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PORT O' GOLD
A History-Romance of the San Francisco Argonauts
LOUIS J. STELLMAN
1922
[Illustration: As they looked the sunlight triumphed, scattering
the fog into queer floating shapes, luminous and fraught with weird
suggestions.... One might have thought a splendid city lay before
them, ... impalpable, yet triumphant, with its hint of destiny.]
TO THE CITY OF MY ADOPTION AND REBIRTH
SAN FRANCISCO
Oft from my window have I seen the day
Break o'er thy roofs and towers like a dream
In mystic silver, mirrored by the Bay,
Bedecked with shadow craft ... and then a gleam
Of golden sunlight cleaving swiftly sure
Some narrow cloud-rift--limning hill or plain
With flecks of gypsy-radiance that endure
But for the moment and are gone again.
Then I have ventured on thy strident streets,
Mid whir of traffic in the vibrant hour
When Commerce with its clashing cymbal greets
The mighty Mammon in his pomp of power....
And in the quiet dusk of eventide,
As wearied toilers quit the marts of Trade,
Have I been of their pageant--or allied
With Passion's revel in the Night Parade.
Oh, I have known thee in a thousand moods
And lived a thousand lives within thy bounds;
Adventured with the throng that laughs or broods,
Trod all thy cloisters and thy pleasure grounds,
Seen thee, in travail from the fiery torch,
Betrayed by Greed, smirched by thy sons' disgrace--
Rise with a spirit that no flame can scorch
To make thyself a new and honored place.
Ah, Good Gray City! Let me sing thy song
Of western splendor, vigorous and bold;
In vice or virtue unashamed and strong--
Stormy of mien but with a heart of gold!
I love thee, San Francisco; I am proud
Of all thy scars and trophies, praise or blame
And from thy wind-swept hills I cry aloud
The everlasting glory of thy name.
PREFACE
This is the story of San Francisco. When a newspaper editor summoned me
from the mountains to write a serial he said:
"I've sent for you because I believe you love this city more than any
other writer of my acquaintance or knowledge. And I believe the true
story of San Francisco will make a more dramatic, vivid, human narrative
than any fiction I've ever read.
"Take all the time you want. Get everything straight, and _put all
you've got into this story_. I'm going to wake up the town with it."
To the best of my ability, I followed the editor's instructions. He
declared himself satisfied. The public responded generously. The serial
was a success.
But, ah! I wish I might have written it much better ... or that Robert
Louis Stevenson, for instance, might have done it in my stead.
"Port O' Gold" is history with a fiction thread to string its episodes
upon. Most of the characters are men and women who have lived and played
their parts exactly as described herein. The background and chronology
are as accurate as extensive and painstaking research can make them.
People have informed me that my fictional characters, vide Benito, "took
hold of them" more than the "real ones" ... which is natural enough,
perhaps, since they are my own brain-children, while the others are
merely adopted. Nor is this anything to be deplored. The writer, after
all, is first an entertainer. Indirectly he may edify, inform or teach.
My only claim is that I've tried to tell the story of the city that I
love as truly and attractively as I was able. My only hope is that I
have been worthy of the task.
Valuable aid in the accumulation of historical data for this volume was
given by:
Robert Rea, librarian, San Francisco Public Library;
Mary A. Byrne, manager Reference Department, San Francisco Public
Library;
John Howell and John J. Newbegin, booksellers and collectors of
Californiana, for whose cheerful interest and many courtesies the author
is sincerely grateful.
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS
I Yerba Buena.
II The Gambled Patrimony.
III The Gringo Ships.
IV American Occupation.
V An Offer and a Threat.
VI The First Election.
VII The Rancheros Revolt.
VIII McTurpin's Coup.
IX The Elopement.
X Hull "Capitulates".
XI San Francisco is Named.
XII The New York Volunteers.
XIII The "Sydney Ducks".
XIV The Auction on the Beach.
XV The Beginning of Law.
XVI Gold! Gold! Gold!
XVII The Quest of Fortune.
XVIII News of Benito.
XIX The Veiled Woman.
XX A Call in the Night.
XXI Outfacing the Enemy.
XXII Shots in the Dark.
XXIII The New Arrival.
XXIV The Chaos of '49.
XXV Retrieving a Birthright.
XXVI Fire! Fire! Fire!
XXVII Politics and a Warning.
XXVIII On the Trail of McTurpin.
XXIX The Squatter Conspiracy.
XXX "Growing Pains".
XXXI The Vigilance Committee.
XXXII The People's Jury.
XXXIII The Reckoning.
XXXIV The Hanging of Jenkins.
XXXV The People and the Law.
XXXVI Fevers of Finance.
XXXVII "Give Us Our Savings".
XXXVIII King Starts the Bulletin.
XXXIX Richardson and Cora.
XL The Storm Gathers.
XLI The Fateful Encounter.
XLII The Committee Organizes.
XLIII Governor Johnson Mediates.
XLIV The Truce is Broken.
XLV The Committee Strikes.
XLVI Retribution.
XLVII Hints of Civil War.
XLVIII Sherman Resigns.
XLIX Terry Stabs Hopkins.
L The Committee Disbands.
LI Senator Broderick.
LII A Trip to Chinatown.
LIII Enter Po Lun.
LIV The "Field of Honor".
LV The Southern Plot.
LVI Some War Reactions.
LVII Waters Pays the Price.
LVIII McTurpin Turns Informer.
LIX The Comstock Furore.
LX The Shattered Bubble.
LXI Desperate Finance.
LXII Adolph Sutro's Tunnel.
LXIII Lees Solves a Mystery.
LXIV An Idol Topples.
LXV Industrial Unrest.
LXVI The Pick-Handle Parade.
LXVII Dennis Kearney.
LXVIII The Woman Reporter.
LXIX A New Generation.
LXX Robert and Maizie.
LXXI The Blind Boss.
LXXII Fate Takes a Hand.
LXXIII The Return.
LXXIV The "Reformer".
LXXV A Nocturnal Adventure.
LXXVI Politics and Romance.
LXXVII Aleta's Problem.
LXXVIII The Fateful Morn.
LXXIX The Turmoil.
LXXX Aftermath.
LXXXI Readjustment.
LXXXII At Bay.
LXXXIII In the Toils.
LXXXIV The Net Closes.
LXXXV The Seven Plagues.
LXXXVI A New City Government.
LXXXVII Norah Finds Out.
LXXXVIII The Shooting of Heney.
LXXXIX Defeat of the Prosecution.
XC The Measure of Redemption.
XCI Conclusion.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
As they looked, the sunlight triumphed, scattering the fog into queer,
floating shapes, luminous and fraught with weird suggestions.... One
might have thought a splendid city lay before them, ... impalpable, yet
triumphant, with its hint of destiny.
"Ah, Senor," Inez' smile had faded, ... "they have cause for hatred".
Men with shovels, leveling the sand-hills, piled the wagons high with
shimmering grains which were ... dumped into pile-surrounded bogs. San
Francisco reached farther and farther out into the bay.
Samuel Brannan rode through the streets, holding a pint flask of
gold-dust in one hand ... and whooping like a madman: "Gold! Gold! Gold!
From the American River".
Passersby who laughed at the inscription witnessed simultaneously the
rescue of an almost submerged donkey by means of an improvised derrick.
Broderick's commanding figure was seen rushing hither and thither....
"You and two others. Blow up or pull down that building," he indicated a
sprawling, ramshackle structure.
There sat the redoubtable captain, all the ... austerity of his West
Point manner melted in the indignity of sneezes and wheezes.... "Money!
God Almighty! Sherman, there's not a loose dollar in town".
"Draw and defend yourself," he said loudly. He shut his eyes and a
little puff of smoke seemed to spring from the end of his fingers,
followed ... by a sharp report.
In front of the building on a high platform, two men stood.... A
half-suppressed roar went up from the throng.
Terry, who had taken careful aim, now fired. Broderick staggered,
recovered himself. Slowly he sank to one knee.
The concourse broke into applause. Then it was hysteria, pandemonium.
Fifty thousand knew their city was safe for Anti-Slavery.
Half a thousand jobless workers, armed and reckless, marched toward the
docks. They bore torches.... "A hell-bent crew," said Ellis.
"My boy ... you're wasting your time as a reporter. Listen," he laid a
hand upon Francisco's knee. "I've a job for you.... The new Mayor will
need a secretary".
"Perhaps I shall find me a man--big, strong, impressive--with a mind
easily led.... Then I shall train him to be a leader.... I shall furnish
the brain".
"I am going South," Francisco told his son. "I cannot bear this".
All at once he stepped forward.... Tears were streaming down his face.
Then the judge's question, clearly heard, "What is your plea?" "Guilty!"
Ruef returned.
A HISTORY-ROMANCE OF THE SAN FRANCISCO ARGONAUTS
PROLOGUE
THE VISION
"Blessed be the Saints. It is the Punta de Los Reyes." The speaker was a
bearded man of middle years. A certain nobleness about him like an
ermine garment of authority was purely of the spirit, for he was neither
of imposing height nor of commanding presence. His clothing hung about
him loosely and recent illness had drawn haggard lines upon his face.
But his eyes flashed like an eagle's, and the hand which pointed
northward, though it trembled, had the fine dramatic grace of one who
leads in its imperious gesture. He swept from his head the once
magnificent hat with its scarred velour and windtorn plume, bending one
knee in a movement of silent reverence and thanksgiving. This was Gaspar
de Portola, October 31,1769.
Near him stood his aides. All of them were travel-stained, careworn with
hardship and fatigue. Following their chieftain they uncovered and
knelt. To one side and a little below the apex of a rocky promontory
that contained the little group, Christian Indians, muleteers and
soldados crossed themselves and looked up questioningly. In a dozen
litters sick men tossed and moaned. A mule brayed raucously, startling
flocks of wild geese to flight from nearby cliffs, a herd of deer on a
mad stampede inland.
Portola rose and swept the horizon with his half-fevered gaze. To the
south lay the rugged shore line with its sea-corroded cliffs, indented
at one point into a half-moon of glistening beach and sweeping on again
into vanishing and reappearing shapes of mist.
Far to the northwest a giant arm of land reached out into the water,
high and stark and rocky; further on a group of white farallones lay in
the tossing foam and over them great flocks of seabirds dipped and
circled. Finally, along the coast to the northward, they descried those
chalk cliffs which Francis Drake had aptly named New Albion, and still
beyond, what seemed to be the mouth of an inlet.
Dispute sprang up among them. Since July 14th they had been searching
between this place and San Diego for the port of Monterey. "Perhaps this
is the place," said Crespi, the priest, reluctantly. "Vizcaino may have
been amiss when he located it in 37 degrees."
"Yes," spoke Captain Fernando de Rivera, "these explorers are careless
dogs. One seldom finds the places they map out so gaily. And what do
they care who dies of the hunger or scurvy--drinking their flagons in
Mexico or Madrid? A curse, say I, on the lot of them."
Portola turned an irritated glance of disapproval on his henchmen. "What
say you, my pathfinder?" he addressed Sergeant Jose Ortega, chief
of Scouts.
"That no one may be certain, your excellency," the scout-chief answered.
"But," his eyes met those of his commander with a look of grim
significance, "one may learn."
Portola laid a hand almost affectionately on the other's leather-covered
shoulder. Here was a man after his heart. Always he had been ahead of
the van, selecting camp sites, clearing ways through impenetrable brush,
fighting off hostile savages. Now, ill and hungry as he was, for rations
had for several days been down to four tortillas per man, Ortega was
ready to set forth again.
"You had better rest, Saldado. You are far from well. Start to-morrow."
Ortega shrugged. "Meanwhile they mutter," his eyes jerked to the
indiscriminate company below.
"When men march and have a motive, they forget their grievances. When
they lie in camp the devil stalks about and puts mischief into their
thought. I have been a soldier for fourteen years, your excellency."
"And I for thirty," said the other dryly, but he smiled. "You are
right, my sergeant. Go. And may your patron saint, the reverend father
of Assisi, aid you."
Ortega saluted and withdrew. "I will require three days with your
excellency's grace," he said. Portola nodded and observed Ortega's sharp
commands wheel a dozen mounted soldados into line. They galloped past
him, their lances at salute and dashed with a clatter of hoofs into the
valley below.
Young Francisco Garvez spurred his big mare forward till he rode beside
the sergeant. A tall, half-lanky lad he was with the eager prescience of
youth, its dreams and something of its shyness hidden in the dark
alertness of his mien.
"Whither now, my sergeant?" he inquired with a trace of pertness as he
laid a hand upon the other's pommel. "Do we search again for that
elusive Monterey? Methinks Vizcaino dreamed it in his cups." He smiled,
a flash of strong, white teeth relieving the half-weary relaxation of
his features, and Ortega turning, answered him:
"Perhaps the good St. Francis hid it from our eyes--that we might first
discover this puerto christened in his honor. We have three days to
reach the Punta de los Reyes, which Vizcaino named for the kings
of Cologne."
For a time the two rode on in silence. Then young Garvez muttered: "It
is well for Portola that your soldados love you.... Else the expedition
had not come thus far." The sergeant looked at his companion
smolderingly, but he did not speak. He knew as well as anyone that the
Governor's life was in danger; that conspiracy was in the air. And it
was for this he had taken with him all the stronger malcontents. Yes,
they loved him--whatever treachery might have brooded in their minds.
His eyes kindled with the knowledge. He led them at a good pace forward
over hill and dale, through rough and briery undergrowth, fording here
and there a stream, spurring tired horses over spans of dragging sand
until darkness made further progress impossible. But with the break of
day he was on again after a scanty meal. Just at sunrise he led his
party up to a commanding headland where he paused to rest. His winded
mount and that of Garvez panted side by side upon the crest while his
troopers, single file, picked their way up the narrow trail. Below them
was the Bay of San Francisco guarded by the swirling narrows of the
Golden Gate. And over the brown hilltops of the Contra Costa a great
golden ball of sunlight battled with the lacy mists of dawn.
It was a picture to impress one with its mystery and magnificence. The
two men gazed upon it with an oddly blended sense of awe and exultation.
And as they looked the sunlight triumphed, scattering the fog into queer
floating shapes, luminous and fraught with weird suggestions of castle,
dome, of turret, minaret and towering spire. One might have thought a
splendid city lay before them in the barren cove of sand-dunes, a city
impalpable, yet triumphant, with its hint of destiny; translucent silver
and gold, shifting and amazing--gone in a flash as the sun's full
radiance burst forth through the vapor-screen.
"It was like a sign from Heaven!" Garvez breathed.
Ortega crossed himself. The younger man went on, "Something like a voice
within me seemed to say 'Here shall you find your home--you and your
children and their children's children.'"
Ortega looked down at the dawn-gold on the waters and the tree-ringed
cove. Here and there small herds of deer drank from a stream or browsed
upon the scant verdure of sandy meadows. In a distant grove a score of
Indian tepees raised their cone shapes to the sky; lazy plumes of
blue-white smoke curled upward. Canoes, rafts of tules, skillfully bound
together, carried dark-skinned natives over wind-tossed waters, the ends
of their double paddles flashing in the sun.
"One may not know the ways of God." Ortega spoke a trifle bruskly. "What
is plain to me is that we cannot journey farther. This estero cuts our
path in two. And in three days we cannot circle it to reach the Contra
Costa. We must return and make report to the commander."
He wheeled and shouted a command to his troopers. The cavalcade rode
south but young Francisco turning in the saddle cast a farewell glance
toward the shining bay. "Port O' Gold!" he whispered raptly, "some day
men shall know your fame around the world!"
PORT O' GOLD
CHAPTER I
YERBA BUENA
It was 1845. Three quarters of a century had passed since young
Francisco Garvez, as he rode beside Portola's chief of Scouts, glimpsed
the mystic vision of a city rising from the sandy shores of San
Francisco Bay.
Garvez, so tradition held, had taken for his spouse an Indian maiden
educated by the mission padres of far San Diego. For his service as
soldado of old Spain he had been granted many acres near the Mission of
Dolores and his son, through marriage, had combined this with another
large estate. There a second generation of the Garvez family had looked
down from a palatial hacienda upon spreading grain-fields, wide-reaching
pastures and corrals of blooded stock. They had seen the Mission era wax
and wane and Mexico cast off the governmental shackles of Madrid. They
had looked askance upon the coming of the "Gringo" and Francisco Garvez
II, in the feebleness of age, had railed against the destiny that gave
his youngest daughter to a Yankee engineer. He had bade her choose
between allegiance to an honored race and exile with one whom he termed
an unknown, alien interloper. But in the end he had forgiven, when she
chose, as is the wont of women, Love's eternal path. Thus the Garvez
rancho, at his death became the Windham ranch and there dwelt Dona Anita
with her children Inez and Benito, for her husband, "Don Roberto"
Windham lingered with an engineering expedition in the wilds of Oregon.
Just nineteen was young Benito, straight and slim, combining in his
fledgling soul the austere heritage of Anglo-Saxons with the leaping
fires of Castile. Fondly, yet with something anxious in her glance, his
mother watched the boy as he sprang nimbly to the saddle of his favorite
horse. He was like her husband, strong and self-reliant. Yet,--she
sighed involuntarily with the thought,--he had much of the manner of her
handsome and ill-fated brother, Don Diego, victim of a duel that had
followed cards and wine.
"Why so troubled, madre mia?" The little hand of Inez stole into her
mother's reassuringly. "Is it that you fear for our Benito when he rides
among the Gringos of the puebla?"
Her dark crowned and exquisite head rose proudly and her eyes flashed as
she watched her brother riding with the grace of splendid horsemanship
toward the distant town of Yerba Buena. "He can take care of himself,"
she ended with, a toss of her head.
"To be sure, my little one," the Dona Windham answered smiling. No doubt
it was a foolish apprehension she decided. If only the Dona Briones who
lived on a ranchita near the bay-shore did not gossip so of the
Americano games of chance. And if only she might know what took Benito
there so frequently.
* * * * *
Benito spurred his horse toward the puebla. A well-filled purse jingled
in his pocket and now and then he tossed a silver coin to some
importuning Indian along the road. As he passed the little ranch-house
of Dona Briones he waved his hat gaily in answer to her invitation to
stop. Benito called her Tia Juana. Large and motherly she was, a woman
of untiring energy who, all alone cultivated the ranchito which supplied
milk, butter, eggs and vegetables to ships which anchored in the cove of
Yerba Buena. She was the friend of all sick and unfortunate beings, the
secret ally of deserting sailors whom she often hid from searching
parties. Benito was her special favorite and now she sighed and shook
her head as he rode on. She had heard of his losses at the gringo game
called "pokkere." She mistrusted it together with all other alien
machinations.
Benito reached the little hamlet dreaming in the sun, a welter of
scrambled habitations. There was the little ship's cabin, called Kent
Hall, where dwelt that genial spirit, Nathan Spear, his father's friend.
Nearby was the dwelling, carpenter and blacksmith shop of Calvert Davis;
the homes of Victor Pruden, French savant and secretary to Governor
Alvarado; Thompson the hide trader who married Concepcion Avila,
reigning beauty of her day; Stephen Smith, pioneer saw-miller, who
brought the first pianos to California.
Where a spring gushed forth and furnished water to the ships, Juan
Fuller had his washhouse. Within a stone's throw was the grist mill of
Daniel Sill where a mule turned, with the frequent interruptions of his
balky temperament, a crude and ponderous treadmill. Grain laden ox-carts
stood along the road before it.
Farther down was Finch's, better known as John the Tinker's bowling
alley; Cooper's groggery, nicknamed "Jack the Sailor's," Vioget's house,
later to be Yerba Buena's first hotel. The new warehouse of William
Leidesdorff stood close to the waterline and, at the head of the plaza,
the customs house built by Indians at the governor's order looked down
on the shipping.
Benito reined his horse as he reached the Plaza where a dozen other
mounts were tethered and left his steed to crop the short grass without
the formality of hitching. He remembered how, nine years ago, Don Jacob
Primer Leese had given a grand ball to celebrate the completion of his
wooden casa, the first of its kind in Yerba Buena. There had been music
and feasting with barbecued meats and the firing of guns to commemorate
the fourth of July which was the birth of Americano independence. Long
ago Leese had moved his quarters farther from the beach and sold his
famous casa to the Hudson's Bay company. Half perfunctorily, young
Windham made his way there, entered and sat down in the big trading room
where sailormen were usually assembled to discourse profanely of the
perils of the sea. Benito liked to hear them and to listen to the
drunken boasts of Factor William Rae, who threatened that his company
would drive all Yankee traders out of California. Sometimes Spear would
be there, sardonically witty, drinking heavily but never befuddled by
his liquor. But today the place was silent, practically deserted so
Benito, after a glass of fiery Scotch liquor with the factor, made his
way into the road again. There a hand fell on his shoulder and Spear's
hearty voice saluted him:
"How fares it at the ranch, Camerado?"
"Moderately," the young man answered, "for my mother waits impatiently
the coming of my father. She is very lonely since my uncle died. Though
Inez tries to comfort her, she, too, is apprehensive. The time set by my
father for home-coming is long past."
"It is the way of women," Spear said gently. "Give them my respects. If
you ride toward home I will accompany you a portion of the way."
Benito turned an almost furtive glance on his companion. "Not yet," ...
he answered hastily, "a thousand pardons, senor. I have other
errands here."
He nodded half impatiently and made his way along the embarcadero. Spear
saw him turn into the drinking place of Cooper.
A stranger caught Spear's glance and smiled significantly. "I saw the
lad last night at poker with a crowd that's not above a crooked deal....
Someone should stop him." In the voice was tentative suggestion.
"I've no authority," Spear answered shortly. He turned his back upon the
other and strode toward the plaza.
CHAPTER II
THE GAMBLED PATRIMONY
The stranger took his way toward the waterfront and into "Jack the
Sailor's." Cooper, who had earned this nickname, stood behind a counter
of rough boards polishing its top with a much soiled towel. He hailed
the newcomer eagerly. "Hello, Alvin Potts! What brought you here? And
how is all at Monterey?"
"All's well enough," said Potts, concisely. He glanced about. Several
crude structures, scarcely deserving the name of tables, were centers of
interest for rings of rough and ill-assorted men. There were
loud-voiced, bearded fellows from the whaler's crew. In tarpaulins and
caps pulled low upon their brows; swarthy Russians with oily, brutish
faces and slow movements--relics of the abandoned colony at Fort Ross;
suave, soft-spoken Spaniards in broad-brimmed hats, braided short coats
and laced trousers tucked into shining boots; vaqueros with colored
handkerchiefs about their heads and sashes around their middles. A few
Americans were sprinkled here and there. Usually one player at each
table was of the sleek and graceful type, which marks the gambler. And
usually he was the winner. Now and then a man threw down his cards,
pushed a little pile of money to the center of the table and shuffled
out. Cooper passed between them, serving tall, black bottles from which
men poured their potions according to impulse; they did not drink in
unison. Each player snatched a liquid stimulus when the need arose. And
one whose shaky nerves required many of these spurs was young Benito.
Potts observed the pale face and the hectic, burning eyes with a
frowning disapproval. Presently he drew John Cooper to one side.
"He's no business here, that lad ... you know it, Jack," Potts said,
accusingly. The saloon keeper threw wide his arms in a significant
gesture.
"He won't stay away ... I've told him half a dozen times. No one can
reason with that headstrong fool."
"Who's that he's playing with?" asked Potts. "I mean the dark one with a
scar."
An impressive and outstanding figure was the man Potts designated.
Stocky, sinister of eye and with a mouth whose half-sardonic smile drew
the lips a little out of line, he combed his thick black hair now and
then with delicate, long-fingered hands. They had a deftness and a
lightning energy, those fingers with their perfectly groomed nails,
which boded little good to his opponents. He sat back calmly in strange
contrast to the feverish uncontrol of other players. Now and then he
flashed a swift glance round the circle of his fellow players. Before
him was a heap of gold and silver. They watched him deal with the
uncanny skill of a conjurer before Jack Cooper answered.
"That's Aleck McTurpin from Australia. Thought you knew him."
"One of the Sydney coves?"
"Not quite so loud," the other cautioned hastily. "They call him
that--behind his back. But who's to tell? I'd like to get the lad out of
his clutches well enough."
"Think I'll watch the game," Potts said, and sauntered to the table. He
laid a friendly hand on Windham's shoulder. Benito's pile of coin was
nearly gone. McTurpin dealt. It was a jack-pot, evidently, for a heavy
stake of gold and silver was upon the center of the board. Benito's hand
shook as he raised his cards. He reached forth and refilled his glass,
gulping the contents avidly.
"Dos cartos," he replied in Spanish to the dealer's inquiry. Potts
glanced at the three cards which Benito had retained. Each was a king.
The young man eyed his first draw with a slight frown and seemed to
hesitate before he lifted up the second. Then a little sucking gasp came
from his throat.
"Senor," he began as McTurpin eyed him curiously, "I have little left to
wager. Luck has been my enemy of late. Yet," he smiled a trembling
little smile, "I hold certain cards which give me confidence. I should
like to play a big stake--once, before I leave--"
"How big?" asked McTurpin, coldly, but his eye was eager.
The Spanish-American faced him straightly. "As big as you like, amigo
... if you will accept my note."
McTurpin's teeth shut with a click. "What security, young fellow?" he
demanded.
"My ranch," replied Benito. "It is worth, they say, ten thousand of your
dollars."
McTurpin covered his cards with his hands. "You want to lay me this
ranch against--what?"
"Five thousand dollars--that is fair enough," Benito answered. He was
trembling with excitement. McTurpin watched him hawk-like, seeming to
consider. "Bring us ink and paper, Jack," he called to Cooper, and when
the latter had complied, he wrote some half a dozen lines upon a sheet.
"Sign that. Get two witnesses ... you, Jack, and this fellow here," he
indicated Potts imperiously. He laid his cards face down upon the table
and extracted deftly from some inner pocket a thick roll of greenbacks.
Slowly, almost meticulously, he counted them before the gaping tableful
of players. Fifty hundred-dollar bills.
"American greenbacks," he spoke crisply. "A side bet with our friend,
the Senor Windham." He shoved the money toward the center of the table,
slightly apart from the rest.
Benito waveringly picked up the pen. It shook in his unsteady fingers.
"Wait," Potts pleaded. But the young man brooked no intervention. With a
flourish he affixed his signature. McTurpin picked up the pen as Benito
dropped it. "Put your name on as a witness," he demanded of the host.
"Jack the Sailor" shook his head. "I've no part in this," he said, and
turned his back upon them. "Nor I," Potts answered to a similar
invitation.
McTurpin took the paper. "Well, it doesn't matter. You've all seen him
sign it: You ... and you ... and you." His finger pointed to a trio of
the nearest players, and their nods sufficed him, evidently. He weighted
the contract with a gold-piece from his own plethoric pile.
"Show down! Show down!" cried the others. Triumphantly Benito laid five
cards upon the table. Four of them were kings. A little cry of
satisfaction arose, for sympathy was with the younger player. McTurpin
sat unmoved. Then he threw an ace upon the table. Followed it with a
second. Then a third. And, amid wondering murmurs, a fourth.
He reached out his hand for the stakes. Benito sat quite still. The
victorious light had gone out of his eyes, but not a muscle moved. One
might have thought him paralyzed or turned to stone by his misfortune.
McTurpin's hand closed almost stealthily upon the paper. There was a
smile of cool and calculating satisfaction on his thin lips as he drew
the stake toward him.
Then with an electrifying suddenness, Benito sprang upon him. "Cheat!"
he screamed. "You fleeced me like a robber. I knew. I understood it when
you looked at me like that."
Quick as McTurpin was in parrying attack--for he had frequent need of
such defense--the onslaught of Benito found him unprepared. He went over
backward, the young man's fingers on his throat. From the overturned
table money rattled to the floor and rolled into distant corners.
Hastily the non-combatants sought a refuge from expected bullets. But
no pistol barked. McTurpin's strength far overmatched that of the other.
Instantly he was on his feet. Benito's second rush was countered by a
blow upon the jaw. The boy fell heavily.
McTurpin smoothed his ruffled plumage and picked up the scattered coins.
"Take the young idiot home," he said across his shoulder, as he strode
out. "Pour a little whisky down his throat. He isn't hurt."
CHAPTER III
THE GRINGO SHIPS
Government was but a name in Yerba Buena. A gringo engineer named
Fremont with a rabble of adventurers had overthrown the valiant Vallejo
at Sonora and declared a California Republic. He had spiked the cannon
at the Presidio. And now a gringo sloop-of-war was in the bay, some said
with orders to reduce the port. Almost simultaneously an English frigate
came and there were rumors of a war between the Anglo-Saxon nations.
The prefect, Don Rafael Pinto, had already joined the fleeing Governor
Castro. Commandante Francisco Sanchez, having sent his soldiers to
augment the Castro forces in the south, was without a garrison and had
retired to his rancho.
Nevertheless, had the Senora Windham, with her son and daughter, called
upon Sub-prefect Guerrero in hope of justice. Her rancho was being taken
from her. Already McTurpin had pre-empted a portion of the grant and
only the armed opposition of the Windham vaqueros prevented an entire
dispossession.
Though Guerrero listened, courteous and punctilious, he had obviously no
power to afford relief. He was a curiously nervous man of polished
manners whose eyelids twitched at intervals with a sort of slow St.
Vitus' dance.
"What can I do, Senora?" with a blend of whimsicality and desperation.
"I am an official without a staff. And Sanchez a commander stripped of
his soldados." He stepped to the door with them and looked down upon the
dancing, rippling waters of the bay, where two ships rode.
"Let these gringos fight it out together. This McTurpin is an Inglese,
I am told, from their far colony across the sea. If the Americanos
triumph take your claim to them. If not, God save you, my senora.
I cannot."
Don Guillermo Richardson, the former harbormaster, came up the hill as
Dona Anita emerged from the Alcalde's office. He was a friend of her
husband--a gringo--but trusted by the Spanish Californians, many of whom
he had befriended. To him Mrs. Windham turned half desperately,
confessing in a rush of words her family's plight. "What is to become of
us?" she questioned passionately. "Ah, that my Roberto were here! He
would know how to deal with these desperadoes." She gestured angrily
toward the sloop-of-war which rode at anchor in the Bay.
"You have nothing to fear, my friend," returned Richardson with a trace
of asperity. "Commodore Sloat is a gentleman. He is, I understand, to
seize Monterey and raise the the American flag there tomorrow. Yet his
instructions are that Californians are to be shown every courtesy."
"And our rancho?" cried the boy. "Will the Americano Capitan restore it
to us, think you, Don Guillermo?"
"I know not," said the other sadly. "You should have thought of that
before you gambled it away, my son."
Benito hung his head. Richardson passed on and the trio made their way
toward the beach. There they found Nathan Spear in excited converse with
John Cooper and William Leidesdorff.
They were discussing the probability of an occupation by the American
marines. "If they come ashore," said Leidesdorff, "I'll invite them to
my new house. There's plenty of rum for all, and we'll drink a toast to
Fremont and the California Republic as well."
"Hurrah! Hurrah!" came a cheer from several bystanders.
"I invite you all," cried Leidesdorff, waving his hands and almost
dancing in his eagerness. "Every man-jack of you in all Yerba Buena."
"How about the ladies, Leidesdorff?" called out a sailor.
"Ah, forgive me, Senora, Senorita!" cried the Dane remorsefully. He
swept off his wide-brimmed hat with an effort, for he had a fashion of
jamming it very tightly upon his head. He laid a hand enthusiastically
upon the shoulders of both Spear and Cooper. "It grows better and
better. Tomorrow, if the Captain is willing," he jerked his head toward
the Portsmouth, "tomorrow evening we shall have a grand ball. It shall
celebrate the day of independence."
"But tomorrow is the eighth of July," said Cooper.
"What matter?" Leidesdorff exclaimed, now thoroughly enthusiastic. "It's
the spirit of the thing that counts, my friends."
A crowd was assembling. Mrs. Windham and her daughter drew instinctively
aside. Benito stood between them and the growing throng as if to shield
them from a battery of curious glances.
"Will the ladies accept?" asked Leidesdorff with another exaggerated
salute.
Senora Windham, haughty and aloof, had framed a stiff refusal, but her
daughter caught her hand. "Do not antagonize them, mother," she said in
an undertone. "Let us meet this Gringo Commandante of the ship.
Perhaps," she smiled archly, "it is not beyond the possibilities I may
persuade him into giving aid."
The elder woman hesitated, glanced inquiringly at Nathan Spear who stood
beside them. He nodded. "The ladies will be pleased," he answered in
their stead. Another cheer met this announcement.
CHAPTER IV
AMERICAN OCCUPATION
Yerba Buena awoke to the sunrise of July 8, 1846, with a spirit of
festive anticipation and a certain relief.
Today the American sloop-of-war would land its sailors and marines to
take possession of the port. Today the last remaining vestige of the
Latin's dominance would end. A strange flag, curiously gay with stripes
and stars, would fly above the customs house; strange men in uniforms of
blue, and golden braid, would occupy the seats of power. Even the name
of Yerba Buena would be altered, it was said. New Boston probably would
be its title.
Early morning brought ox-carts laden with gay, curious Spanish ladies
from surrounding ranches, piquant eager senoritas with vivacious
gestures of small hands and fluttering fans; senoras plump and placid,
slower in their movements and with brooding eyes. They wore their
laciest mantillas, silkiest gowns and daintiest footwear to impress the
alien invader. And, beside their equipages, like outriders in the
cortege of a queen, caballeros and vaqueros sat their caracoling steeds.
Sailors from the trade and whaling ships, trappers, hunters and the
motley populace of Yerba Buena made a colorful and strangely varied
picture, as they gathered with the rancheros about the Plaza.
At 8 o'clock four boats descended simultaneously from the Portsmouth's
sides. They were greeted by loud cheers from the Americans on shore and
watched with excited interest by the others. The boats landed their
crews near the spring where a sort of wharf had been constructed. They
returned for more and finally assembled seventy marines, a smaller
number of sailors and the ship's band. Captain Montgomery, in the full
dress uniform of a naval commander, reviewed his forces. Beside him
stood Lieutenant John S. Misroon, large, correct and rather awkward,
with long, restless arms; a youthful, rosy complexion and serious blue
eyes. Further back, assembling his marines in marching order, was
Lieutenant Henry Watson, a smaller man of extraordinary nervous energy.
Montgomery gave the marching order. Fife and drum struck up a lively air
and to its strains the feet of Yerba Buena's first invading army kept
uncertain step as sailors and marines toiled through the sand. Half a
thousand feet above them stood the quaint adobe customs house, its
red-tiled roof and drab adobe walls contrasting pleasantly with the
surrounding greenery of terraced hills. Below it lay the Plaza with its
flagpole, its hitching racks for horses and oxen.
Here the commander halted his men. "Lieutenant Watson," he addressed the
senior subaltern, "be so good as to request attendance by the prefect or
alcalde.... And for heaven's sake, fasten your coat, sir," he added in a
whispered aside.
Saluting with one hand, fumbling at his buttons with the other, Watson
marched into the customs house, while the populace waited agape; but he
returned very soon to report that the building was untenanted. Captain
Montgomery frowned. He had counted on the pomp and punctilio of a formal
surrender--a spectacular bit of history that would fashion gallant words
for a report. "Haul down the flag of Mexico," he said to Lieutenant
Misroon. "Run up the Stars and Stripes!"
Lieutenant Misroon gazed aloft, then down again, embarrassed. "There is
no flag, sir," he responded, and Montgomery verified his statement with
a frowning glance. "Where the devil is it, then?" he asked explosively.
A frightened clerk appeared now at the doorway of the custom house. He
bowed and scraped before the irate commander. "Pardon, Senor
Commandante," he said, quaveringly, "the flag of Mexico reposes in a
trunk with the official papers of the port. I, myself, have seen the
receiver of customs, Don Rafael Pinto, place it there."
"And where is Don Rafael?"
"Some days ago he joined the Castro forces in the South, Senor."
"Well, well!" Montgomery's tone was sharp; "there must be someone in
command. Who is he?"
"The Sub-Prefect has ridden to his rancho, Commandante."
"That disposes of the civil authorities," Montgomery reflected, "since
Port-Captain Ridley is in jail with Fremont's captives." He turned to
the clerk again. "Is there not a garrison at the Presidio?"
"They have joined the noble Castro," sighed the clerk, recovering his
equanimity. "There is only the commander Sanchez, Senor. He is also at
his rancho."
Despite his irritation, Captain Montgomery could not miss the humor of
the situation. A dry chuckle escaped him. "Run up the flag," he said to
Lieutenant Misroon, and the latter hastened to comply. An instant later
the starry banner floated high above their heads. A cheer broke out.
Hats flew into the air and from the ship's band came the stirring
strains of America's national air. Then, deep and thunderous, a gun
spoke on the Portsmouth. Another and another.
Captain Montgomery, stiff and dignified, lifted his hand and amid an
impressive silence read the proclamation of Commodore Sloat, in which
all citizens of captured ports were assured of fair and friendly
treatment and invited to become subjects of the United States. He
suggested the immediate formation of a town militia. Leidesdorff came
bustling forward.
"My house is at your service, gentlemen," he said. "And tonight," he
removed his hat and bowed toward the ladies, "tonight I bid you all to
be my guests and give our new friends welcome." He saluted Montgomery
and his aids, who, somewhat nonplussed, returned the greeting.
Nathan Spear elbowed his way to the commander's side. With him came
Senora Windham and the smiling Senorita Inez. Benito lingered rather
diffidently in the background with a group of Spanish Californians, but
was finally induced to bring them forward. There were general
handshakings. Many other rancheros, now that the ice was broken, brought
their wives and daughters for an introduction to the gringo commandante,
and Montgomery, his good humor restored, kissed many a fair hand in
response to a languishing smile. It seemed a happy and a friendly
seizure. Inez said, eyes a-sparkle, "We shall see you at the ball this
evening, Senor Commandante."
"I shall claim the first dance, Senorita," said the sailor, bowing low.
Her heart leaped as they left him, and she squeezed her brother's arm.
"He is a kindly man, Benito mio. I shall tell him of this
interloper--this McTurpin. Have no fear."
Benito smiled a little dubiously. He had less faith than Inez in the
future government of the Americans.
CHAPTER V
AN OFFER AND A THREAT
Aleck McTurpin, tired but exhilarated, rode toward the Windham rancho on
the morning after Leidesdorff's ball. He had made a night of it and he
was in high fettle. The Senorita Windham had granted him a dance despite
her brother's scowling disapproval. Out of the charm of that brief
association there had come into the gambler's mind a daring plan. To the
Senorita Inez he had spoken of his claim upon the Windham rancho through
her brother's note won on the gambling table. He had touched the matter
very gently, for McTurpin knew the ways of women and was not without
engaging qualities when they stood him in good stead.
Now he rode toward a tryst with Inez Windham and his heart leaped at the
prospect of another sight of her; within him like a heady wine there was
the memory of her sparkling eyes, the roguish, mischievous, half-pouting
mouth. The consciousness of something finer than his life had known
aroused in him strange devotional impulses, unfamiliar yearnings.
He and the Senorita were to meet and plan a settlement of McTurpin's
claim against the rancho. He had asked her to come alone, and, after a
swift look, half fearful, half desperate, she consented. It was an
unheard-of thing in Spanish etiquette. But he believed she would fulfill
the bargain. And if she did, he asked himself, what should he say--or
do? For, perhaps, the first time in his life McTurpin was uncertain.
Suddenly the road turned and he came upon her. She stood beside her
horse, the morning sunlight in her wondrous dark hair. The ride had
brought fresh color to her face and sparkle to her eyes. McTurpin caught
his breath before the wonder and beauty of her. Then he sprang from his
horse and bowed low. The Senorita Inez nodded almost curtly.
"I have little time, Senor," she said, uneasily. "You are late. I may be
missed." Her smile was all the more alluring for its hint of panic. "Can
we not come to the point at once? I have here certain jewels which will
pay a portion of the debt." She unclasped from her throat a necklace of
pearls he had noted at the ball. She held them out toward him. "And here
is a ring. Have you brought the paper?"
McTurpin held up a protesting hand. "You wrong me, Senorita," he
declared. "I am a gambler. Yes ... I take my chance with men and win or
lose according to the Fates. But I have yet to rob a woman of her
trinkets."
"It is no robbery," she demurred, hastily. "Take them, I beseech you,
and return the note. If it is not enough, we will pay more ... later ...
from the proceeds of the ranch."
"Senorita," said McTurpin eagerly, "let us compromise this matter more
adroitly. Should I make no further claim upon your ranch than that which
I possess, why may we not be neighbors--friends?"
She tried to protest, but he rushed on, giving her no opportunity.
"Senorita, I am not a man devoid of culture. I am not a sailor or a
trapper like those ruffians below. Nor a keeper of shops. Senorita, I
will give up gambling and become a ranchero. If--" he stammered,
"If I--"
Inez Windham took a backward step. Her breath came sharply. In this
man's absurd confusion there was written plainer than his uncompleted
words could phrase it, what he meant.
"No, no," her little hands went out as if to ward off some repulsive
thing. "Senor--that is quite impossible."
McTurpin saw the look of horror, of aversion. He felt as though someone
had struck him in the face. There was a little silence. Then he
laughed, shortly.
"Impossible?" the tone was cutting. "We shall see.... This is now a
white man's country. I have offered to divide the rancho. What if I
should take it all? Where would you go? You, the proud Senora and the
shiftless young Benito?"
The Senorita Inez' lips curled. "When my father comes he will know how
to answer you," she told him, hotly.
"If he were alive he would have come long since," McTurpin answered.
"Many perish on the northern trails." He took a step toward her. "Do you
know that this morning 200 more Americans arrived on the ship Brooklyn?
They are armed and there is talk of 'running out the greasers.' Do you
know what that means? It were well to have a friend at court, my
little lady."
"Go!" the girl blazed at him. "Go, and quickly--liar that you are. My
brother and his vaqueros will know how to protect my mother and me." She
sprang upon her horse and galloped toward the rancho. McTurpin, red and
angry, watched her disappearing in a whirl of dust.
* * * * *
"Look, my brother! He has spoken truly." Inez and Benito had ridden to
the pueblo for a confirmation of McTurpin's words. They hitched their
horses at the rack in Portsmouth Square and walked down toward the
landing place. A large ship lay in the offing. Between her and the shore
many small boats laden with passengers and varied cargoes plied to
and fro.
Inez, as they descended, noted many women clad in the exaggerated
hoopskirts, the curious, short, gathered bodices and the low hats of the
early forties. She thought this apparel oddly ugly, though the faces
were not unattractive. They stood in knots, these women, some of them
gazing rather helplessly about. The younger ones were surrounded by
groups of admirers with whom they were chatting animatedly. There were
also many children capering in the sand and pointing out to one another
the strange sights of this new place. The men--hundreds of them it
seemed to Inez--were busied with constructive tasks. Already there were
many temporary habitations, mostly tents of varied shapes and sizes.
Bonfires blazed here and there. Stands of arms in ordered, regular
stacks, gave the scene a martial air. Piles of bed-clothing, household
effects, agricultural implements, lay upon the sand. A curious
instrument having a large wheel on one side caught the girl's attention.
Near it were square, shallow boxes. A pale, broad-shouldered man with
handsome regular features and brooding, poetic eyes stood beside the
machine, turning the wheel now and then, and examining the boxes. He
seemed to be a leader, for many people came to ask him questions which
he answered with decision and authority.
"Who is that?" asked Inez of Nathan Spear and Leidesdorff as the two
approached. "And what is the strange contrivance upon which he has
his hand?"
"It is a printing press," Spear answered. "Yerba Buena is soon to have a
paper for the chronicling of its metropolitan affairs. The man? Oh,
that's Sam Brannan, the elder of this band of Mormons."
"Is it true that they have come to drive us from our homes?" asked Inez
fearfully.
"Who, the Mormons? Lord forbid," retorted Spear. He beckoned to the
elder, who approached and was presented. Inez, as she looked into his
kindly eyes, forgot her fears. Brannan eagerly explained his printing
press. She left him feeling that he was less enemy than friend.
CHAPTER VI
THE FIRST ELECTION
Captain John J. Vioget's house was the busiest place in Yerba Buena, and
John Henry Brown its most important personage. The old frame dwelling
built by a Swiss sailor in 1840 had become in turn a billiard hall and
groggery, a sort of sailors' lodging house and a hotel. Now it was the
scene of Yerba Buena's first election. About a large table sat the
election inspectors guarding the ballot box, fashioned hastily from an
empty jar of lemon syrup. Robert Ridley, recently released from Sutter's
Fort, where he had been imprisoned by the Bear Flag party, was a
candidate for office as alcalde. He opposed Lieutenant Washington
Bartlett, appointed to officiate pro tem by Captain Montgomery. Brown
was busy with his spirituous dispensing. It was made a rule, upon
Brannan's advice, that none should be served until he had voted.
Brown kept shouting: "Ship-shape, gents, and reg'lar; that's the word.
Place your vote and then you drinks.... Gord bless yer merry hearts."
Thus he harangued them into order and coaxed many a Russian, Spanish,
English and American coin across his bar. Suddenly he looked into the
eyes of Aleck McTurpin.
"Give me a brandy sling," the gambler ordered. He was in a rough mood,
which ensues from heavy and continued drinking.
"Have ye voted, Aleck?" Brown inquired.
"I vote when I please," McTurpin answered sullenly, "and I drink when it
suits me." He took from an inner pocket of his coat a derringer with
silver mountings, laid it meaningly upon the bar. "I ordered a
brandy sling."
Brown paled, but his eye did not waver. Almost casually, he spoke. "Stop
your jokin', Aleck. Rules is rules."
McTurpin's fingers closed about the pistol. His eyes were venomous.
Then Benito Windham entered. Just inside the door he paused,
uncertainly. "I have come to vote for Senor Bartlett as Alcalde,"
he declared.
A laugh greeted him. "You should not announce your choice," said
Inspector Ward severely. "The ballot is supposedly secret."
McTurpin turned, his quarrel with Brown instantly forgotten. "Throw the
little greaser out," he spoke with slow distinctness. "This is a white
man's show."
There was a startled silence. "He's drunk," Brown told them soothingly.
"Aleck's drunk. Don't listen to him."
"Drunk or not, I back my words." He waved the weapon threateningly. "Sit
down there," he ordered Windham. "If you want to vote you'll vote for a
gentleman. Write Bob Ridley's name on your ballot, or, by God! I'll fix
you." Benito, as if hypnotized, took a seat at the table and dipped his
quill in the ink. The others stirred uneasily, but made no move. There
was a moment of foreboding silence. Then a hearty voice said from the
door: "What's the matter, gentlemen?"
No one answered. McTurpin, the pistol in his hand, still stood above
Benito. The latter's fingers held the quill suspended. A drop of ink
fell on the ballot slip unnoted. Brannan, with a puzzled frown, came
forward, laid a hand upon the gambler's shoulder.
"What's the matter here?" he asked more sharply.
McTurpin turned upon him fiercely. "Go to hell!" he cried. "I'm running
this."
Brannan's voice was quiet. "Put the pistol down!" he ordered.
Deliberately McTurpin raised his weapon. "Damn you--" But he got no
farther. Brannan's fist struck fairly on the chin. One could hear the
impact of it like a hammer blow. There was a shot, a bullet spent
against the rafters overhead. McTurpin sprawling on the
sawdust-covered floor.
* * * * *
On Windham rancho the Senora Windham waited with a faith that knew no
end for the coming of her husband. There had been vague reports from
vaguer sources that he had been captured by the northern savages. Inez
and Benito were forever at her side--save when the boy rode into town to
cull news from arriving sailors. The Spanish rancheros had all withdrawn
to the seclusion of their holdings and were on the verge of war against
the new authorities of Yerba Buena.
Washington Bartlett, recently elected Alcalde, had abused his office by
repeated confiscations of fine horses from the camponeras of
Spanish-Californians, seizing them by requisition of military authority
and giving orders on the government in exchange. This the Spaniards had
borne in silence. But abuses had become so flagrant as to pass
all bounds.
"We must arm and drive these robbers from our California," said Benito
passionately. "Sanchez has, in secret, organized one hundred caballeros.
Only wait. The day comes when we strike!"
"Benito," said his mother, sadly, "there has been enough of war. We
cannot struggle with these Yankees. They are strong and numerous. We
must keep the peace and suffer until your father comes."
"There is to be a grand ball at the casa of the Senor Leidesdorff," said
Inez. "El Grande Commandante of the Yankee squadron comes amid great
ceremony. I will gain his ear. Perchance he will undo the wrongs of this
Bartlett, the despoiler."
"Inez mia," said her brother, "do not go. No good will come of it. For
they are all alike, these foreigners."
"Ah!" she cried, reproachfully, "you say that of the Senor Brannan? Or
of Don Nathan?"
"They are good men," Benito answered, grudgingly. "Have it as you will."
* * * * *
Yerba Buena did honor to Commodore Stockton under Leidesdorff's
ever-hospitable roof. Hundreds of candles burned in sconces and
chandeliers, festoons of bunting and greenery gave the big room a
carnival air; Indian servitors flitted silently about with trays of
refreshments, and the gold lace and braid of America's navy mingled
picturesquely with the almost spectacular garb of stately Spanish
caballeros. The commodore, though undersized, was soldierly and very
brisk of manner. Stockton seemed to Inez a gallant figure. While she
danced with him, she found his brisk directness not unpleasing. He asked
her of the rancheros and of reports that came to him of their
dissatisfaction with American authority.
"They seem so cordial," he said, "these Spanish gentlemen. I cannot
believe that they hate us, as it is said."
"Ah, Senor." Inez' smile had faded and her deep and troubled eyes held
his. "They have cause for hatred, though they come in all good will to
welcome you."
As it chanced, they passed just then close to a little group in which
Alcalde Bartlett made a central figure. Two of Stockton's aids were
hanging on his words.
"Tomorrow, gentlemen, we shall go riding. I will find you each a worthy
mount. We raise fine horses on the ranches."
The fiery Sanchez, strolling by, overheard as well. Eyes ablaze, he went
on swiftly joining Vasquez and De Haro near the door. They held low
converse for an instant with their smouldering glances on the pompous
Bartlett. Then they hurried out.
[Illustration: "Ah, Senor," Inez' smile had faded ... "they have cause
for hatred."]
CHAPTER VII
THE RANCHEROS REVOLT
Five horsemen rode into the morning sunshine down El Camino Real toward
the south. One was Washington Bartlett, alcalde of Yerba Buena, whose
rather pursy figure sat with an ungainly lack of grace the mettled horse
which he bestrode. It was none other than Senora Windham's favorite and
beloved mare "Diablo," filched from the Windham stables several days
before. In compensation she received a bit of paper signifying that the
animal was commandeered "for military necessity."
The rancheros were patient fellows, Bartlett reflected. If his
conscience smote him sometimes, he took refuge in the knowledge that
America was still at war with Mexico and that these horses were the
property of alien enemies. Non-combatants, possibly. Yet they had failed
in declaration of allegiance to the United States.
"I'll show you some excellent horseflesh today," he promised his
companions. "And, what's better, you shall have your pick."
"Well, that's extraordinarily good of you, alcalde," said the man who
rode beside him. "But ... do you mean one gets these glorious
animals--for love?"
"Not--er--exactly," Bartlett answered. "You see, my deputies and
officers, like yourself, must ride about to make their observations and
reports. Such are the needs of war."
"Of course," another rider nodded understandingly. "And as alcalde you
have many deputies."
"As well as many--er--observation officers like ourselves to supply," a
third supplemented, slyly dropping one eyelid.
The fourth man said nothing for a time. Then, rather unexpectedly, he
asked: "And what do you give them in exchange, alcalde?"
Bartlett turned in some surprise. "I give them notes of hand," he
answered half resentfully. "Notes redeemable in American gold--when the
war is over."
"And, are these notes negotiable security? Will your shop-keepers accept
them in lieu of coin?"
"At proper discounts--yes," said Bartlett, flushing.
"I have heard," the other remarked almost musingly, "that they are
redeemable at from fifteen to twenty per cent. And that the only man who
accepts them at even half of their face value is McTurpin the gambler."
"That is not my business," Bartlett answered brusquely. The quintet rode
on, absorbed and silent. Below them swept green reaches of ranch land,
dotted here and there with cattle and horses or the picturesque
haciendas of old Spanish families. The camino stretched white and broad
before them, winding through rolling hillocks, shaded sometimes by huge
overhanging trees.
"Isn't this Francisco Sanchez, whom we go to visit, a soldier, a former
commandante of your town, alcalde?" asked a rider.
"Yes, the same one who ran away when Montgomery came." Bartlett laughed.
"It was several days before he dared come out of the brush to take a
look at the 'gringo invader.'"
"I met him at the reception to Commodore Stockton," said the man who
rode beside Bartlett. "He didn't impress me as a timid chap, exactly.
Something of a fire-eater, I'd have said."
"Oh, they're all fire-eaters--on the surface," Bartlett's tone was
disdainful. "But you may all judge for yourselves in a moment. For, if
I'm not mistaken, he's coming up the road to meet us."
"By jove, he sits his horse like a king," said Bartlett's companion,
admiringly. "Who are those chaps with him? Looks like a sort
of--reception committee."
"They are Guerrero and Vasquez and--oh, yes, young Benito Windham,"
Bartlett answered. He spurred his horse and the others followed; there
was something about the half careless formation of the four riders ahead
which vaguely troubled the alcalde.
"Buenos dias, caballeros," he saluted in his faulty Spanish.
"Buenos dias, senors," Sanchez spoke with unusual crispness. "You have
come for horses, doubtless, amigo alcalde?"
"Ah--er--yes," said Bartlett. "The necessities of war are great," he
added apologetically.
"And suppose we refuse?" Benito Windham pressed forward, blazing out the
words in passionate anger. "Suppose we deny your manufactured
requisitions? Whence came the horse you sit like a very clown? I will
tell you, tyrant and despoiler. It was stolen from my mother by
your thieves."
"Benito, hold your peace," said Sanchez sternly. "I will deal with this
good gentleman and his friends. They shall be our guests for a time."
As though the words had been a signal, five lariats descended apparently
from a clear sky, each falling over the head of a member of Bartlett's
party. They settled neatly and were tightened, pinning the arms of
riders helplessly.
"Well done, amigos," commented Sanchez as a quintet of grinning vaqueros
rode up from the rear. "As you have so aptly said, the necessities of
war are paramount, alcalde."
"What's the meaning of this?" demanded Bartlett. "Release us instantly,
or you shall suffer. Do you think," he sneered, "that a handful of
greasers can defy the United States?"
"Perchance, with so important an official as the great Alcalde Bartlett
for your hostage, we can reach a compromise on certain points," said
Sanchez. "Come, you shall suffer no hardship, if you accept the
situation reasonably."
"I warn you that this means death or imprisonment to all of you,"
Bartlett shouted.
"Ah, senor, the risks of war are many." Sanchez' teeth flashed. He
clucked to his horse and the little cavalcade wound, single-file, up a
narrow horse-trail toward the hills.
They passed many bands of horsemen, all armed, saluting Sanchez as their
chief. Among them were owners and vaqueros from a score of ranches.
There was something grim, determined in their manner which foreboded
serious trouble.
One of Bartlett's fellow-captives leaned toward him, whispering: "Those
fellows mean business. They're like hornets if you stir 'em up too far,
these greasers."
"Yes, by Jove! And they mean to sting!" said another.
CHAPTER VIII
McTURPIN'S COUP
Yerba Buena was in an uproar. Sanchez' capture of Alcalde Bartlett and
his party had brought home with a vengeance the war which hitherto was
but an echo from far Mexico. Now the peaceful pueblo was an armed camp.
Volunteers rode in from San Jose, San Juan and other nearby pueblos,
asking for a chance to "fight the greasers." All the ranches of the
countryside buzzed with a martial ardor. Vaqueros, spurred with jangling
silver-mounted harness, toward Francisco Sanchez' stronghold in the
Santa Clara hills to battle with the "gringo tyrants."
Commander Hull of the "Warren" had sent a hundred sailors and marines
from his sloop, post haste, to quell the rebellion. Couriers rode to and
fro between his headquarters in the custom house and the punitive
expedition under Captain Ward Marston which was scouting the Santa Clara
plains in search of the enemy.
Even now the battle waged, no doubt, for Marston that morning reported a
brush with the enemy, had asked for reinforcements. Hull had sent post
haste a pack of ill assorted and undrilled adventurers from among the
new arrivals. That was 9 o'clock and now the sun had passed its noon
meridian--with no courier.
William Leidesdorff came strolling up, his expression placid, smiling as
always. He was warm from toiling up the hill and paused, panting, hat in
hand, to mop his brow with a large red 'kerchief.
"Ha! Commander!" he saluted. "And how goes it this morning?"
Hull glanced at him half irritated, half amused. One could never quite
be angry at this fellow nor in tune with him. Leidesdorff, with his
cherubic grin, his plump, comfortable body, the close-cropped hair, side
whiskers and moustache, framing and embellishing his round face with an
ornate symmetry, was like a bearded cupid. Hull handed him the latest
dispatch. "Nothing since then, confound it!" he said gloomily.
"Ah, well," spoke Leidesdorff, with unction, "one should not be alarmed.
What is that cloud of dust on the horizon? A courier perhaps."
It proved to be Samuel Brannan, dusty and weary, with dispatches from
Captain Ward which Hull almost snatched from his hand. A group of men
and women who had watched his arrival, gathered about asking questions.
Nathan Spear spoke first. He had been too ill to join the Americans, but
had furnished them horses and arms. "How goes it with our 'army,' Sam?"
he asked.
"None too well," said Brannan. "Those greasers can fight and they've a
good leader. Everyone of them would die for Sanchez. And everyone's a
sharpshooter. For a time they amused themselves this morning knocking
off our hats--it rather demoralized the recruits."
Hull, with an imprecation, crushed the dispatch and turned to Brannan.
"We must have more men and quickly," he announced. "Ward asks for
instant reinforcements.... Can you recruit--say fifty--from
your colony?"
"Impossible," said Brannan, shortly. "I have sent all who can ride or
manage a rifle." He came a little closer and regarded the commander
steadily. "Did Ward write anything about a parley?" he inquired.
"Yes," said Hull. "He indicates that peace might be arranged if I will
give a guarantee against further horse or cattle commandeering."
"May I suggest that such a course is wise--and just?"
"Damn it, sir! You'd have me treat with these--these brigands!" the
other shouted. "Never. They've defied the United States by laying
violent hands on an official. They've wounded two of my marines."
He turned to the crowd which had assembled. "Do you hear that? Two
Americans wounded. Five held in captivity--including your alcalde. Shall
we stand that passively? Shall we let the enemy dictate terms?"
"No, no!" a voice shouted. "Fight to the last ditch. Kill the greasers.
Hang them to a tree. I'm with you, horse and gun. Who else?"
"I, I, I," a score made answer. They pressed forward. "Who's to lead
us?" asked the first speaker.
Brannan stepped forward but Commander Hull raised a protesting hand. "I
shall send a corporal of marines from the Warren. You will rest your
horse, since I cannot spare you a fresh mount, and hold yourself in
readiness to act as a courier, Mr. Brannan." He summoned an orderly and
sent him to the Warren with an order to Corporal Smith. Meanwhile the
volunteers assembled in the square, thirty-four in all; men of half a
dozen nationalities. One giant Russian loomed above them, a Goliath on a
great roan horse. And near him, to accentuate the contrast, an elderly
moustached, imperialed Frenchman on a mare as under-sized and spirited
as himself.
Brannan and Leidesdorff watched them galloping down the camino ten
minutes later under the guidance of a smart young corporal.
"I trust it will soon be over," said the former. "I saw Benito Windham
riding beside Sanchez in the battle today."
* * * * *
The Senorita Inez' head was high that afternoon when McTurpin came upon
her suddenly in the patio of the Windham hacienda. She rose haughtily.
"Senor, this intrusion is unpardonable. If my brother was within
call--" McTurpin bowed low. There was a touch of mockery in his eye.
"It is about your brother that I've come to talk with you, Miss Inez."
The girl's hand sought her breast. "Benito! He is not--" Words failed
her.
"No, not dead--yet," McTurpin answered.
"God in Heaven! Tell me," said the girl, imploringly! "He is wounded?
Dying?" McTurpin took a seat beside her on the rustic bench. "Benito
isn't dead--nor wounded so far as I know. But," his tone held an ominous
meaning, "it might be better if he were."
"I--I do not understand," said Inez, staring.
"Then let me make it clear." McTurpin struck a fist against his palm.
"Your brother is American. Very well. And what is an American who takes
up arms against his country?"
The girl sprang up. "It is a lie. Benito fights for freedom, justice
only--"
"That is not the view of our American Commander," McTurpin rose and
faced her. "The law of war is that a man who fights against his country
is a traitor." His eyes held hers hypnotically. "When this revolt is
over there will be imprisonment or pardon for the Spanish-Californians.
_But Benito will be hanged_."
Inez Windham swayed. One hand grasped at the bench-back for support; the
other clutched her bodice near the throat. "Benito," she said almost in
a whisper. Then she turned upon McTurpin furiously. "Go," she cried. "I
do not believe you. Go!"
But McTurpin did not stir. "It is the law of nations," he declared, "no
use denying it, Miss Windham."
"Why did you come to tell me this? To torture me?"
"To save you--and your brother?"
"How?" she asked fiercely.
"I have influence with Alcalde Bartlett." The gambler smiled. "He owes
me--more than he can pay. But if that fails ..." he turned toward her
eagerly, "I have means to accomplish his escape."
"And the price," she stammered. "There is a price, isn't there?"
His gaze met hers directly, "You, little Inez."
CHAPTER IX
THE ELOPEMENT
Two riders, a man and a veiled woman evidently young, halted their
horses in Portsmouth Square, where the former alighted and offered an
arm to his companion. She, however, disdaining his assistance, sprang
lightly from the saddle and, turning her back on him, gazed, motionless,
toward the bay. There was something arresting and curiously dramatic
about the whole performance, something that hinted of impending tragedy.
The slight figure with its listless droop and stony immobility caught
and clutched the sympathies of Nathan Spear as he was passing by. The
man was Alec McTurpin; the girl, no doubt, some light o' love from a
neighboring pueblo. Yet there was a disturbing familiarity about her.
Spear watched them go across the square toward the City Hotel, a long,
one-story adobe structure built by Leidesdorff as a store and home. On
the veranda stood the stocky figure of Proprietor Brown, smoking a long
pipe and conversing with half a dozen roughly dressed men who lounged
about the entrance. He looked up wonderingly as McTurpin approached. The
latter drew him to one side and appeared to make certain demands to
which Brown acquiesced by a curt nod, as if reluctant. Then the man and
woman passed around a corner of the building, the loungers peering
curiously after them.
A little later Spear observed the gambler issue forth alone and journey
rapidly toward the landing dock. He noted that a strange ship rode at
anchor. It must have come within the hour, he decided. Impelled by
curiosity, he descended in McTurpin's wake.
"What ship is that?" he asked of Leidesdorff.
"I haven't learned her name. She's from the north coast with a lot of
sick men. They've the scurvy and flux, I'm told. Dr. Jones has
gone aboard."
"I wonder what McTurpin's doing at the ship?" said Spear. "He'll get no
gambling victims out of ailing seamen."
"It's something else he wants, I fancy," said Bob Ridley, coming from
the dock toward them. "He's looking for a preacher--"
"Preacher?" cried the other men in unison.
"Yes," responded Ridley. "Aleck's going to be married, the sly dog. And
since the padres will have nothing to do with him, he's hard pressed.
Perhaps the wench is a stickler for proprieties," he laughed. "Someone
told him there was a sky pilot aboard the ship!"
* * * * *
Inez Windham removed her veil. She was in a small room, almost dark,
where McTurpin had left her after locking the door on the outside. It
was like a cell, with one small window high and narrow which let in a
straggling transmitted light, dimming mercifully the crude outlines of a
wooden stool, a bedstead of rough lumber, covered by soiled blankets, a
box-like commode upon which stood a pitcher and basin of heavy crockery.
The walls were very thin. From beyond them, in what was evidently a
public chamber, came snatches of talk interspersed with oaths, a click
of poker chips and coin, now and then a song. An odor of rank tobacco
seeped through the muslin-covered walls. With a sudden feeling of
nausea, of complete despair, the girl threw herself face down upon
the bed.
For a time Inez lay there, oblivious to all save the misery of her
fate. If only her father had not gone with those northern engineers! If
only Benito were here to advise her! Benito, her beloved brother, in
whose path the gallows loomed. It was that picture which had caused her
to yield to McTurpin. Even darker, now, was the picture of her own
future. A gambler's wife! Her hand sought a jewelled dagger which she
always carried in her coiffure. Her fingers closed about the hilt with a
certain solace. After Benito was safe--
Voices in the next room caught her interest by a mention of the Santa
Clara battle.
"Hull is fighting mad," she heard. "He promises to bring the greasers to
their knees. It's unconditional surrender or no quarter, Brannan says."
"First catch your pig--then butcher it," said another, meaningly. "The
Spaniards have the best of it thus far. Hull's shouting frantically for
reinforcements. Well, he won't get me. I think the rancheros have their
side as well as we. If this stiff-necked commander would listen
to reason."
"He hasn't heard the other side," the first speaker resumed. "If he knew
what Alcalde Bartlett had done to these poor devils through his horse
and cattle raids--"
A third man laughed. "He'll never learn that, partner, have no fear;
who'll tell him?"
"Well, here's to Uncle Sam," said a fourth voice. Followed a clink of
glasses. Inez Windham sat up swiftly and dried her eyes. A daring
thought had come to her.
Why should not she tell Commander Hull the truth!
She rose and smoothed her ruffled gown. A swift look from the window
revealed that the road was clear. Inez began tugging at the door. It
resisted her efforts, but she renewed the battle with all the fury of
her youthful strength. Finally the flimsy lock gave a bit beneath her
efforts; a narrow slit appeared between the door and jamb in which she
forced her hands and thus secured a great purchase. Then, one foot
against the wall, she tugged and pried and pulled until, with a sudden
crack, the bar to liberty sprang open.
She was free.
Just across the Plaza the custom house looked down at her, the late sun
glinting redly on its tiles. There, no doubt, she would find Commander
Hull. She hastened forward.
"Not so fast, my dear!"
A hand fell on her shoulder rudely. With, a gasp she looked up at
McTurpin.
Beside the gambler, whose eyes burned angrily, Inez perceived a tall,
lean, bearded stranger.
"Let me go!" she demanded.
"I have brought the parson," said McTurpin. "We can be married at once."
"I--I--let us wait a little," stammered Inez.
"Why?" the gambler asked suspiciously. "Where were you going?"
"Nowhere," she evaded, "for a walk--"
"Well, you can walk back to the hotel, my lady," said McTurpin. "I have
little time to waste. And there's Benito to consider," he concluded.
Suddenly he put an arm about her waist and kissed her. Inez thought of
her brother and tried to submit. But she could not repress a little cry
of aversion, of fear. The bearded man stepped forward. "Hold up a bit,
partner," he drawled. "This doesn't look quite regular. Don't you wish
to marry him, young lady?"
"Of course she does," McTurpin blustered. "She rode all the way in from
her mother's ranch to be my wife." He glared at Inez. "Isn't it true?"
he flung at her. "Tell him."
She nodded her head miserably. But the stranger was not satisfied. "Let
go of her," he said, and when McTurpin tailed to heed the order, sinewy
fingers on the gambler's wrist enforced it.
"Now, tell me, Miss, what's wrong?" the bearded one invited. "Has this
fellow some hold on you? Is he forcing you into this marriage?"
Again the girl nodded dumbly.
"She lies," said McTurpin, venomously, but the words were scarcely out
of his mouth before the stranger's fist drove them back. McTurpin
staggered. "Damn you!" he shouted, "I teach you to meddle between a man
and his woman."
Inez saw something gleam in his hand as the two men sprang upon each
other. She heard another blow, a groan. Screaming, she fled uphill
toward the custom house.
CHAPTER X
HULL "CAPITULATES"
Like a startled deer, Inez Windham fled from McTurpin and the stranger,
her little, high-heeled slippers sinking unheeded into the horse-trodden
mire of Portsmouth Square, her silk skirt spattered and soiled; her
hair, freed from the protecting mantilla, blowing in the searching trade
wind. Thus, as Commander Hull sat upon the custom house veranda, reading
the latest dispatch from Captain Ward, she burst upon him--a flushed,
disheveled, lovely vision with fear-stricken eyes.
"Senor," she panted, "Senor Commandante ... I must speak with you at
once!"
Hull rose. "My dear young lady"--he regarded her with patent
consternation--"my dear young lady ... w-what is wrong?"
She was painfully aware of her bedraggled state, the whirlwind lack of
ceremony with which she had propelled herself into his presence.
Suddenly words failed her, she was conscious that an arm stretched
toward her as she swayed. Next she lay upon a couch in an inner chamber,
the commander, in his blue-and-gold-braid stiffness bending over her,
gravely anxious.
She rose at once, ignoring his protesting gesture.
"I--I fainted?" she asked perplexedly. Hull nodded. "Something excited
you. A fight in the street below. A man was stabbed--"
"Oh!" The white face of the bearded stranger sprang into her memory, "Is
he dead?"
"No, but badly hurt, I fancy," said the Commander. "They have taken him
to the City Hotel."
Desperately, she forced herself to speak. "I have come, senor, to ask a
pardon for my brother. He is very dear to me--and to my mother"--she
clasped her hands and held them toward him supplicatingly. "Senor, if
Benito should be captured--you will have mercy?"
The commander regarded her with puzzled interest. "Who is Benito, little
one?"
"His name is Windham. My father was a gring--Americano, Commandante."
Hull frowned. "An American ... fighting against his country?" he said
sharply.
"Ah, sir"--the girl came closer in her earnestness--"he does not fight
against the United States ... only against robbers who would hide behind
its flag." In her tone there was the outraged indignation of a suffering
people. "Horse thieves, cattle robbers."
"Hush," said Hull, "you must not speak thus of American officials. Their
seizures, I am told, were unavoidable--for military needs alone."
"You have never heard our side," the girl spoke bitterly. "Was it
military need that filched two hundred of our blooded horses from the
ranches? Was it military need that robbed my ailing mother of her pet,
the mare Diablo? Was it military need that gave our finest steeds to
your Alcalde for his pleasure, that enabled half a dozen false officials
to recruit their stables from our caponeras and sell horses in the open
market?" Her eyes blazed. "Senor, it was tyranny and theft, no less. Had
I been a man, like Benito, I, too, should have ridden with Sanchez."
"Can you prove these things?" asked the Commander, sternly.
"Si, senor," said Inez quickly. "It is well known hereabouts. Do not
take my word," she smiled, "I am a woman--a Spaniard, on my mother's
side. Ask your own countrymen--Samuel Brannan, Nathan Spear, William
Leidesdorff."
Hull pulled at his chin reflectively. "Something of this sort I have
already heard," he said, "but I believed it idle gossip.... If your
brother had come to me, instead of riding with the enemy--"
"He is a youth, hot-blooded and impulsive, Senor Commandante." Swiftly,
and to Hull's intense embarrassment, she knelt before him. "We love him
so: my mother, who is ill, and I," she pleaded. "He is all we have....
Ah, senor, you will spare him--our Benito!"
"Get up," said Hull a trifle brusquely. His tone, too, shook a little.
"Confound it, girl, I'm not a murderer." He forced a smile. "If my men
haven't shot the young scoundrel you may have him back."
"And that," he added, as the girl rose with a shining rapture in her
eyes, "may be tomorrow." He picked up a paper from the desk and regarded
it thoughtfully. "There is truce at present. Sanchez will surrender if I
give my word that there shall be no further raids."
"And--you will do this, Commandante?" the girl asked, breathlessly.
"I--will consult with Brannan, Leidesdorff and Spear, as you suggested,"
Hull replied. But his eyes were kind. The Senorita Inez had her answer.
Impetuously, her arms went around his neck. An instant later, dazed, a
little red, a moist spot on his cheek and a lingering fragrance clinging
subtly like the touch of vanished arms, Hull watched her flying heels
upon the muddy square.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he said, explosively.
* * * * *
In the room which had been Inez' whilom prison--and which proved to be
the only one available in the City Hotel, Adrian Stanley lay tossing and
muttering. The woman who sat at his bedside watched anxiously each
movement of his lips, listening eagerly to catch the incoherent,
whispered words. For a time she could make of them no intelligent
meaning. But now, after a long and quiet interval, he began to ask
questions, though his eyes were still closed. "Am I going to die?"
"No," said Inez, for it was she, "you've lost a lot of blood, but the
doctor says there's small danger."
The bearded face looked up half quizzically. "Are you glad?"
"Oh ... yes," said Inez, with a quick-taken respiration.
"Then it's all right," the patient murmured sleepily. His eyes closed.
Inez' color heightened as she watched him. What had he meant, she
wondered, and decided that his brain was not quite clear. But, somehow,
this was not the explanation she desired.
Presently Dr. Elbert Jones came in, cheering her with his breezy, jovial
drawl.
"Getting tired of your task?" he questioned. But Inez shook her head.
"He protected me," she said. "It was while defending me that he was
wounded." Her eyes searched the physician's face. "Where," she
questioned fearfully, "is--"
"McTurpin?" returned the doctor. "Lord knows. He vamoosed,
absquatulated. You'll hear no more of him, I think, Miss Windham."
For a moment the dark lashes of the patient rose as if something in the
doctor's words had caught his attention; then they fell again over weary
eyes and he appeared to sleep. But when Doctor Jones was gone, Inez
found him regarding her with unusual interest.
"Did I hear him call you Windham?" he inquired, "Inez Windham?"
"Yes, that is my name," she answered.
"And your father's?"
"He is Don Roberto Windham of the Engineers," Inez leaned forward.
"Oh!" her eyes shone with a hope she dared not trust. "Tell me, quickly,
have you news of him?"
"Yes," said Stanley. "He is ill, but will recover. He will soon return."
His eyes dwelt on the girl in silence, musingly.
"Tell me more!" she pleaded. "We believed him lost. Ah, how my mother's
health will mend when she hears this. We have waited so long...."
"I was with him in the North," said Stanley. "Often, sitting at the
camp-fire, while the others slept, he told me of his wife, his daughter,
and his son, Benito. In my coat," he pointed to a garment hanging near
the door, "you will find a letter--" He followed her swift, searching
fingers, saw her press the envelope impulsively against her heart. While
she read his eyes were on her dreamily, until at last he closed them
with a little sigh.
CHAPTER XI
SAN FRANCISCO IS NAMED
Evening on the Windham rancho. Far below, across a vast green stretch of
meadow sloping toward the sea, the sun sank into crimson canopies of
cloud. It was one of those perfect days which come after the first
rains, mellow and exhilarating. The Trio in the rose arbor of the patio
were silent under the spell of its beauty. Don Roberto Windham, home
again, after long months of wandering and hardship, stood beside the
chair in which Senora Windham rested against a pillow. She had mended
much since his return, and her eyes as she looked up at him held the
same flashing, fiery tenderness which in the long ago had caused her to
renounce Castilian traditions and become the bride of an Americano. At
her feet upon a low stool sat her daughter, Inez, and Windham, as he
looked down, was a little startled at her likeness to the Spanish beauty
he had met and married a generation before.
Conscious of his glance, her eyes turned upward and she held out her
hand to him. "Father, mine," she said in English, "you have made the
roses bloom again in mother's cheeks. And in my heart," she added with a
quick, impulsive tenderness.
Robert Windham bent and kissed her wind-tossed hair. "I think another
has usurped me in the latter task." He smiled, although not without a
touch of sadness. "Ah, well, Adrian is a fine young fellow. You need not
blush so furiously."
"I think he comes," said the Senora Anita, and, unconsciously, her arm
went around the girl. "Is not that his high-stepping mare and his
beanpole of a figure riding beside Benito in yon cloud of dust?"
She smiled down at Inez. "Do not mind your mother's jesting--Go now to
smooth your locks and place a rose within them--as I used to do when Don
Roberto came."
Inez rose and made her way into the casa. She heard a clatter of hoofs
and voices. At the sound of one her heart leaped strangely.
"We have famous news," she heard her brother say. "The name of Yerba
Buena has been changed to San Francisco. Here is an account of it in
Brannan's _California Star_." She heard the rustle of a paper then, once
more her brother's voice: "San Francisco!" he pronounced it lovingly.
"Some day it will be a ciudad grande--perhaps even in my time."
"A great city!" repeated his mother. "Thus my father dreamed of it....
But you will pardon us, Don Adrian, for you have other things in mind
than Yerb--than San Francisco's future. See, my little one! Even now she
comes to bid you welcome."
Inez as she joined them gave her hand to Stanley. "Ah, Don Adrian, your
color is high"--her tone was bantering, mock-anxious. "You have not,
perchance, a touch of fever?"
He eyed her hungrily. "If I have," he spoke with that slow gentleness
she loved so well, "it is no fever that requires roots or herbs....
Shall I," he came a little closer, "shall I put a name to it, Senorita?"
His words were for her ears alone. Her eyes smiled into his. "Come, let
us show you the rose garden, Senor Stanley," she said with playful
formality and placed her silk-gloved fingers on his arm.
Senora Windham's hand groped for her husband's. There were tears in her
eyes, but he bent down and kissed them away. "Anita, mia, do not grieve.
He is a good lad."
"It is not that." She hid her face against his shoulder. "It is not
that--"
"I understand," he whispered.
After a little time Benito spoke. "Mother, I learned something from the
warring of the rancheros aganist Alcalde Bartlett." He came forward and
picked up the newspaper which had fallen from his mother's lap. "I
learned," his hand fell on his father's shoulder, "that I am an
American."
"Benito!" said his mother quickly.
"I am Don Roberto's son, as well as thine, remember, madre mia!" he
spoke with unusual gentleness. "Even with Sanchez, Vasquez and Guerrero
at my side in battle, I did not shoot to kill. Something said within,
'These men are brothers. They are of the clan of Don Roberto, of thy
father.' So I shot to miss. And when the commandante, Senor Hull,
dismissed me with kind words--he who might have hanged me as a
traitor--my heart was full of love for all his people. And contrition.
Mother, you will forgive? You, who have taught me all the pride of the
Hidalgo. For I must say the truth, to you and everyone...." He knelt at
her feet, impressing a kiss of love and reverence upon her
outstretched hand.
"Rise, my son," she said, tremulously. "You are right, and it is well."
She smiled. "Who am I to say my boy is no Americano? I, who wed the best
and noblest of them all."
There was a little silence. Inez and Don Adrian, returning, paused a
moment, half dismayed. "Come, my children," said Anita Windham.
"Ah," cried Inez, teasingly, "we are not the only ones who have been
making love." She led her companion forward. "We have come to ask your
blessing, mother, father mine," she whispered. "I," her eyes fell, "I am
taken captive by a gringo."
"Do not use that name," her mother said reprovingly. But Don Roberto
laughed. "You are the second to declare allegiance to the Stars and
Stripes." He took Benito's hand. "My son's discovered he's American,
Don Adrian."
Presently Benito spoke again. "That is not all, my father. There is soon
to be a meeting for relief of immigrants lost in the Sierra Nevada
snows. James Reed will organize an expedition from Yerb--from San
Francisco. And I wish to go. There are women and children
starving, perhaps."
"It is the Donner party. They tried a short cut and the winter overtook
them. I, too, will go," said Don Roberto.
"And I," volunteered Stanley.
But the women had it otherwise. "You have been too long gone from me,"
Anita quavered. "I would fear your loss again." And Inez argued that her
Adrian was not recovered from his wound or illness. Finally it was
decided that Benito only would accompany the expedition. The talk fell
upon other matters. Alcalde Bartlett had been discredited, though not
officially, since his return from capture by the rancheros. He was soon
to be displaced and there would be no further commandeering of horses
and cattle.
"The commandante tells me," Windham said, "that there is still no news
of the Warren's launch which was sent last December to pay the garrison
at Sutter's Fort. Bob Ridley's men, who cruised the San Joaquin and
Sacramento rivers, found nothing."
"But--the boat and its crew couldn't vanish completely?" Benito's tone
held puzzled incredulity. "There would be Wreckage. Floating bodies--"
"Unless," said Adrian, "they had been hidden--buried secretly, perhaps."
"Adrian, what do you mean?" asked Inez in excitement. "It was about the
time that--"
"McTurpin left," responded Stanley. "I've heard more than a whisper of
his possible connection with the disappearance. McTurpin didn't leave
alone. He rounded up half a dozen rough-looking fellows and they rode
out of town together."
There was a silence. Then Benito spoke. "We haven't seen the last of
him, I fear."
CHAPTER XII
THE NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS
It was almost a month later that Inez galloped home from San Francisco
with a precious missive from the absent brother. They had outfitted at
Johnson's ranch near Sacramento and, encountered the first expedition
returning with twenty-two starved wretches from the Donner Camp. Many
women and children still remained there.
"We started on the day which is a gringo fete because it is the natal
anniversary of the great George Washington," Benito's chronicle
concluded. "May it prove a good omen, and may we bring freedom, life to
the poor souls engulfed by the snowdrifts. I kiss your hands. BENITO."
A fortnight passed before there came another letter. The second relief
party had reached Donner Camp without mishap but, with seventeen
survivors, had been storm-bound on a mountain summit and returned with
but eleven of the rescued after frightful hardship. Benito was
recuperating in a Sacramento hospital from frozen feet.
* * * * *
"Look, Roberto," exclaimed Senora Windham as they cantered into San
Francisco one morning. "A ship all gay with banners! See the townsfolk
are excited. They rush to the Embarcadero. The band plays. It must be
the festival of some Americano patron saint."
"It is the long expected New York volunteers," replied her husband.
"They've been recruited for the past year for service in California.
Colonel Stevenson, the commander, is a most distinguished man. The
president himself made him an offer of command if he could raise a
regiment of California volunteers." Windham smiled. "I believe it is
for colonization rather than actual military duty that they've been sent
out here ... three shiploads of them with two doctors and a chaplain."
As they picked their way along a narrow footpath toward the beach, the
portly Leidesdorff advanced to greet them. "Would that I had a cloak of
velvet," he said gallantly, "so that I might lay it in the mire at your
feet, fair lady." Anita Windham flashed a smile at him. "Like the
chivalrous Don Walter Raleigh," she responded. "Ah, but I am not a Queen
Elizabeth. Nor is this London." She regarded with a shrug of distaste
the stretch of mud-flats reaching to the tide-line, rubbish--littered
and unfragrant. Knee-deep in its mire, bare-legged Indians and booted
men drove piles for the superstructure of a new pier.
Lieutenant Bryant joined them, brisk and natty in his naval garb. He was
the new alcalde, Bartlett having been displaced and ordered to
rejoin his ship.
"No, it's not London," he took up Anita's statement, "but it's going to
be a better San Francisco if I have my way. We'll fill that bog with
sand and lay out streets between Fort Montgomery and the Rincon, if the
governor'll cede the tide-flats to the town. Jasper O'Farrell is
making a map."
"See, they are landing," cried the Dona Windham, clapping her hands.
A boat put off amid hails from the shore. Soon four officers and a
boat's crew stood upon the landing pier and gazed about them curiously.
"That's Colonel Stevenson," said Bryant, nodding toward the leader. On
the verge of fifty, statesmanlike of mien and manner, stood the man who
had recruited the first volunteer company which came around The Horn. He
fingered his sword a bit awkwardly, as though unused to military dress
formalities. But his eyes were keen and eager and commanding.
More boats put off from the anchored vessel. By and by the parade
began, led by Captain Stevenson. It was a straggling military formation
that toiled up-hill through the sand toward Portsmouth Square. These men
were from the byways and hedges of life. Some of them had shifty eyes
and some bold, predatory glances which forebode nothing good for San
Francisco's peace. Adventurers for the most part, lured to this new
land, some by the wander spirit, others by a wish to free themselves
from the restraints of law. Certain of them were to die upon the
gallows; others were to be the proud and honored citizens of a raw,
potential metropolis. They talked loudly, vehemently, to one another as
they marched like school boys seeing strange sights, pointing eagerly at
all that aroused their interest. The officers marched more stiffly as
though conscious of official noblesse oblige.
"I wish that Inez might have seen it," Mrs. Windham said a little
wistfully. "But she must help the Indian seamstress with her gown for
the dance. Don Adrian is to be there."
"He has decided that there are other ways of serving God than in the
pulpit," remarked Stanley. "They talk of making him the master of the
school ... if our committee can ever decide on a location and what's to
pay for it."
* * * * *
In the full regimentals of his rank, Colonel Stevenson graced
Leidesdorff's ballroom that evening, cordially exchanging smiles and
bows with San Francisco's citizenry. Besides him was his quartermaster,
Captain Joseph Folsom who, though less than thirty, had seen active
service in a Florida campaign against the Seminoles. He held himself
slightly aloof with the class consciousness of the West Pointer.
Nearby stood a lanky surgeon of the volunteers discussing antiseptics
with Dr. Jones. Leidesdorff was everywhere, pathetically eager to
please, an ecstatic, perspiring figure, making innumerable inquiries as
to the comfort of his guests.
"He's like a mother hen worried over a brood of new chicks," said
Brannan to Jasper O'Farrell.
"And a damned fine little man," the Irishman answered. "Oh--I beg your
pardon, Senorita."
Inez Windham smiled forgiveness, nodding when he asked her for a dance.
"Tell me," she asked eagerly, "of the grand new map you make for San
Francisco."
"Ah," O'Farrell said, "they laugh at it because I have to change
Vioget's acute and obtuse angles. They call it 'O'Farrell's Swing.' You
see, I've had to change the direction of some streets. There are many
more now. Eight hundred acres laid out like a city."
As the music stopped he led her to a bench and fumbled in his pocket for
a drawing which he straightened on his knees. "See, here is a new road
through the center, a broad way, straight as an arrow from the bay to
the foot of Twin Peaks. It parallels the Mission camino, and Bryant
wants to call it Market street."
"But how is this?" asked Inez puzzled, "streets where there is only mud
and water--"
"They will be reclaimed with the waste from our leveled sand hills,"
said O'Farrell. He glanced about him searchingly, then whispered:
"Tonight Governor Mason told me confidentially he would cede the tide
flats to our local government, provided they are sold at auction for the
benefit of San Francisco. They'll go cheap; but some day they'll be
worth thousands. Tell your father--"
He broke off hastily. Toward them stalked Benito Windham, covered with
dust as though from a long ride. There was trouble in his eyes. With a
swift apology he drew his sister aside. "McTurpin," he panted. "He is
back ... with a dozen men ... riding toward the rancho."
CHAPTER XIII
THE "SYDNEY DUCKS"
Dazed with the suddenness of Benito's announcement and its menacing
augury, Inez sought her father and Adrian. The latter acted instantly.
"Do not tell your wife," he said to Windham. "There may be nothing
amiss. And if there should be, she will find no profit in knowing. Tell
her you are called away and follow me to the square. We will ride at
once to the rancho."
He pressed Inez' hand and was gone. "Take care of your mother," he said
over his shoulder, an admonition which Don Roberto repeated a moment
later as he hurried out. She was left alone in a maze of doubts, fears,
speculations. What was McTurpin doing in San Francisco? Why had he and
his companions ridden toward the Windham rancho? There was only one
answer. Most of the vaqueros were at a fandango in the Mission. Only the
serving women and a few men too old for dancing remained at home.
Meawhile her brother, father, lover were speeding homeward, into what? A
trap? An ambush? Certainly to battle with a foe out-numbering them
four to one.
At the Mission were a dozen of their servants; men whose fathers and
grandfathers had ridden herd for her family. Any one of them would give
his life to serve a Windham.
Inez looked about her feverishly. Should she ask O'Farrell to accompany
her? He was dancing with one of the Mormon women. Brannan and Spear were
not to be seen. Leidesdorff was impossible in such an emergency.
Besides, she could not take him from his guests. She would go alone,
decided Inez. Quietly she made her way to the cloak-room, in charge of
an Indian servant, caught up her mantilla and riding crop and fled. On
the square her horse whinnied at her approach as if eager to be gone.
Swiftly she climbed into the saddle and spurred forward.
Far ahead gleamed the lights of the Mission. They were making merry
there with the games and dance of old Spain. And to the south Benito,
Adrian, her father, rode toward a battle with treacherous men.
Breathlessly she spurred her horse to greater effort. Trees flashed by
like witches in the dark. Presently she heard the music of the fandango.
Another picture framed itself before her vision. Excited faces round
her. A sudden stoppage of the music, a frocked priest making anxious
inquiries. Her own wild words; a jingle of spurs. Then many hoofs
pounding on the road beside her.
She never knew just what had happened, what she had said. But now she
felt the sting of the bay breeze in her face and Antonio's steady hand
upon her saddle pommel.
"Caramba!" he was muttering. "The pig of a gringo once more. And your
father; the little Benito. Hurry, comrades, faster! faster! To
the rescue!"
Came a third picture, finally more clear, more disconcerting. The
entrance to her father's ranch barred by armed riders. McTurpin smiling
insolent in the moonlight, bowing to her while Antonio muttered in
suppressed wrath.
"We have three hostages here, senorita ... relatives of yours and ah--a
friend." His voice, cold, threatening, spoke on. "They are
unharmed--as yet."
"I don't believe you," Inez stormed at him.
"Tell them, Senor Windham," said McTurpin, "that I speak the truth."
"Inez, it is true," her father spoke out of some shadowed darkness. "We
were ambushed. Taken by surprise."
"What do you propose?" asked Antonio, unable longer to restrain himself.
"To turn them loose ... upon their word not to trouble us further,"
said McTurpin. "I have merely assumed control of my property. I hold the
conveyance of Benito Windham. It is all quite regular," he
laughed shortly.
Antonio moved uneasily. His hand upon the lariat itched for a cast.
McTurpin saw it. "You'll do well to sit still in the saddle," he
reminded, "all of you. We have you covered."
"What are your orders, master?" said the chief vaquero tensely. "Say the
word and we will--"
"No," commanded Windham. "There shall be no fighting now. We will go.
Tomorrow we shall visit the Alcalde. I can promise no more than this."
"It's enough," McTurpin answered. "I've possession. I've a deed with
your son's signature. And a dozen good friends to uphold me." He turned.
"Take their pistols, friends, and let them go."
* * * * *
George Hyde looked up from a sheaf of drawing which lay on the table
before him and which represented the new survey of San Francisco. A boy
with a bundle of papers under his arm entered unannounced, tossed a copy
of "The California Star" toward him and departed. Hyde picked it up
and read:
"GREAT SALE OF VALUABLE REAL ESTATE IN THE TOWN OF SAN
FRANCISCO, UPPER CALIFORNIA.
"By the following decree of His Excellency, General S.W.
Kearny, Governor of California, all the right, title and
interest of the United States and of the territory of
California to the BEACH AND WATER lots on the east front of
the town of San Francisco have been granted, conveyed and
released to the people or corporate authorities of said
town--"
Hyde read on. There was a post-script by Edwin Bryant, his predecessor
as alcalde, calling a public sale for June 29. That was rather soon.
But he would see. Hyde had an antipathy to any rule or circumstance
fixed by another. His enemies called him "pig-headed"; his friends
"forceful," though with a sigh. There was something highhanded in the
look and manner of him, though few men had better intent. Now his glance
fell on another, smaller item in the newspaper.
"SYDNEY DUCKS ARRIVE."
"In recent vessels from the antipodes have come numerous men
from Australia who, according to rumor, are deported English
criminals, known as 'Sydney Ducks.' It is said that the
English government winks at the escape of these birds of ill
omen, who are lured hither by tales of our lawlessness
carried by sailormen. It is high time we had a little more
law in San Francisco."
That was another of his problems, Hyde reflected irritably. "Sydney
Ducks." There would be many more no doubt, for San Francisco was
growing. It had 500 citizens, irrespective of the New York volunteers;
157 buildings. He would need helpers in the task of city-governing. Half
idly he jotted down the names of men that would prove good henchmen:
"William A. Leidesdorff, Robert A. Parker, Jose P. Thompson, Pedro
Sherreback, John Rose, Benjamin Buckalew."
It had a cosmopolitan smack, though it ignored some prominent and
capable San Franciscans. William Clark, for instance, with whom
Washington Bartlett had quarreled over town lots, Dr. Elbert Jones and
William Howard. Hyde was not certain whether they would be amenable to
his program. Well, he would see.
A shadow loomed in his doorway. He looked up to see Adrian Stanley and
Robert Windham.
"Come in. Come in." He tried to speak cordially, but there was a shade
of irritation in his tone. They, too, were a problem.
"Be seated," he invited, as the two men entered. But they stood before
him rather stiffly.
"Is there any--news?" asked Adrian.
"Nothing favorable," said Hyde uneasily. He made an impatient gesture.
"You can see for yourselves, gentlemen, that my hands are tied. The
man--what's-his-name?--McTurpin, has a perfectly correct conveyance
signed by your son. Benito, I understand, does not deny his signature.
And his right is unquestioned, for the property came to him direct from
his uncle, who was Francisco Garvez' only son."
"But--" began Adrian hotly.
"Yes, yes, I know," Hyde interrupted. "The man is a rascal. But what of
that? It does not help us; I have no power to aid you, gentlemen."
CHAPTER XIV
THE AUCTION ON THE BEACH
It was the morning of July 20. Fog drifts rode the bay like huge white
swans, shrouding the Island of Alcatraz with a rise and fall of
impalpable wings and casting many a whilom plume over the tents and
adobe houses nestling between sandhills and scrub-oaks in the cove of
San Francisco.
Robert and Benito Windham, on the hill above Clark's Point, looked down
toward the beach, where a crowd was gathering for the auction of
tidewater lots. The Windhams, since their dispossession by McTurpin, had
been guests of hospitable Juana Briones. Through the Alcalde's order
they had secured their personal effects. But the former gambler still
held right and title to the Windham acres. Adrian Stanley made his home
at the City Hotel and had been occupied with an impromptu school where
some four score children and half a dozen illiterates were daily taught
the mysteries of the "Three Rs."
"Adrian has determined to buy some of these mud-lots," said Windham to
his son. "He believes some day they will be valuable and that he will
make his fortune." He sighed. "I fear my son-to-be is something of a
visionary."
Benito gave his father a quick, almost furtive glance. "Do not condemn
him for that," he said, with a hint of reproach. "Adrian is far-sighted,
yes; but not a dreamer."
"What can he do with a square of bog that is covered half of the time by
water?" asked Windham.
"Ah," Benito said, "we've talked that over, Adrian and I. Adrian has a
plan of reclamation. An engineering project for leveling sandhills by
contract and using the waste to cover his land. He has already arranged
for ox-teams and wagons. It is perfectly feasible, my father."
Robert Windham smiled at the other's enthusiasm. "Perhaps you are
right," he said. "God grant it--and justify your faith in that huddle of
huts below."
Below them a man had mounted an improvised platform. He was waving his
arms, haranguing an ever-growing audience. Benito stirred uneasily. "I
must go," he said. "I promised Adrian to join him."
"Very well," returned his father. He watched the slight and supple
figure riding down the slope.
Slowly he made his way back to the Rancho Briones. His wife met him at
the gate.
"Juana and Inez have gone to the sale," she announced. "Shall we join
them in the pueblo later on?"
"Nay, Anita," he said, "unless you wish it.... I have no faith in mire."
She looked up at him anxiously. "Roberto! I grieve to hear it. They--"
she checked herself.
"They--what, my love?" he asked curiously.
"They have gone to buy," said Anita. "Juana has great faith. She has
considerable money. And Inez has taken her jewels--even a few of mine.
The Senor O'Farrell whispered to her at the ball that the lots would
sell for little and their value would increase immensely."
"So, that is why Benito has his silver-mounted harness," Windham spoke
half to himself. He smiled a little ruefully. "You are all gamblers,
dreamers.... You dear ones of Spanish heritage."
* * * * *
On the beach a strangely varied human herd pressed close around a
platform upon which stood Samuel Brannan and Alcalde Hyde. The former
had promised to act as auctioneer and looked over a sheaf of notes while
Hyde in his dry, precise and positive tone read the details of the
forthcoming sale. It would last three days, Hyde informed his hearers,
and 450 lots would be sold. North of the broad street paralleling the
Mission Camino lots were sixteen and a half varas wide and fifty varas
deep. All were between the limits of low and high water mark.
"What's a vara?" shouted a new arrival.
"A Spanish yard," explained Hyde, "about thirty-three and a third inches
of English measure. Gentlemen, you are required to fence your lots and
build a house within a year. The fees for recording and deed will be
$3.62, and the terms of payment are a fourth down, the balance in equal
payments during a period of eighteen months."
"How about the lots that lie south?" cried a voice.
"They are one hundred varas square, same terms, same fees," replied
Hyde. He stepped down and Brannan began his address.
"The site of San Francisco is known to all navigators and mercantile men
to be the most commanding commercial position on the entire eastern
coast of the Pacific Ocean," he shouted, quoting from former Alcalde
Bryant's announcement of three months previous. "The town itself is
destined to become the commercial emporium of western America."
"Bravo!" supplemented the Dona Briones, waving her fan. She was the
center of a little group composed of Benito and Inez Windham, Adrian
Stanley and Nathan Spear. Near them, keeping out of their observance,
stood Aleck McTurpin.
"The property offered for sale is the most valuable in or belonging to
the town," Brannan went on, enthusiastically; "it will require work to
make it tenable. You'll have to wrest it from the waves, gentlemen ...
and ladies," he bowed to Juana and her companion, "but, take my word for
it--and I've never deceived you--everyone who buys will bless my memory
half a dozen years from now...."
"Why don't ye get in yerself and practice what ye preach?" cried a
scoffing sailor.
Brannan looked him up and down. "Because I'm trying to serve the
commonwealth--which is more than a drunken deserter from his ship can
claim," he shot back hotly, "but I'm going to buy my share, never fear.
Bill Leidesdorff's my agent. He has $5,000 and my power of attorney.
That's fair enough, isn't it boys? Or, shall we let the sailor act as
auctioneer?"
"No! No!" a dozen cried. "'Rah for Sam. Go on! You're doin' fine!"
"Thank you," Brannan acknowledged. "Who's to make the first bid? Speak
up, now, don't be bashful."
"Twenty-five dollars," called Juana Briones.
"Thirty," said a voice behind her, a voice that caused young Windham and
his sister to start, involuntarily. "McTurpin," whispered Inez
to Adrian.
"Thirty-five," spoke Juana, imperturbably.
"Forty."
Brannan looked straight into McTurpin's eyes. "Sold to Juana Briones for
thirty-five dollars," he said, as his improvised gavel fell on the table
before him.
"I bid forty!" stormed McTurpin. All eyes turned to him. But Brannan
paid him no attention. Someone laughed.
"Next! Who bids?" invited the auctioneer.
"Twenty-five," began Benito.
This time there were other bidders, all of whom Brannan recognized
courteously and promptly. Finally, Benito's bid of fifty seemed to win.
Then McTurpin shouted, "Fifty-five!"
Brannan waited for a moment. There were no more bids. "Sold to Benito
Windham for fifty dollars," he announced.
"Curse you!" cried the gambler, pushing forward, "you heard me bid
higher, Sam Brannan!"
Into his path stepped the tall figure of Robert Windham. "We are not
taking bids from convicts," he said, loudly and distinctly.
CHAPTER XV
THE BEGINNING OF LAW
McTurpin's look of blind astonishment at Windham's words was succeeded
by a whitehot fury. Two eyes gleamed with snake-like venom and two spots
of red glowed in his cheeks, as though each had felt the impact of a
sudden blow. For a moment he neither moved nor spoke. Then a hand, which
trembled slightly, made a lightning move toward his hip.
"I wouldn't," drawled the voice of Robert Windham. His right hand,
loosely in a pocket of his coat, moved slightly. "I've got you covered,
Sydney Duck McTurpin ... if that's your real name."
The other's hand fell at his side. The two men's glances countered, held
each other, one calm, dignified, unafraid; the other, murderous,
searching, baffled. Presently, McTurpin turned and strode away. Windham
looked after the departing gambler. "'Fraid I've spoiled his morning,"
he remarked to Nathan Spear.
"Yes--to chance a knife or bullet in the back," retorted Spear,
uneasily. Their further confidence was drowned in Brannan's
exhortations: "On with the sale, boys," he shouted. "The side show's
over ... with nobody hurt, thank Heaven! What'll you bid for a lot in
the southern part of town? They're a hundred varas square--four times as
big as the others. Not as central, maybe, but in ten years I bet they'll
bring a thousand dollars. What's bid for a south lot, my hearties?"
"Twenty-five dollars," said Inez Windham.
"Oh, come, now, Senorita," cried the auctioneer, intriguingly,
"twenty-five dollars for a hundred-vara lot. Have you no more faith in
San Francisco?"
"Its--all I have...." the girl spoke almost in a whisper.
Brannan frowned. He looked about him threateningly. "Does anyone bid
higher than Miss Windham?" he demanded. There was no response. Brannan's
gavel fell, decisively. "Sold!" he cried, and half a dozen
voices cheered.
Inez Windham made her way to the auctioneer's stand and handed three
banknotes to Alcalde Hyde. "But, my dear young lady," he expostulated,
"you need only pay a fourth of the money down. Six dollars and a quarter
is enough."
"Oh," said Inez, "then I could have bought more, couldn't I!" She turned
to Brannan, eagerly. "I could have bought four lots--if I'd only known."
Brannan smiled at her. Then he turned to the crowd. "What d'ye say,
boys, shall we let her have 'em?" he inquired. Instantly the answer
came: "Yes, yes, give her the four. God bless her. She'll bring
us luck."
Impulsively, Inez mounted the platform; astonished at her own temerity,
at the exuberance of some new freedom, springing from the barriers of a
shielded life, she shouted at these strange, rough men about her: "Thank
you, gentlemen!" Then her mother's look of horrified, surprise brought a
sudden red into her cheeks. She turned and fled. Her father smiled,
indulgently; Anita's frown changed presently into a look of whimsical,
perplexed affection. "I am always forgetting, Inez mia," she said,
softly, "that this is a new day--the day of the Americano."
She watched Benito shouting bids at the side of Adrian, vying with such
men as Howard, Mellus, Clark and Leidesdorff in the quest for lots.
"Fifty of them have been sold already," Windham told her. "The auction
will last three days because there are four hundred more."
Suddenly, Anita Windham put forth a hand and touched that of her
husband. "Buy one, for me, Roberto," she pleaded.
"But--" he hesitated, "Anita carissima, what will you do with a
rectangle of mire in this rough, unsettled place?"
"For sentiment," she answered, softly, "in memory of my father, who had
such abundant faith in San Francisco.... And, perhaps, Don Samuel is
right. We may yet bless his name."
* * * * *
The summer of 1847 had passed. Inez Windham was the wife of Adrian
Stanley. He had given up his school for larger matters. Every day his
ox-teams struggled over sandy bottoms to the tune of snapping whips and
picturesque profanity by Indian drivers. Men with shovels leveling the
sand hills, piled the wagons high with shimmering white grains which
were carried to the shore and dumped into pile-surrounded bogs till the
tides left them high and dry. San Francisco reached farther and farther
into the bay, wresting irregular nooks and corners from the
ebbing-flowing waters, building rickety, improvised piers, sometimes
washed out by the northers which unexpectedly came down with tempestuous
fury. Quaint, haphazard buildings made their appearance, strange
architectural mushrooms grown almost over night, clapboarded squares
with paper or muslin partitions for inner walls. Under some the tides
washed at their full and small craft discharged cargoes at their back
doors. Ships came from Boston, Bremen, Sitka, Chile, Mexico, the
Sandwich Islands, bringing all manner of necessities and luxuries.
Monthly mails had been established between San Francisco and San Diego,
as well as intermediate points, and there was talk of a pony express to
Independence, Missouri.
* * * * *
There were many crimes of high and low degree, from rifled tills to dead
men found half buried in the sands. Rumor told of thieves and murderers
encamped in the hollow bowl of a great sandhill, where they slept or
caroused by day, venturing forth only at night. Aleck McTurpin's name
was now and then associated with them as a leader. Men were importing
safes from the States and carrying derringers at night--even the
peaceful Mormons. At this time Governor Mason addressed to Alcalde Hyde
an order for the election of a Town Council.
Adrian was full of these doings when he came home from an executive
session before which he had appeared as an expert on reclamation. "They
are good men, Inez," he declared, enthusiastically. "They'll bring law
to San Francisco. And law is what we need more than all else, my dear."
"And how will they go about it, with no prison-house, no courts or
judges?" asked Inez, wonderingly.
"Oh, those will soon be provided," he assured, "When there is a will for
law the machinery comes." He smiled grimly. "McTurpin and his ilk had
better look to themselves.... We are going after the gamblers."
[Illustration:
Men with shovels, leveling the sand-hills, piled the wagons high with
shimmering grains which were dumped into pile-surrounded bogs. San
Francisco reached farther and farther out into the bay.]
CHAPTER XVI
GOLD! GOLD! GOLD!
San Francisco never could remember when the first rumor of gold reached
it. Gold was to mean its transformation from a struggling town into a
turbulent, riotous city, a mecca of the world's adventurers.
Benito Windham, early in the spring of '48 brought home an echo of it
from San Jose. One of Sutter's teamsters had exchanged a little pouch of
golden grains for a flask of aguardiente. Afterward he had told of
finding it in the tail-race of Marshall's mill on the south fork of the
American River. Little credence had been given his announcements. In the
south, near San Fernando Mission, gold had long ago been found, but not
in sufficient quantities to allure the fortune hunter.
"See, is it not pretty?" asked Benito, pouring out a handful of the
shining stuff which he had purchased from the teamster.
"Pretty, yes, but what's it worth?" asked Adrian, dubiously.
"Some say it's true value is $16 for an ounce," responded Inez, her eyes
shining. "Samuel Brannan had a letter from a member of his band who says
they wash it from the river sand in pans."
"Sam's skeptical, though," retorted Stanley. "And, as for me, I've a
mine right here in San Francisco." He spoke enthusiastically. "Moving
sandhills into the bay. Making a new city front out of flooded bogs!
That's realism. Romance. And what's better, fortune! Isn't it, my girl?"
Inez' eyes were proud. "Fortune, yes, and not a selfish one. For it is
making others richer, San Francisco better."
"Which is well enough for you," returned Benito with a hint of
sullenness. "But I am tired of clerking for Ward & Smith at two dollars
a day. There's no romance in that." With a quick, restless motion he ran
the golden dust through his fingers again. "I hope they are true, these
stories. And if they are--" he looked at the others challengingly, "then
I'm off to the mines, muy pronto."
"Come," said Stanley, "let us have a game of chess together." But
Benito, with a muttered apology, left them and went out. San Francisco
had streets now, since the O'Farrell survey's adoption by the council.
The old Calle de Fundacion had become Dupont street and below it was
Kearny street, named after the General and former Governor. To the west
were parallel roads, scarcely worthy of the name of thoroughfares,
christened in honor of Commodore Stockton, Surgeon Powell of the
sloop-of-war Warren, Dr. Elbert Jones, Governor Mason, Chaplain
Leavenworth, the present Alcalde, and George Hyde, the former one.
Thomas Larkin, former counsel at Monterey, was also to be distinguished.
East and west the streets had more haphazard names. Broadway and
California were the widest, aside from the projected Market street,
which would have a lordly breadth of 120 feet. Some were named after
Presidents--Jackson, Washington and Clay.
The council had authorized two long wharves, one at the foot of Clay
street, 547 feet long. This was a great undertaking and had caused much
discussion pro and con. But now it was almost completed and a matter of
much civic pride. Large ships, anchored at its terminus, were
discharging cargo, and thither Benito bent his course, head bent, hat
pulled well down on his forehead, until a rousing slap on the back spun
him around almost angrily. He looked into the wise and smiling eyes of
Edward C. Kemble.
"Well, lad," the editor of the _Californian Star_ accosted, "I hear
you've been to San Jose. What's new up there, if I may ask you?"
"Very little ... nothing," said Benito, adding, "save the talk of gold
at Marshall's mill."
"Pooh!" exclaimed the editor. "Marshall's mill, and Mormon island! One
would think the famous fairy tale of El Dorado had come true."
"You place no credence in it, then?" asked Benito, disappointed.
"Not I," said Kemble. "See here," he struck one fist into the palm of
another. "All such balderdash is bad for San Francisco. We're trying to
get ahead, grow, be a city. Look at the work going on. That means
progress, sustained stimulus. And along come these stories of gold
finds. It's the wrong time. The wrong time, I tell you. It'll interfere.
If we get folks excited they'll pull out for the hills, the wilderness.
Everything'll stop here.... Then, bye and bye, they'll come
back--busted! Mark my words, BUSTED! Is that business? No."
He went off shaking his head sagely. Benito puzzled, half resentful,
gazed after him. He abandoned the walk to the dock and returned with
low-spirited resignation to his tasks at Ward & Smith's store.
* * * * *
For several months gold rumors continued to come. Citizens, fearing
ridicule, perhaps, slipped unobtrusively out of town, to test their
truth. Kemble was back from a trip to the so-called gold fields.
Editorially, he made sport of his findings. He had seen feather-brained
fortune-seekers gambling hopelessly with fate, suffering untold
hardships for half the pay they could have gained from "honest labor."
Now and then a miner, dirty and disheveled, came in ragged clothes to
gamble or drink away the contents of a pouch of "dust." It was at first
received suspiciously. Barkeepers took "a pinch for a drink," meaning
what they could grasp with their fingers, and one huge-fisted man
estimated that this method netted him three dollars per glass.
San Francisco awoke to a famine in butcher-knives, pans and candles.
Knives at first were used to gouge out auriferous rock, and soon these
common household appurtenances brought as high as twenty-five dollars
each. Candles ere long were the equivalent of dollars, and pans were
cheap at five dollars each.
Still San Francisco waited, though a constant dribble of departures made
at last perceptible inroads on its population. Then, one May afternoon,
the fat was in the fire.
Samuel Brannan, who had been at his store in New Helvetia, rode through
the streets, holding a pint flask of gold-dust in one hand, swinging his
hat with the other, and whooping like a madman:
"Gold! Gold! Gold! From the American River!"
As if he had applied a torch to the hayrick of popular interest, San
Francisco flamed with fortune-seeking ardor. Next morning many stores
remained unopened. There were neither clerks nor proprietors. Soldiers
fled from the garrison, and Lieutenant William T. Sherman was seen
galloping northward with a provost guard to recapture a score of
deserters. Children found no teacher at the new schoolhouse and for
months its doors were barred. Cargoes, half-discharged, lay on the
wharves, unwarehoused. Crews left en masse for the mines, and ships
floated unmanned at anchor. Many of them never went to sea again.
On every road a hegira of the gold-mad swept northward, many afoot, with
heavy burdens, the more fortunate with horses and pack animals. Men,
old, young, richly dressed and ragged--men of all conditions,
races, nations.
The end of May, in 1848, found San Francisco a manless Eden. Stanley,
struggling with a few elderly Indians and squaws to carry on his work,
bemoaned the madcap folly bitterly.
[Illustration: Samuel Brannan rode through the streets, holding a pint
flask of gold-dust in one hand ... and whooping like a madman: "Gold!
Gold! Gold! From the American River!"]
But Benito, with shining eyes, rode on to what seemed Destiny and
Fortune. Ward & Smith's little shop lay far behind him. Even his sister
and her busy husband. Before him beckoned Gold! The lure, adventure,
danger of it, like a smiling woman. And his spirit stretched forth
longing arms.
CHAPTER XVII
THE QUEST OF FORTUNE
By the end of June more than half of San Francisco's population had
departed for the mines. They went by varied routes, mostly on horseback.
Rowboats, which a month ago had sold for $50, were now bringing ten
times that sum, for many took the river route to the gold fields. Others
toiled their way through the hills and the Livermore Valley. The ferry
across Carquinez Straits at Benicia, was thronged to the danger
of sinking.
Those who stayed at home awaited eagerly the irregular mails which
straggled in from unsettled, unorganized, often inaccessible regions
where men cut and slashed the bowels of the earth for precious metal, or
waded knee-deep in icy torrents, washing their sands in shallow
containers for golden residue. No letter had come from Benito to Inez or
Adrian. But Robert Windham wrote from Monterey as follows:
"My Children: Monterey is mad with the gold-lust, and our citizens are
departing with a haste that threatens depopulation. Until recently we
had small belief in the tales of sudden fortune started by the finds at
Marshall's mill. Alcalde Colton dispatched a messenger to the American
River on the 6th of June, and, though he has not returned, others have
brought the news he was sent to gain. On the 12th a man came into town
with a nugget weighing an ounce and all Monterey Buzzed with excitement.
Everyone wanted to test it with acids and microscopes. An old woman
brought her ring and when placed side by side, the metal seemed
identical; it was also compared with the gold knob of a cane. Some
declare it a humbug, but it is generally believed to be genuine gold.
"Governor Mason, who has been messing with Alcalde Colton and a naval
officer named Lieutenant Lanman, is now compelled to bake his own bread.
The trio roast their coffee and cook what meals they eat. Even the negro
who blacked their boots went gold hunting and returned after a few weeks
with $2000.
"Yesterday I met a rough-looking fellow who appeared to be starving. He
had a sack on his shoulder in which was gold-dust and nuggets worth
$15,000. You should have seen him a few hours later--all perfumed and
barbered, with shiny boots; costly, ill-fitting clothes and a marvelous
display of jewelry.
"Alcalde Colton is going to the mines next month. He laughed when he
told me of Henry Bee, the alguacil or jailor of San Jose. This man had
charge of ten prisoners, some of whom were Indians, charged with murder.
He tried to turn them over to the alcalde, but the latter was at the
mines. So Bee took his prisoners with him. It is said their digging has
already made him rich and that he'll let them loose. There is no one to
chide him. And no one to care."
Later in the day Sam Brannan and Editor Kemble looked in on the
Stanleys. "It's sheer insanity!" exploded Kemble. "The soldiers have
gone--left their wives and their children to starve. Even the church is
locked. Governor Mason has threatened martial law in the mining regions,
which are filled with cutthroats and robbers. It's said he contemplates
giving furloughs of two or three months to the gold-fevered troops which
remain. Was there ever such idiocy?"
"You're wrong, Ed," Brannan told him. "This gold boom is the biggest
thing that's ever happened. It'll bring the world to our door. Why,
Mason has reported that gold enough's been taken from the mines already
to pay for the Mexican war."
"Bah!" cried Kemble, and stalked out muttering. Brannan laughed. "He's
riding his hobby consistently. But he'll come down. So you've had no
news from Benito?"
"No," said Inez gloomily. "Perhaps it is too soon. Perhaps he has had no
luck to tell us of as yet. But I wish he would write just a line."
"Well, well, cheer up, my dear," said Brannan, reassuringly. "Benito can
take care of himself. Next week I return to my store in the gold lands,
and I'll have an eye out for the lad. How does your work go, Adrian?"
"Poorly," answered Stanley. "Labor's too high to make money. Why, the
common laborers who were satisfied with a dollar a day, now ask ten, and
mechanics twenty. Even the Indians and the immigrants learn at once the
crazy price of service."
"San Francisco. Port o' Gold!" apostrophized the Mormon gaily. He went
on his way with a friendly wave of the hand. His steps were bent toward
Alcalde Hyde's headquarters. Hyde had made many enemies by his set,
opinionated ways. There was talk of putting Rev. Thaddeus Leavenworth in
his place. But Brannan was by no means certain this would solve the
problem. He missed Leidesdorff sadly. The latter's sudden death had left
a serious hiatus. He was used to talking problems over with the genial,
hospitable Dane, whose counsel was always placid, well considered.
Congress had failed to provide a government for California. San
Francisco grumbled; more than all other towns she needed law.
Stevenson's regiment had been disbanded; its many irresponsibles, held
previously in check by military discipline, now indulged their bent for
lawlessness, unstinted. Everything was confusion. Gold-dust was the
legal tender, but its value was unfixed. The government accepted it at
$10 per ounce, with the privilege of redemption in coin.
The problem of land grants was becoming serious. There were more than
hints of the alcalde's speculation; of illegal favors shown to friends,
undue restrictions placed on others. Brannan shook his head as he
climbed Washington street hill toward the alcalde's office. In the plaza
stood a few mangy horses, too decrepit for sale to gold seekers.
Gambling houses and saloons ringed the square and from these proceeded
drunken shouts, an incessant click of poker chips; now and then a
burst of song.
The sound of a shot swung him swiftly about. It came from the door of a
noisy and crowded mart of chance recently erected, but already the scene
of many quarrels. The blare of music which had issued from it swiftly
ceased. There was a momentary silence; then a sound of shuffling feet,
of whispering voices.
A man ran out into the street as if the devil were after him; another
followed, staggering, a pistol in his hand. He fired one shot and then
collapsed with horrid suddenness at Brannan's feet. The other man ran
into Portsmouth Square, vaulted to the saddle of a horse and spurred
furiously away.
Brannan stooped over the fallen figure. It was that of a brawny, bearded
man, red-shirted, booted, evidently a miner. That he was mortally
wounded his gazing eyes gave evidence. Yet such was his immense vitality
that he muttered, clutching at his throat--staving off dissolution with
the mighty passionate vehemence of some dominating purpose. Brannan bent
to listen.
"Write," he gasped, and Brannan, with an understanding nod, obeyed. "I
bequeath my claim ... south fork ... American River ... fifty feet from
end of Lone Pine's shadow ... sunset ... to my pard ... Benito Wind--"
His voice broke, but his eyes watched Brannan's movements as the latter
wrote. Dying hands grasped paper, pencil ... signed a scrawling
signature, "Joe Burthen." Then the head dropped back, rolled for a
moment and lay still.
CHAPTER XVIII
NEWS OF BENITO
Brannan turned from contemplation of the dead to find himself surrounded
by a curious, questioning group. A bartender, coatless, red-faced,
grasping in one hand a heavy bung-starter as if it were a weapon of
defense; a gambler, sleeves rolled up, five cards clutched in nervous
fingers; half a dozen sailors, vaqueros, a ragged miner or two and
several shortskirted young women of the class that had recently drifted
into the hectic night-life of San Francisco. All were whispering
excitedly. Some of the men, with a show of reverence, removed
their hats.
"Do you know who did this?" Brannan asked.
"I saw it," cried one of the women. She was dressed as a Spanish dancer
and in one hand held a tambourine and castanets. "They fight," she gave
a little smirk of vanity, "about me."
Brannan recognized her as Rosa Terranza, better known as Ensenada Rose.
She had been the cause of many rivalries and quarrels.
"Dandy" Carter, the gambler, let down his sleeves and thrust the cards
into his pocket.
"Rose was dealin' faro," he explained, "and this galoot here bucks the
game.... He lose. You un'erstan'. He lose a lot o' dust ... as much as
forty ounces. Then--just like that--he stops." The gambler snapped his
fingers. "He says, 'My little gal; my partner! God Almighty! I'm
a-wrongin' them!' He starts to go, but Rose acts mighty sympathetic and
he tells her all about the kid."
"Hees little girl," the dancer finished. "I say we dreenk her health
together, and he tell me of the senorita. He draw a picture of his claim
with trees and river and a mountain--ver' fine, like an artist. And he
say, 'You come and marry me and be a mother to my child'." She laughed
grimly. "He was ver' much drunk ... and then--"
"That Sydney Duck comes in," said Dandy Carter. "He sits down at the
table with 'em. They begins to quarrel over Rose. And the fust I knows
there was a gun went off; the girl yells and the other man vamooses,
with this feller staggerin' after."
"He shot from under the table," a sailor volunteered. "'Twas murder.
Where I come from they'd a-hanged him for't."
"But who was he?" Brannan asked the question in another form. The girl
and Dandy Carter looked at one another, furtively. "I--don't know his
name," the girl said, finally.
"Don't any of you?" Brannan's tone was searching. But it brought no
answer. Several shook their heads. Ensenada Rose shivered. "It's cold. I
go back in," she said, and turned from them. Brannan stopped her with a
sudden gesture. "Wait," he ordered. "Where's the map ... the paper this
man showed you ... of his mine?"
Ensenada Rose's eyes looked into Brannan's, with a note of challenge her
chin went up. "Quien sabe?" she retorted. Brannan watched the slender,
graceful figure vanish through the lighted door. In her trail the
gambler and bartender followed. Presently a burst of music issued from
the groggery; a tap-tap-tap of feet in rhythm to the click of castanets.
Already the tragedy was forgotten. Brannan found himself face to face
with the sailor. "I'll help you carry him--somewhere," he said. He
raised the dead man's shoulders from the ground, and Brannan, following
his suggestion, took the other end of the grim burden, which they bore
to the City Hotel. Brannan, in the presence of Alcalde Hyde, searched
Burthen's clothing for the plan which Rosa had described. But they did
not find it; only a buckskin bag with a few grains of gold-dust at the
bottom, a jackknife, a plug of tobacco, a scratched daguerreotype of a
young girl with corkscrew curls and friendly eyes.
* * * * *
Next evening Nathan Spear chanced in to see the Stanleys. "Sam Brannan's
gone," he told them. "Said he'd let you know about Benito. And here's a
letter from Alcalde Colton of Monterey--who's at the gold-fields now."
"Has he seen my brother?" Inez questioned, eagerly.
Spear began to read: "Young Benito Windham has been near here for a
fortnight. I am told, without much luck, He had to sell his horse and
saddle, for the price of living is enormous; finally he paired off with
a man named Burthen--strapping, bearded Kansan with a little daughter,
about 17. They struck a claim, and Burthen's on the way to San Francisco
for supplies. I'll tell you more when I have seen the lad and had a talk
with him. The girl, I understand, was keeping house for them. A pretty,
wistful little thing, they tell me, so I'd better keep an eye on
Friend Benito."
"Have you seen this Burthen? Is he here?" asked Stanley.
"He was robbed--and killed last night at the Eldorado."
"Sanctissima!" cried the girl, and crossed herself. "Then the little
one's an orphan. And Benito--"
"Her guardian, no doubt."
Spear laughed. "He writes that a miner gave $24 in gold-dust for a box
of seidlitz powders; another paid a dollar a drop for laudanum to cure
his toothache. Flour is $400 per barrel, whisky $20 for a quart bottle,
and sugar $4 a pound. 'It's a mad world, my masters,' as Shakespeare
puts it, but a golden one. By and by this wealth will flow into your
coffers down in San Francisco. Just now there is little disturbance, but
it is bound to come. Several robberies and shootings have already taken
place. There is one man whom I'd call an evil genius--a gambler, a
handsome ruffian and a dead shot, so they tell me. It's rumored that he
has a fancy for the little Burthen girl. Lord save her! Perhaps you
know the rascal, for he hails, I understand, from San Francisco, one
Alexander McTurpin."
The three surveyed each other in a startled silence.
"Benito and he are sure to quarrel," Inez whispered. "Madre Dolores!
What can we do?"
"Perhaps I'd better run up to the mines," said Adrian. "I've my own
affair, you know, to settle with this fellow."
"No, no, you must not," cried his wife in quick alarm.
Spear smiled. "I wouldn't fret," he spoke assuringly. "Sam's gone up to
see this fellow ... on a little business of his own."
CHAPTER XIX
THE VEILED WOMAN
Several months went by with no news from Benito. James Burthen had been
buried in the little graveyard on a hill overlooking the bay. And that
ended the matter in so far as San Francisco was concerned.
In the Alta California, a consolidation of two rival papers, appeared a
brief notice chronicling the death of an unidentified miner, whose
assassin, also nameless, had escaped. Ensenada Rose, described as an
exotic female of dubious antecedents and still more suspicious motives,
had left the Eldorado on the morning after the shooting "for parts
unknown." She was believed to hold some "key to the tragic mystery which
it was not her purpose to reveal."
But killings were becoming too familiar in the growing town to excite
much comment. San Francisco's population had quadrupled in the past half
year and men were streaming in by the hundreds from all quarters of the
globe. Flimsy bunk-houses were hastily erected, springing up as if by
magic overnight. Men stood in long lines for a chance at these sorry
accommodations and the often sorrier meals which a score of enterprising
culinary novices served at prices from one dollar up. Lodging was $30
per month and at this price men slept on naked boards like sailors in a
forecastle, one above the other. Often half a dozen pairs of blankets
served a hundred sleepers. For as soon as a guest of these palatial
hostelries began to snore the enterprising landlord stripped his body of
its covering and served it to a later arrival.
"If the town grows much faster it will be a tragedy," remarked Adrian
to James Lick that afternoon. Lick had bought a city lot at Montgomery
and Jackson streets and had already sold a portion of it for $30,000. He
was a believer in San Francisco's future, and at San Jose his flour
mill, once contemptuously called "Lick's folly," was grinding grain
which at present prices brought almost its weight in gold.
"Things always right themselves, my boy," he said. "Don't worry. Keep
pegging away at your sand lots. Some day you'll be a millionaire."
"But half of these people are homeless. And every day they come faster.
In our neighborhood are a dozen ramshackle tents where these poor devils
keep 'bachelors' hall' with little more than a skillet and a coffee pot.
They call it 'ranching.'" He laughed. "What would our old land barons
have thought of a rancho four by six feet, which the first of our trade
winds will blow into the bay?"
"The Lord," said Lick, devoutly, "tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.
And also to the homeless squatter on our sandy shores."
"I hope you're right," responded Stanley. "It does me good to hear
someone speak of God in this godless place. It is full of thieves and
cut-throats; they've a settlement at the base of the hill overlooking
Clark's Point. No man's life is safe, they tell me, over there."
Lick frowned. "They call it Sydney Town because so many Australian
convicts have settled in it. Some day we'll form a citizens' committee
and run them off."
"Which reminds me," Lick retorted, "that McTurpin came to town this
morning. With a veiled woman ... or girl. She looks little more than
a child."
Adrian surveyed the other, startled. "Child?" His mind was full of vague
suspicions.
"Well, she didn't weigh more than a hundred. Yes, they came--both on one
horse, and the fellow's companion none too well pleased, I should say.
Frightened, perhaps, though why she should be is a puzzle." Lick
shrugged his shoulders.
"Has he taken the girl to his--the ranch?" asked Adrian.
"Don't know. I reckon not," Lick answered. "They ate at the City Hotel.
He'd a bag full of dust, so he'll gamble and guzzle till morning most
likely." He regarded his friend keenly, a trifle uneasily. "Come, Adrian
... I'll walk past your door with you."
"I'm not going home just yet, thanks," Stanley's tone was nervously
evasive.
"Well, good-night, then," said the other with reluctance. He turned
south on Kearny street toward his home. Stanley, looking after him,
stood for a moment as if undetermined. Then he took his way across the
Plaza toward the City Hotel.
In the bar, a long and low-ceiling room, talk buzzed and smoke from many
pipes made a bluish, acrid fog through which, Adrian, standing in the
doorway, saw, imperfectly, a long line of men at the bar. Others sat at
tables playing poker and drinking incessantly, men in red-flannel
shirts, blue denim trousers tucked into high, wrinkled boots. They wore
wide-brimmed hats, and cursed or spat with a fervor and vehemence that
indicated enjoyment. Adrian presently made out the stocky form of
McTurpin, glass upraised. Before him on the bar were a fat buckskin bag
and a bottle. He was boasting of his luck at the mines.
A companion "hefted" the treasure admiringly. "Did you make it gamblin',
Alec?" he inquired.
"No, by Harry!" said the other, tartly. "I'm no gambler any more. I'm a
respectable gentleman with a mine and a ranch," he emptied his glass
and, smacking his lips, continued, "and a beautiful young girl that
loves me ... loves me. Understand?" His hand came down upon the other's
shoulder with a sounding whack.
"Where is she?" asked the other, coaxingly. "You're a cunning hombre,
Alec. Leave us have a look at her, I say."
"Bye and bye," McTurpin spoke more cautiously. "Bye and bye ... then you
can be a witness to the marriage, Dave." He drew the second man aside
across the room, so near to Adrian that the latter stepped back to avoid
discovery.
"She's a respectable lass," he heard McTurpin whisper. "Yes, it's marry
or nothing with her ... and I'm willing enough, the Lord knows. Can ye
find me a preacher, old fellow?"
He could not make out the other's reply. Their voices died down to an
imperceptible whisper as they moved farther away. Stanley thought they
argued over something. Then the man called Dave passed him and went
swiftly up the hill.
Vaguely troubled, Stanley returned to the veranda. It was unoccupied for
chilly evening breezes had driven the loungers indoors. Absently he
paced the creaking boards and, having reached a corner of the building,
continued his promenade along what seemed to be the rear of the
building. Here a line of doors opened on the veranda like the upper
staterooms of a ship.
Why should he trouble his mind about McTurpin and a paramour? thought
Adrian. Yet his thought was curiously disturbed. Something Spear had
read from a letter vexed him dimly like a memory imperfectly recalled.
What was there about McTurpin and a child? Whose child? And what had it
to do with the veiled woman who had ridden with the gambler from the
mines. Impishly the facts eluded him. Inez would know. But Inez must not
be bothered just now--at this time.
He paused and listened. Was that a woman sobbing? Of course not. Only
his nerves, his silly sentiment. He would go home and forget the
whole thing.
There it was again. This time he could not be mistaken. Noiselessly he
made his way toward the sound. It stopped. But presently it came again.
From where? Ah, yes, the window with a broken pane.
Soft, heartbroken, smothered wailing. Spasms of it. Then an interlude of
silence. Adrian's heart beat rapidly. He tip-toed to the window, tried
the door beside it. Locked. After a moment's hesitation he spoke,
softly: "Is someone in trouble?"
CHAPTER XX
A CALL IN THE NIGHT
There was no answer. For a second time Adrian's mind fought a belief
that sense had tricked him. Now and then a shout from the bar-room
reached him as he waited, listening. The wind whistled eerily through
the scant-leaved scrub-oaks on the slopes above.
But from the room at the window of which he listened there came no
sound.
Adrian felt like one hoaxed, made ridiculous by his own sentimentality.
He strode on. But when he reached the farther corner some involuntary
impulse turned him back. And again the sound of muffled sobbing came to
him from the open window--fainter now, as though an effort had been made
to stifle it.
Once more he spoke: "I say, what's the trouble in there? Can I help?"
Almost instantly a face appeared against the pane--a tear-stained face,
terrified and shrinking.
"Oh!" said a voice unsteady with weeping. "Oh! sir, if there is a heart
in your breast you will help me to escape--to find my father."
Her tone, despite agitation, was that of extreme youth. She was not of
the class that frequent gambling halls. Both her dress and her manner
proclaimed that. Adrian was perplexed. "Are you--" he hesitated, fearing
to impart offense, "are you the girl who came with McTurpin?"
"Yes, yes," she spoke hurriedly. "He told me my father was ill. He
promised to take me to him. Instead, he locked me in this room. He
threatened--oh! he is a monster! Will you help me? Do you know my
father, sir?"
"What is his name?" asked Stanley.
"Burthen, sir, James Burthen," she replied, and fell once more to
sobbing helplessly. "Oh, if I were only out of here."
Stanley pressed his weight against the door. He was thinking rapidly. So
this was the daughter of Benito's partner--the murdered miner of the
Eldorado tragedy. He recalled the letter from Colton; the hint of
McTurpin's infatuation and its menace. Things became clear to him
suddenly. The door gave as he pressed his knee against it. Presently the
flimsy lock capitulated and he walked into the room. The girl shrank
back against the farther wall at his approach.
"Oh, come," he said, a trifle testily, "I'm not going to hurt you. Get
on your hat. I'll see you're taken care of. I'll place you in charge
of my wife."
"And my father," she begged. "You'll take me to him?"
"Yes, yes, your father," he agreed in haste. "But first you'll come home
with me."
She snatched up a hat and shawl from the commode, and, with hurried
movements rearranged her hair; then she followed him submissively into
the gathering dusk, shrinking close as if to efface herself whenever
they passed anyone. The streets were full of men now, mostly bound from
hotels, lodging houses and tents to the Eldorado and kindred resorts.
Many of them ogled her curiously, for a female figure was a rarity in
nocturnal San Francisco.
They passed dimly lighted tents in which dark figures bulked grotesquely
against canvas walls. In one a man seemed to be dancing with a large
animal which Stanley told her was a grizzly bear.
"They have many queer pets," he said. "One of my neighbors keeps a pet
coon, and in another tent there are a bay horse, two dogs, two sheep
and a pair of goats. They sleep with their master like a happy family."
"It is all so strange," said the girl, faintly. "In the East my father
was a lawyer; we had a good house and a carriage; everything was so
different from--this. But after my mother died, he grew restless. He
sold everything and came to this rough, wild country. None of his old
friends would know him now, with his beard, his boots and the horrible
red flannel shirt."
Adrian made no reply. He was thinking of the tragic news which must ere
long be told to Burthen's daughter. For a time they strode along in
silence--until Stanley paused before an open door. Against the inner
light which streamed through it into the darkness of the street a
woman's figure was outlined.
"Well, here we are, at last," said Adrian. "And my wife's in the doorway
waiting to scold me for being so late."
Inez ran to meet him. "I have been anxious," she declared. She noted her
husband's companion, and stepped back, startled. "Adrian, who is this?"
"A daughter of the mur----" Adrian began. He broke the telltale word in
two: "Of James Burthen--Benito's partner."
"Ah, then you know my brother," Inez hailed her eagerly. She took the
girl's hands in her own and pressed them. "You must tell us all about
him--quickly. We have waited long for news."
"You are--Mr. Windham's sister?" cried the girl almost incredulously.
Then, with a swift abandonment to emotion she threw her arms about the
elder woman's neck and sobbed.
Stanley followed them into the house. He saw Inez supporting her
companion, soothing her in those mysterious ways which only women know.
His mind was stirred with grave perplexities.
A peremptory knock aroused him from his cogitations. Could it be the
gambler so soon? He thought there were voices. Several men, no doubt.
Inez called out in a whisper, "Who is there?"
"Go back," her husband ordered. "It's all right, dear. They're friends
of mine."
Inez came out quickly and stood beside him, looking up into his face.
"You're sure? There's no--no danger?"
Again the rat-tat-tat upon the panel, more peremptory than before.
Stanley forced a laugh. "Danger! Why, of course not. Just a business
talk. But go back and look after the girl. I don't want her coming out
here while I've visitors." He patted her hand. His arm about her
shoulder he ushered her across the threshold of the inner chamber and
closed the door. Then he extinguished the lamp. Hand on pistol he felt
his way toward the outer portal and, with a sudden movement flung it
wide. Three men stood on the threshold. They seemed puzzled by the
darkness. Out of it the host's voice spoke: "Who are you? What do
you wish?"
William Henry Brown was first to answer him. "We want you, Adrian, at
the hotel. Can you come now--quickly?"
"What for?" he asked suspiciously. "Who sent you here?"
"Nobody," came the cheery voice of Dr. Jones. "There's a friend of yours
at Brown's who needs you."
"You mean--McTurpin?
"Damn McTurpin!" spoke the third voice. It was Nathan Spear's. "Light
your lamp. Nobody's going to shoot you, Stanley.... It's young Benito
from the mines and down with fever. He's calling for you ... and for a
girl named Alice.... If you can pacify him--that will help a lot. He's
pretty low."
CHAPTER XXI
OUTFACING THE ENEMY
"Wait," said Adrian, hurriedly. He relighted the lamp and, going to the
inner door, called softly. There was an agitated rustle; then the door
swung back and Stanley saw the figure of his wife, beside whom stood the
light-haired girl.
"What is it, Adrian?"
"There's someone sick at Brown's Hotel," said Adrian, "a friend of mine.
I'm going over there." He made a sign imposing silence on the men.
Inez came close. "You're certain it's no trick," she whispered, "it's
not McTurpin's scheme to--"
"No, no," he assured her hastily. "I'm sure of that." He seized his hat
and coat. "Put down the window shades and answer no one's knock till I
return." He kissed her and without more ado joined the men outside. He
heard the door shut and lock click into place.
For a time the quartette strode along in silence; then Brown spoke, as
if the thought had been long on his lips, "Wasn't that--the girl
McTurpin brought to town?"
"Yes," said Adrian tersely, "it was she."
Brown made no immediate response; he seemed to be digesting Adrian's
remark. Finally he burst out, "If it's any of my business, what's she
doing--there?"
"She asked for help," retorted Stanley. He related the incident of the
veranda. Spear laughed meaningly. "That's the second one you've taken
from McTurpin; he'll be loving you a heap, old man."
"He doesn't know it yet," Brown said. "But keep out of his way
tomorrow."
Stanley's teeth met with a little click. "When I've seen Benito, Alec
McTurpin and I will have a showdown. But tell me of the boy. What
brought him here?"
"The missing girl, of course," said Dr. James. "He's daft about her.
Alice Burthen ... that's her name, isn't it?"
Stanley was about to make some rejoinder when they passed two men, one
of whom looked at them curiously. He was McTurpin's companion of the
bar-room episode. "Who's that?" asked Spear as Brown saluted the pair.
"That's Reverend Wheeler, the new Baptist parson."
"Yes, yes, I know. But the other one?"
"Ned Gasket ... he's a friend of Dandy Carter's at the Eldorado."
"And a Sydney Duck, I guess," the doctor added.
"Do your own guessing, friend," said Brown, impatiently.
Spear sighed. "We'll have to do more than guess about that stripe of
citizen if we want law and order. It will take a rope I fear," he
finished grimly.
Brown led them round the back to a room not far from the one which had
held Alice Burthen.
"It's quieter here," he explained. "They get noisy sometimes along about
midnight." He opened the door and struck a sulphur match by whose weird
flicker they made out a bed with a tossing figure upon it. Adrian
crossed over and took the nervous clutching hands within his own
firm clasp.
"Benito," he said. "Don't you know me? It's Adrian!"
Brown with a lighted lamp came nearer, so that Stanley saw the
sufferer's eyes. They were incognizant of realities. The murmuring voice
droned on, fretfully, "I've looked for her everywhere. She's
gone! gone!"
Suddenly he cried out: "Alice! Alice!" half rising. But he tumbled back
upon the pillow with a swift collapse of weakness and his words waned
into mumbled incoherence.
"Benito," Adrian addressed him earnestly, "Alice is with me. With me and
Inez. She's safe. I'll bring her to you in the morning. Do you
understand?"
"With you--with Inez?" the sick man repeated. "Then tell her to come. I
want her. Tell Alice to come--"
"Tomorrow," Dr. Jones said, soothingly, "when you've had a chance to
rest."
"No, tonight," the fevered eyes stared up at them imploringly. Jones
drew Adrian aside. "Pretend you'll do it or hell wear himself out. Then
go. I'll give him something that will make him sleep." He emptied a
powder in a tumbler of water and held it out to the sick man. "Drink
this," he ordered, "it'll give you strength to see Miss Burthen."
Benito's lips obediently quaffed the drink. His head lay quieter upon
the pillow. Slowly, as they watched, the eyelids closed.
"And now," said Adrian when he had assured himself that Benito slept,
"I'm going for McTurpin."
"Don't be a confounded fool," Dr. Jones said quickly.
But Stanley paid no heed. He went directly into the saloon and looked
about him. At a table, back toward him, sat a stocky figure, playing
cards and reaching for the rum container at his side. Adrian stood a
moment, musing; then his right hand slid down to his hip; a forward
stride and the left hand fell on the player's shoulder.
"We meet once more, McTurpin."
The gambler rose so suddenly that the stool on which he sat rolled over.
His face was red with wine and rage. His fingers moved toward an
inner pocket.
"Don't," said Adrian meaningly. The hand fell back.
"What do you want?" the gambler growled.
"A quiet talk, my friend. Come with me."
"And, suppose I refuse?" the other sneered.
"Oh, if you're afraid--" began Adrian.
McTurpin threw his cards upon the table. Between him and a man across
the board flashed a swift, unspoken message. "I'm at your service,
Mr.--ah--Stanley."
He led the way out, and Adrian following, gave a quick glance backward,
noting that the man across the table had arisen. What he did not see was
that Spear hovered in the offing, following them with watchful eyes.
Toward the north they strolled, past a huddle of tents, for the most
part unlighted. From some came snores and through many a windblown flap,
the searching moonlight revealed sleeping figures. On a waste of
sand-dunes McTurpin paused.
"Now tell me what ye want," he snarled, "and be damned quick about it.
I've small time to waste with meddlers."
"On this occasion," Stanley said, "you'll take the time to note the
following facts, Mr. McTurpin, Mr. Pillsworth--or whatever your true
name may be--I've had a talk with Dandy Carter. He recognized you and
Gasket when Burthen was killed, in spite of your beard. So did Rosa, of
course, though she skipped the next morning. The Burthen girl is at my
house." He paused an instant, thinking that he heard a movement in a
bush nearby. "Well, that's all," he finished, "except this: If I find
you here tomorrow, Alec McTurpin, murderer, card-sharp and abductor,
I'll shoot you down like a dog."
And then, with a splendid piece of bravery, he turned his back on the
gambler, walking away with never a backward glance. He did not go
directly home, but walked for an indeterminate interval till his spirit
was more calm.
The house was dark. Inez had obeyed him by leaving no trace of light.
Doubtless by now they had retired. Suddenly he started, peered more
closely at the door he was about to enter.
It was slightly ajar. On the threshold, as he threw it open, Adrian
found a lace-edged handkerchief. His wife's.
Filled with quick foreboding, he called her name. His voice sounded
hollow, strange, as if an empty house. Tremblingly he struck a light and
searched the inner room. The bed had not been slept in. There was no one
to be seen.
CHAPTER XXII
SHOTS IN THE DARK
Frantically Adrian ran out into the darkness, crying his wife's name.
His thought went, with swift apprehension, over the events of recent
hours. The villainous face of Ned Gasket passed before his memory
mockingly; the meaning look McTurpin gave his henchman at the gaming
table. Finally, with double force, that movement in the bushes as he
told the gambler of his former captive's whereabouts. By what absurd
imprudence had he laid himself thus open to the scoundrel's swift
attack? What farther whimsy of an unkind Fate had prompted his
long walk?
Sudden fury flamed in Stanley's heart; it steadied him. The twitching
fingers on the pistol in his pocket relaxed into a calm and settled
tension. With long strides he made his way toward Brown's hotel.
There was death in his eyes; men who caught their gleam beneath a
lamplight, hastily avoided him. That Inez--at this time--should have
been taken from her home, abducted, frightened or harassed, was the sin
unpardonable. For it he meant to exact a capital punishment. The law,
just then, meant to him nothing; only the primitive instinct of an
outraged man controlled his mind.
At the bar he paused. "Where's McTurpin, where's Gasket?" he demanded,
harshly.
The bartender observed him with suspicion and uneasiness. "Don't know.
Haven't seen 'em since they started out with you," he answered.
Stanley left the room without another word.
He struck across the Plaza, entering the Eldorado gambling house. There
he ordered a drink, gulped it, made, more quietly, a survey of the room.
He scanned the players carefully. Spear sat at one of the tables, toying
with a pile of chips and stroking his chin reflectively as he surveyed
three cards.
"Give me two. Hello, there, Adrian. Good Lord! what's up?"
"Have you seen McTurpin or his friend, Ned Gasket?" He tried to speak
quietly.
A miner at another table leaned forward. "Try the stalls, pard," he
whispered, while his left eyelid descended meaningly.
"Wait," cried Spear and laid his cards down hastily. But Adrian was
already on his way. At the rear were half a dozen small compartments
where visitors might drink in semi-privacy with women who frequented
the place.
Adrian made the round of them, flinging aside each curtain as he went.
Some greeted him with curses for intruding; some with invitations. But
he did not find the men he sought, until the last curtain was thrown
back. There sat Gasket and McTurpin opposite Ensenada Rose. She looked
up impudently as Adrian entered. Into the gambler's visage sprang a
quick surprise and fear. Instantly he blew out the lamp.
A pistol spoke savagely almost in Adrian's face. He staggered, clasping
one hand to his head. Something warm ran down his cheek and the side of
his neck. He felt giddy, stunned. But a dominant impulse jerked his own
revolver into position and he shot twice--as rapidly as he could operate
the weapon. The narrow space was chokingly filled with acrid vapor.
Somewhere a woman screamed; then came a rush of feet.
It seemed to Adrian he had stood for hours in a kind of stupor when a
light was brought. Gasket lay, his head bowed over on the table and an
arm flung forward. He was dead. On the floor was a lace mantilla.
Spear reached Adrian's side ahead of the others. "I heard him shoot
first," he said, so that all might hear him. "Are you hit?"
Adrian's hand went once more to his cheek. "Just a furrow," he said and
smiled a trifle dazedly. "He fired straight into my face."
"By Harry! He must have. Your cheek's powder-marked," cried Brannan,
running up and holding the lamp for a better view. "See that, gentlemen?
They tried to murder Mr. Stanley. This is self-defense. Who fired
at you?"
"This fellow!" Adrian indicated the sprawled figure. "Must have been. I
shot at the flash from his gun; then I aimed at McTurpin. I missed him,
probably."
"Not so sure of that," said Brown, who had come running from his
hostelry across the square. "Look, here's blood on the floor. A
trail--let's follow it. Either McTurpin or the woman was hit."
"I tried to avoid her," Adrian said. "I--hope I didn't--"
"Never mind. You were attacked. They're all of a parcel," cried a man
who wore the badge of a constable. "We've had our eyes on the three of
them a long time. This fellow," he indicated Gasket, "was one of the
crowd suspected of the Warren murders. He's the one who killed old
Burthen. Dandy Carter let it out tonight; he's half delirious. We'd have
strung him up most probably, if you hadn't--"
"Come," urged Brannan, "let us follow this trail to the wounded. Perhaps
he or she needs assistance." He held the lamp low, tracing the dark
spots across an intervening space to the rear entrance; thence to a
hitching rack where several horses still were tethered. "They mounted
here," the constable decided. "One horse probably. No telling which it
was that got the bullet."
Adrian was conscious, suddenly, that his hand still held the pistol. He
flung it from him with a gesture of repulsion.
"My wife!" he said faintly, "Inez!"
"What d'ye mean?" asked Spear.
"Talk up, man. What's wrong?"
"She's gone--abducted," Stanley answered. "Who'll lend me a horse. I
must find McTurpin. He knows--"
Unexpectedly Spear complicated matters. "You're mistaken, Stanley. I
followed when you and he took your walk together. I suspected
treachery--when Gasket sneaked along behind. I had McTurpin covered when
you turned your back on him. He came here after that. Both of them have
been here all the evening."
Stanley put his hand to his head with a bewildered gesture.
"Good God! Then where--? What has become of them?"
"Maybe they got wind of Benito's presence. Maybe they're with him. Let's
see."
They hurried back to the City Hotel.
"The room's dark," Spear lighted a taper and they softly opened the
door. Benito slept; beside him drowsed a red-shirted miner slumped upon
a chair. Adrian shook him, whispering, "Where's Doctor Jones?"
"Don't know," muttered the watcher, sleepily. "This yere is his busy
night I reckon. Asked me to look after this galoot. Feed him four
fingers of that pizen if he woke."
His head drooped forward and a buzzing sound came from his open mouth.
Once more Adrian shook him.
"Didn't he say anything about his destination?"
"His which, pard?"
"Where he was bound," the young man said half angrily.
This time the other sat up straighter. For the first time he really
awoke and took intelligent cognizance of the situation.
"Now I come to think on it, he's bound for the hill over yonder. Woman
named Briones come for him at a double quick. Good lookin' Spanish
wench. She took him by the arm commandin' like. 'You come along,' she
says and picks up his medicine chest. 'Don't stop for yer hat.' And he
didn't." He winked heavily, chuckling at the reminiscence.
"Then it isn't Juana Briones that's ill. Perhaps it's her husband."
"Has she got a husband?" asked the miner, disappointedly. "No, I reckon
'twant him. 'Twas a woman name o' Stanley. I remember now--Goin' to
have a bebby."
CHAPTER XXIII
THE NEW ARRIVAL
"Take my horse," said Brannan, hurriedly. "I'll stay here with Benito."
He bundled the excited Stanley and Nathan Spear out of the room, where
Benito still slept under the spell of the doctor's opiate. "You, too,"
he told the miner, "you've had too much red liquor to play the nurse."
He closed the door after them.
The young contractor spoke first. "By the eternal, I never thought of
that! I'm glad she had a woman with her."
He spurred his horse toward Telegraph, Hill, as it had begun to be
known, since signals were flashed from its crest, announcing the arrival
of vessels. Down its farther slope was the little rancho of Dona
Briones, where Inez in her extremity had sought the good friend of her
childhood.
Adrian's thought leaped forward into coming years. Inez and he together,
always together as the years passed. And between them a son--intuitively
he felt that it would be a son--a successor, taking up their burdens as
they laid them down; bearing their name, their ideals, purposes along,
down the pageant of time.
He paid little heed as they passed through a huddle of huts, tents and
lean-tos on the southern ascent. Though the hour was late, many windows
were light and sounds of revelry came dimly, as though muffled, from
curtain-hid interiors. There was something furtive and ill-omened about
this neighborhood which one sensed rather than perceived. Spear rode
close and touched Adrian's arm.
"Sydney town," he whispered, meaningly. "The hang-out of our convict
citizens from Australia, those eastern toughs and plug-uglies of the
Seventh regiment who came here to feather their nests. Do you know what
they've done? Formed a society called The Hounds. Appropriate, isn't it?
Your friend McTurpin's one of them. Thanks to you, they've lost a
valued member."
"Hounds?" said Adrian. His thought still forged ahead. "Oh, yes, I've
heard about them. They are going to drive out the foreigners."
"Loot them, more likely," Spear returned, disgustedly; "then us, if we
don't look out. Mark my word, they'll give us trouble. Alcalde
Leavenworth's too careless by half."
Stanley, paying scant attention, suddenly leaned forward in his saddle.
At one of the windows a curtain was drawn back; a woman's face appeared
for a moment silhouetted against inner light; then as swiftly withdrew.
"Who was that?" asked Adrian, involuntarily reining in his mount.
"Not--"
"Rosa Terranza," said Spear excitedly.
They listened. From within the tent-house came a sound of hasty
movements, whispering. The light winked out. A bolt was shot;
then silence.
"I'll bet, by Jupiter, McTurpin's there," cried Adrian.
"And that he's hurt," Spear added. "What shall we do?"
"Let them be," decided Stanley, clucking to his horse. "My duty's
ahead." He took the steep pitch of the hillside almost at a gallop and
soon they were descending again into that little settlement of waterside
and slope called North Beach. Juana Briones' place had been its pioneer
habitation. Her hospitable gate stood always invitingly open. Through
the branches of a cypress lights could be seen. The front door stood
ajar and about it were whispering women. Adrian's heart leaped. Was
something amiss? He dismounted impetuously, throwing the reins to an
Indian who had come out evidently to do them service. Spear followed as
he rushed through the door. There stood Dona Briones, finger on lip,
demanding silence. Her face was grave.
"How--how is she? How is Inez?" Adrian stammered.
"The doctor's with her. Everything will be all right, I think. But make
no noise. Go in that room and sit down."
Adrian threw up his hands. "My God, woman! How can I sit still
when--when--?"
"Walk up and down, then," said Juana, "but take off your shoes."
Which Adrian finally did. It seemed to him that he had paced the tiny
chamber a thousand times. He heard movements, voices in the next room;
now and then his wife's moan and the elder woman's soothing accents.
Then a silence which seemed century long, a silence fraught with
unimaginable terror. It was broken by a new sound, high pitched, feeble,
but distinct; the cry of a child. Helplessly Adrian subsided into a
chair beside Nathan Spear. "Do you hear that?" he asked, mopping
his forehead.
"Yes, I heard it," said the other non-committally.
"I can't stand this any longer," Adrian exclaimed. "I'm going in there.
I--I've got to know--"
He rose, determinedly, shaking off Spear's detaining arm. In the doorway
stood Dr. Jones. Again came the tiny cry. "It's a boy," said the medico,
and held out his hand.
But Adrian caught him by the shoulders. "My wife?" he asked. "How is
she? Is there any--"
"Danger? No, it's over," said the doctor. "Sit down and calm yourself."
Adrian relaxed a trifle. Finally his set face softened; he laughed.
* * * * *
It was the evening of July 14, 1849. Stanley stood over the cradle of
his son, looking worshipfully down at the tiny sleeping face. Inez
Stanley, busied with the varied tasks of motherhood, came and stood for
a moment beside him. She voiced that platitude of wives and mothers in
their pride: "He looks just like you, Adrian."
Stanley put his hands upon her shoulders. "Got your mouth, your big
eyes," he said, and kissed her.
They were wont to quarrel tenderly over this. But tonight Inez looked
seriously up at her husband. Suddenly she hid her face upon
his shoulder.
"If only--if only--" she whispered, "he wouldn't grow up. And we
wouldn't grow old."
Stanley's fingers on her hair stroked gently. "Life is life, my dear,"
he said at last. "Let us not question the inexorable too deeply.
Yesterday is gone, you know. Tomorrow never comes.... And here we are
together in the best town in the world. With love, good prospects ...
our little Francisco--"
"He will live to see a great city," said Inez, comforted. "He will help
to make it." Her eyes were prophetic. The child stirred and hastily they
withdrew, lowering the light so that his slumber might be undisturbed. A
light tap sounded at the door and Adrian answered.
Spear and Brannan with Benito stood upon the threshold. The latter
entered, kissed his sister and was shown the sleeping child. "How is
Alice?" Inez asked.
"Well. And the best little wife in the world," Benito answered. His eyes
glowed happily. "The tiny Francisco is growing like a weed. Only ten
months old--"
"Nine months, two weeks and three days," said his mother, glibly. "Won't
you all come in and see the baby?" she invited.
"No," Spear answered. "We must steal your husband for a' little while.
There's business at the City Hall...."
"Adrian's become a prominent citizen, you know," he added at her look of
pouting protest.
She brought her husband's hat. "Don't be long," she urged, and smiled a
good-bye from the threshold. When he heard the door shut, Adrian turned
on Brannan. "What's up?"
"Plenty," said the other meaningly. "The Hounds have broken out. They
looted Little Chili about dark tonight and one of them was shot. They
threaten to burn the foreign quarter. They're arming. There's
trouble afoot."
"And what do you want of me?" Stanley questioned.
"Damn it! Wake up, man!" cried Spear. "A citizens' committee. We're
going to enforce the law--if it takes a rope."
CHAPTER XXIV
THE CHAOS OF '49
Inez and Alice were returning from church on Sunday, July 15 when they
encountered a strange, unsabbatical procession; a company of grim and
tight-lipped citizens marching, rifles over shoulder toward the Bay. At
their head was William Spofford. Midway of the parade were a dozen
rough-appearing fellows, manacled and guarded. Among these Inez
recognized Sam Roberts, gaunt and bearded leader of the hoodlum band
known as The Hounds or Regulars. From Little Chili, further to the north
and west, rose clouds of smoke; now and then a leaping tongue of flame.
Presently Benito, musket at shoulder, came marching by and Inez plucked
at his arm.
"Can't stop now," he told her hurriedly. "We're taking these rogues to
the sloop Warren. They're to be tried for arson and assault in the
foreign quarter."
"By the Eternal!" shouted a bystander enthusiastically. "We've got Law
in San Francisco at last.... Hurrah for Bill Spofford and the Citizens'
Committee."
"There's Adrian," cried Inez as the rearguard of the pageant passed.
"Isn't it fine? Alice, aren't you proud?"
But Alice was a practical little body. "They'll be hungry when they come
home," she averred. "Let us hurry back and get their dinner ready."
[Illustration: Passersby who laughed at the inscription witnessed
simultaneously the rescue of an almost-submerged donkey by means of an
improvised derrick.]
The affair of The Hounds was already past history when the gold-seekers,
hunted from the heights by early snows, returned to San Francisco in
great numbers. Sara Roberts and his evil band had been deported.
Better government obtained but there were many other civic problems
still unsolved. San Francisco, now a hectic, riotous metropolis of
25,000 inhabitants, was like a muddy Venice, for heavy rains had made
its unpaved streets canals of oozy mud. At Clay and Kearny streets, in
the heart of the business district, some wag had placed a
placard reading:
THIS STREET IS IMPASSABLE
NOT EVEN JACKASSABLE
In which there was both truth and poetry. Passersby who laughed at the
inscription witnessed simultaneously the rescue of an almost-submerged
donkey by means of an improvised derrick.
* * * * *
Benito was showing his friend David Broderick, a recent arrival from New
York, some of San Francisco's sights. "Everything is being used to
bridge the crossings," said the former laughingly ... "stuff that came
from those deserted ships out in the bay. Their masts are like a
forest--hundreds of them."
"You mean their crew deserted during the gold rush?" Broderick inquired.
"Yes, even the skippers and officers in many cases.... See, here is a
cargo of sieves with which some poor misguided trader overwhelmed the
market. They make a fair crossing, planted in the mud. And there are
stepping stones of tobacco boxes--never been opened, mind you--barrels
of tainted pork and beef. On Montgomery street is a row of cook stoves
which make a fine sidewalk, though, sometimes the mud covers them."
"And what are those two brigs doing stranded in the mud?" asked
Broderick.
"Oh, those are the Euphemia and Apollo. They use the first one for a
jail. That's Geary's scheme. He's full of business. And the second's a
tavern.... Let's go up to the new post-office. Alice is always eager
for a letter from her folks in Massachusetts."
They made their way to the new wooden structure at Clay and Pike streets
where several clerks were busily sorting the semi-weekly mail which had
just arrived. Hundreds of people stood in long queues before each of the
windows. "Get in line stranger," said a red-shirted man laughingly.
"Only seventy-five ahead of us. I counted 'em.... Some have been in line
since last night I'm told. They're up near the front and holding places
for others ... getting $20 cash for their time."
Broderick and Benito decided not to wait. They made another journey
round the town, watching Chinese builders erecting long rows of
habitations that had come in sections from Cathay. Everywhere was hasty,
feverish construction--flimsy houses going up like mushrooms over night
to meet the needs of San Francisco's swiftly augmenting populace.
"It's like a house of cards," said Broderick, who had been a fireman in
New York. "Lord help us if it ever starts to burn. Even our drinking
water comes from Sausalito across the Bay."
CHAPTER XXV
RETRIEVING A BIRTHRIGHT
Benito Windham stole from his dwelling, closing the door softly after
him so Alice, his wife, might not wake. A faint rose dawn colored the
Contra Costa ridge. From a few of the huts and larger buildings which
sprinkled San Francisco's hills and hollows so haphazardly, curls of
blue white wood smoke rose into the windless air. Here and there some
belated roisterer staggered toward his habitation. But otherwise all was
still, quicscent. San Francisco slept.
It was the morning of December 24, 1849--the first Christmas eve
following the gold rush. Windham, who had lain awake since midnight,
pondered upon this and other things. Events had succeeded each other
with such riotous activity of late that life seemed more like a dream
than a reality. His turbulent months at the mines, his high preliminary
hopes of fortune, their gradual waning to a slow despair; the advent of
James Burthen and his daughter; then love, his partner's murder and the
girl's abduction; his pursuit and illness. Alice's rescue and their
marriage; his return to find the claim covered with snow; finally a
clerical post in San Francisco.
A sudden distaste for the feverish, riotous town assailed him--a longing
for the peace and beauty of those broad paternal acres he had lost upon
the gaming table wrenched his heart.
He pictured Alice in the old rose patio, where his American father had
wooed his Spanish mother.
Involuntarily his steps turned eastward. At Sacramento and Leidesdorff
streets he left solid ground to tread a four-foot board above the water,
to the theoretical line of Sansome street; thence south upon a similar
foothold to the solid ground of Bush street, where an immense sand-*hill
with a hollow in its middle, like a crater, struck across the path. Some
called this depression Thieves Hollow, for in it deserting sailors,
ticket-of-leave men from Botany Bay prison colony and all manner of
human riff-raff consorted for nefarious intrigue.
Benito, mounting the slope, looked down at a welter of tents, shacks,
deck houses and galleys of wrecked ships. He had expected their
occupants to be asleep, for they were nighthawks who reversed man's
usual order in the prosecution of nocturnal and ill-favored trades. He
was astonished to note a general activity. At the portholes of dwellings
retrieved from the wreck of the sea, unkempt bearded faces stared; smoke
leaped from a dozen rickety, unstable chimneys, and in the open several
groups of men and women plied frying pans and coffee pots over
driftwood fires.
Benito observed them with a covert interest. A black-browed man with a
shaggy beard and something leonine about him, seemed the master of the
chief of this godless band. He moved among them, giving orders, and with
two companions finally ascended to the top. Benito, concealing himself
behind a scrub oak, watched them, animatedly conversing, as they
descended and picked their way inland toward the Square. So swift their
movements and so low their tones he could not make out the tenor of
their discourse. He caught the words, "like tow," but that was all.
Musingly, he went on.
Up the broad and muddy path to Market street, thence west again to
Third, he made his way. Now south to Mission and once more west, a
favored route for caballeros. Benito had never traveled it before afoot.
But his horse had succumbed to the rigors of that frantic ride in
pursuit of Alice and McTurpin several months ago. Mounts were a
luxury now.
He skirted the edge of a lagoon that stretched from Sixth to Eighth
streets and on the ascent beyond observed a tiny box-like habitation,
brightly painted, ringed with flowers and crowned with an imposing
flagpole from which floated the Star-Spangled Banner. It was a note of
gay melody struck athwart the discordant monotony of soiled tent houses,
tumble-down huts and oblong, flat-roofed buildings stretching their
disorderly array along the road. Coming closer he saw the name,
"Pipesville," printed on the door, and knew that this must be the
"summer home," as it was called, of San Francisco's beloved minstrel,
Stephen Massett, otherwise "Jeems Pipes of Pipesville," singer, player,
essayist and creator of those wondrous one-man concerts dear to all the
countryside.
"Jeems" himself appeared in the doorway to wave a greeting and Benito
went on oddly cheered by the encounter. In front of the Mansion House,
adjoining Mission Dolores, stood Bob Ridley, talking with his partner.
"You look warm, son," he remarked paternally to Windham, "let me mix you
up a milk punch and you'll feel more like yourself. Where's your boss
and whither are ye bound?"
"Died," Benito answered. "Going to my--to the ranch."
"Thought so," Ridley said. "I hear there's no one on it. Why not steal a
march on that tin-horn gambler and scallawag. Rally up some friends and
take possession. That's nine points of the law, my boy, and a half-dozen
straight-shooting Americans is nine hundred more, now that Geary's
alcalde and that weak-kneed psalm-singing Leavenworth's resigned
under fire."
"You're sure--there's no one at the place?" Benito questioned.
"Pretty sure. But what's it matter? Everybody knows it's yours by
rights. Wait," he cried, excitedly. "I'll get horses. Stuart and I will
go along. We'll pick up six or seven bully boys along the way. Is it
a go?"
"A go!" exclaimed Benito, his eyes ashine. "You--you're too good, Bob
Ridley." He pressed the other's hand. "My wife," he mused, "among the
roses in the patio! The old home, Dear God! Let it come true!"
An hour later ten men galloped through the gate of the Windham rancho.
No one offered them resistance. It had the look of a place long
abandoned. Dead leaves and litter everywhere. All of the animals had
been driven off--sold, no doubt. The hacienda had been ransacked of its
valuables. It was almost bare of furniture. The rose court, neglected,
unkempt, brought back a surge of memories. A chimney had fallen; broken
adobe bricks lay scattered on the grass.
But to Benito it spelled home. For him and for Alice. This should be his
Christmas gift. Old Antonio, his former major-domo, lingered still in
San Francisco. He would send him out this very day to set the place in
order. Tomorrow he and Alice would ride--his brow clouded. He should
have to borrow two horses. No matter. Tomorrow they would ride--
A startled exclamation from Bob Ridley roused him from his rhapsody.
"Benito, come here! Look! What the devil is that?"
From their eminence the town of San Francisco was plainly visible; tall,
thin shafts of smoke rising straight and black from many chimneys; the
blue bay shimmering in the morning sunshine; the curious fretwork
shadows of that great flotilla of deserted ships. But there was
something more; something startlingly unnatural; a great pillar of black
vapor--beneath it a livid red thing that leaped and grew.
"Good God! The town's afire!" cried Benito.
CHAPTER XXVI
FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!
Benito's first thought was of Alice. He had left her sleeping. Perhaps
she had not yet awakened, for the morning was young. Adrian had gone to
San Jose the previous afternoon. His wife, his sister and her child
would be alone.
Benito sprang upon his horse; the others followed. In less than half an
hour they crossed Market street and were galloping down Kearny toward
the Square. At California street they were halted by a crowd, pushing,
shouting, elbowing this way and that without apparent or concerted
purpose. Above the human babel sounded a vicious crackle of burning wood
like volleys of shots from small rifles. Red and yellow flames shot high
and straight into the air. Now and then a gust of wind sent the licking
fire demon earthward, and before its hot breath people fled in panic.
Benito flung his reins to a bystander. He was scarcely conscious of his
movements; only that he was fighting for breath in a surging,
suffocating press of equally excited human beings. From this he finally
emerged, hatless, disheveled, into a small cleared space filled with
flying sparks and stifling heat. Across it men rushed feverishly
carrying pails of water. Dennison's Exchange on Kearny street, midway of
the block facing Portsmouth Square, was a roaring furnace. Flame sprang
like red, darting tongues from its windows and thrust impertinent
fingers here and there through the sloping roof.
Somewhere--no one seemed to know precisely--a woman screamed, "My baby!
Save my baby!" The sound died to a moan, was stilled. Benito, passing a
bucket along the line, stared, white faced, at his neighbor. "What was
that?" he asked.
"Quien sabe?" said the other, "hurry along with that pail. The roof's
falling."
It was true. The shingle-covered space above the burning building
stirred gently, undulating like some wind-ruffled pond. The mansard
windows seemed to bow to the watchers, then slowly sink forward. With a
roar, the whole roof sprang into fire, buckled, collapsed; the veranda
toppled. Smoke poured from the eight mansard windows of the Parker
House, next door. South of the Parker House were single-storied
buildings, one of wood, another of adobe; the first was a restaurant;
over its roof several foreign-looking men spread rugs and upon them
poured a red liquid.
"It's wine," Bob Ridley said. "But they'll never save it. Booker's store
is going, too. Looks like a clean sweep of the block."
Broderick's commanding figure could be seen rushing hither and thither.
"No use," Benito heard him say to one of his lieutenants. "Water won't
stop it. Not enough.... Is there any powder hereabouts?"
"Powder!" cried the other with a blanching face. "By the Eternal, yes! A
store of it is just around the corner. Mustn't let the fire reach--"
Broderick cut him short. "Go and get it. You and two others. Blow up or
pull down that building," he indicated a sprawling ramshackle structure
on the corner.
"But it's mine," one of the fire-fighters wailed. "Cost me ten thousand
dollars--"
Fiercely Broderick turned upon him. "It'll cost the town ten millions if
you don't hurry," he bellowed. "You can't save it, anyhow. Do you want
the whole place to burn?"
[Illustration: Broderick's commanding figure was seen rushing hither and
thither.... "You and two others. Blow up or pull down that building," he
indicated a sprawling, ramshackle structure.]
"All right, all right, Cap. Don't shoot," the other countered with a
sudden laugh. "Come on, boys, follow me." Benito watched him and the
others presently returning with three kegs. They dived into the building
indicated. Presently, with the noise of a hundred cannon, the corner
building burst apart. Sticks and bits of plaster flew everywhere. The
crowd receded, panic-stricken.
"Good work!" cried the fire marshal.
It seemed, indeed, as though the flames were daunted. The two small
structures were blazing now. The Parker House, reeling drunkenly,
collapsed.
Unexpectedly a gust of wind sent fire from the ruins of Dennison's
Exchange northward. It reached across the open space and flung a rain of
sparks down Washington street toward Montgomery. Instantly there came an
answering crackle, and exasperated fire-fighters rushed to meet the
latest sortie of their enemy. Once more three men, keg laden, made their
way through smoke and showering brands. Again the deafening report
reverberated and the crowd fell back, alarmed.
Someone grasped Benito's arm and shook it violently. He turned and
looked into the feverishly questioning eyes of Adrian Stanley.
"I've just returned," the other panted. "Tell me, is all well--with
Inez? The women?"
"Don't know," said Benito, half bewildered. The woman's wail for a lost
child leaped terrifyingly into his recollection. His hand went up as if
to ward off something. "Don't know," he repeated. "Wasn't home
when--fire started."
It came to him weirdly that he was talking like a drunken man; that
Adrian eyed him with a sharp disfavor. "Where the devil were you, then?"
"At the ranch," he answered. Suddenly he laughed. It all seemed very
funny. He had meant to give his wife a Christmas present; later he had
ridden madly to her rescue, yet here he was passing buckets in a fire
brigade. And Adrian, regarding him with suspicion, accusing him silently
with his eyes.
"You take the pail," he cried. "You fight the fire." And while Stanley
looked puzzledly after him, Benito charged through a circle of
spectators up the hill. He did not know that his face was almost black;
that his eyebrows and the little foreign moustache of which they had
made fun at the mines was charred and grizzled. He knew only that Alice
might be in danger. That the fire might have spread west as well as east
and north.
As he sped up Washington street another loud explosion drummed against
his ears. A shout followed it. Benito neither knew nor cared for its
significance. Five minutes later he stumbled across his own doorsill,
calling his wife's name. There was no answer. Frenziedly he shouted
"Alice! Alice!" till at last a neighbor answered him.
"She and Mrs. Stanley and the baby went to Preacher Taylor's house. Is
the fire out?"
"No," returned Benito. Once more he plunged down hill, seized a bucket
and began the interminable passing of water. He looked about for Adrian
but did not see him. He became a machine, dully, persistently,
desperately performing certain ever-repeated tasks.
Hours seemed to pass. Then, of a sudden, something interrupted the
accustomed trend. He held out his hands and no bucket met it. With a
look of stupid surprise he stared at the man behind him. He continued to
hold out his hand.
"Wake up," cried the other, and gave him a whack across the shoulders.
"Wake up, Benito, man. The fire's out."
Robert Parker, whose hotel was a litter of smoking timbers, and Tom
Maguire, owner of what once had been the Eldorado gambling house, were
discussing their losses.
"Busted?" Parker asked.
"Cleaned!" Maguire answered.
"Goin' to rebuild?"
"Yep. And you?"
"Sartin. Sure. Soon as I can get the lumber and a loan."
"Put her there, pard."
Their hands met with a smack.
"That's the spirit of San Francisco," Ridley remarked. "Well we've
learned a lesson. Next time we'll be ready for this sort of thing.
Broderick's planning already for an engine company."
"I reckon," Adrian commented as he joined the group, "a vigilance
committee is what we need even more."
To this Benito made no answer. Into his mind flashed a memory of the
trio that had left Thieves' Hollow at daybreak.
CHAPTER XXVII
POLITICS AND A WARNING
Benito Windham rose reluctantly and stretched himself. It was very
comfortable in the living-room of the ranch house, where a fire crackled
in the huge stone grate built by his grandfather's Indian artisans. Many
of the valuable tapestries imported from Spain had been removed by
McTurpin during his tenure, but even bare adobe walls were cheerful in
the light of blazing logs, and rugs of native weave accorded well with
the simple mission furniture. In a great chair that almost swallowed her
sat Alice, gazing dreamily into the embers. Family portraits hung upon
the wall, and one of these, stiff and haughty in the regimentals of a
soldado de cuero, seemed to look down upon the domestic picture with a
certain austere benignity. This was the painting of Francisco Garvez of
hidalgo lineage, who had stood beside Ortega, the Pathfinder, when that
honored scout of Portola had found the bay of San Francisco and the
Golden Gate.
"Carissima, how he would have loved you, that old man!" Benito's tone
was dreamy.
Alice Windham turned. "You are like him, Benito," she said fondly.
"There is the same flash in your eye. Come, sit for awhile by the fire.
It's so cosy when it storms."
Benito kissed her. "I would that I might, but today there is an election
in the city," he reminded. "I must go to vote. Perhaps I can persuade
the good Broderick to dine with us this evening; or Brannan--though he
is so busy nowadays. Often I look about unconsciously for Nathan Spear.
It seems impossible that he is dead."
"He was 47, but he seemed so young," commented Alice. She rose hastily.
"You must be very careful, dear," she cautioned, with a swift anxiety,
"of the cold and wet--and of the hoodlums. They tell me there are many.
Every week one reads in the _Alta_ that So-and-So was killed at the
Eldorado or the Verandah. Never more than that. In my home in the East
they would call it murder. There would be a great commotion; the
assassin would be hanged."
"Ah, yes; but this is a new country," he said, a little lamely.
"Will there never be law in San Francisco?" Alice asked him,
passionately. "I have not forgotten--how my father died."
Benito's face went suddenly white. "Nor I," he said, with an odd
intensity; "there are several things ... that you may trust me ... to
remember."
"You mean," she queried in alarm, "McTurpin?"
Benito's mood changed. "There, my dear." He put an arm about her
shoulders soothingly. "Don't worry. I'll be careful; neither storm nor
bullets shall harm me. I will promise you that."
* * * * *
Early as it was in the day's calendar--for San Francisco had no knack of
rising with the sun--Benito found the town awake, intensely active when
he picked his way along the edge of those dangerous bogs that passed for
business streets. Several polling places had been established. Toward
each of them, lines of citizens converged in patient single-file
detachments that stretched usually around the corner and the length of
another block. Official placards announced that all citizens of the
United States were entitled to the ballot and beneath one of these, a
wag had written with white chalk in a large and sprawling hand:
"No Chinese Coolies in Disguise Need Apply."
No one seemed to mind the rain, though a gale blew from the sea, causing
a multitude of tents to sway and flap in dangerous fashion. Now and
then a canvas habitation broke its moorings and went racing down the
hill, pursued by a disheveled and irate occupant, indulging in the most
violent profanity.
At Kearny and Sacramento streets Benito, approaching the voting station,
was told to get in line by Charley Elleard, the town constable. Elleard
rode his famous black pony. This pony was the pet of the town and had
developed a sagacity nearly human. It was considered wondrous sport to
give the little animal a "two-bit" piece, which it would gravely hold
between its teeth and present to the nearest bootblack, placing its
forefeet daintily upon the footrests for a "shine."
As he neared the polls in the slow succession of advancing voters,
Benito was beset by a rabble of low-voiced, rough-dressed men, who
thrust their favorite tickets into his hands and bade him vote as
indicated, often in a threatening manner. Raucously they tried to cry
each other down. "Here's for Geary and the good old council," one would
shout. "Geary and his crowd forever."
"We've had the old one too long," a red-shirted six-footer bellowed.
"Fresh blood for me. We want sidewalks and clean streets."
This provoked a chorus of "Aye! Aye! That's the ticket, pard," until a
satirical voice exclaimed, "Clean streets and sidewalks! Gor a'mighty.
He's dreamin' o' Heaven!"
A roar of laughter echoed round the town at this sally. It was repeated
everywhere. The campaign slogan was hastily dropped.
At the polling desk Benito found himself behind a burly Kanaka sailor,
dark as an African.
"I contest his vote," cried one of the judges. "If he's an American, I'm
a Hottentot."
"Where were you born?" asked the challenging judge of election.
"New York," whispered a voice in the Kanaka's ear, and he repeated the
word stammeringly. "Where was your father born?" came the second
question, and again the word was repeated. "What part of New York?"
"New York, New York." The answer was parrot-like. Someone laughed.
"Ask him what part of the Empire State he hails from?" suggested
another. The question was put in simpler form, but it proved too much
for the Islander. He stammered, stuttered, waved his hand uncertainly
toward the ocean. Perceiving that he was the butt of public jest, he
broke out of the line and made off as fast as his long legs could
transport him.
The man whose whispered promptings had proved unavailing, fell sullenly
into the background, after venomous glance at the successful objector.
Benito caught his eyes under the dripping crown of a wide-brimmed slouch
hat. They seemed to him vaguely familiar. Almost instinctively his hand
sought the pocket in which his derringer reposed. Then, with a laugh, he
dismissed the matter. He had no quarrel with the fellow; that murderous
look was aimed at Henry Mellus, not at him. So he cast his ballot
and went out.
Opposite the Square he paused to note the progress of rehabilitation in
the burned area. It was less than a fortnight since he had stood there
feverishly passing buckets of water in a fight against the flames, but
already most of the evidences of conflagration were hidden behind the
framework of new buildings. The Eldorado announced a grand opening in
the "near future"; Maguire's Jenny Lind Theater notified one in
conspicuous letters, "We Will Soon Be Ready for Our Patrons, Bigger and
Grander Than Ever."
Benito nodded to Robert Parker, whose hotel was rising, phoenix-like
from its ashes.
"Things are coming along," he said with a gesture toward the buildings.
"Have you seen anything of Dave Broderick?"
Parker shook the rain-drops from his hat. "Saw him going toward the
Bella Union," he replied. "They say he's as good as elected. A fine
State senator he'll make, too." Taking Benito's arm, he walked with him
out of earshot of those nearby.
"Benito," his tone was grave. "They tell me you've resumed possession of
your ranch."
"Yes," confirmed the younger. "Half a dozen of my old servants are there
with Mrs. Windham and myself. I've bought a little stock on credit and
all's going well."
For a moment Parker said nothing; then, almost in Benito's ear, he spoke
a warning: "Do you know that McTurpin is back?"
CHAPTER XXVIII
ON THE TRAIL OF McTURPIN
Benito, in a mood of high excitement, strode uphill toward the Bella
Union, pondering the significance of Parker's startling information.
So McTurpin had come back.
He had been about to ask for further details when one of the hurrying
workmen called his informant away. After all it did not matter much just
how or when the gambler had returned. They were sure to meet sooner or
later. Once more Windham's hand unconsciously sought the pistol in his
pocket. At the entrance of the Bella Union he halted, shook the rain
from his hat, scraped the mud from his feet upon a pile of gunnysacks
which served as doormats, and went into the brilliant room. Since the
temporary closing of the Eldorado, this place had become the most
elegant and crowded of the city's gaming palaces. A mahogany bar
extended the length of the building; huge hanging lamps surrounded by
ornate clusters of prisms lent an air of jeweled splendor which the
large mirrors and pyramids of polished glasses back of the counter
enhanced. On a platform at the rear were several Mexican musicians in
rich native costumes twanging gaily upon guitars and mandolins. Now and
then one of them sang, or a Spanish dancer pirouetted, clicking her
castanets and casting languishing glances at the ring of auditors about
her. These performers were invariably showered with coins. Tables of all
sizes filled the center of the room from the long roulette board to the
little round ones where drinks were served. Faro, monte, roulette, rouge
et noir, vingt-un, chuck-a-luck and poker: each found its disciples;
now and then a man went quietly out and another took his place; there
was nothing to indicate that he had lost perhaps thousands of dollars,
the "clean-up" of a summer of hardships at the mines. A bushy bearded
miner boasted that he had won $40,000 and lost it again in an hour and a
half. Henry Mellus offered him work as a teamster and the
other accepted.
"Easy come, easy go," he commented philosophically and, lighting his
pipe from one of the sticks of burning punk placed at intervals along
the bar, he went out.
In an out-of-the-way corner, where the evening's noise and activity
ebbed and flowed a little more remotely, Benito discovered Broderick
chewing an unlighted cigar and discussing the probabilities of election
with John Geary. They hailed him cordially, but in a little while Geary
drifted off to learn further news of the polls.
"And how is the charming Mrs. Windham?" asked Broderick.
"Well and happy, thank you," said Benito. "She loves the old place.
Cannot you dine with us there tonight?"
"With real pleasure," Broderick returned. "In this raw, boisterous place
a chance to enjoy a bit of home life, to talk with a high-bred woman is
more precious than gold."
Benito bowed. "It is not often that we have a Senator for a guest," he
returned, smiling.
Broderick placed a hand upon his shoulder almost paternally. "I hope
that is prophetic, Benito," he said. "I'm strangely serious about it.
This town has taken hold of me--your San Francisco."
They turned to greet Sam Brannan, now a candidate for the ayuntamiento
or town council. "How goes it, Sam?" asked Broderick.
"Well enough," responded Brannan. He looked tired, irritated. "There's
been a conspiracy against us by the rowdy element, but I think we've
beaten them now."
Broderick's brow clouded. "We need a better government; a more
effective system of police, Sam," he said, striking his first against
the table.
"What we need," said Brannan, "is a citizens' society of public safety;
a committee of vigilance. And, mark my word, we're going to have 'em.
There's more than one who suspects the town was set afire last
December."
"But," said Broderick, "mob rule is dangerous. The constituted
authorities must command. They are the ones to uphold the law."
"But what if they don't?" Brannan's aggressive chin was thrust forward.
"What then?"
"They must be made to; but authority should not be overthrown. That's
revolution."
"And where, may I ask, would human liberty be today if there'd never
been a revolution?" Brannan countered.
Benito left them. He had no stomach for such argument, though he was to
hear much more of it in years to come. Suddenly he recalled the man who
had tried to coach the Kanaka; who had glared so murderously at Mellus.
Those eyes had been familiar; something about them had made him grip his
pistol, an impulse at which afterward he had laughed. But now he knew
the reason for that half-involuntary action. Despite the beard and
mustache covering the lower portion of his face completely; despite the
low-pulled hat, the disguising ulster, he knew the man.
McTurpin.
The hot Spanish temper which he had never entirely mastered, flamed like
a scorching blast across Benito's mind. He saw again McTurpin smiling as
he won by fraud the stake at cards which he had laid against Benito's
ranch; he seemed to hear again the gambler's sneering laugh as he, his
father and Adrian had been ambushed at the entrance of his home; in his
recollection burned the fellow's insult to his sister; the abduction of
Alice, his wife; the murder of his partner. He was certain that
McTurpin had somehow been at the bottom of it. Swiftly he was lost to
all reason. He took the weapon from his pocket, examined it carefully to
make certain that the caps were unimpaired by moisture. Then he
set forth.
At the polling station he made casual inquiries, but the ballot-box
stuffer for some time had not been seen.
"Charley Elleard ran him off, I think," said Frank Ward, laughing. "He'd
have voted Chinamen and Indians if he'd had his way. But if you're
looking for the rascal try the gambling house at Long Wharf and
Montgomery street; that's where his kind hang out."
Later in the spring of 1850 Montgomery street was graded. Now it was a
sloping streak of mud, the western side of which was several feet above
the other. Where Long Wharf, which was to be cut through and called
Commercial street, intersected, or rather bisected Montgomery, stood a
large building with a high, broad roof. Its eaves projected over a row
of benches, and here, sheltered somewhat from the rain, a group of
Mexicans and Chilenos lounged in picturesque native costumes, smoking
cigarettes. Through the door came a rollicking melody--sailor tunes
played by skillful performers--and a hum of converse punctuated by the
click of chips and coin. Benito entered. The room was blue with
cigarette smoke, its score of tables glimpsed as through a fog. Sawdust
covered the floor and men of all nationalities mingled quietly enough at
play of every kind. A stream of men came and went to and from the gaming
boards and bar.
Benito ordered a drink, and surveyed the room searchingly. The man he
sought was not in evidence. "Is McTurpin here?" he asked the bartender.
If that worthy heard, he made no answer; but a slight, agile man with
sly eyes looked up from a nearby table, "What d'ye want of him,
stranger?"
An arrogant retort sprang to Benito's lips, but he checked it. He bent
toward the questioner confidentially. "I've news for Alec," he
whispered; "news he ought to know--and quickly."
CHAPTER XXIX
THE SQUATTER CONSPIRACY
Instantly the slight man rose. He had narrow eyes, shrewd and
calculating and the sinuous motions of a contortionist. Linking his arm
with Benito's, he smiled, disclosing small, discolored teeth. There was
something ratlike about him, infinitely repellant. "Come, I'll tyke ye
to 'im," he volunteered.
But this did not suit Benito's purpose. "I must go alone," he said
emphatically.
The other eyed him with suspicion. "Then find him alone," he countered,
sullenly. But a moment later he was plucking at Benito's elbow. "What's
it all abaout, this 'ere news? Cawn't ye tell a fellow? Give me an
inklin'; trust me and I'll trust you; that's business."
Benito hesitated. "It's about the ranch," he returned at a venture.
"Ow, the rawnch. Well, you needn't 'ave been so bloody sly about it.
Alec isn't worried much abaout the rawnch. 'E's bigger fish to fry. But
you can see 'im if you wants. 'E's at the Broken Bottle Tavern up in
Sydney Town."
They had a drink together; then Benito parted from his informant,
ruminating over what the little man, so palpably a "Sydney Duck,"
had told him.
Benito surveyed his reflection in a glass. In his rain-bedraggled attire
he might pass for one of the Sydney Ducks himself. His boots were
splashed with mud, his scrape wrinkled and formless. He pulled the
dripping hat into a disheveled slouch, low down on his forehead.
McTurpin had not seen him with a beard, had failed to recognize him at
the polling station. Benito decided to risk it.
* * * * *
One of the largest and most pretentious of Sydney Town's "pubs," or
taverns, was The Broken Bottle, kept by a former English pugilist from
Botany Bay. He was known as Bruiser Jake, could neither read nor write
and was shaped very much like a log, his neck being as large as his
head. It was said that the Australian authorities had tried to hang him
several times, but failed because the noose slipped over his chin and
ears, refusing its usual function. So he finally had been given a
"ticket of leave" and had come to California. Curiously enough the
Bruiser never drank. He prided himself on his sobriety and the great
strength of his massive hands in which he could squeeze the water out of
a potato. Ordinarily he was not quarrelsome, though he fought like a
tiger when aroused.
Benito found this worthy behind his bar and asked for a drink of English
ale, a passable quality of which was served in the original imported
bottles at most public houses.
The Bruiser watched him furtively with little piglike eyes. "And who
might ye be, stranger?" he asked when Benito set down his glass.
"'Awkins--that's as good a nyme as another," said Benito, essaying the
cockney speech. "And what ye daon't know won't 'urt you, my friend." He
threw down a silver piece, took the bottle and glass with him and sat
down at a table near the corner. Hard by he had glimpsed the familiar
broad back of McTurpin.
At first the half-whispered converse of the trio at the adjoining table
was incomprehensible to his ears, but after a time he caught words,
phrases, sentences.
First the word "squatters" reached him, several times repeated; then,
"at Rincon." Finally, "the best lots in the city can be held."
After that for a time he lost the thread of the talk. An argument
arose, and, in its course, McTurpin's voice was raised incautiously.
"Who's to stop us?" he contended, passionately. "The old alcalde grants
aren't worth the paper they're written on. Haven't squatters
dispossessed the Spaniards all over California? Didn't they take the San
Antonio ranch in Oakland, defend it with cannon, and put old Peralta in
jail for bothering them with his claims of ownership?" He laughed. "It's
a rare joke, this land business. If we squat on the Rincon, who'll
dispossess us? Answer me that."
"But it's government ground. It's leased to Ted Shillaber," one
objected.
"To the devil with Shillaber," McTurpin answered. "He won't know we're
going to squat till we've put up our houses. And when he comes we'll
quote him squatter law. He can buy us off if he likes. It'll cost him
uncommon high. He can fight us in the courts and we'll show him squatter
justice. We've our friends in the courts, let me tell you."
"Aye, mayhap," returned a lanky, red-haired sailor, "but there's them o'
us, like you and me and Andy, yonder, what isn't hankerin' for courts."
McTurpin leaned forward, and his voice diminished so that Benito could
scarcely hear his words. "Don't be afraid," he said. "I've got my men
selected for the Rincon business, a full dozen of 'em ... all with clean
records, mind ye. Nothing against them." He pounded the table with his
fist by way of emphasis. "And when we've done old Shillaber, we'll come
in closer. We'll claim lots that are worth fifty thou--" He paused. His
tone sank even lower, so that some of his sentence was lost.
It was at this juncture that Benito sneezed. He had felt the approach of
that betraying reflex for some minutes, but had stifled it. Those who
have tried this under similar circumstances know the futility of such
attempts; know the accumulated fury of sound with which at length
bursts forth the startling, terrible and irrepressible
"Ker-CHEW!"
McTurpin and his two companions wheeled like lightning. "Who's this?"
the gambler snarled. He took a step toward the Bruiser. "Who the devil
let him in to spy on us?"
"Aw, stow it, Alec!" said the former fighter. "'E's no spy. 'E's one o'
our lads from the bay. Hi can tell by 'is haccent."
Benito rose. His hand crept toward the derringer, but McTurpin was
before him. "Don't try that, blast you!" he commanded. "Now, my friend,
let's have a look at you.... By the Eternal! It's young Windham!"
"The cove you don hout o' his rawnch?" asked the Bruiser, curiously.
"Shut up, you fool!" roared the gambler. His face was white with fury.
"What are you doing here?" he asked Benito.
"Getting some points on--er--land holding," said Windham. He was
perfectly calm. Several times this man had overawed, outwitted, beaten
him. Now, though he was in the enemy's country, surrounded by cutthroats
and thieves, he felt suddenly the master of the situation. Perhaps it
was McTurpin's dismay, perhaps the spur of his own danger. He knew that
there was only one escape, and that through playing on McTurpin's anger.
"A most ingenious scheme, but it'll fail you!"
"And why'll it fail, my young jackanapes?" the gambler blazed at him.
"Do you reckon I'll let you go to give the alarm?"
It was then Benito threw his bombshell. It was but a shrewd guess. Yet
it worked amazingly. "Your plan will fail," he said with slow
distinctness, "because Sam Brennan and Alcalde Geary know you set the
town afire. Because they're going to hang you."
Rage and terror mingled in McTurpin's face. Speechless, paralyzing
wrath that held him open-mouthed a moment. In that moment Windham acted
quickly. He hurled the bottle, still half full of ale, at his
antagonist, missed him by the fraction of an inch and sent the missile
caroming against the Bruiser's ear, thence down among a pyramid of
glasses. There was a shivering tinkle; then the roar as of a maddened
bull. The Bruiser charged. Windham shot twice into the air and fled. He
heard a rending crash behind him, a voice that cried aloud in mortal
pain, a shot. Then, silence.
CHAPTER XXX
"GROWING PAINS"
On the morning of February 28, 1850, Theodore Shillaber, with a number
of friends, made a visit to the former's leased land on the Rincon,
later known as Rincon Hill. Here, on the old government reserve, whose
guns had once flanked Yerba Buena Cove, Shillaber had secured a lease on
a commanding site which he planned to convert into a fashionable
residence section. What was his surprise, then, to find the scenic
promontory covered with innumerable rickety and squalid huts. A tall and
muscular young fellow with open-throated shirt and stalwart, hirsute
chest, swaggered toward him, fingering rather carelessly, it seemed to
Shillaber, the musket he held.
"Lookin' for somebody, stranger?" he inquired, meaningly.
Shillaber, somewhat taken aback, inquired by what right the members of
this colony held possession.
"Squatter's rights," returned the large youth, calmly, and spat
uncomfortably near to Shillaber's polished boots.
"And what are squatter's rights, may I ask?" said Shillaber, striving to
control his rising temper.
The youth tapped his rifle barrel. "Anyone that tries to dispossess
us'll soon find out," he returned gruffly, and, turning his back on the
visitors, he strode back toward his cabin.
"Wait," called Shillaber, red with wrath, "I notify you now, in the
presence of witnesses that if you and all your scurvy crew are not gone
bag and baggage within twentyfour hours, I'll have the authorities
dispossess you and throw you into jail for trespassing."
The large young man halted and presented a grinning face to his
threatener. He did not deign to reply, but, as though he had given a
signal, shrill cackles of laughter broke out in a dozen places.
Shillaber, who was a choleric man, shook his fist at them. He was too
angry for speech.
Shillaber had more than his peck of trouble with the Sydney Ducks that
roosted on his land. He sent the town authorities to dispossess them,
but without result. There were too many squatters and too few police.
Next he sent an agent to collect rents, but the man returned with a sore
head and bruised body, minus coin. Shillaber was on the verge of
insanity. He appealed to everyone from the prefect to the governor. In
Sydney Town his antics were the sport of a gay and homogeneous
population and at the public houses one might hear the flouted landlord
rave through the impersonations of half a dozen clever mimics. At The
Broken Bottle a new boniface held forth. Bruiser Jake had mysteriously
disappeared on the evening of election. And with him had vanished Alec
McTurpin, though a sly-eyed little man now and then brought messages
from the absent leader.
In the end Shillaber triumphed, for he persuaded Captain Keyes,
commander at the Presidio, that the squatters were defying Federal law.
Thus, one evening, a squad of cavalry descended upon the Rincon
squatters, scattering them like chaff and demolishing their flimsy
habitations in the twinkling of an eye. But this did not end
squatterism. Some of the evicted took up claims on lots closer in. A
woman's house was burned and she, herself, was driven off. Another woman
was shot while defending her husband's home during his absence.
Meanwhile, San Francisco's streets had been graded and planked. The old
City Hall, proving inadequate, was succeeded by a converted hotel. The
Graham House, a four-story wooden affair of many balconies, at Kearny
and Pacific streets, was now the seat of local government.
For it the council paid the extraordinary sum of $150,000, thereby
provoking a storm of newspaper discussion. Three destructive fires had
ravaged through the cloth and paper districts, and on their ashes more
substantial structures stood.
There was neither law nor order worthy of the name. Only feverish
activity. A newsboy who peddled Altas on the streets made $40,000 from
his operations; another vendor of the Sacramento Union, boasted $30,000
for his pains. A washerwoman left her hut on the lagoon and built a
"mansion." Laundering, enhanced by real estate investments, had given
her a fortune of $100,000.
Social strata were not yet established. Caste was practically unknown.
Former convicts married, settled down, became respected citizens.
Carpenters, bartenders, laborers, mechanics from the East and Middle
West, became bankers, Senators, judges, merchant princes and promoters.
White linen replaced red flannel, bowie knives and revolvers were
sedately hidden beneath frock coats, the vicuna hat was a substitute for
slouch and sombrero.
But, under it all, the fierce, restless heart of San Francisco beat on
unchanged. In it stirred the daring, the lawless adventure, the feverish
ambition and the hair-trigger pride of argonauts from many lands. And in
it burned the deviltry, brutality, licentiousness and greed of criminal
elements freed from the curb of legal discipline.
David Broderick discussed it frequently with Alice Windham. He had
fallen into a habit of coming to the ranch when wearied by affairs of
state. He was a silent, brooding man, robbed somehow of his national
heritage, a sense of humor, for he had Irish blood. He was a man of
fire, implacable as an enemy, inalienable as a friend. And to Alice, as
she sat embroidering or knitting before the fire, he told many of his
dreams, his plans. She would nod her head sagely, giving him her eyes
now and then--eyes that were clear and calm with understanding.
Thus Alice came to know what boded for the town of San Francisco.
"Benito," she said one night, when Broderick had gone, "Benito, my
dearest, will you let me stir you--even if it wounds?" She came up
behind him quickly; put her arms about his neck and leaned her golden
head against his own. "We are sitting here too quietly ... while life
goes by," her tone was wistful. "You, especially, Benito. Outside teems
the world; the gorgeous, vibrant world of which our David speaks."
"What do you want me to do?" he asked, stirring restlessly, "go into
business? Make money--like Adrian?"
"No, no," she nestled closer. "It isn't money that I crave. We are happy
here. But"--she looked up at the portrait of Francisco Garvez, and
Benito followed her glance. "What would he have you do?"
"I promised him in thought," her husband said, "that I would help to
build the city he loved. It was a prophecy," his tone grew dreamy, "a
prophecy that he and his--the Garvez blood--should always stir in San
Francisco's heart." Swiftly he rose and, standing very straight before
the picture, raised his right hand to salute. "You are right," he said.
"He would have wanted me to be a soldier."
But Alice shook her head. "The conquest is over," she told him. "San
Francisco needs no gun nor saber now. In our courts and legislatures lie
the future battlegrounds for justice. You must study law, Benito.... I
want"--quick color tinged her face--"I want my--son to have a
father who--"
"Alice!" cried Benito. But she fled from him. The door of her bedroom
closed behind her. But it opened again very softly--"who makes his
country's laws," she finished, fervently.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE
About 8 o'clock on the evening of February 19, 1851, two men entered the
store of C.J. Jansen & Co., a general merchandise shop on Montgomery
street. The taller and older presented a striking figure. He was of such
height that, possibly from entering many low doorways, he had acquired a
slight stoop. His beard was long and dark, his hair falling to the
collar, was a rich and wavy brown. He had striking eyes, an aquiline
nose and walked with a long, measured stride. Charles Jansen, alone in
the store, noted these characteristics half unconsciously and paid
little attention to the smaller man who lurked behind his companion in
the shadows.
"Show me some blankets," said the tall man peremptorily. Jansen did not
like his tone, nor his looks for that matter, but he turned toward a
shelf where comforters, sheets and blankets were piled in orderly array.
As he did so he heard a quick step behind him; the universe seemed to
split asunder in a flash of countless stars. And then the world
turned black.
Hours afterward his partner found him prone behind the counter, a great
bleeding cut on his head. The safe stood open and a hasty examination
revealed the loss of $2,000 in gold dust and coin. Jansen was revived
with difficulty and, after a period of delirium, described what had
occurred. The next morning's Alta published a sensational account of the
affair, describing Jansen's assailant and stating that the victim's
recovery was uncertain.
As Adrian, Benito and Samuel Brannan passed the new city hall on the
morning of February 22, they noticed that a crowd was gathering. People
seemed to be running from all directions. Newsboys with huge armfuls of
morning papers, thrust them in the faces of pedestrians, crying, "Extra!
Extra! Assassins of Jansen caught." Adrian tossed the nearest lad a
two-bit piece and grasped the outstretched sheet. It related in heavy
blackfaced type the arrest of "two scoundrelly assassins," one of whom,
James Stuart, a notorious "Sydney Duck," was wanted in Auburn for the
murder of Sheriff Moore. This was the man identified by Jansen. He
claimed mistaken identity, however, insisting that his name was
Thomas Berdue.
"They'll let him go on that ridiculous plea, no doubt," remarked
Brannan, wrathfully. "There are always a dozen alibis and false
witnesses for these gallows-birds. It's time the people were doing
something."
"It looks very much as though we _were_ doing something," said Benito,
with a glance at the gathering crowd.
There were shouts of "Lynch them! Bring them out and hang them to a
tree!" Someone thrust a handbill toward Benito, who grasped it
mechanically. It read:
CITIZENS OF SAN FRANCISCO
The series of murders and robberies that have been committed
in the city seems to leave us entirely in a state of anarchy.
Law, it appears, is but a nonentity to be sneered at; redress
can be had for aggression but through the never-failing
remedy so admirably laid down in the Code of Judge Lynch.
All those who would rid our city of its robbers and murderers
will assemble on Sunday at 2 o'clock on the Plaza.
"This means business," commented Adrian grimly. "It may mean worse
unless their temper cools. I've heard this Stuart has a double. They
should give him time--"
"Bosh!" cried Brannan, "they should string him up immediately." He
waved the handbill aloft. "Hey, boys," he called out loudly, "let us go
and take them. Let us have a little justice in this town."
"Aye, aye," cried a score of voices. Instantly a hundred men rushed up
the stairs and pushed aside policemen stationed at the doors. They
streamed inward, hundreds more pushing from the rear until the court
room was reached. There they halted suddenly. Angry shouts broke from
the rear. "What's wrong ahead? Seize the rascals. Bring them out!"
But the front rank of that invading army paused for an excellent reason.
They faced a row of bayonets with determined faces behind them. Sheriff
Hayes had sensed the brewing troubles and had brought the Washington
Guards quietly in at a rear entrance.
So the crowd fell back and the first mob rush was baffled. Outside the
people still talked angrily. At least a thousand thronged the court
house, surrounding it with the determined and angry purpose of letting
no one escape. Mayor Geary made his way with difficulty through the
press and urged them to disperse. He assured them that the law would
take its proper course and that there was no danger of the prisoners'
release or escape. They listened to him respectfully but very few left
their posts. Here and there speakers addressed the multitude.
The crowd, the first fever abated, had resolved itself into a
semi-parliamentary body. But no real leader had arisen. And so it
arrived at nothing save the appointment of a committee to confer with
the authorities and insure the proper guarding of the prisoners. Brannan
was one of these and Benito another.
"Windham's getting to be a well-known citizen," said a bystander to
Adrian, "I hear he's studying law with Hall McAllister. Used to be a
dreamy sort of chap. He's waking up."
"Yes, his wife is at the bottom of it," Stanley answered.
Sunday morning 8,000 people surrounded the courthouse. Less turbulent
than on the previous day, their purpose was more grimly certain.
Mayor Geary's impressive figure appeared on the balcony of the court
house. He held out a hand for silence and amid the hush that followed,
spoke with brevity and to the point.
"The people's will is final," he conceded, "but this very fact entails
responsibility, noblesse oblige! What we want is justice, gentlemen.
Now, I'll tell you how to make it sure. Appoint a jury of twelve men
from among yourselves. Let them sit at the trial with the presiding
judge. Their judgment shall be final. I pledge you my word for that."
He ceased and again the crowd began murmuring. A tall, smooth-shaven
youth began to talk with calm distinctness.
There was about him the aspect of command. People ceased their talk to
listen. "I move you, gentlemen," he shouted, "that a committee of twelve
men be appointed from amongst us to retire and consider this situation
calmly. They shall then report and if their findings are approved, they
shall be law."
"Good! Good!" came a chorus of voices. "Hurray for Bill Coleman. Make
him chairman."
Coleman bowed. "I thank you, gentlemen," he said, then crisply, like so
many whip-cracks, he called the names of eleven men. One by one they
answered and the crowd made way for them. Silently and in a body
they departed.
"There's a leader for you," exclaimed Adrian to his brother-in-law.
Benito nodded, eyes ashine with admiration. Presently there was a stir
among the crowd. The jury was returning. "Well, gentlemen," the mayor
raised his voice, "what is the verdict?"
Coleman answered: "We recommend that the prisoners be tried by the
people. If the legal courts wish to aid they're invited. Otherwise we
shall appoint a prosecutor and attorney for the prisoners. The trial
will take place this afternoon."
"Hurray! Hurray!" the people shouted. The cheers were deafening.
CHAPTER XXII
THE PEOPLE'S JURY
Benito, as he elbowed his way through a crowd which ringed the city hall
that afternoon, was impressed by the terrific tight-lipped determination
of those faces all about him. It was as though San Francisco had but one
thought, one straight, relentless purpose--the punishment of crime by
Mosaic law. The prisoners in the county jail appeared to sense this wave
of retributive hatred, for they paced their cells like caged beasts.
It was truly a case of "The People vs. Stuart (alias Berdue) and
Windred," charged with robbery and assault. Coleman and his Committee of
Twelve were in absolute charge. They selected as judges, three popular
and trusted citizens, J.R. Spence, H.R. Bowie and C.L. Ross. W.A. Jones
was named the judge's clerk and J.E. Townes the whilom sheriff.
While the jury was impaneling, Brannan spoke to Benito: "Twelve good men
and true; the phrase means something here. Lord, if we could have such
jurymen as these in all our American courts."
Benito nodded. "They've appointed Bill Coleman as public prosecutor;
that's rather a joke on Bill."
Judge Spence, who sat between his two colleagues, presiding on the
bench, now spoke:
"I appoint Judge Shattuck and--er--Hall McAllister as counsel for the
defendants."
There was a murmur of interest. Judge Shattuck, dignified, a trifle
ponderous, came forward, spectacles in hand. He put them on, surveyed
his clients with distaste, and took his place composedly at the table.
Hall McAllister, dapper, young and something of a dandy, advanced with
less assurance. He would have preferred the other side of the case, for
he did not like running counter to the people.
Amid a stir the prisoners were led forward to the dock. Judge Spence,
looking down at them over his spectacles, read the charges. "Are you
guilty or not guilty?" he asked.
Windred, the younger, with a frightened glance about the court room,
murmured almost inaudibly, "Not guilty." The other, in a deep and
penetrating voice, began a sort of speech. It was incoherent, agonized.
Benito thought it held a semblance of sincerity.
"Always, your honor," he declared, "I am mistaken for that scoundrel;
that Stuart.... I am a decent man ... but what is the use? I say it's
terrible...."
"Judge" Spence removed his eyeglasses and wiped them nervously; "does
anyone in the courtroom recognize this man as Thomas Berdue?"
There was silence. Then a hand rose. "I do," said the voice of a
waterfront merchant. "I've done business with him under that name."
Immediately there was an uproar. "A confederate," cried voices. "Put him
out." A woman's voice in the background shrieked out shrilly, "Hang
him, too!"
McAllister rose. "There must be order here," he said, commandingly and
the tumult subsided. McAllister addressed Berdue's sponsor. "Can you
bring anyone else to corroborate your testimony?"
The merchant, red and angry, cried: "It's nothing to me; hang him and be
damned--if you don't want the truth. I'm not looking for trouble." He
turned away but the prisoner called to him piteously. "Don't desert me.
Find Jones or Murphy down at the long wharf. They'll identify me....
Hurry! Hurry! ... or they'll string me up!"
"All right," agreed the other reluctantly. He left the court room and
Judge Shattuck moved a postponement of the case.
"Your honor," William Coleman now addressed the court, "this is no
ordinary trial. Ten thousand people are around this courthouse. They are
there because the public patience with legal decorum is exhausted;
however regular and reasonable my colleague's plea might be in ordinary
circumstances, I warn you that to grant it will provoke disorder."
Judge Shattuck, startled, glanced out of the window and conferred with
Hall McAllister.
"I withdraw my petition," he said hurriedly. The case went on.
Witnesses who were present when the prisoners were identified by Jansen
gave their testimony. There was little cross-examination, though
McAllister established Jansen's incomplete recovery of his mental
faculties when the men were brought before him. Coleman pointed out the
striking appearance of the older prisoner; there was little chance to
err he claimed in such a case. The record of James Stuart was then dwelt
upon; a history black with evil doing, red with blood. The jury retired
with the sinister determined faces of men who have made up their minds.
Meanwhile, outside, the crowd stood waiting, none too patiently. Now and
then a messenger came to the balcony and shouted out the latest aspect
of the drama being enacted inside. The word was caught up by the first
auditor, passed along to right and left until the whole throng knew and
speculated on each bit of information.
Adrian, caught in the outer eddies of that human maelstrom, found
himself beside Juana Briones. "The jury's out," she told him. "Jury's
out!" the word swept onward. Then there came a long and silent wait.
Once again the messenger appeared. "Still out," he bellowed, "having
trouble." "What's the matter with them?" a score of voices shouted.
Presently the messenger returned. His face was angry, almost apoplectic.
One could see that he was having difficulty with articulation. He waved
his hands in a gesture of impotent wrath. At last he found his voice and
shouted, "Disagreed. The jury's disagreed."
An uproar followed. "Hang the jury!" cried an irate voice. A rush was
made for the entrance. But two hundred armed, determined men opposed the
onslaught. The very magnitude of the human press defeated its own ends.
Men cried aloud that they were being crushed. Women screamed.
Soon or late the defenders must have fallen. But now a strange diversion
occurred. On the balcony appeared General Baker, noted as the city's
greatest orator. In his rich, sonorous tones, he began a political
speech. It rang even above the excited shouts of the mob. Instantly
there was a pause, an almost imperceptible let-down of the tension.
Those who could not see asked eagerly of others, "What's the matter now?
Who's talking?"
"It's Ed Baker making a speech."
Someone laughed. A voice roared. "Rah for Ed Baker." Others took it up.
Impulsive, variable as the wind, San Francisco found a new adventure. It
listened spellbound to golden eloquence, extolling the virtues of a
favored candidate. Meanwhile Acting Sheriff Townes rushed his prisoners
to the county jail without anyone so much as noticing their departure.
Presently three men came hurrying up and with difficulty made their way
into the court room.
"Good God! Are we too late?" the leader of the trio asked, excitedly. He
was the waterfront merchant who had recognized Berdue.
"Too late for the trial," returned Coleman; "it's over; the jury's
dismissed. Disagreed."
"And what are they doing outside?" cried the other, "are they hanging
the prisoners?"
"No, the prisoners are safe," returned Coleman, "though they had a
close enough shave, I'll admit." He laid a hand upon Benito's shoulder
and there came a twinkle to his eyes. "Our young friend here had an
inspiration--better than a hundred muskets. He sent Ed Baker out to
charm them with his tongue."