in the Plaza. We stopped hammering to consider this.

"I shouldn't, if I were you," said I. "The gamblers own the Plaza; they are respected by the bulk of the community; and they won't stand any nonsense. They none of them think anything of shooting a man in their places. I don't think they will stand for it. I am afraid you will be roughly handled."

"More likely shot," put in Johnny bluntly.

"Well, well, boys, we'll see," said Taylor easily.

Nor could we move him, in spite of the fact that, as we came to see his intention was real, we urged very earnestly against it.

"Well, if you will, you will," Johnny conceded at last, with a sigh. "We'll see what we can do to get you a fair show."

"Now that is just what I don't want you to do," begged the old man earnestly. "I want no vain contention and strife. If the Lord desires that I preach to these sinners, He will protect me."

In the end he extorted from us a reluctant promise not to mingle in the affair.

"He's just looking for trouble," muttered Johnny, "and there's no doubt he'll find it. The gamblers aren't going to stand for a man's cussing 'em outright on their own doorsteps—and I don't know as I blame them. Gambling isn't such a terrible, black, unforgivable sin as I see it."

"That's because you're ahead of the game, Johnny," drawled Yank.

"Just the same the old fool is wrong," persisted Johnny, "and he's as obstinate as a mule, and he makes me mad clean through. Nevertheless he's a good old sort, and I'd hate to see him hurt."

The news spread abroad, and there was much speculation as to what would happen. In general the sentiment was hostile to the preacher. It was considered an unwarrantable interference with freedom for any man to attempt to dictate the conduct of another. Everybody agreed that religion was all right; but by religion they meant some vague utterance of platitudes. On the appointed Sunday a very large crowd gathered in the Plaza. Nobody knew just what the gamblers intended to do about it. Those competent citizens were as close mouthed as ever. But it was understood that no nonsense was to be permitted, and that this annoying question must be settled at once and fully. As one man expressed it:

"We'll have these fellows caterwauling all over the place if we don't shut down on them right sharp off quick."

Taylor arrived about ten o'clock and proceeded briskly to the pork barrel that had been rolled out to serve as a pulpit. He faced a lowering, hostile mob.

"Gentlemen," said he, "if some means of communication existed by which the United States could this morning know that street preaching was to be attempted in the streets of San Francisco, the morning papers, badly informed as to the temper and disposition of the people of this new country, would feel themselves fully justified in predicting riot, if not actual bloodshed. Furthermore, I do not doubt that the greater dailies would hold their forms open to report the tragedy when news of it should come in. But we of the West know better than that. We know ourselves rough and ready, but we know ourselves also to be lovers of fair play. We know that, even though we may not agree with a man, we are willing to afford him a fair hearing. And as for rioting or bloodshed, we can afford to smile rather than become angry at such wide misconception of our decency and sense of fair dealing."

Having in this skilful fashion drawn the venom from the fangs of the mob, he went directly ahead at his sermon, hammering boldly on his major thesis. He finished in a respectful silence, closed his Bible with a snap, and strode away through the lane the crowd opened for him.

Truth to tell, there was much in the sermon. Gambling, although considered one of the respectable amusements, undoubtedly did a great deal of harm. Men dropped their last cents at the tables. I remember one young business man who had sold out his share in his firm for ten thousand dollars in cash and three notes for five thousand each. He had every intention of taking this little fortune back to his family in the East, but he began gambling. First, he lost his ten thousand dollars in cash. This took him just two days. After vacillating another day, he staked one of the notes, at a discount, of course. This he lost. A second note followed the first; and everybody confidently expected that the third would disappear in the same fashion. But Jim Reckett, who was a very good sort, took this man aside, and gave him a good talking-to.

"You confounded fool," said he, "you're barred from my tables. My advice to you is to go to your old partners, tell them what an ass you've made of yourself, and ask them to let you have a few thousand on that last note. And then you leave on to-day's Panama steamer. And, say, if they won't do it, you come to me."

The young fellow took this advice.

The Panama steamers were crowded to the rail. Indeed, the exodus was almost as brisk as the immigration, just at this time of year. A moderate proportion of those going out had been successful, but the great majority were disappointed. They were tired, and discouraged, and homesick; and their minds were obsessed with the one idea—to get back. We who remained saw them go with considerable envy, and perhaps a good deal of inner satisfaction that soon we were to follow. Of the thousands who were remaining in California, those who had definitely and permanently cast their lot with the country were lost in the crowd. The rest intended to stay another year, two years, perhaps even three; but then each expected to go back.

[Footnote A: Broderick actually manufactured coins with face value of $5 and $10 containing but $4 and $8 worth of gold. The inscription on them was simply that of the date, the location, and the value. They passed everywhere because they were more convenient than dust, and it was realized that only the last holders could lose.]



CHAPTER XLV

THE CATASTROPHE

So things went along for a month. Christmas drew near. Every joint in town was preparing for a big celebration, and we were fully in the mood to take part in it. The Ward Block was finished. From top to bottom it had been swept and cleared. Crowds came every day to admire the varnish, the glass, the fireplaces, the high plastered walls; to sniff the clean new smell of it. Everybody admitted it to be the finest building in the city. Yank, Johnny, and I spent most of our time proudly showing people around, pointing out the offices the various firms intended to occupy. Downstairs Jim Reckett was already installing some of the splendours that were to make the transplanted El Dorado the most gorgeous gambling place in town. Here the public was not admitted. The grand opening, on New Year's day, was not thus to lose its finest savour.

On Christmas eve we went to bed, strangely enough, very early. All the rest of the town was celebrating, but we had been busy moving furniture and fixtures, had worked late in order to finish the job, and were very tired. By this time we were so hardened that we could sleep through any sort of a racket, so the row going on below and on both sides did not bother us a bit. I, personally, fell immediately into a deep slumber.

The first intimation of trouble came to me in my sleep. I dreamed we were back on the Porcupine, and that the stream was in flood. I could distinctly hear the roar of it, as it swept by; and I remember Johnny and myself were trying desperately to climb a big pine tree in order to get above the encroaching waters. A wind sprang up and shook the pine violently. I came slowly to waking consciousness, the dream fading into reality. Yank was standing by my cot, shaking me by the shoulder. He was fully dressed, and carried his long rifle.

"Get up!" he told me. "There's a big fire one or two doors away, and it's headed this way."

Then I realized that the roar of the flames had induced my dream.

I hastily slipped on my clothes and buckled my gold belt around my waist. The fire was humming away in a steady crescendo, punctuated by confused shouts of many men. Light flickered redly through the cracks of the loosely constructed hotel building. I found Johnny awaiting me at the door.

"It's a hummer," he said; "started in Denison's Exchange. They say three men have been killed."

The Plaza was black with men, their faces red with the light of the flames. A volunteer crew were busily darting in and out of the adjacent buildings, carrying out all sorts of articles and dumping them in the square.

"There's no water nearer than the bay," an acquaintance shouted in our ears. "There ain't much to do. She'll burn herself out in a few minutes."

The three buildings were already gutted. A sheet of fire sucked straight upward in the still air, as steadily as a candle flame, and almost as unwavering. It was a grand and beautiful spectacle. The flimsy structures went like paper. Talbot saw us standing at a little elevation, and forced his way to us.

"It will die down in five minutes," said he. "What do you bet on Warren's place? Do you think she'll go?"

"It's mighty hot all around there," said I doubtfully.

"Yes, but the flames are going straight up; and, as you say, it will begin to die down pretty soon," put in Johnny.

"The walls are smoking a little," commented a bystander judicially.

"She's a fine old bonfire, anyway," said Talbot.

Fifteen or twenty men were trying to help Warren's place resist the heat. They had blankets and pails of water, and were attempting to interpose these feeble defences at the points most severely attacked. Each man stood it as long as he could, then rushed out to cool his reddened face.

"Reminds me of the way I used to pop corn when I was a kid," grinned a miner. "I wouldn't care for that job."

"Just the same, they'll save it," observed Talbot judicially.

Almost coincident with his words a long-drawn a-ah! burst from the crowd. A wandering gust of wind came in from the ocean. For the briefest instant the tall straight column of flame bent gracefully before it, then came upright again as it passed. In that instant it licked across the side wall of Warren's place, and immediately Warren's place burst into flame.

"Hard luck!" commented Talbot.

The firefighters swarmed out like bees from a disturbed hive.

"Our hotel next," said Johnny.

"That's safe enough; there's a wide lot between," I observed.

A fresh crew of firefighters took the place of the others—namely, those personally interested in saving the hotel.

"Lucky the night is so still," said Talbot.

We watched Warren's place burn with all the half guilty joy of those who are sorry; but who are glad to be there if it has to happen. Suddenly Talbot threw up his head.

"Feel that breeze?" he cried.

"Suction into the fire," suggested Johnny.

But Talbot shook his head impatiently, trying to peer through the glare into the sky.

It was a very gentle breeze from the direction of the ocean. I could barely feel it on my cheek, and it was not strong enough as yet to affect in the slightest the upward-roaring column of flame. For a moment I was inclined to agree with Johnny that it was simply a current of air induced by the conflagration. But now an uneasy motion began to take place in the crowd. Men elbowed their way here and there, met, conferred, gathered in knots. In less than a minute Talbot signalled us. We made our way to where he was standing with Sam Brannan, Casey, Green, and a few others.

"Thank God the wind is from the northwest," Talbot said fervently. "The Ward Block is safely to windward, and we don't need to worry about that, anyway. But it is a wind, and it's freshening. We've got to do something to stop this fire."

As though to emphasize the need for some sort of action, a second and stronger puff of wind sent whirling aloft a shower of sparks and brands.

We started at double quick in the direction of the flimsy small structures between the old El Dorado and the Parker House. Some men, after a moment, brought ropes and axes. We began to tear down the shanties.

But before we had been at work five minutes, the fire began to run. The wind from the sea increased. Blazing pieces of wood flew through the air like arrows. Flames stooped in their stride, and licked up their prey, and went on rejoicing. Structures one minute dark and cold and still burst with startling suddenness and completeness into rioting conflagration. Our little beginning of a defence was attacked and captured before we had had time to perfect it. The half dozen shanties we had pulled to the ground merely furnished piled fuel. Somewhat demoralized, we fell back, and tried, rather vaguely, to draw a second line of defence. The smoke and sparks suffocated and overwhelmed us, and the following flames leaped upon us as from behind an ambush. Some few men continued gropingly to try to do something, but the most of us were only too glad to get out where we could catch a breath.

Almost immediately, however, we were hurried back by frantic merchants.

"Save the goods!" was the cry.

We laboured like slaves, carrying merchandise, fixtures, furniture, anything and everything from the darkened interiors of buildings to the open spaces. I worked as I had never worked before, and not once did I know whose property I thus saved. At first I groped in the darkness, seizing what I could; then gradually, like the glow of a red dawn, a strange light grew, showing dimly and ruddily the half-guessed features of the place. It glowed, this light, increasing in power as heating metal slowly turns red. And then the flames licked through; and dripping with sweat, I abandoned that place to its enemy.

All sense of time and all sense of locality were lost. The world was a strange world of deep, concealing shadows and strong, revealing glares, and a mist of smoke, and hurrying, shouting, excited multitudes. Sometimes I found myself in queer little temporary eddies of stillness, where a certain calm and leisure seemed to have been insulated. Then for a brief moment or so I rested. Occasionally I would find myself with some stranger, and we would exchange brief exclamatory remarks.

"Whole city is going!"

"Looks like it."

"Hear a roof fell in and killed twenty men."

"Probably exaggerated."

"Probably. Don't catch me under no falling roofs! When she gets afire, I get out."

"Same here."

"Well, I suppose we ought to try to do something."

"Suppose so."

And we would go at it again.

At the end of two or three hours—no man can guess time in such a situation—the fire stopped advancing. I suppose the wind must have changed, though at the time I did not notice it. At any rate, I found myself in the gray dawn looking rather stupidly at a row of the frailest kind of canvas and scantling houses which the fire had sheared cleanly in two, and wondering why in thunder the rest of them hadn't burned!

A dense pall of smoke hung over the city, and streamed away to the south and east. In the burned district all sense of location had been lost. Where before had been well-known landmarks now lay a flat desert. The fire had burned fiercely and completely, and, in lack of food, had died down to almost nothing. A few wisps of smoke still rose, a few coals glowed, but beside them nothing remained to indicate even the laying out of the former plan. Only over across a dead acreage of ashes rose here and there the remains of isolated brick walls. They looked, through the eddying mists and smoke, like ancient ruins, separated by wide spaces.

I gazed dully across the waste area, taking deep breaths, resting, my mind numb. Then gradually it was borne in on me that the Plaza itself looked rather more empty-sided than it should. A cold hand gripped my heart. I began to skirt the smouldering embers of the shanties and wooden warehouses, trying to follow where the streets had been. Men were prowling about everywhere, blackened by smoke, their clothing torn and burned.

"Can you make out where Higgins's store was?" one of them hailed me. "I had a little shanty next door, and some gold dust. Figure I might pan it out of the ashes, if I could only find the place."

I had no time to help him, and left him prowling around seeking for a landmark.

The Plaza was full of people. I made my way to the northerly corner, and, pushing a passage through the bystanders, contemplated three jagged, tottering brick walls, a heap of smouldering debris, and a twisted tangle of iron work. This represented all that remained of the Ward Block. The change of wind that had saved the shanties had destroyed our fortune!



CHAPTER XLVI

THE VISION

Within ten hours men were at work rebuilding. Within ten days the burned area was all rebuilt. It took us just about the former period of time to determine that we would be unable to save anything from the wreck; and about the latter period for the general public to find it out.

Talbot made desperate efforts for a foothold, and in succession interviewed all the big men. They were sorry but they were firm. Each had been hard hit by the fire; each had himself to cover; each was forced by circumstances to grasp every advantage. Again, they were sorry.

"Yes, they are!" cried Talbot; "they just reach out and grab what ought to be my profits! Well, it's the game. I'd do the same myself."

By that night we knew that Talbot had lost every piece of property he owned—or thought he owned. The destruction of the Ward Block swept away every cent of income, with the exception of the dividends from the Wharf Company stock. These latter could not begin to meet the obligations of interest and agreed payments on the other property.

The state of affairs became commonly known in about ten days simply because, in those rapid times, obligations were never made nor money lent for longer periods than one month. At the end of each thirty days they had to be renewed. Naturally Talbot could not renew them.

We knew all that long in advance, and we faced the situation with some humour.

"Well, boys," said Talbot, "here we are. About a year ago, as I remember it, our assets were a bundle of newspapers and less than a hundred dollars. Haven't even got a newspaper now, but I reckon among us we could just about scrape up the hundred dollars."

"I've got nearer twenty-seven hundred in my belt," I pointed out.

An embarrassed silence fell for a moment; then Talbot spoke up, picking his words very carefully.

"We've talked that over, Frank," said he, "and we've come to the conclusion that you must keep that and go home, just as you planned to do. You're the only man of us who has managed to keep what he has made. Johnny falls overboard and leaves his in the bottom of the Sacramento; Yank gets himself busted in a road-agent row; I—I—well, I blow soap bubbles! You've kept at it, steady and strong and reliable, and you deserve your good luck. You shouldn't lose the fruits of your labour because we, each in our manner, have been assorted fools."

I listened to this speech with growing indignation; and at its conclusion I rose up full of what I considered righteous anger. My temper is very slow to rouse, but when once it wakes, it takes possession of me.

"Look here, you fellows!" I cried, very red in the face, they tell me. "You answer me a few questions. Are we or are we not partners? Are we or are we not friends? Do you or do you not consider me a low-lived, white-livered, mangy, good-for-nothing yellow pup? Why, confound your pusillanimous souls, what do you mean by talking to me in that fashion? For just about two cents I'd bust your fool necks for you—every one of you!" I glared vindictively at them. "Do you suppose I'd make any such proposition to any of you—to ask you to sneak off like a whipped cur leaving me to take the——"

"Hold on, Frank," interposed Talbot soothingly. "I didn't mean——"

"Didn't you?" I cried. "Well, what in hell did you mean? Weren't you trying to make me out a quitter?" I had succeeded in working loose my heavy gold belt, and I dashed it on the table in front of them. "There! Now you send for some gold scales, right now, and you divide that up! Right here! Damn it all, boys," I ended, with what to a cynical bystander would have seemed rather a funny slump into the pathetic, "I thought we were all real friends! You've hurt my feelings!"

It was very young, and very ridiculous—and perhaps (I can say it from the vantage of fifty years) just a little touching. At any rate, when I had finished, my comrades were looking in all directions, and Talbot cleared his throat a number of times before he replied.

"Why, Frank," he said gently, at last, "of course we'll take it—we never dreamed—of course—it was stupid of us, I'll admit. Naturally, I see just how you feel——"

"It comes to about seven hundred apiece, don't it?" drawled Yank.

The commonplace remark saved the situation from bathos, as I am now certain shrewd old Yank knew it would.

"What are you going to do with your shares, boys?" asked Talbot after a while. "Going back home, or mining? Speak up, Yank."

Yank spat accurately out the open window.

"I've been figgering," he replied. "And when you come right down to it, what's the use of going back? Ain't it just an idee we got that it's the proper thing to do? What's the matter with this country, anyway—barring mining?"

"Barring mining?" echoed Talbot.

"To hell with mining!" said Yank; "it's all right for a vacation, but it ain't noways a white man's stiddy work. Well, we had our vacation."

"Then you're not going back to the mines?"

"Not any!" stated Yank emphatically.

"Nor home?"

"No."

"What then?"

"I'm going to take up a farm up thar whar the Pine boys is settled, and I'm going to enjoy life reasonable. Thar's good soil, and thar's water; thar's pleasant prospects, and lots of game and fish. What more does a man want? And what makes me sick is that it's been thar all the time and it's only just this minute I've come to see it."

"Mines for you, Johnny, or home?" asked Talbot.

"Me, home?" cried Johnny; "why——" he checked himself, and added more quietly. "No, I'm not going home. There's nothing there for me but a good time, when you come right down to it. And mines? It strikes me that fresh gold is easy to get, but almighty hard to keep."

"You never said a truer word than that, Johnny," I put in.

"Besides which, I quit mining some time ago, as you remember," went on Johnny, "due to an artistic aversion to hard work," he added.

"Any plans?" asked Talbot.

"I think I'll just drift up to Sonoma and talk things over with Danny Randall," replied Johnny vaguely. "He had some sort of an idea of extending this express service next year."

"And you?" Talbot turned to me.

"I," said I, firmly, "am going to turn over my share in a business partnership with you; and in the meantime I expect to get a job driving team with John McGlynn for enough to pay the board bill while you rustle. And that goes!" I added warningly.

"Thank you, Frank," replied Talbot, and I thought I saw his bright eye dim. He held silent for a moment. "Do you know," he said suddenly, "I believe we're on the right track. It isn't the gold. That is a bait, a glittering bait, that attracts the world to these shores. It's the country. The gold brings them, and out of the hordes that come, some, like us, will stick. And after the gold is dug and scattered and all but forgotten, we will find that we have fallen heirs to an empire."

THE END



NOTE

The author desires fully to acknowledge his indebtedness to the following writers, from whose books he has drawn freely, both for historical fact, incidents, and the spirit of the times:

Tuthill—History of California. Foster—The Gold Regions of California. Stillman—Seeking the Golden Fleece. Taylor—El Dorado. Delano—Life on the Plains. Shinn—Mining Camps. Brooks—Four Months Among the Gold Finders. Johnson—Sights in the Gold Region and Scenes by the Way. Bostwicks—Three Years in California. Shaw—Ramblings in California. Hittell—History of San Francisco. Bates—Four Years on the Pacific Coast. Taylor—California Life Illustrated. Marryatt—Mountains and Molehills. James—The Heroes of California. Hunt—California the Golden. Haskins—The Argonauts of California. Bell—Reminiscences of a Ranger. Royce—California. Eldredge—Beginnings of San Francisco. Langford—Vigilante Days and Ways.

The author desires further to announce that, provided nothing interferes, he hopes to supplement this novel with two others. They also will deal with early days, and will be entitled The Gray Dawn, and The Rose Dawn.

THE END