"Not off to the mines yet?" he greeted.
"Not yet. I was just saying to Charley that farming looked better to
me than mining, in this country, judging by prices of common produce."
"It's all shipped in," stated the lieutenant, in his quick voice.
"Nobody now has any time for farming; and before this excitement
everybody had too much time. The Californians lived on beef,
_tortillas_ and beans, all of which was easy. They wouldn't take the
trouble even to milk a cow. The missions tried to teach agriculture to
the Indians, and now since some Americans have taken up ranches a few
patches have been ploughed, for the home table. But the wheat, barley
and live stock, which grow without attention, are about all you'll find
on tens of thousands of acres. California is dry and barren. I've
ridden over a great deal of it, and I once wrote East that I wouldn't
give two counties in Ohio, Kentucky or Tennessee for the whole
territory. It never will amount to anything except for gold
production. When do you start?"
"To-morrow morning."
"All right. Good luck to you. Our headquarters offices are in the old
custom-house; drop in if you need any information I can give you.
General Persifor Smith and family are lodged in the lower room of the
old Hudson's Bay Company house on Montgomery Street. Every servant but
one, and he is a negro, has deserted us; and the general does the
marketing and sometimes the cooking. The rest of us occupy the second
floor, and hustle for our meals the best we can. You're well out of
this hurly-burly where the commander of all the United States forces on
the Pacific coast must do his own housework! When we move over to the
new post at Benicia perhaps things will be better."
So saying, the busy lieutenant strode on.
By the time that Charley and his father had succeeded in purchasing
what few supplies they could afford, they had pretty nearly seen San
Francisco. It certainly was a queer jumble. Buildings and population
alike were of the hasty, rough-and-ready style; but already a brick
store, for the merchant firm of Howard & Mellus, had gone up and had
cost a dollar a brick! In the stores, no matter how constructed, every
kind of goods was being sold, signs bore high-sounding names such as
the Alhambra, Delmonico's, United States Hotel, and other signs were
being added hourly; from the wharf on Montgomery Street to the top of
the Clay Street hill beyond the post-office busy hammers beat a great
chorus, in the bay flew hundreds of flags, and in the streets
school-teachers, bankers, lawyers and farmers rubbed elbows with
Mexicans, Peruvians, Chinamen and Kanakas, while all talked in terms of
thousands of dollars. Why, here was New York, New Orleans and St.
Louis thrown together and boiled down.
Up at the post-office the post-master and his clerks evidently were
still sorting out the 25,000 letters, for the lines of waiters were
unbroken.
Mr. Grigsby was promptly on hand, at noon, in the hotel. He reported
that he had engaged passage on a sail-boat, the _Mary Ann_, for the
town of Sacramento, 120 miles north up the Sacramento River.
"That is," he added, "if you want to try the American River country,
where the first diggin's are. Sacramento is the old _embarcadero_
[which, as Charley found out, was the Spanish for boat-landing] for
Sutter's Fort, up the American. The fare is thirty dollars, and I paid
ten dollars apiece down, to hold our places till two o'clock."
"All right," approved Mr. Adams. "We'll go. Now let's eat. Hear the
dinner bells! It must be a hungry town."
And that would seem so, indeed. From every hotel and restaurant issued
a clamor of hand-bells and of gongs, each apparently vying with the
other to make noise. It sounded like a Fourth of July! People began
to rush into the Parker-house, and in a jiffy the long tables were
filled. The Adams party got seats just in time.
The price of the meal was two dollars, for beef (splendid beef, too),
bread, potatoes, and coffee or chocolate. There wasn't any milk or
butter. However, as Mr. Grigsby remarked, one could easily eat a
dollar's worth of potatoes at a helping! The food was very good and
well cooked. Charley heard somebody say that the cook was a famous
chef from New York, and drew a salary of $2000 a month. Even the
waiters (who were men in shirt-sleeves) were paid $300 a month, and
board.
"I believe I'll go up to the room and rest a bit," announced Mr. Adams,
after dinner. "The rest of you can do as you please."
"You aren't sick, are you, dad?" asked Charley, anxiously.
"Not a bit. I feel a hundred per cent. stronger than when we left
home. But I mustn't overdo. I'll take a nap and write a letter to
your mother. There'll be a mail out next week, and not another for
maybe thirty or forty days. Shall I leave the letter open for you?"
"Yes, please," bade Charley, a lump in his throat at the mere thought
of his mother. "I'll add a lot to it after I come back."
"I'll tell her we've not found our gold mine yet, but we've sold our
newspapers for a dollar apiece and spent that for washing," laughed his
father.
"Tell her to send us out all the old papers she has," begged Charley,
excitedly. "And potatoes and cabbages, from the garden!"
"I saw a man buy a whole cargo of eggs, down at the water-front," put
in Mr. Grigsby, "at thirty-seven and a half cents a dozen, and he
turned right around and resold 100 dozen of them at six dollars the
dozen! You can't afford to be sick here, Adams. The doctors charge
$50 for a visit, and the same for every hour after the first look-in.
Come along, Charley, and we'll see the sights while I do a few errands
on my own account. I hear Colonel Frémont's in town. Maybe we can
catch him."
XVI
CHARLEY HEARS A CONVERSATION
"If you're looking for Colonel Frémont, you'll likely find him at the
United States Hotel," hailed the hotel clerk, as Charley and Mr.
Grigsby passed the counter. "He's there with General Vallejo, I
understand."
"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Grigsby. "You know who Frémont is," he said, to
Charley; and Charley nodded. Of course he knew. Frémont was the great
explorer--Frémont the Pathfinder, they called him. He it was who,
arrived in California on his third exploring expedition for the
Government, early in 1846, had been on hand to lead in the taking of
California from Mexico. His stories of his travels made fine reading.
"Well, this General Vallejo is Don Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. He was
the military governor of Upper California before the war, but he's been
a great friend of the Americans, although he was the first man they
captured in the uprising of Forty-six. Nobody has a word to say
against General Vallejo. He wanted California to belong to the United
States, and said so, when other Californians were favoring England and
France instead of Mexico, after it was seen that Mexico couldn't hold
it. Fact is, General Vallejo it was who started San Francisco. Not
this San Francisco, but Benicia, at the other end of the bay. He
donated the land, and only asked that the city be named Francisca,
after his wife, Francisca Benicia. He gave a tract an mile wide by
five miles long. It's a better site for a big city than this is, they
say, because it's not so steep and is only across a narrow strait from
the mainland, and has deep-water anchorage. Most of the steamers go
there now, to anchor, and it has the naval and military headquarters,
at Mare Island and at the new post going up. This place was only Yerba
Buena--Good Herb Cove--a landing-place for the San Francisco mission.
But the settlers already here got ahead of the Vallejo plan, and
renamed their town San Francisco, because of San Francisco Bay; and the
name has made it grow. The general and Thomas O. Larkin (who was the
Government consul and agent) and Doc Robert Semple, who's an old-time
trapper from Kentucky and is about seven feet high, went ahead and
started the other town, and having lost out on Francisca called it by
Mrs. Vallejo's other name, Benicia. But it never has amounted to much
as a town. I thought I'd tell you about General Vallejo. He and
Frémont are a good pair--Americans both, though one is French, born in
Georgia, the other is Mexican, born in California."
The same boys whom Charley had seen in the morning were scratching for
gold in front of the United States Hotel, and quarreling over their
finds, which stuck to the moistened heads of the pins they were using.
"There he is, now--and the General with him," spoke Mr. Grigsby,
quickening pace as he and Charley approached across the street.
Two men were just leaving the hotel porch. One was of medium height,
erect and slender, in a broad silvered Californian hat and a short
velvet jacket embroidered with gilt. The other was taller and heavier
and darker, in ordinary citizen's clothes. Charley guessed that the
first was Colonel Frémont.
That was so, for going directly to him, Mr. Grigsby extended his brown,
sinewy hand, saying:
"Colonel, do you remember me?"
Colonel Frémont gave him one flashing glance out of a pair of deep-set,
very keen, dark blue eyes. A handsome man was the Pathfinder, with
such eyes, a clean-cut, imperious nose, and a crisp full brown beard.
"Hello, Grigsby," he said, grasping the hand heartily. "Do you think I
could forget one of my own men? The General remembers you, too, I'll
wager."
"With pleasure," said General Vallejo; and he, also, shook hands. He
was older than Colonel Frémont, was General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo,
and even more commanding in his appearance. His face was large and
dignified, in its black beard, his forehead was high and broad, and his
dark eyes piercing.
Mr. Grigsby introduced Charley, and they both shook hands with him.
"We're off to the mines in the morning, and I wanted to pay my respects
and introduce this boy, here, before we left," explained Mr. Grigsby.
"Are your family here, Colonel? And yours, General?"
"The General's are north at Sonoma, I believe," answered the
Pathfinder. "Mine are on their way back to Monterey. What trail do
you take, Grigsby? The northern mines, or the southern?"
"We'll try the northern, up the American; by boat as far as Sacramento."
"Our old stamping-ground of the American fork, eh?" remarked the
Colonel. "I well recall our first trip in, across the mountains, in
that winter of early Forty-four, when Sutter's Fort was the only
habitation. Who'd have thought that in five years there'd be towns all
along the old trail, and thousands of white men pushing in from
mountains and ocean both, to scratch and burrow like gophers! You
won't know the place, Grigsby! When were you there last?"
"A year ago."
"You won't know it, just the same."
"No," agreed General Vallejo, earnestly.
"There's still plenty of gold, is there?" queried Mr. Grigsby. This
was an important question, to Charley.
The Colonel shrugged his shoulders and laughed. The General gravely
smiled. Answered the Colonel:
"Gold? Lots of it, and people finding it. The diggings along the
American and the Yuba and the Feather are in full blast; and then there
are the southern mines, up the San Joaquin Valley, in the Mokelumne and
Calaveras districts. I'm going over there myself to-morrow or next
day. If you see Captain Sutter up north, tell him that any help he can
give you will be appreciated by me."
"Your rancho is prosperous, Colonel?"
"Fairly so. You know we've named it Mariposa, or Lily Ranch. I had
intended to stock it to cattle, but the mining excitement has changed
my plans and all my ranch machinery is stored here in town. The land
has so much mineral on it, we've discovered, that I'll work that first
if the Government doesn't object. Unfortunately mineral claims are not
supposed to go with Mexican land grants. While my family are here we
make our quarters in the Happy Valley section. I have a saw-mill
started back of San José, too. Should you come that way, be sure and
stop off with me."
"And should you come to Sonoma, do me the honor of making my house your
home," said the General. "And pray do not forget that in September we
of California hold a statehood convention at Monterey, to frame a State
constitution. All good citizens are requested to be present."
"The State of California, already! Think of that!" exclaimed Mr.
Grigsby.
"And a free State, too, if we can make it so," added Colonel Frémont,
his blue eyes aglow. "California's free now, to everybody. One man is
as good as another. I was born in the South, but I'm against slavery.
California has started gloriously free, and she ought to remain so."
"I'm with you, there, gentlemen," quoth Mr. Grigsby. "Certainly this
is the one population, away out here like a big family, where slavery
has no place or reason. Anybody who will work ought to be allowed to
make a living. This gold and land weren't put here for the benefit of
a few."
They all shook hands again. The Colonel and the General paced away, on
their business. Mr. Grigsby and Charley went ahead on theirs. And
Charley never forgot his first meeting with the celebrated Pathfinder
and the stately ex-governor.
He was tired enough when he and Mr. Grigsby had completed their
errands. But he found his father rested and up, and waiting with the
home letter just finished. Charley added four pages; but he had so
much to tell that he didn't say half of it. 'Twas a wonderful country,
let alone the marvelous journey behind it. He only regretted that he
didn't pick up a little gold, in the streets, so as to enclose that in
the letter, too.
His father had made arrangements to store their trunk, and what clothes
they would not need while at the mines.
"Now all that remains is to get our washing early--and, by the way, the
Frenchman promises to have it ready by six o'clock--and a pack animal
at Sacramento," he pronounced. "That is, if we can find one."
"If Captain Sutter is there, we'll find our pack animal," asserted Mr.
Grigsby.
"And if we don't, we can carry our own packs," declared Mr. Adams.
"That's the way the majority of the people are going in. By the way,
several persons have told me we ought to try the southern mines, up the
San Joaquin, beyond the new town called Stockton. But of course we
have our reasons."
"It's all luck, to the greenhorn," replied the Fremonter. "But I think
the American or the Feather country fits that map better."
After supper they took a stroll, before they turned in early to get a
good night's sleep. Surely there never was a gayer, busier place than
San Francisco at night. The wind, which had been blowing most of the
day, dropped, at evening, and a dense fog floated in. In the fog the
lights of lamps, lanterns and candles shone weirdly from doors and
windows and through canvas walls. Now about every other store appeared
to be a saloon or gambling room, all crowded. There were other places
of amusement, also, even to a sort of a theatre, where miners were
dancing with one another, on the floor, to the sound of a fiddle and
cracked accordion, while on a stage a thin woman with painted red
cheeks was singing and prancing. An auctioneer was selling real
estate, from a dry-goods box in the plaza. Stores were open, the
streets were thronged, hammering and music and shouting were mingled
just as in the night before; and after the Adams party had gone to bed
they found it hard work to sleep.
The hotel itself was noisy, for voices carried right through the floors
and the thin partitions. Charley tried not to listen, and was just
dozing off at last, when a new conversation, somewhere along the hall,
made him prick up his ears. There evidently were two men.
"You've never heard of Tom, have you?" asked one voice.
"Not a word, since he started back to the States to find his
relatives," answered a gruffer voice.
"Hadn't many, had he?"
"Nephew by marriage, is all he ever mentioned."
"He did well while he was here, and it's a pity he threw up and left.
Somebody's jumped his claims by this time, sure. Fact is, you can't
leave a claim over night, without having somebody jump into it and
squat. People are getting crazy, running 'round wild-like and grabbing
any land they fancy. The Government will have to step in and make
laws."
"That's right; but Tom had one claim that he banked on and said nobody
could find."
"You mean the Golden West?"
"Yes. Somewhere up north."
"In the American or the Feather country, I always imagined. He was
saving it till he could get that nephew, I reckon, to work it with him.
A quartz claim. I saw specimens from it. Well, let's go to sleep. So
long."
"So long."
Charley's heart beat rapidly. "The Golden West!" That was the very
name of the mine they were seeking--the mine that had been given to
them by the mysterious Californian back in St. Louis! In the American
River or Feather River country, the two men had said; and "Tom"; but
beyond that they didn't seem to know much more than did anybody else.
They had spoken of a nephew, though. He wasn't entitled to it, was
he--even if the man in St. Louis had been looking for him? The man had
given it to him, Charley, and to his, Charley's, father, because they
had helped him. Shucks! Now the nephew might be hunting for it, and
the long-nosed man and partners were hunting for it, and it didn't
belong to any of them.
Charley had half a mind to get out of bed and find those two men. He
wanted to see them, at least. But to snoop through the hall, asking
people in the rooms if they had been talking about "Tom," would be a
crazy proceeding. No; all he could do was to wait till morning and
tell his father and Mr. Grigsby what he had heard. He wished that they
weren't sleeping so soundly, and snoring without a pause. He could
scarcely wait--until he fell asleep himself.
It appeared to be the fashion in San Francisco to sleep late. Perhaps
everybody was tired out. The early morning hours were the only quiet
hours, and when Charley was wakened by the movements of his father and
Mr. Grigsby, the rest of the hotel seemed to be still in bed.
"All aboard, Charley," bade his father, leaning over the bunk. He was
dressed, and so was Mr. Grigsby. The air in the room was chill and
gray.
"All right," answered Charley. "But wait a minute. I want to tell you
and Mr. Grigsby what I heard, while you were asleep. Got to speak low,
though." And with them listening, close to him as he sat up, he
repeated every word of the conversation. "That nephew doesn't get any
of it, just the same; does he?" he added. "It's ours."
"Now, Charley," laughed his father, "you're going too fast. Nobody can
have it till after somebody finds it. We've come 6000 miles, and what
do we know? There was a man named Tom, who is supposed to have had a
mine in Northern California named the Golden West, and a nephew back in
the States. That's too indefinite to argue about."
"A quartz claim," reminded Mr. Grigsby. "That's one clue of value.
There aren't many quartz claims in the country. Nearly all the mining
is placer. People prefer to dig in the dirt rather than blast in the
rock. It's quicker."
"Quartz let it be, then," agreed Mr. Adams. "That does help out a bit;
but we won't discuss ownership yet, except with that man Jacobs. Him
I'll resist to the full extent of law and strength."
"What is a quartz claim?" queried Charley.
"Well," said Mr. Grigsby, "gold may be loose in the dirt, or held in
rock. The first is a placer, the other is a vein or lode. Nearly all
the mining out here is placer mining, where the dirt is dug out and
washed away, leaving the gold. But of course the gold in the placer
beds must have come out of a vein somewhere above. It doesn't grow
like grass. 'Cording to the scientific idee it was melted into the
rock, first, like into quartz, and then was worn away by the weather
and carried into the dirt. I don't fancy breaking up rock, to get
gold, when in a placer it's already been broken for you. But they say
quartz mining can be made to pay well, if you have the proper
machinery. As like as not this man 'Tom' was waiting for machinery."
"Tom." Tom who? And what was his nephew's name? And did his nephew
know about the mine? And was he out here looking for it? These and
other questions Charley kept putting to himself, because nobody could
answer them for him. The main thing now, anyway, was to get off, to
the "diggin's."
They paid their bill, shouldered their baggage, and wearing their
complete miner's costumes (Charley sporting his knife and his belt)
they proceeded down to Long Wharf and the _Mary Ann_. On their way
they collected their washing from the bowing Frenchman.
Long Wharf was the principal wharf, where they had climbed the stairs
when landing from the _California_, and was at the foot of Clay Street,
just beyond Montgomery, only a few blocks from the plaza of Portsmouth
Square. The tide was half in, partially covering the ugly mud-flats,
and extending all around the wharf.
Considerable of a crowd had collected, on the wharf. They were in
flannel shirts and boots and coarse trousers belted about with pistol
and knife, and were laden with baggage rolls. Evidently they, too,
were off to the mines; perhaps by the _Mary Ann_.
"That must be the schooner, out yonder--I can see _Mary Ann_ on her
stern," spoke Mr. Grigsby. "And I reckon that's her boat coming in."
"I'll get you out quicker'n that, stranger, if you're for the _Mary
Ann_," cut in an alert by-stander. "Five dollars for the trip; safety
guaranteed."
"Not to-day," smiled Mr. Grigsby.
A skiff was being pulled in, from a schooner anchored out a short
distance. At a nod from Mr. Grigsby, Charley and his father pressed
forward with him, to meet the boat at the foot of the long stairs.
Yes, it was from the _Mary Ann_; and they and a dozen others (or as
many as the boat would hold) tumbled in.
The _Mary Ann_ was a small schooner, about fifty feet long and twenty
feet wide. She had one little cabin with four rooms, so that the
passengers were expected to sleep on deck or in the hold, where bunks
had been built along the sides, with the dining table (of boards) in
the middle! However, who cared, when they were off to the mines and
this was one way to get there?
"How long'll it take us, to Sacramento, captain?" hailed one of his
passengers.
"Five days with luck; two weeks without," snapped the captain, a very
short, red-faced little man, giving orders right and left and sending
mate and sailors running, as the _Mary Ann_ swung free from her
anchorage. Up went the foresail and out shook the jib. Leaning, the
_Mary Ann_ slowly gathered way, gliding through the ripples.
The great Bay of San Francisco was beautiful. The morning sun had
broken through the fog, to gild the hundreds of ships, and the dancing
water. Heeling to a smart breeze, the _Mary Ann_ soon passed vessel
after vessel lying at anchor--among them the _California_ herself. The
jumble of low buildings and tents forming the city of San Francisco
dwindled, behind; the uproar of voices and hammers died; and heading
for the north the _Mary Ann_ clipped merrily along, the Golden Gate
entrance on her left, the rolling hills of the California mainland
distant on her right.
Her passengers numbered thirty-seven--about seven more than she ought
to hold, decided Charley. Everybody was in high feather at the
prospects of being on the way to the "diggin's." They pressed against
the weather rail, mounted atop the cook's galley and the cabin roof,
and several of the boldest even climbed aloft to the cross-trees of
fore-mast and mainmast, where they cheered and whooped. Yes, it seemed
to be a sort of pleasure excursion. Voices were constantly shouting.
"That's Goat Island, isn't it? The first one we passed."
"There's Alcatraz."
"Hurrah for Angel Island! Anybody want to land?"
"Is this still San Francisco Bay?"
"Of course it is."
"Where's San Pablo Bay, then?"
"At the end, before we turn into the Sacramento River."
The _Mary Ann_ was making good time. The red-faced little captain
stood near the wheel, with folded arms and vigilant eye, as if he was
very proud of her. All the shipping at anchor had been left behind
long ago, and now the schooner seemed to have joined with a regular
procession of small boats, hastening in the same direction as she.
Some were sail-boats, many were skiffs and launches; all were crowded,
and in a great hurry.