GOLD

Other Books by the Same Author

“‘I TOLD YOU YOU COULDN’T LICK ME,’ SAID HE”

Copyright, 1913, by
Doubleday, Page & Company

All rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian

CONTENTS

PART I

PANAMA

3GOLD

CHAPTER I
OH, SUSANNAH!

Somewhere in this book I must write a paragraph exclusively about myself. The fact that in the outcome of all these stirring events I have ended as a mere bookkeeper is perhaps a good reason why one paragraph will be enough. In my youth I had dreams a-plenty; but the event and the peculiar twist of my own temperament prevented their fulfilment. Perhaps in a more squeamish age–and yet that is not fair, either, to the men whose destinies I am trying to record. Suffice it then that of these men I have been the friend and companion, of these occasions I have been a part, and that the very lacks and reservations of my own character that have kept me to a subordinate position and a little garden have probably made me the better spectator. Which is a longer paragraph about myself than I had purposed writing.

Therefore I will pass over briefly the various reasons, romantic and practical, why I decided to join the gold rush to California in the year 1849. It was in the air; and I was then of a romantic and adventurous disposition.

The first news of the gold discovery filtered to us in a roundabout way through vessels to the Sandwich Islands, 4 and then appeared again in the columns of some Baltimore paper. Everybody laughed at the rumour; but everybody remembered it. The land was infinitely remote; and then, as now, romance increases as the square of the distance. There might well be gold there; but more authentic were the reports of fleas, rawhides, and a dried-up coast. Minstrel shows made a good deal of fun of it all, I remember. Then, when we were of a broad grin, came the publication of the letter written by Governor Mason to the War Department. That was a sober official document, and had to be believed, but it read like a fairy tale.

“I have no hesitation in saying,” wrote the governor, “that there is more gold in the country drained by the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers than would pay the costs of the late war with Mexico a hundred times over.” And he then went on to report in detail big nuggets and big washings, mentioning men, places, dates, in a circumstantial manner that carried conviction.

Our broad grins faded. The minstrels’ jokes changed colour. As I look back, it seems to me that I can almost see with the physical eye the broad restless upheaval beneath the surface of all society. The Mexican war was just over, and the veterans–young veterans all–filled with the spirit of adventure turned eagerly toward this glittering new emprise. Out in the small villages, on the small farms, the news was talked over seriously, almost without excitement, as offering a possible means of lifting the burden war had laid. Families strained their resources, mortgaged their possessions, to equip and send their single strongest members to make the common fortune.

5Then came the song that caught the popular ear; and the rush was on. Most great movements are done to song, generally commonplace. It was so in this instance. Oh, Susannah! or rather a modification of the original made to fit the occasion, first sung in some minstrel show, ran like fire in the tinder of men’s excited hopes. From every stage, on every street corner, in every restaurant and hotel it was sung, played, and whistled. At the sound of its first notes the audience always sprang to its feet and cheered like mad.

The desire to go to El Dorado was universal, and almost irresistible. The ability to go was much more circumscribed. For one thing, it cost a good deal of money; and that was where I bogged down at the first pull. Then I suppose a majority did have ties of family, business or other responsibilities impossible to shake off. However, we all joined one or more of the various clubs formed for the purpose of getting at least some of their members to California; and discussed heatedly the merits of the different routes; and went into minute and fascinating details as to processes of which we knew less than nothing; and sang Oh, Susannah! and talked ourselves into a glorified fever of excitement; and went home with our heads in the clouds. Once in a great while some of these clubs came to something–as a body I mean; for individual members were constantly working themselves up the summit of resolution to rush headlong and regardless down the other side and out of our sight. When a man had reached a certain pitch of excitement he ran amuck. He sold anything, deserted anything, broke through anything in the 6 way of family, responsibility, or financial lacks in order to go. But, as I say, occasionally one of these clubs pooled its individual resources and bought some old tub of a whaler, or outfitted a wagon train, and started off. But generally we got only as far as Oh, Susannah! I remember once, in coming out from one of our meetings, finding myself next a solemn and earnest youth originally from my own rural village. He walked by my side for several squares lost in a brown study. Then suddenly he looked up.

“Frank,” said he with conviction, “I believe I’ll go. I know most of this talk is wildly exaggerated, but I’m sensible enough to discount all that sort of thing and to disbelieve absurd stories. I shan’t go with the slightest notion of finding the thing true, but will be satisfied if I do reasonably well. In fact, if I don’t pick up more than a hatful of gold a day, I shall be perfectly satisfied.”

Which remark sufficiently indicates about where we all were!

7CHAPTER II
THE HAMMERLOCK

We had many sorts of men in our club, but nearly all young. One, in especial, early attracted my attention, and held it through all the changing vicissitudes of our many meetings. I say attracted me, though fascinated would be perhaps the better word, for after the first evening of his attendance I used deliberately so to place myself that I could watch him.

He came always in a rather worn military cape, which on entering the door he promptly threw back in such a manner as to display the red lining. This seemed an appropriate envelopment of his flaming, buoyant personality. He walked with his chin up and his back straight, and trod directly on and over the ends of his toes so that he seemed fairly to spring with vigour. His body was very erect and tall and pliant, bending easily to every change of balance. If I were never to have seen his face at all I should have placed him as one of the laughing spirits of the world. His head was rather small, round, well poised, with soft close-set ringlets all over it like a cap, in the fashion of some marble gods I have seen. He had very regular, handsome features, with a clear, biscuit-brown complexion, and a close-clipped, stubby, light moustache. All these things were interesting and attractive, though no more so than are the 8 vigour and beauty of any perfect animal. But the quality of his eyes placed him, at least to me, in a class apart. They were sober, clear eyes, that looked out gray and contemplative on the world about them; so that one got the instant impression of a soul behind them that weighed and judged. Indeed they were not laughing eyes at all, and rather negatived the impression made by the man’s general bearing. But somewhere down in them something flickered like a strong burning candle in a brisk wind. Occasionally it was almost out; then again it blazed up clear, so that one thought to see it plainly through the steady brooding look. It always fascinated the beholder, for it was mysterious. Whether it came and went, grew and shrank, following delicately the moods or reflections of the spirit within, or whether it was a purely fortuitous effect of light and refraction, no man was ever able to say. And some men later made some very bad guesses. I myself think it was the devil of genius–a devil behind the steady control of a clear brain. His name, I soon discovered, was Talbot Ward.

At this period I was starting in as an assistant bookkeeper to a large exporting firm. They were enterprising people, and already they were laying plans to capture some of the California trade. The office talk I heard concerning the purchase of ships, the consignment of arms, the engagement of captains and of crews further inflamed my imagination. I received the vast sum of nine dollars per week. As I was quite alone in the world, and possessed no other resources, the saving of the five hundred dollars agreed upon as the least sum with which it was possible to get to California was fairly out of all question.

9One evening, after the meeting, to my great surprise, Ward fell into step with me. We had up to that moment never exchanged a word.

“In New York long?” he demanded.

“About six months,” I told him.

“Farm bred, of course?” he remarked. “Where?”

“Ashbury in Vermont,” I replied, without the slightest feeling that he was intrusive.

He stopped short in the street and looked me up and down reflectively, but without comment.

“I’ve been watching you at these fool meetings,” said he, falling into step again.

In spite of myself I experienced a glow of gratification at having been the object of his interest.

“Fool meetings?” I echoed inquiringly.

“Suppose, by a miracle, all that lot could agree, and could start for California to-morrow, in a body–that’s what they are organized for, I believe,” he countered–“would you go with them?”

“Why not?”

“Martin is why not; and Fowler is why not; and that little Smith runt, and six or eight others. They are weak sisters. If you are going into a thing, go into it with the strong men. I wouldn’t go with that crowd to a snake fight if it was twelve miles away. Where do you live?”

“West Ninth Street.”

“That’s not far. Have you a good big room?”

“I have a very small hall bedroom,” I replied wonderingly; “a number of us have the whole of the top floor.”

10Somehow, I must repeat, this unexplained intrusion of a total stranger into my private affairs did not offend.

“Then you must have a big sitting-room. How many of you?”

“Four.”

“Can you lick all the others?”

I stopped to laugh. By some shrewd guess he had hit on our chief difficulty as a community. We were all four country boys with a good deal of residuary energy and high spirits; and we were not popular with the tenants underneath.

“You see I’m pretty big─” I reminded him.

“Yes, I see you are. That’s why I’m with you. Do you think you can lick me?”

I stopped short again, in surprise.

“What in blazes─” I began.

He laughed, and the devils in his eyes danced right out to the surface of them.

“I asked you a plain question,” he said, “and I’d like the favour of a plain answer. Do you think you can lick me as well as your rural friends?”

“I can,” said I shortly.

He ran his arm through mine eagerly.

“Come on!” he cried, “on to West Ninth!”

We found two of my roommates smoking and talking before the tiny open fire. Talbot Ward, full of the business in hand, rushed directly at the matter once the introductions were over.

Our arrangements were very simple; the chairs were few and pushed back easily, and we had an old set of gloves.

11“Which is it to be?” I asked my guest, “boxing or wrestling?”

“I said you couldn’t lick me,” he replied. “Boxing is a game with rules; it isn’t fighting at all.”

“You want to bite and gouge and scratch, then?” said I, greatly amused.

“I do not; they would not be fair; a fight’s a fight; but a man can be decent with it all. We’ll put on the gloves, and we’ll hit and wrestle both–in fact, we’ll fight.”

He began rapidly to strip.

“Would you expect to get off your clothes in a real fight?” I asked him a little sardonically.

“If I expected to fight, yes!” said he. “Why not? Didn’t the Greek and Roman and Hebrew and Hun and every other good old fighter ‘strip for the fray’ when he got a chance? Of course! Take off your shirt, man!”

I began also to strip for this strange contest whose rules seemed to be made up from a judicious selection of general principles by Talbot Ward.

My opponent’s body was as beautiful as his head. The smooth white skin covered long muscles that rippled beneath it with every slightest motion. The chest was deep, the waist and hips narrow, the shoulders well rounded. In contrast my own big prominent muscles, trained by heavy farm work of my early youth, seemed to move slowly, to knot sluggishly though powerfully. Nevertheless I judged at a glance that my strength could not but prove greater than his. In a boxing match his lithe quickness might win–provided he had the skill to direct it. But in a genuine fight, within the circumscribed and hampering 12 dimensions of our little room, I thought my own rather unusual power must crush him. The only unknown quantity was the spirit or gameness of us two. I had no great doubt of my own determination in that respect–I had been on too many log-drives to fear personal encounter. And certainly Talbot Ward seemed to show nothing but eager interest.

“You don’t show up for what you are in your clothes,” said he. “This is going to be more fun than I had thought.”

My roommates perched on the table and the mantelpiece out of the way. I asked the length of the rounds.

“Rounds!” echoed Talbot Ward with a flash of teeth beneath his little moustache. “Did you ever hear of rounds in a real fight?”

With the words he sprang forward and hit me twice. The blows started at the very toe of his foot; and they shook me as no blows, even with the bare fist, have ever shaken me before or since. Completely dazed, I struck back, but encountered only the empty air. Four or five times, from somewhere, these pile-driver fists descended upon me. Being now prepared, to some extent, I raised my elbows and managed to defend my neck and jaws. The attack was immediately transferred to my body, but I stiffened my muscles thankfully and took the punishment. My river and farm work had so hardened me there that I believe I could have taken the kick of a mule without damage were I expecting it.

The respite enabled my brain to clear. I recovered slowly from the effect of those first two vicious blows. I 13 saw Ward, his eyes narrowed calculatingly, his body swinging forward like a whalebone spring, delivering his attack with nice accuracy. A slow anger glowed through me. He had begun without the least warning: had caught me absolutely unaware. I hit back.

He was so intent on his own assault, so certain of the blinding effect of his first attack, that I hit him. I saw his head snap back, and the blood come from his lips. The blows were weak, for I was still dazed; but they served, together with the slow burn of my anger, greatly to steady me. We were once more on equal terms.

For perhaps two minutes I tried to exchange with him. He was in and out like lightning; he landed on me hard almost every time; he escaped nine out of ten of my return counters. Decidedly I was getting the worst of this; though my heavier body took punishment better than his lighter and more nervous frame. Then suddenly it occurred to me that I was playing his game for him. As long as he could keep away from me, he was at an advantage. My best chance was to close.

From that moment I took the aggressive, and was in consequence the more punished. My rushes to close in were skilfully eluded; and they generally laid me wide open. My head was singing, and my sight uncertain; though I was in no real distress. Ward danced away and slipped around tense as a panther.

Then, by a very simple ruse, I got hold of him. I feinted at rushing him, stopped and hit instead, and then, following closely the blow, managed to seize his arm. For ten seconds he jerked and twisted and struggled to release 14 himself. Then suddenly he gave that up, dove forward, and caught me in a grapevine.

He was a fairly skilful wrestler, and very strong. It was as though he were made of whalebone springs. But never yet have I met a man of my weight who possessed the same solid strength; and Ward would tip the scales at considerably less. I broke his hold, and went after him.

He was as lively as an exceedingly slippery fish. Time after time he all but wriggled from my grasp; and time after time he broke my hold by sheer agility. His exertions must have been to him something terrible, for they required every ounce of his strength at the greatest speed. I could, of course, take it much easier, and every instant I expected to feel him weaken beneath my hands; but apparently he was as vigorous as ever. He was in excellent training. At last, however, I managed to jerk him whirling past me, to throw his feet from under him, and to drop him beneath me. As he fell he twisted, and by a sheer fluke I caught his wrist.

Thus through no great skill of my own the fortunes of war had given me a hammerlock on him. Most people know what that is. Any one else can find out by placing his forearm across the small of his back and then getting somebody else to press upward on the forearm. The Greek statue of “The Wrestlers” illustrates it. As the pressure increases, so does the pain. When the pain becomes intense enough, the wrestler rolls over and the contest is won. Some people can stand it longer than others; but all sooner or later must give up. In fact, skilled wrestlers, knowing that otherwise the inevitable end is a broken arm, 15 save themselves much tribulation by immediately conceding the bout once this deadly hold is gained.

I began to force Talbot Ward’s hand slowly up his back.

Very gently, an inch at a time, I pressed. He said nothing. Once he attempted to slip sidewise; but finding me of course fully prepared for that, he instantly ceased struggling. After I had pushed the hand to the hurting point, I stopped.

“Well?” said I.

He said nothing.

Now I was young, and none too well disciplined, heated by contest, and very angry at having been so unexpectedly attacked at the beginning. I was quite willing to hurt him a little. Slowly and steadily, and, I am ashamed to say, with considerable satisfaction, I pressed the arm upward. The pain must have been intense. I could feel the man’s body quiver between my knees, and saw the sweat break out afresh. Still he made no sign, but dug his forehead into the floor. “I can stand this as long as you can,” said I to myself grimly.

But at last I reached the point where I knew that another inch, another pound, would break the bone.

“Do you give up?” I demanded.

“No!” he gasped explosively.

“I’ll break your arm!” I snarled at him.

He made no reply.

The blood was running into my eyes from a small scrape on my forehead. It was nothing, but it annoyed me. I was bruised and heated and mad. Every bit of antagonism 16 in me was aroused. As far as I was concerned, it was a very real fight.

“All right,” I growled, “I’ll keep you there then, damn you!”

Holding the arm in the same position, I settled myself. The pain to the poor chap must have been something fearful, for every muscle and tendon was stretched to the cracking point. His breath came and went in sharp hisses; but he gave no other sign. My heat cooled, though, as I look back on it, far too slowly. Suddenly I arose and flung him from me. He rolled over on his back, and lay, his eyes half closed, breathing deeply. We must have been a sweet sight, we two young barbarians–myself marked and swollen and bloody, he with one eye puffed, and pale as death. My roommates, absolutely fascinated, did not stir.

The tableau lasted only the fraction of a minute, after all. Then abruptly Talbot Ward sat up. He grinned up at me with his characteristic momentary flash of teeth.

“I told you you couldn’t lick me,” said he.

I stared at him in astonishment.

“Licked? Why, I had you cold!”

“You had not.”

“I’d have broken your arm, if I had gone any farther.”

“Well, why didn’t you?”

I stared into his eyes blankly.

“Would you have done it?” I asked, in a sudden flash of illumination.

“Why, of course,” said he, with a faint contempt, as he arose.

17“Why did you hit me at first, as you did? You gave me no warning whatever.”

“Do you get any warning in a real fight?”

I could not controvert this; and yet uneasily, vaguely, I felt there must be a fallacy somewhere. I had been told and not told, what should, or should not, be done, in an affair that apparently could have no rules, and yet had distinctions as to fair and unfair, some of which were explained and some left as obvious. I felt somewhat confused. But often in my later experience with Talbot Ward I felt just that way, so in retrospect it does not strike me so forcibly as it did at that time.

“But you’re a wonder! a perfect wonder!” Ward was saying.

Then we all became aware of a knocking and a rattling at the door. It must have been going on for some time.

“If you don’t open, I’ll get the police! I promise you, I’ll get the police!” the voice of our landlady was saying.

We looked at each other aghast.

“I suppose we must have been making a little noise,” conceded Talbot Ward. Noise! It must have sounded as though the house were coming down. Our ordinary little boxing matches were nothing to it.

Ward threw his military cape around his shoulders, and sank back into a seat beneath the window. I put on an overcoat. One of the boys let her in.

She was thoroughly angry, and she gave us all notice to go. She had done that same every Saturday night for a year; but we had always wheedled her out of it. This time, however, she seemed to mean business. I suppose 18 we had made a good deal of a riot. When the fact became evident, I, of course, shouldered the whole responsibility. Thereupon she turned on me. Unexpectedly Talbot Ward spoke up from the obscurity of his corner. His clear voice was incisive, but so courteous with the cold finality of the high-bred aristocrat, that Mrs. Simpkins was cut short in the middle of a sentence.

“I beg you, calm yourself, madam,” said he; “it is not worth heating yourself over: for the annoyance, such as it is, will soon be removed. Mr. Munroe and myself are shortly departing together for California.”

19CHAPTER III
THE VOYAGE

If I had any scruples–and I do not remember many–they were overcome within the next day or two. It was agreed that I was to go in Ward’s employ, he to pay my passage money and all expenses, I to give him half the gold I might pick up. This seemed to me, at least, an eminently satisfactory and businesslike arrangement. Ward bought the outfits for both of us. It turned out that he was a Mexican war veteran–hence the military cape–and in consequence an old campaigner. His experience and my rural upbringing saved us from most of the ridiculous purchases men made at that time. We had stout clothes and boots, a waterproof apiece, picks and shovel, blankets and long strips of canvas, three axes, knives, one rifle, a double shotgun, and a Colt’s revolver apiece. The latter seemed to me a wonderful weapon, with its six charges in the turning cylinder; but I had no opportunity to try it.

Ward decided instantly for the Panama route.

“It’s the most expensive, but also the quickest,” said he; “a sailing ship around the Horn takes forever; and across the plains is ditto. Every day we wait, some other fellow is landing in the diggings.”

Nearly every evening he popped into our boarding house, where, owing to the imminence of my departure, I had been 20 restored to favour. I never did find out where he lived. We took our passage at the steamship office; we went to the variety shows and sang Oh, Susannah! with the rest; we strutted a bit, and were only restrained from donning our flannel shirts and Colt’s revolving pistols in the streets of New York by a little remnant, a very little remnant, of common sense. When the time at last came, we boarded our steamship, and hung over the rail, and cheered like crazy things. I personally felt as though a lid had been lifted from my spirit, and that a rolling cloud of enthusiasm was at last allowed to puff out to fill my heaven.

In two days we were both over being seasick, and had a chance to look around us. Our ship was a sidewheel steamer of about a thousand tons, and she carried two hundred and eighty passengers, which was about two hundred more than her regular complement. They were as miscellaneous a lot as mortal eye ever fell upon: from the lank Maine Yankee to the tall, sallow, black-haired man from Louisiana. I suppose, too, all grades of the social order must have been represented; but in our youth and high spirits we did not go into details of that sort. Every man, with the exception of a dozen or so, wore a red shirt, a slouch hat, a revolver and a bowie knife; and most of us had started to grow beards. Unless one scrutinized closely such unimportant details as features, ways of speech or manners, one could not place his man’s former status, whether as lawyer, physician or roustabout. And we were too busy for that. I never saw such a busy place as that splattering old ship slowly wallowing her way south toward the tropical seas. We had fifty-eight thousand things to discuss, beginning with Marshall’s 21 first discovery, skipping through the clouds of rumours of all sorts, down to intimate details of climate, outfit, prospects, plans, and the best methods of getting at the gold. And to all these subjects we brought a dozen points of view, each of which was strange to all the others. We had with us men from every stratum of society, and from every point of the compass. Each was a product of his own training and mental upbringing, and was incapable, without great effort, of understanding his neighbour’s point of view. Communication and travel were in those days very limited, it must be remembered, and different communities and sections of the country produced strong types. With us discussion became an adventurous exploration into a new country; the man from Maine could not but be interested in finding out what that strange, straight-haired, dark creature from Carolina might think of even the most commonplace subject. Only our subjects were not commonplace.

So my chief impression of that voyage down was of knots of men talking hurriedly and excitedly, as though there were not a moment to waste; and the hum of voices rising and falling far into the night.

Only two things were capable of breaking in on this tense absorption of the men in each other and in their subject–one was dolphins, and the other the meal gong. When dolphins appeared each rushed promptly to the side of the ship and discharged his revolver at the beasts. I never saw any harm come from these fusillades, but they made a wonderful row. Meal times always caught the majority unaware. They tumbled and jostled down the companionways 22 only to find the wise and forethoughtful had preëmpted every chair. Whereupon, with most ludicrous expressions of chagrin or of assumed nonchalance, they trooped back to meet the laughter of the wise, if not forethoughtful, who had realized the uselessness of the rush. After a moment’s grumbling, however, the discussions were resumed.

There was some quarrelling, but not much. A holiday spirit pervaded the lot; for they were men cut off from all experience, all accustomed surroundings, all the restraints of training, and they were embarked on the great adventure. I do not now remember many of them individually. They were of a piece with the thousands we were destined to encounter. But I do retain a most vivid mental picture of them collectively, with their red shirts, their slouch hats, their belts full of weapons, their eyes of eagerness, their souls of dreams; brimming with pent energy; theorizing, arguing, disputing; ready at an instant’s notice for any sort of a joke or excitement that would relieve the tension; boisterous, noisy, laughing loudly, smothering by sheer weight of ridicule individual resentments–altogether a wonderful picture of the youth and hope and energy and high spirits of the time.

Never before nor since have I looked upon such a variety of equipment as strewed the decks and cabins of that ship. A great majority of the passengers knew nothing whatever about out-of-door life, and less than nothing as to the conditions in California and on the way. Consequently they had bought liberally of all sorts of idiotic patent contraptions. India rubber played a prominent part. And the deck was cumbered with at least forty sorts of machines 23 for separating gold from the soil: some of them to use water, some muscular labour, and one tremendous affair with wings was supposed to fan away everything but the gold. Differing in everything else, they were alike in one thing: they had all been devised by men who had never seen any but manufactured gold. I may add that I never saw a machine of the kind actually at work in the diggings.

Just now, however, I looked on the owners of these contraptions with envy, and thought ourselves at a disadvantage with only our picks, shovels, and axes.

But we had with us a wonderful book that went far toward cheering up the poorly equipped. Several copies had been brought aboard, so we all had a chance to read it. The work was entitled “Three Weeks in the Gold Mines,” and was written by a veracious individual who signed himself H. I. Simpson. I now doubt if he had ever left his New York hall bedroom, though at the time we took his statements for plain truth. Simpson could spare only ten days of this three weeks for actual mining. In that period, with no other implement than a pocket knife, he picked out fifty thousand dollars. The rest of the time he preferred to travel about and see the country, picking up only what incidental nuggets he came across while walking. We believed this.

As we drew southward the days became insufferably warm, but the nights were glorious. Talbot and I liked to sleep on the deck; and generally camped down up near the bitts. The old ship rolled frightfully, for she was light in freight in order to accommodate so many passengers; 24 and the dark blue sea appeared to swoop up and down beneath the placid tropic moon.

We had many long, quiet talks up there; but in them all I learned nothing, absolutely nothing, of my companion.

“If you had broken my arm that time, I should not have taken you,” he remarked suddenly one evening.

“Shouldn’t blame you,” said I.

“No! I wouldn’t have wanted that kind of a man,” he continued, “for I should doubt my control of him. But you gave up.”

This nettled me.

“Would you have had me, or any man, brute enough to go through with it?” I demanded.

“Well”–he hesitated–“it was agreed that it was to be fight, you remember. And after all, if you had broken my arm, it would have been my fault and not yours.”

Two young fellows used occasionally to join us in our swooping, plunging perch. They were as unlike as two men could be, and yet already they had become firm friends. One was a slow, lank, ague-stricken individual from somewhere in the wilds of the Great Lakes, his face lined and brown as though carved from hardwood, his speed slow, his eyes steady with a veiled sardonic humour. His companion was scarcely more than a boy, and he came, I believe, from Virginia. He was a dark, eager youth, with a mop of black shiny hair that he was always tossing back, bright glowing eyes, a great enthusiasm of manner, and an imagination alert to catch fire. The backwoodsman seemed attracted to the boy by this very quick and unsophisticated bubbling of candid youth; while the boy most 25 evidently worshipped his older companion as a symbol of the mysterious frontier. The Northerner was named Rogers, but was invariably known as Yank. The Southerner had some such name as Fairfax, but was called Johnny, and later in California, for reasons that will appear, Diamond Jack. Yank’s distinguishing feature was a long-barrelled “pea shooter” rifle. He never moved ten feet without it.

Johnny usually did most of the talking when we were all gathered together. Yank and I did the listening and Talbot the interpellating. Johnny swarmed all over himself like a pickpocket, and showed us everything he had in the way of history, manners, training, family, pride, naïveté, expectations and hopes. He prided himself on being a calm, phlegmatic individual, unemotional and not easily excited, and he constantly took this attitude. It was a lovely joke.

“Of course,” said he, “it won’t be necessary to stay out more than a year. They tell me I can easily make eleven hundred dollars a day; but you know I am not easily moved by such reports”–he was at the time moving under a high pressure, at least ten knots an hour–“I shall be satisfied with three hundred a day. Allowing three hundred working days to the year, that gives me about ninety thousand dollars–plenty!”

“You’ll have a few expenses,” suggested Talbot.

“Oh–yes–well, make it a year and a half, just to be on the safe side.”

Johnny was eagerly anxious to know everybody on the ship, with the exception of about a dozen from his own South. As far as I could see they did not in the slightest 26 degree differ except in dress from any of the other thirty or forty from that section, but Johnny distinguished. He stiffened as though Yank’s gunbarrel had taken the place of his spine whenever one of these men was near; and he was so coldly and pointedly courteous that I would have slapped his confounded face if he had acted so to me.

“Look here, Johnny,” I said to him one day, “what’s the matter with those fellows? They look all right to me. What do you know against them?”

“I never laid eyes on them before in my life, sir,” he replied, stiffening perceptibly.

“Take that kink out of your back,” I warned him. “That won’t work worth a cent with me!”

He laughed.

“I beg pardon. They are not gentlemen.”

“I don’t know what you mean by gentlemen,” said I; “it’s a wide term. But lots of us here aren’t gentlemen–far, far from it. But you seem to like us.”

He knit his brows.

“I can’t explain. They are the class of cheap politician that brings into disrepute the chivalry of the South, sir.”

Talbot and I burst into a shout of laughter, and even Yank, leaning attentively on the long barrel of his pea rifle, grinned faintly. We caught Johnny up on that word–and he was game enough to take it well. Whenever something particularly bad happened to be also Southern, we called it the Chivalry. The word caught hold; so that later it came to be applied as a generic term to the Southern wing of venal politicians that early tried to control the new state of California.

27I must confess that if I had been Johnny I should have stepped more carefully with these men. They were a dark, suave lot, and dressed well. In fact, they and a half dozen obviously professional men alone in all that ship wore what we would call civilized clothes. I do not know which was more incongruous–our own red shirts, or the top hats, flowing skirts, and light pantaloons of these quietly courteous gentlemen. They were quite as well armed as ourselves, however, wearing their revolvers beneath their armpits, or carrying short double pistols. They treated Johnny with an ironically exaggerated courtesy, and paid little attention to his high airs. It was obvious, however, that he was making enemies.

Talbot Ward knew everybody aboard, from the captain down. His laughing, half-aloof manner was very taking; and his ironical comments on the various points of discussion, somehow, conveyed no sting. He was continually accepting gifts of newspapers–of which there were a half a thousand or so brought aboard–with every appearance of receiving a favour. These papers he carried down to our tiny box of a room and added to his bundle. I supposed at the time he was doing all this on Molière’s principle, that one gains more popularity by accepting a favour than by bestowing one.

28CHAPTER IV
THE VILLAGE BY THE LAGOON

In the early morning one day we came in sight of a round high bluff with a castle atop, and a low shore running away. The ship’s man told us this was Chagres.

This news caused a curious disintegration in the ship’s company. We had heretofore lived together a good-humoured community. Now we immediately drew apart into small suspicious groups. For we had shortly to land ourselves and our goods, and to obtain transportation across the Isthmus; and each wanted to be ahead of his neighbour.

Here the owners of much freight found themselves at a disadvantage. I began to envy less the proprietors of those enormous or heavy machines for the separation of gold. Each man ran about on the deck collecting busily all his belongings into one pile. When he had done that, he spent the rest of his time trying to extract definite promises from the harassed ship’s officers that he should go ashore in the first boat.

Talbot and I sat on our few packages and enjoyed the scene. The ship came to anchor and the sailors swung the boat down from the davits. The passengers crowded around in a dense, clamouring mob. We arose, shouldered our effects, and quietly slipped 29 around to the corresponding boat on the other side the ship. Sure enough, that also was being lowered. So that we and a dozen who had made the same good guess, were, after all, the first to land.

The town proved to be built on low ground in a bay the other side the castle and the hill. It must be remembered that I had never travelled. The cane houses or huts, with their high peaked roofs thatched with palm leaves, the straight palms in the background against the sky, the morasses all about, the squawk and flop of strange, long-legged marsh birds, the glare of light, the queer looking craft beached on the mud, and the dark-skinned, white-clad figures awaiting us–all these struck strongly at my imagination.

We beached in the mud, and were at once surrounded by a host of little, brown, clamorous men. Talbot took charge, and began to shoot back Spanish at a great rate. Some of the little men had a few words of English. Our goods were seized, and promptly disappeared in a dozen directions. I tried to prevent this, but could only collar one man at a time. All the Americans were swearing and threatening at a great rate. I saw Johnny, tearing up the beach after a fleet native, fall flat and full length in the mud, to the vast delight of all who beheld.

Finally Talbot ploughed his way to me.

“It’s all settled,” said he. “I’ve made a bargain with my friend here to take us up in his boat to Cruces for fifteen dollars apiece for four of us.”

30“Well, if you need two more, for heaven’s sake rescue Johnny,” I advised. “He’ll have apoplexy.”

We hailed Johnny and explained matters. Johnny was somewhat put to it to attain his desired air of imperturbable calm.

“They’ve got every blistered thing I own, and made off with it!” he cried. “Confound it, sir, I’m going to shoot every saddle-coloured hound in the place if I don’t get back my belongings!”

“They’ve got our stuff, too,” I added.

“Well, keep calm,” advised Talbot. “I don’t know the game down here, but it strikes me they can’t get very far through these swamps, if they do try to steal, and I don’t believe they’re stealing anyway; the whole performance to me bears a strong family resemblance to hotel runners. Here, compadre!”

He talked a few moments with his boatman.

“That’s right,” he told us, then. “Come on!”

We walked along the little crescent of beach, looking into each of the boats in the long row drawn up on the shore. They were queer craft, dug out from the trunks of trees, with small decks in bow and stern, and with a low roof of palmetto leaves amidships. By the time we had reached the end of the row we had collected all our effects. Our own boatman stowed them in his craft.

Thereupon, our minds at rest, we returned to the landing to enjoy the scene. The second ship’s boat had beached, and the row was going on, worse than before. In the seething, cursing, shouting mass we caught sight 31 of Yank’s tall figure leaning imperturbably on his rifle muzzle. We made our way to him.

“Got your boat yet?” Talbot shouted at him.

“Got nothin’ yet but a headache in the ears,” said Yank.

“Come with us then. Where’s your plunder?”

Yank stooped and swung to his shoulder a small bundle tied with ropes.

“She’s all thar,” said he.

These matters settled, we turned with considerable curiosity to the little village itself. It was all exotic, strange. Everything was different, and we saw it through the eyes of youth and romance as epitomizing the storied tropics.

There were perhaps a couple of hundred of the cane huts arranged roughly along streets in which survived the remains of crude paving. All else was a morass. Single palm trees shot up straight, to burst like rockets in a falling star of fronds. Men and women, clad in a single cotton shift reaching to the knees, lounged in the doorways or against the frail walls, smoking cigars. Pot-bellied children, stark naked, played everywhere, but principally in the mudholes and on the offal dumps. Innumerable small, hairless dogs were everywhere about, a great curiosity to us, who had never even heard of such things. We looked into some of the interiors, but saw nothing in the way of decent furniture. The cooking appeared to be done between two stones. A grand tropical smell hung low in the air. On the thresholds of the doors, inside the houses, in the middle of the 32 streets, anywhere, everywhere, were old fish, the heads of cattle, drying hides, all sorts of carrion, most of it well decomposed. Back of the town was a low, rank jungle of green, and a stagnant lake. The latter had a delicate border of greasy blue mud.

Johnny and I wandered about completely fascinated. Talbot and Yank did not seem so impressed. Finally Talbot called a halt.

“This is all very well; if you kids like to look at yellow fever, blackjack, and corruption, all right,” said he. “But we’ve got to start pretty soon after noon, and in the meantime where do we eat?”

We returned through the town. It was now filled to overflowing with our compatriots. They surged everywhere, full of comment and curiosity. The half-naked men and women with the cigars, and the wholly naked children and dogs, seemed not in the least disturbed nor enlivened.

Talbot’s earnest inquiries finally got us to the Crescent Hotel. It was a hut exactly like all the rest, save that it had a floor. From its name I suppose it must have been kept by a white man, but we never got near enough through the crowd to find out. Without Talbot we should have gone hungry, with many others, but he inquired around until we found a native willing to feed us. So we ate on an upturned hencoop outside a native hut. The meal consisted of pork, bread, and water.

We strolled to the beach at the hour appointed with our boatman. He was not there; nor any other boatman.

33“Never mind,” said Ward; “I’ll know him if I see him. I’ll go look him up. You fellows find the boat with our things in it.”

He and I reëntered the village, but a fifteen minutes’ search failed to disclose our man. Therefore we returned to the beach. A crowd was gathered close about some common centre in the unmistakable restless manner of men about a dog fight or some other kind of a row. We pushed our way in.

Johnny and Yank were backed up against the palmetto awning of one of the boats in an attitude of deadly and quiet menace. Not two yards away stood four of our well-dressed friends. Nobody as yet displayed a weapon, except that Yank’s long rifle lay across the hollow of his left arm instead of butt to earth; but it was evident that lightnings were playing. The boatman, who had appeared, alone was saying anything, but he seemed to be supplying language for the lot.

Johnny’s tense, alert attitude relaxed a little when he saw us.

“Well?” inquired Ward easily. “What’s the trouble?”

“Yank and I found our goods dumped out on the beach, and others in their place,” said Johnny.

“So you proceeded to reverse matters? How about it?” he inquired pleasantly of the four men.

“I know nothing about it,” replied one of them shortly. “We hired this boat, and we intend to have it; and no whipper-snapper is going to keep us from it.”

“I see,” said Talbot pleasantly. “Well, excuse me 34 a moment while I talk to our friend.” He addressed the man in Spanish, and received short, sullen replies. “He says,” Talbot explained to us, “that he never saw us before in his life, and never agreed to take us up the river.”

“Well, that settles it,” stated the other man.

“How much did you offer to pay him?” asked Talbot.

The man stared. “None of your business,” he replied.

“They’re askin’ twenty dollars a head,” volunteered one of the interested spectators.

“Exactly. You see,” said Talbot to us, “we got here a little too early. Our bargain was for only fifteen dollars; and now this worthy citizen has made a better rate for himself.”

“You should have had the bargain immediately registered before the alcalde, señor,” spoke up a white-dressed Spaniard of the better class, probably from the castle.

“I thank you, señor,” said Talbot courteously. “That neglect is due to my ignorance of your charming country.”

“And now if you’ll move, young turkey cock, we’ll just take our boat,” said another of the claimants.

“One moment!” said Talbot Ward, with a new edge to his voice. “This is my boat, not yours; my baggage is in it, my boatman is on the ground. That he is forgetful has nothing to do with the merits of the case. You know this as well as I do. Now you can acknowledge 35 this peacefully and get out, or you can fight. I don’t care a continental red copper which. Only I warn you, the first man who makes a move with anything but his two feet will be shot dead.”

He stood, his hands hanging idly by his sides, and he spoke very quietly. The four men were not cowards, that I’ll swear; but one and all they stared into Ward’s eyes, and came individually to the same conclusion. I do not doubt that dancing flicker of refraction–or of devilment–was very near the surface.

“Of course, if you are very positive, I should not dream of doubting your word or of interfering,” said the tallest and quietest, who had remained in the background. “We desire to do injustice to no man─”

Johnny, behind us, snorted loudly and derisively.

“If my knowledge of Spanish is of any value in assisting you to a boat, pray command me,” broke in Ward.

The crowd moved off, the boatman with it. I reached out and collared him.

Talbot had turned on Johnny.

“Fairfax,” said he icily, “one of the first things you must learn is not to stir things up again once a victory is gained. Those men were sore; and you took the best method possible of bringing on a real fight.”

Poor Johnny flushed to the roots of his hair.

“You’re right,” said he in a stifled voice.

Talbot Ward thawed completely, and a most winning smile illumined his face.

“Why, that’s what I call handsome, Johnny!” he 36 cried. “It’s pretty hard to admit the wrong. You and Yank certainly looked bold and warlike when he came along. Where’s that confounded mozo? Oh, you have him, Frank. Good boy! Come here, my amiable citizen. I guess you understand English after all, or you couldn’t have bargained so shrewdly with our blackleg friends.”

The flush slowly faded from Johnny’s face. Yank’s sole contribution to the changed conditions was to spit with great care, and to shift the butt of his rifle to the ground.

“Now,” Talbot was admonishing the boatman, “that was very bad. When you make a bargain, stick to it. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I will ask all people, sabe, everywhere, your people, my people, and if everybody pay twenty dollars, then we pay twenty dollars. Sabe? But we no pay twenty dollars unless you get us to Cruces poco pronto, sabe? Now we start.”

The boatman broke into a torrent of talk.

“Says he’s got to find his assistant,” Talbot explained to us. “Come on, my son, I’ll just go with you after that precious assistant.”

We sat on the edge of our boat for half an hour, watching the most comical scenes. Everybody was afflicted with the same complaint–absence of boatmen. Some took possession, and settled themselves patiently beneath their little roofs. Others made forays and returned dragging protesting natives by the arm. These generally turned out to be the wrong 37 natives; but that was a mere detail. Once in a lucky while the full boat’s complement would be gathered; and then the craft would pull away up the river to the tune of pistol shots and vociferous yells.

At the end of the period mentioned Talbot and the two men appeared. They were quite amicable; indeed, friendly, and laughed together as they came. The “assistant” proved to be a tremendous negro, nearly naked, with fine big muscles, and a good-natured, grinning face. He wore large brass ear circlets and bracelets of copper. We all pushed the canoe to the very edge of the water and clambered aboard. The negro bent his mighty shoulders. We were afloat.

38CHAPTER V
A TROPICAL RIVER

Our padrone, as Talbot told us we should call him, stood in front clad in a coloured muslin shirt. The broad sluggish river was alive with boats, all making their way against the current. By the time the lagoon had narrowed, however, they had pretty well scattered.

We entered a tropical forest, and never shall I forget the wonder of it. The banks were lined to the water’s edge with vegetation, so that one could see nothing but the jungle. There were great palm trees, which we recognized; and teak trees, which we did not, but which Talbot identified for us. It was a very bald sort of tree, as I remember it. Then there were tremendous sycamores in which were ants’ nests as big as beehives; and banana trees with torn leaves, probably the most exotic touch of all; and beautiful noble mangoes like domes of a green cathedral; and various sorts of canes and shrubs and lilies growing among them. And everywhere leaped and swung the vines–thick ropy vines; knotted vines, like knotted cables; slender filament vines; spraying gossamer vines, with gorgeous crimson, purple, and yellow blooms; and long streamers that dipped to trail in the waters. Below them were broad pads of lotus and water lilies; with alligators like barnacled 39 logs, and cormorants swimming about, and bright-eyed waterfowl. The shadows in the forest were light clear green, and the shadows under the hanging jungle near the water were dull green; and the very upper air itself, in that hot steaming glade, seemed delicately green, too. Butterflies were among the vine blossoms, so brilliant of colour that it seemed to me that the flowers were fluttering from their stems. Across the translucent green shadows flashed birds. I recognized little green paroquets. I had never before seen them outside of cages. No man can realize the wonder of finding himself actually part of romantic scenes so long familiar in the pages of books that they have become almost mythical. We sat there absolutely silent, save when calling attention to some new marvel, drinking it in.

Our men paddled steadily ahead. The negro hummed strange minor songs to himself. Suddenly he flashed his teeth at us and broke into full voice:

“Oh, Susannah! don’t cry for me!
I’m off to California wid my banjo on my knee.”

The accent was queer, but the words and tune were right. Talbot questioned him in Spanish.

“He says all Americans sing it. He has taken many up the river.”

“Too many,” muttered Johnny. “I wish we’d started three months sooner.”

It was growing dusk when we came in sight of a village of bamboo huts on the right bank. To this we headed. Hardly had the boat struck the beach when 40 both of our men leaped ashore and raced madly toward the huts. Pausing only long enough to slide the boat beyond the grip of the river, we followed, considerably mystified. Quick as we were, we found both the padrone and his man, together with a dozen others, already seated at a monte table. The padrone was acting as banker!

We discovered the name of this place to be Gatun. Talbot found us a native hut in which were hammocks we could rent for the night. The hut was a two-storied affair, with a notched pole by which to clamber aloft. I took one look and decided to stay below. My weight seemed sufficient to bring the whole thing down about our ears.

I do not know which had the better of it. My hammock was slung across one corner of the single room. A cooking fire blazed merrily five or six feet away. Some ten or a dozen natives were drinking and talking until nearly morning; and to my personal knowledge some ten or a dozen thousand fleas were doing the same. Six dogs were that hut’s allowance. They discovered that my weight sagged my hammock down to a height just suitable for the rubbing of their backs. In vain I smote with boot or pistol barrel. They kiyied and departed; but only for a moment. I had not even time to fall into a doze before one of the others was back at it. This amused the drinking natives. I suppose the poor beasts very passionately wanted to scratch their backs. I could sympathize with them; none of them could have had as many fleas 41 as I had, for their superficial area was not as great; but perhaps they had as many per square inch.

In the course of the night it began to rain. I mean really rain, “without going into details as to drops,” as somebody has said. Then I ceased envying my friends upstairs; for from all sounds I judged the roof was leaking.

Next morning it was still drizzling. The town was full of sad-eyed, wearied men. I think every one had had about the same experience. The padrone was at first a little inclined to delay; but he quickly recognized that our mood was bad, so shortly we were under way.

That day was not an unmitigated joy. It rained, picking the surface of the river up in little spots and rings. The forest dripped steadily. All the butterflies and bright birds had disappeared; and sullen, shifting clouds fairly touched the treetops. It was cold. Wrap ourselves as we would, we became thoroughly chilled. We should have liked to go ashore for a little fire, or at least a tramp about; but there seemed to be no banks, and the vegetation would not let us approach whatever earth there might be. The padrone and the big negro thrust their heads through holes cut in the middle of their blankets, and seemed happy. Talbot Ward and Yank took it with the philosophy of old campaigners; but Johnny and I had not had experience enough to realize that things have a habit of coming to an end. We were too wet even to smoke.

That night we spent at a place called Pena Blanca, which differed in no essential from Gatun. We slept there in small sheds, along with twenty or thirty of our ship’s companions wedged tightly together. A dozen other similar 42 sheds adjoined. We were all quarrelsome and disinclined to take much nonsense either from the natives or from each other. Also we needed and wanted food; and we had difficulty in getting it. A dozen incipient quarrels were extinguished because the majority of the crowd would not stand for being bothered by the row. Finally the whole hutful became involved, and it really looked for a moment like a riot. A good deal of bad language flew about, and men seized their weapons. Yank rose to the occasion by appealing to them not “to kick up a muss,” because there was “a lady of our own colour in the next room.” The lady was mythical, but the riot was averted.

The next day was clearing, with occasional heavy dashing showers, just to keep us interested. The country began more to open up. We passed many grass savannahs dotted with palms and a tree something like our locust. Herds of cattle fed there. The river narrowed and became swifter. Often our men had to lay aside their paddles in favour of the pole or tracking line. Once or twice we landed and walked for a short distance along the banks. At one place we saw several wild turkeys. At another something horrifying, rustling, and reptilian made a dash fairly from between my feet, and rushed flop into the water. The boys claimed I jumped straight upward four feet; but I think it was nearer ten. Talbot said the thing was an iguana. I should like very much to be able to describe it accurately, but my observation was somewhat confused. Beyond the evident fact that it snorted actual fire, I am not prepared to go.

Along in the early afternoon we reached bolder shores in which the trap rock descended sheer beneath the surface of 43 the water. Directly ahead of us rose a mountain like a cone of verdure. We glided around the base of it, and so came to Gorgona, situated on a high bluff beyond. This we had decided upon as the end of our river journey. To be sure we had bargained for Cruces, six miles beyond; but as the majority of our ship’s companions had decided on that route, we thought the Gorgona trail might be less crowded. So we beached our boat, and unloaded our effects; and set forth to find accommodations for the present, and mules for the immediate future.

44CHAPTER VI
THE VILLAGE IN THE JUNGLE

At first there seemed slight chance of getting either. The place was crowded beyond its capacity. The Hotel Française–a shed-and-tent sort of combination with a muddy natural floor–was jammed. The few native huts were crowded. Many we saw making themselves as comfortable as possible amid their effects out in the open. Some we talked with said they had been there for over a week, unable to move because of lack of transportation. They reported much fever; and in fact we saw one poor shaking wretch, wistful-eyed as a sick dog, braced against a tree all alone. The spirit was drained out of him; and all he wanted was to get back.

While we were discussing what to do next, our muslin-clad ex-padrone, who had been paid and shaken by the hand some time since, approached smoking a longer cigar than ever. This he waved at us in a most debonair and friendly manner.

“Bread on the water,” commented Talbot after a short conversation. “He says we have treated him like a brother and a true comrade in arms; which means that I did; you fellows, confound your spiteful souls, wanted to throw him overboard a dozen times. And now he says to follow him, and he’ll get us a place to stay.”

45“Some native pig-sty with fleas,” I remarked skeptically, aside, to Johnny.

“You com’,” begged the padrone, with a flash of teeth.

We came bearing our household goods, because we could nowhere see any one to bear them for us. At that we had to leave the heaviest pieces on the beach. Talbot insisted on lugging his huge bundle of newspapers.

“They may come in handy,” he answered us vaguely. “Well, they’re mine, and this is my back,” he countered to Johnny’s and my impatience with such foolishness.

The padrone led us through town to the outskirts. There we came to a substantial low house of several rooms, with a veranda and veritable chimneys. The earth in front had been beaten so hard that even the downpour of yesterday had not appreciably softened it. To our summons appeared a very suave and courteous figure–that, it appeared, of the alcalde of the place.

“My fren’,” explained the padrone in English, for our benefit, “they good peepele. They wan’ estay. Got no place estay.”

The alcalde, a portly gentleman with side whiskers and a great deal of dignity, bowed.

“My house is all yours,” said he.

Thus, although arriving late, we stopped at the best quarters in the town. The sense of obligation to any one but our boatman was considerably relieved when next day we paid what we owed for our lodging. Also, had it not been for Talbot and Johnny, I am sure Yank and I would have taken to the jungle. There seemed to be required so much bowing, smiling, punctiliousness and elaborate complimenting 46 that in a short time I felt myself in the precise mental attitude of a very small monkey shaking the bars of his cage with all four hands and gibbering in the face of some benign and infinitely superior professor. I fairly ached behind the ears trying to look sufficiently alert and bland and intelligent. Yank sat stolid, chewed tobacco and spat out of the window, which also went far toward stampeding me. Talbot and Johnny, however, seemed right at home. They capped the old gentleman’s most elaborate and involved speeches, they talked at length and pompously about nothing at all; their smiles were rare and sad and lingering–not a bit like my imbecile though well-meant grinning–and they seemed to be able to stick it out until judgment day. Not until I heard their private language after it was all over did I realize they were not enjoying the occasion thoroughly.

Toward sunset occurred a welcome break. A mob of natives suddenly burst into view, from the direction of town. They were running madly, led by a very little man and a very big man. The two latter rushed up to the edge of the veranda, on which we were all sitting, and began to talk excitedly, both at once.

“What’s the row?” we asked Talbot in a breath.

“Can’t make out yet; something about a fight.”

The alcalde commanded order. Then the matter became clear. The very large man and the very little man had had a fight, and they had come for justice. This much Talbot made plain. Then he chuckled explosively.

“The little man is making his accusation against himself!” he told us. “He is charging himself with having 47 assaulted and beaten the other fellow. And the big one is charging himself with having licked the little one. Neither wants to acknowledge he got licked; and each would rather pay a fine and have it entered on the records that he won the fight. So much for sheer vanity!”

Each had his desire. The alcalde, with beautiful impartiality, fined them both; and nonchalantly pocketed the proceeds.

At dusk millions of fireflies came out, the earth grew velvet black, and the soft, tepid air breathed up from the river. Lights of the town flickered like larger yellower fireflies through the thin screen of palms and jungle; and the various noises, subdued by distance, mingled with the voices of thousands of insects, and a strange booming from the river. I thought it very pleasant; and wanted to stay out; but for some reason we were haled within. There the lamps made the low broad room very hot. We sat on real chairs and the stilted exchange resumed. I have often wondered whether our host enjoyed it, or whether he did it merely from duty, and was as heartily bored as the rest of us.

A half-naked servant glided in to tell us that we were wanted in the next room. We found there our good padrone and another, a fine tall man, dressed very elaborately in short jacket and slit loose trousers, all sewn with many silver buttons and ornaments.

“He my fren’,” explained the padrone. “He have dose mulas.”

With the gorgeous individual Talbot concluded a bargain. He was to furnish us riding animals at ten dollars each per 48 day; and agreed to transport our baggage at six dollars a hundredweight. The padrone stood aside, smiling cheerfully.

“I ver’ good fren’? Eh?” he demanded.

“My son,” said Talbot with feeling, “you’re a gentleman and a scholar; indeed, I would go farther and designate you as a genuine lallapaloozer!”

The padrone seemed much gratified; but immediately demanded five dollars. This Talbot gave him. Johnny thought the demand went far toward destroying the value of the padrone’s kindness: but the rest of us differed. I believe this people, lazy and dishonest as they are, are nevertheless peculiarly susceptible to kindness. The man had started by trying to cheat us of our bargain; he ended by going out of his way to help us along.

At supper, which was served very shortly, we had our first glimpse of the ladies of the establishment. The older was a very dignified, placid, rather fat individual, whose chief feature was her shining dark hair. She bowed to us gravely, said a few words in Spanish, and thereafter applied herself with childlike and unfeigned zest to the edibles. The younger, Mercedes by name, was a very sprightly damsel indeed. She too had shining black hair, over which she had flung the most coquettish sort of lace shawl they call a rebosa. Her eyes were large, dark, and expressive; and she constantly used them most provocatively, though with every appearance of shyness and modesty. Her figure, too, was lithe and rounded; and so swathed, rather than clothed, that every curve was emphasized. I suppose this effect was the result of the Spanish mode rather than of individual 49 sophistication; just as the succession of lazy poses and bendings were the result of a racial feminine instinct rather than of conscious personal coquetry. Certainly we four red-shirted tramps were poor enough game. Nevertheless, whatever the motive, the effect was certainly real enough. She was alluring rather than charming, with her fan and her rebosa, her veiled glances, her languorous, bold poses, and the single red flower in her hair. And a great deal of this allurement resided in the very fact that no one could tell how much was simple, innocent, and unconscious instinct, and how much was intended. An unpleasing note in both women was furnished by the powder. This so liberally covered their faces as to conceal the skin beneath a dead mat white.

Yank and I were kept out of it, or thought we were, by our ignorance of the language. This did not seem to hinder Johnny in the least. In five minutes he was oblivious to everything but his attempts to make himself agreeable by signs and laughing gestures, and to his trials–with help–at the unknown language. The girl played up to him well. Talbot was gravely and courteously polite. At the close of the meal the women rose suddenly, bowed, and swept from the room. Johnny turned back to us a good deal flushed and excited, a little bewildered, and considerably disappointed. The alcalde looked as though nothing unusual were under way. The rest of us were considerably amused.

“You’ll see her later,” soothed Talbot mockingly.

Johnny gulped down his coffee without reply.

After the meal we went outside. Fires had been built on 50 opposite sides of the hard beaten earth in front of the house. Four men with guitars sat chair tilted, backed against the veranda. Thirty or forty people wandered to and fro. They were of the usual native class; our host’s family, and one other, consisting of parents and three grown children, seemed to represent all the aristocracy. These better-class guests came to join us on the veranda. The older people did not greatly differ from our host and his wife, except in cut of masculine whisker, or amount of feminine fat. The younger members consisted of a young lady, tall and graceful, a young girl in white, and a man of twenty or thereabout. He was most gaudily gotten up, for a male creature, in a soft white shirt, a short braided jacket of blue, a wide, red-tasselled sash, and trousers slit from the knees down. The entire costume was sewn at all places, likely and unlikely, with silver buttons. As he was a darkly handsome chap, with a small moustache, red lips and a little flash of teeth, the effect was quite good, but I couldn’t care for his style. The bulk of the villagers were dressed in white. The women all carried the rebosa, and were thickly powdered. We could see a number of the Americans in the background.

The musicians struck up a strummy, decided sort of marchlike tune; and the dancers paired off. They performed a kind of lancer figure, very stately and solemn, seemingly interminable, with scant variation, small progressions, and mighty little interest to me. We sat in a stiff row and shed the compliment of our presence on the scene. It was about as inspiring as a visit to a hospital ward. What determined the duration of the affair, I 51 cannot tell you; whether the musicians’ fingers gave out, or the dancers’ legs, or the official audience’s patience. But at last they ceased.

At the beginning of another tune, of much the same solemn character, our young visitor bowed ceremoniously to our host’s daughter, and led her down the steps.

“Come on, Johnny, be a sport. Dance this one,” said Talbot rising.

“Don’t know how,” replied Johnny gloomily, his eyes on the receding figure of Mercedes.

“The lady’ll show you. Come along!”

Talbot bowed gravely to the young girl, who arose enchanted. Johnny, with his natural grace and courtesy, offered his arm to the other. She took it with a faintly aloof and indifferent smile, and descended the step with him. She did not look toward him, nor did she vouchsafe him a word. Plainly, she was not interested, but stood idly flirting with her fan, her eyes fixed upon the distance. The dance began.

It was another of the same general character as the first. The couples advanced and retreated, swung slowly about each other, ducked and passed beneath each other’s arms, all to the stately strumming of the guitars. They kept on doing these things. Johnny and Talbot soon got hold of the sequence of events, and did them too.

At first Johnny was gloomy and distrait. Then, after he had, in the changes of the dance, passed Mercedes a few times, he began to wake up. I could make out in the firelight only the shapes of their figures and the whiteness of their faces; but I could see that she lingered a moment 52 in Johnny’s formal embrace, that she flirted against him in passing, and I could guess that her eyes were on duty. When they returned to the veranda, Johnny was chipper, the visitor darkly frowning, Mercedes animated, and the other girl still faintly and aloofly smiling.

The fandango went on for an hour; and the rivalry between Johnny and the young Spaniard grew in intensity. Certainly Mercedes did nothing to modify it. The scene became more animated and more interesting. A slow, gliding waltz was danced, and several posturing, stamping dances in which the partners advanced and receded toward and from each other, bending and swaying and holding aloft their arms. It was very pretty and graceful and captivating; and to my unsophisticated mind a trifle suggestive; though that thought was probably the result of my training and the novelty of the sight. It must be remembered that many people see harm in our round dances simply because they have not become sufficiently accustomed to them to realize that the position of the performers is meaninglessly conventional. Similarity the various rather daring postures of some of these Spanish dances probably have become so conventionalized by numberless repetitions along the formal requirements of the dance that their possible significance has been long since forgotten. The apparently deliberate luring of the man by the woman exists solely in the mind of some such alien spectator as myself. I was philosophical enough to say these things to myself; but Johnny was not. He saw Mercedes languishing into the eyes of his rival; half fleeing provocatively, her glances sparkling; bending and swaying her body in allurement; 53 finally in the finale of the dance, melting into her partner’s arms as though in surrender. He could not realize that these were formal and established measures for a dance. He was too blind to see that the partners separated quite calmly and sauntered nonchalantly toward the veranda, the man rolling a paper cigarro, the woman flirting idly her fan. His eyes glowing dully, he stared straight before him; a spot of colour mounted on his cheekbones.

With an exclamation Talbot Ward arose swiftly but quietly and moved down the veranda, motioning me to follow. He bent over Johnny’s chair.

“I want to speak to you a moment,” he said in a low voice.

Johnny looked up at him a moment defiantly. Talbot stood above him, inflexibly waiting. With a muttered exclamation Johnny finally arose from his chair. Ward grasped his arm and drew him through the wandering natives, past the fringe of American spectators, and down the hard moonlit path to the village.

Johnny jerked his arm loose and stopped short.

“Well, sir!” he demanded, his head high.

“You are on your way to California,” said Ward, “and you are stopping here over one night. The girl is pretty and graceful and with much charm, but uneducated, and quite empty headed.”

“I will thank you to leave all young ladies out of this discussion,” broke in Johnny hotly.

“This young lady is the whole of this discussion and cannot be left out.”

“Then we will abandon the discussion.”

54“Also,” said Talbot Ward irrelevantly, “did you notice how fat all their mothers are?”

We were wandering forward slowly. Again Johnny stopped.

“I must tell you, sir, that I consider my affairs none of your business, sir; and that I resent any interference with them,” said he with heat.

“All right, Johnny,” replied Talbot sadly; “I am not going to try to advise you. Only I wanted to call your attention to all the elements of the situation, which you probably had forgotten. I will repeat–and then I am done–she is nothing to you, she is beneath you, you are stopping here but one day, she is charming but ignorant–and her mother is very fat. Now go have your fool fight–for that is what you are headed straight for–if you think it at all worth while.”

Johnny’s generous heart must have been smiting him sorely, now that his heat and excitement had had time to cool a little. He followed us a few steps irresolutely. We came to the large tree by the wayside. The man with the fever still sat there miserably indifferent to his surroundings.

“Here, this won’t do!” cried Talbot. “He mustn’t be allowed to sit there all night; he’ll catch a chill sure. My friend, give us your arm. We’ll find you some sort of a bunk.”

The man was dead.

We carried him to the village and raised a number of our compatriots. Not one knew who the man might be, nor even where his belongings had been stored. He had no mark of identification on his person. After a diligent 55 search, we were forced to give it up. The body we buried with all reverence at the edge of the jungle. I wanted to place the matter on an official footing by notifying the alcalde, but Talbot negatived this.

“I know this people,” said he. “Once let the news of a man’s death get abroad, and it’s good-bye to any chance of finding his effects to-morrow. And that’s our only show to identify him. Best say nothing.”

We returned slowly to the alcalde’s house. The fandango was still in progress. Mercedes flashed her bright eyes at Johnny as we mounted the steps; the Spaniard scowled and muttered an imprecation. Johnny bowed gravely and passed into the house.

We told Yank the circumstances.

“Poor devil,” said I. “Like the rest of us, he was so full of hope so short time ago.”

Ward nodded.

“And his death was so unnecessary, so utterly and completely useless.”

“I don’t know,” spoke up Talbot musingly. “It seems to us unnecessary, but who can tell? And useless? I don’t know. If we hadn’t happened to stumble on that poor chap just then, Johnny Fairfax might be in his fix right this minute, and Johnny Fairfax seems to me likely to prove a very valuable citizen.”

“And what did the blame critter mean by that?” Yank asked me later.

56CHAPTER VII
THE TRAIL

We made desperate efforts next morning to find somebody who knew the man, or at least could point out to us his effects; but in vain. All was confusion, and everybody was too busy getting away to pay us very much attention. This, I am convinced, was not hardheartedness on the part of most; but merely that all men’s minds were filled with a great desire. Our own transport men were impatient to be off; and we had finally to abandon the matter. Whether or not the man had a family or friends who would never know what had become of him, we shall never find out. Later in the gold rush there were many scores of such cases.

Having paid the alcalde we set forth. Mercedes did not appear. Our good padrone was on hand to say farewell to us at the edge of town. He gave us a sort of cup made from coconut husk to which long cords had been attached. With these, he explained, we could dip up water without dismounting. We found them most convenient.

Shortly after we had left town, and before we had really begun our journey in earnest, we passed a most astonishing caravan going the other way. This consisted of sixteen mules and donkeys under sole charge of three men armed with antiquated and somewhat rusty muskets. On either side of each mule, slung in a rope and plain to see, hung a 57 heavy ingot of gold! Fascinated, we approached and stroked the satiny beautiful metal; and wondered that, on a road so crowded with travellers of all grades, so precious a train should be freely entrusted to the three ragged lazy natives. So curious did this seem that Talbot inquired of the leader why it was allowed.

“Whither would a thief run to? How could he carry away these heavy ingots?” the man propounded.

Often around subsequent campfires we have in idle curiosity attempted to answer these two questions successfully, but have always failed. The gold was safe.

Talbot insisted, with a good deal of heavy argument, that our effects should precede us on the trail. The wisdom of this was apparent before we had been out an hour. We came upon dozens of porters resting sprawled out by the side of their loads. I could hardly blame them; for these men carried by means of a bamboo screen and straps across the shoulders and forehead the most enormous loads. But farther on we passed also several mule trains, for whose stopping there could be no reason or excuse except that their natives were lazy. Our own train we were continually overtaking and prodding on, to its intense disgust. Thus Talbot’s forethought, or experience with people of this type, assured us our goods. Some of our shipmates were still waiting for their baggage when we sailed to the north.

We now entered a dense forest country. The lofty trees, thick foliage, swinging vines, and strange big leaves undoubtedly would have impressed us under other conditions. But just now we were too busy. The rains had softened the trail, until it was of the consistency of very stiff mud. In 58 this mud the first mule had left his tracks. The next mule trod carefully in the first mule’s footsteps; and all subsequent mules did likewise. The consequence was a succession of narrow, deep holes in the clay, into which an animal’s leg sank halfway to the shoulder. No power on earth, I firmly believe, could have induced those mules to step anywhere else. Each hole was full of muddy water. When the mule inserted his hoof the water spurted out violently, as though from a squirt gun. As a result we were, I believe, the most muddied and bedraggled crew on earth. We tried walking, but could not get on at all. Occasionally we came to a steep little ravine down and up the slippery banks of which we slid and scrambled. Yank and his mule once landed in a heap, plump in the middle of a stream.

In the course of these tribulations we became somewhat separated. Johnny and I found ourselves riding along in company, and much too busy to talk. As we neared a small group of natives under a tree, three of them started toward us on a run, shouting something. We stopped, and drew together.

One of the assailants seized Johnny’s animal by the bit, and another’s gesture commanded him to dismount.

“Get out of that!” shouted Johnny threateningly; and as the men did not obey his emphatic tone, he snatched out his Colt’s pistol. I closed in next him and did the same.

Our threatening attitude caused the men to draw back a trifle; but they redoubled their vociferations. Johnny attempted to spur his mule forward; but all three threw themselves in his way. The rest of the natives, four in 59 number, joined the group. They pointed at Johnny’s animal, motioned peremptorily for him to descend; and one of them ventured again to seize his bridle.

“I don’t believe it’s robbery, anyhow,” said I. “They seem to recognize your mule. Probably you’re riding a stolen animal.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” said Johnny, a trifle angrily, “but I do know I hired it to go to Panama with: and to Panama I’m going. They can settle their mule question afterward.”

But when he gathered his reins again, he was prevented from going on. Johnny reached suddenly forward and struck with his pistol barrel at the head of the man holding his rein. He missed by the fraction of an inch; and the man leaped back with a cry of rage. Everybody yelled and drew near as though for a rush. Johnny and I cocked our weapons.

At this moment we heard Talbot Ward’s voice from beyond. “Take ’em from that side!” yelled Johnny excitedly. “Give it to ’em, Tal!”

Talbot shouted again, in Spanish. Every brigand in the lot immediately turned in his direction, shouting perfect fountains of words. After a moment Talbot, afoot, emerged from the jungle and calmly picked his way through the mud toward us.

“Put up your shooting irons,” he grinned at us. “These men tell me your saddle pad is on crooked and they want to straighten it for you.”

Johnny, and I am sure myself, turned red; then everybody howled with glee. Johnny dismounted, and a dozen eager 60 hands adjusted the harness. We shook hands all around, laughed some more, and resumed our very sloppy journey.

This to me was one of the most terrible days I ever spent. We passed dozens of dead mules, and vultures that sat in trees; and exhausted men lying flat as though dead; and sick men shaken with fever; and one poor wretch, whom we picked up and took with us, who had actually lain down to die. He was half raving with fever, and as near as we could make out had had companions. We twisted him aboard a mule, and took turns walking alongside and holding him on. Beyond the fact that he was a very small individual with light hair and an English accent, we could tell nothing about him. He was suffering from cholera, although we did not know that at the time. That night we spent at a wayside hut, where we left our patient.

Early the next morning we began to ascend a little; and so came to a rocky tableland with palms, and beyond it another ridge of hills. We climbed that ridge and descended the other side. Another elevation lay before us. This we surmounted, only to find a third. After we had put a dozen such ranges behind us, we made the mistake of thinking the next was sure to be the last. We got up our hopes a number of times in this fashion, then fell dully into a despair of ever getting anywhere. The day was fearfully hot. The Indian who had stolidly preceded us as guide at last stopped, washed his feet carefully in a wayside mud hole and put on his pantaloons.

“That looks to me like an encouraging symptom,” I remarked.

Shortly after we entered the city of Panama.

61CHAPTER VIII
PANAMA

We arrived early in the afternoon, and we were all eyes; for here was a city taken directly from the pages of the Boy’s Own Pirate. Without the least effort of the imagination we could see Morgan or Kidd or some other old swashbuckler, cutlass in teeth, pistols in hand, broad sashed, fierce and ruthless rushing over the walls or through the streets, while the cathedral bells clanged wildly and women screamed. Everything about it was of the past; for somehow the modern signs of American invasion seemed temporary and to be blown away. The two-story wooden houses with corridor and veranda across the face of the second story, painted in bright colours, leaned crazily out across the streets toward each other. Narrow and mysterious alleys led up between them. Ancient cathedrals and churches stood gray with age before grass-grown plazas. And in the outskirts of town were massive masonry ruins of great buildings, convent and colleges, some of which had never been finished. The immense blocks lay about the ground in a confusion, covered softly by thousands of little plants; or soared against the sky in broken arches and corridors. Vegetation and vines grew in every crevice; and I saw many full-sized trees rooted in midair. The place was strongly fanciful; and I loved to linger there. To me 62 the jungle seemed like an insidiously beautiful creature enveloping thus, little by little, its unsuspecting prey. The old gray tumbled ruins seemed to be lost in dreams of their ancient days. And through the arches and the empty corridors open to the sky breathed a melancholy air from a past so dead and gone and buried and forgotten that of it remained no echo, no recollection, no knowledge, nothing but squared and tumbled stones.

To tell the truth I generally had these reflections quite to myself. The body of the town was much more exciting. The old dilapidated and picturesque houses had taken on a new and temporary smartness of modernity–consisting mainly of canvas signs. The main street was of hotels, eating houses, and assorted hells. It was crowded day and night, for we found something over a thousand men here awaiting the chance of transportation. Some had been here a long time, and were broke and desperate. A number of American gambling joints did a good business. Native drinking houses abounded. The natives were in general a showy lot, but too lazy even to do a good job at fleecing the stranger within their gates. That was therefore undertaken–and most competently–by the enterprising foreigners of all nations. Foreigners kept two of the three hotels, as is indicated by their names–Hotel Française, Fonda Americano, and the Washington House. Americans ran the gambling joints. French and Germans, mainly, kept the restaurants.

We stopped over one day at the Fonda Americano; and then realizing that we were probably in for a long wait, found two rooms in a house off the main street. These we 63 rented from a native at a fairly reasonable rate. They were in the second story of a massive stone ruin whose walls had been patched up with whitewash. The rooms were bare and geometrically cat-a-cornered and extraordinarily chilly, like vaults; but they gave out on a charmingly unkempt walled garden with a stone fountain in the middle whose features were all rounded by time and blurred with moss, with tall ragged bananas and taller wind-swept palms, and a creeping lush tangle of old plants, and the damp soft greenness of moss and the elfin tinkling of little waters. On our balcony the sun shone strong; so that we could warm our chilled bones gratefully like lizards against a wall.

We tried all the restaurants, one after the other, and found them about equally bad. We also went in–once–for a real Spanish dinner. It consisted of a succession of dishes highly seasoned with the hottest sort of pepper, generally drowned in rich gravy, and composed of such things as cheese, chunks of meat, corn meal, and the like. Any one of these dishes would have been a fine strength test for the average unsophisticated stomach; but your true Spanish dinner consists of a dozen of them. We had horrible indigestion.

In one place, kept by a German, we were treated very disagreeably, and overcharged so badly that Yank vowed he intended to get even. As to just how he was going to do it, he maintained a deep silence; but he advised us he would eat there the following evening. Also he asked four or five other men, with whom we had become friendly, to meet us at the restaurant. We met, ate our meal leisurely, and had a very good time.

64“Now,” said Yank to us, “when we get up, you fellows all go right out the front door and keep going until you get to the Fonda bar, and there you wait for me. No lingering, now. Do as you are told.”

We did as we were told. After about fifteen or twenty minutes Yank sauntered in.

“Now,” said Johnny, “I hope you’ll explain. We’re much obliged for your dinner party, but we want to know what it is all about.”

“Well,” chuckled Yank, “I just dealt the Dutchman what you might call idle persiflage until you fellows had been gone a few minutes, and then I held him out my dollar. ‘What’s that?’ says he. ‘That’s a dollar,’ says I, ‘to pay for my dinner.’ ‘How about all those other fellows?’ says he. ‘I got nothing to do with them,’ says I. ‘They can pay for their own dinners,’ and after a while I come away. He was having some sort of Dutch fit, and I got tired of watching him.”

Outside the walls of the city was a large encampment of tents in which dwelt the more impecunious or more economical of the miners. Here too had been located a large hospital tent. There was a great deal of sickness, due to the hardships of the journey, the bad climate, irregular living, the overeating of fruit, drinking, the total lack of sanitation. In fact only the situation of the city–out on an isthmus in the sea breezes–I am convinced, saved us from pestilence. Every American seemed to possess a patent medicine of some sort with which he dosed himself religiously in and out of season. A good many, I should think, must have fallen victims to these nostrums.

65Each morning regularly we went down to harass the steamship employees. Roughly speaking some three hundred of us had bought through passage before leaving New York: and it was announced that only fifty-two additional to those already aboard could be squeezed into the first steamer. The other two hundred and forty-eight would have to await the next. Naturally every man was determined that he would not be left; for such a delay, in such a place, at the time of a gold rush was unthinkable. The officials at that steamship office had no easy time. Each man wanted first of all to know just when the ship was to be expected; a thing no one could guess. Then he demanded his accommodations; and had a dozen reasons why his claim should be preferred over that of the others. I never saw a more quarrelsome noisy dog-kennel than that steamship office. Why no one was ever shot there I could not tell you.

After bedevilling the officials for a time, our business for the day was over. We had the privilege of sauntering through the streets, of walking down the peninsula or of seating ourselves in any of the numerous bars or gambling halls. All were interesting; though neither the streets nor the gambling places were in full action until late afternoon.

About four o’clock, or half after, when the invariable siesta was over, the main street began to fill with idlers. The natives wore white, with wide soft straw hats, and lounged along with considerable grace. They were a weak, unenergetic, inoffensive race, always ready to get off the sidewalk for other nations provided the other nations swaggered sufficiently. The women, I remember, had 66 wonderful piles of glossy black hair, arranged in bands and puffs, in which they stuck cigars. The streets were very narrow. When a vehicle came along, we all had to make way for it; as also for the gangs of prisoners connected with heavy iron chains around their necks. These were very numerous; and I can hear yet as the leading notes of the place, the clinking of their chains, and the cracked jangling of some of the many cathedral bells.

There was a never-failing joy to us also in poking around the odd places of the town. The dim interiors of cathedrals, the splashed stones of courtyards, the shadows of doorways, the privacies of gardens all lured us; and we saw many phases of native life. Generally we were looked on at first with distrust. There were a number of roughs among the gold seekers; men whose brutal instincts or whose merely ignorant love of horseplay had now for the first time no check. They found that the native could be pushed off the sidewalk, so they pushed him off. I once saw a number of these men light their cigars at altar candles. But Talbot’s Spanish and our own demeanour soon gained us admission.

Thus we ran across a most delightful institution. We were rambling in a very obscure portion of town when we came to quite a long wall unbroken save by a little wicket gate. A bell pull seemed to invite investigation; so we gave it a heave. Almost immediately the gate swung open and we entered.

We found ourselves in a wide space paved with smooth great slabs of rocks, wet as though from a recent rain. The space was thickly built up by small round huts of reeds, but without roofs. In the centre was a well, probably ten or 67 twelve feet wide, over which slanted a cross arm and wheel for the drawing of water. No human being was in sight; the gate had been unlatched by an overhead cord.

We shouted. In a minute or so a very irascible old woman hobbled to us from some mysterious lurking place among the reed huts. She spoke impatiently. Talbot questioned her; she replied briefly, then turned and hobbled off as fast as she could go.

“What did she say?” some one asked Talbot curiously.

“She said,” replied Ward, “literally this: ‘Why don’t you take any of them without bothering me? They are all ready.’ I imagine she must mean these bird cages; though what they are for I couldn’t tell you.”

We investigated the nearest. It was divided into two tiny rooms each just big enough to hold a man. In one was a three legged stool; in the other stood two tall graceful jars of red clay, their sides bedewed with evaporation. A dipper made from a coconut lay across the top of one of them.

“Bath house!” shouted Johnny, enchanted.

The water in the porous earthen jars was cold. We took each a hut and poured the icy stuff over us to our heart’s content. All except Yank. He looked on the proceedings we thought with some scorn; and departed carrying his long rifle.

“Hey!” shouted Johnny finally, “where’s the towels?”

To this inquiry we could find no substantial answer. There were no towels. The old woman declined to come to our yells. She was on hand, however, when we were ready to depart, and took one American dime as payment 68 for the three of us. This was the only cheap thing we found in Panama. We came every day, after the hour of siesta–with towels. Yank refused steadfastly to indulge.

“I’m having hard enough dodging to keep clear of fever’n ager now,” he told us. “You don’t seem to recollect what neck of the woods I come from. It’s a fever’n ager country out there for keeps. They can’t keep chickens there at all.”

“Why not?” asked Johnny innocently.

“The chills they get shakes all the feathers off’n ’em,” replied Yank, “and then they freeze to death.”

In the evening the main street was a blaze of light, and the byways were cast in darkness. The crowd was all afoot, and moved restlessly to and fro from one bar or gambling hell to another. Of the thousand or so of strangers we came in time to recognize by sight a great many. The journey home through the dark was perilous. We never attempted it except in company; and as Johnny seemed fascinated with a certain game called Mexican monte, we often had to endure long waits before all our party was assembled.

One morning our daily trip to the steamship office bore fruit. We found the plaza filled with excited men; all talking and gesticulating. The much tired officials had evolved a scheme, beautiful in its simplicity, for deciding which fifty-two of the three hundred should go by the first ship. They announced that at eleven o’clock they would draw lots.

This was all very well, but how did the general public know that the lots would be drawn fairly?

69The officials would permit a committee of citizens to be present.

Not by the eternal! Where would you get any one to serve? No member of that committee would dare accept his own ticket, provided he drew one. No one would believe it had been done honestly.

Very well. Then let fifty-two out of three hundred slips of paper be marked. Each prospective passenger could then draw one slip out of a box.

“It’s all right, boys,” the observers yelled back at those clamouring in the rear.

One of the officials stood on a barrel holding the box, while a clerk with a list of names sat below.

“As I call the names, will each gentleman step forward and draw his slip?” announced the official.

We were all watching with our mouths open intensely interested.

“Did you ever hear of such a damfool way of doing the thing?” said Talbot. “Here, give me a boost up!”

Johnny and I raised him on our shoulders.

“Gentlemen! gentlemen!” he cried a number of times before he could be heard above the row. Finally they gave him attention.

“I’m a ticket holder in this thing; and I want to see it done right. I want to ask that gentleman there what is to prevent the wrong man from answering to a name, from drawing a slip without having any right to?”

“The right man will prevent him,” answered a voice. The crowd laughed.

“Well, who’s to decide, in case of dispute, which is the 70 right man and which the wrong man? And what’s to prevent any man, after the drawing, from marking a blank slip–or making a new slip entirely?”

“That’s right!” “Correct!” shouted several voices.

The officials consulted hurriedly. Then one of them announced that the drawing would be postponed until the following morning. Each was to bring his steamship ticket with him. The winners in the drawing must be prepared to have their tickets countersigned on the spot. With this understanding we dispersed.

This was Talbot Ward’s first public appearance; the first occasion in which he called himself to the attention of his fellows assembled in public meeting. The occasion was trivial, and it is only for this reason that I mention it. His personality at once became known, and remembered; and I recollect that many total strangers spoke to him that evening.

By next morning the transportation officials had worked it out. We could not all get into the office, so the drawing took place on the Plaza outside. As each man’s name was called, he stepped forward, showed his ticket, and was allowed to draw a slip from the box. If it proved to be a blank, he went away; if he was lucky, he had his ticket viséd on the spot. Such a proceeding took the greater part of the day; but the excitement remained intense. No one thought of leaving even for the noon meal.

Yank drew passage on the first steamer. Talbot, Johnny, and I drew blanks.

We walked down to the shore to talk over the situation.

“‘YOU HOUNDS!’ HE ROARED. ‘DON’T YOU DARE TRY TO SNEAK OFF!’”

71“We ought to have bought tickets good on this particular ship, not merely good on this line,” said Johnny.

“Doesn’t matter what we ought to have done,” rejoined Talbot a little impatiently. “What are we going to do? Are we going to wait here until the next steamer comes along?”

“That’s likely to be two or three months–nobody knows,” said Johnny.

“No; it’s in six weeks, I believe. They tell me they’ve started regular trips on a new mail contract.”

“Well, six weeks. If we stay in this hole we’ll all be sick; we’ll be broke; and in the meantime every ounce of gold in the country will have been picked up.”

“What’s the alternative?” I asked.

“Sailing vessel,” said Talbot briefly.

“That’s mighty uncertain,” I objected. “Nobody knows when one will get in; and when it does show up it’ll be a mad scramble to get to her. There’s a mob waiting to go.”

“Well, it’s one or the other. We can’t walk; and I don’t see that the situation is going to be much better when the next steamer does get here. There are a couple of hundred to crowd in on her–just counting those who are here and have tickets. And then there will be a lot more.”

“I’m for the sailing vessel,” said Johnny. “They come in every week or two now; and if we can’t make the first one, we’ll have a good chance at the second or the third.”

Talbot looked at me inquiringly.

“Sounds reasonable,” I admitted.

“Then we’ve no time to lose,” said Talbot decisively, and turned away toward the town.

72Yank, who had listened silently to our brief discussion, shifted his rifle to his shoulder and followed. Shortly he fell behind; and we lost him.

We accompanied Talbot in some bewilderment, for there was no ship in sight nor in prospect, and we could not understand any reason for this haste. Talbot led the way directly to the steamship office.

“I want to see Brown,” he asserted, naming the chief agent for the company.

The clerk hesitated: Brown was an important man and not to be disturbed for trivial matters. But Talbot’s eye could be very assured.

“What is your business with Mr. Brown?” asked the clerk.

“It is with Mr. Brown,” said Talbot firmly, “and I may add that it is to Mr. Brown’s own interest to see me. Tell him just that, and that Mr. Talbot Ward of New York City desires an immediate interview.”

The clerk was gone for some moments, to the manifest annoyance of a dozen miners who wanted his attention. When he returned he motioned us to a screened-off private office in the rear.

“Mr. Brown will see you,” said he.

We found Brown to be a florid, solidly built man of fifty, with a keen eye and a brown beard. He nodded to us briefly and looked expectant.

“We three men,” said Talbot directly, “hold three tickets on your line. We were not fortunate enough to get passage on the next steamer, and our business will not permit us to wait until the one after. We want our money back.”

73Brown’s face darkened.

“That is a matter for my clerks, not for me,” he said curtly. “I was told your business was to my advantage. I have nothing to do with tickets.”

“One minute,” said Talbot. “There are between two and three hundred men in this town each one of whom bought a ticket from your company in New York in the expectation, if not under the understanding, that they were to get through passage immediately.”

“No such thing was expected or guaranteed,” interposed Brown abruptly.

“Not guaranteed, nor expected by you–by us, yes.”

“I cannot argue that matter. I have no further time for you. Good-day.” And Brown once more reached his hand toward his bell.

“Suppose,” said Talbot softly, leaning forward. “I should put it into the heads of those three hundred men that they ought to get their passage money back?”

Brown’s hand stopped in midair.

“They are large, violent, armed men; and they are far from pure home influences,” went on Talbot mockingly. “Here’s a sample of them,” said he indicating my huge frame. “And there are a thousand or so more, not directly interested but dying for excitement.”

“Are you trying to intimidate me, sir?” demanded Brown.

“I am just stating conditions.”

“You are threatening me.”

“Ah, that is different,” said Talbot Ward.

74Brown sat lost in thought for some moments. Then he reached forward and at last struck the bell.

“Let me have your tickets,” he commanded us shortly.

He endorsed them and handed them to the clerk, together with a written order. We all sat in absolute silence for perhaps five minutes. Then the clerk returned with a handful of gold. This Brown counted over and shoved across to Talbot. The latter also counted it, and thrust it in his pocket.

“Now,” said Brown, with something approaching geniality, “I am counting on your honour to say nothing of this outside. I am gambling on your evident class in life at home.”

“You have our promise, and it will be kept,” said Talbot rising. “But undoubtedly within two days you will think I am the biggest liar unhung. There will be many more who will think of this same simple plan of getting a refund on their tickets and who will blab it out to every one on the street. You would do well to make your plans now as to how you intend to deal with them. But remember, I, nor my friends, will have had nothing to do with it.”

“I understand that there will be plenty making your same demand,” said Brown, “but I doubt any of them will think of urging that demand.”

We left. As a matter of interest, Talbot’s prediction was correct; as, indeed, Brown had immediately recognized it would be. Talbot had only the advantage of thinking a little quicker than the next man, of acting immediately, and of allowing no time for reflection to the other. The steamship office had a strenuous time. Talbot’s threat had this 75 much of real significance: that there was, lacking him, no organized demonstration. Each man went for himself and demanded his money back. In a few rare cases he got it; but was generally bluffed out, or blandly referred back to the New York offices, or reasoned out. The situation came near to riot, but in some difficult manner it was tided over. A few settled down to wait for the next steamer. The majority decided for sailing ships, and pocketed their steamer tickets in hopes of future reimbursement. One score of fanatics and ignoramuses, in dense ignorance as to the nature of the journey, actually started out to row to San Francisco in an open boat! They were never heard of again. One or two parties modified this plan by proceeding in fishing boats to the extremity of the peninsula of Lower California, and thence marched overland to San Diego. Their sufferings in that arid region were great, but they managed to arrive many months later.

We returned to our lodgings, congratulating Talbot on the promptitude of his action, for already we saw determined looking men hurrying across the plaza toward the offices.

At our place we found that Yank had not returned. At first we thought nothing of this; but about dusk we found that all his belongings had disappeared.

76CHAPTER IX
NORTHWARD HO!

We could not understand this sudden departure, except on the possible ground that Yank, realizing that now the party must split forces, had decided to seek new companions among those lucky enough to sail on the first steamer.

“Even then he needn’t have been in such a hurry,” complained Johnny a trifle bitterly. “And he needn’t have thought we’d be in his way.”

“Has he paid his share of the lodgings?” it occurred to me to ask.

We felt quite bitter against Yank, and we carefully avoided his usual haunts, for we did not want to meet him. Then we began to think it strange we had not run across him somewhere on the streets. Then we began to look for him. We found that Yank had disappeared!

At that, a little alarmed, we set ourselves to a serious search and inquiry. A few remembered to have seen him, but were vague as to when and where. The authorities moved sluggishly, and with little enthusiasm. Men were dying every day; and disappearing underground, leaving no trace of themselves behind. One more or less seemed unimportant.

In the meanwhile we spent much of our time by the shore, together with a comfortable majority of our fellow argonauts, 77 awaiting the sighting of a vessel. We had engaged, and paid daily, a boatman to be in readiness to take us off; and we settled our lodgings account a week ahead.

“There’s going to be a scramble for that blessed ship,” said Talbot; “and we’ll just be prepared.”

To that end we also kept our effects packed and ready for instant removal.

The beach was not a bad place. It ran out the peninsula in a long gentle curve; and the surges broke snow white on yellow sands. Across deep blue water was an island; and back of us palm trees whipped in the trade winds. We sat under them, and yarned and played cards and smoked. In bad weather–and it rained pretty often–we huddled in smoky little huts; those of us who could get in. The rest tried to stick it out; or returned with rather a relieved air to the town.

The expected ship came, of course, on one of these dull gray days; and those who had thought themselves unlucky in being crowded out of the huts were the first to sight her. They sneaked down very quietly and tried to launch two of the boats. Of course the native boatmen were all inside; trust them! As a high surf was running, and as none of the men were in any sense good boatmen, they promptly broached to and filled. The noise brought us to the door.

Then there was a fine row. One of the two boats commandeered by the early birds happened to be ours! All our forethought seemed to have been in vain. The bedraggled and crestfallen men were just wading ashore when we descended upon them. Talbot was like a raving lunatic.

“You hounds!” he roared. “Don’t you dare try to 78 sneak off! You catch hold here and help empty these boats! You would, would you?” He caught one escaping worthy by the collar and jerked him so rapidly backward that his heels fairly cracked together. Johnny flew to combat with a chuckle of joy. I contented myself by knocking two of them together until they promised to be good. The four we had collared were very meek. We all waded into the wash where the boat lay sluggishly rolling. It is no easy matter to empty a boat in that condition. Water weighs a great deal; is fearfully inert, or at least feels so; and has a bad habit of promptly slopping in again. We tugged and heaved, and rolled and hauled until our joints cracked; but at last we got her free.

In the meantime forty other boats had been launched and were flying over the waves halfway between the shore and the ship.

Talbot was swearing steadily and with accuracy; Johnny was working like a crazy man; I was heaving away at the stern and keeping an eye on our involuntary helpers. The boatman, beside himself with frantic excitement, jabbered and ran about and screamed directions that no one understood. About all we were accomplishing now was the keeping of that boat’s head straight against the heavy wash.

It seemed as though we tugged thus at cross purposes for an hour. In reality it was probably not over two or three minutes. Then Talbot regained sufficient control to listen to the boatman. At once he calmed down.

“Here, boys,” said he, “ease her backward. You, Johnny, stand by at the bow and hold her head on. Frank and I will give her a shove at the stern. When the time 79 comes, I’ll yell and you pile right in, Johnny. Vamos, Manuel!”

We took our places; the boatman at the oars, his eyes over his shoulder watching keenly the in-racing seas.

The four dripping culprits looked at each other uncertainly, and one of them started to climb in the boat.

“Well, for God’s sake!” screeched Talbot, and made a headlong bull rush for the man.

The latter tumbled right out of the boat on his back in the shallow water. His three companions fled incontinently up the beach, where he followed them as soon as he could scramble to his feet.

Manuel said something sharply, without looking around.

“Shove!” screeched Talbot. “Pile in, Johnny!”

We bent our backs, The boat resisted, yielded, gathered headway. It seemed to be slipping away from me down a steep hill.

“Jump in!” yelled Talbot.

I gave a mighty heave and fell over the stern into the bottom of the boat. Waters seemed to be crashing by; but by the time I had gathered myself together and risen to my knees, we were outside the line of breakers, and dancing like a gull over the smooth broad surges.

Ships could anchor no nearer than about a mile and a half offshore. By the time we had reached the craft she was surrounded by little boats bobbing and rubbing against her sides. She proved to be one of that very tubby, bluff-bowed type then so commonly in use as whalers and freighters. The decks swarmed black with an excited crowd.

80We rowed slowly around her. We were wet, and beginning to chill. No way seemed to offer by which we could reach her decks save by difficult clambering, for the gang ladder was surrounded ten deep by empty boats. A profound discouragement succeeded the excitement under which we had made our effort.

“To hell with her!” snarled Johnny, “There’s no sense going aboard her. There’s enough on deck now to fill her three times over. Let’s get back where it’s warm.”

“If I run across any of those fellows in town I’ll break their necks!” said I.

“What makes me mad─” continued Johnny.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake shut up!” cried Talbot.

If he had been a little less cold and miserable we probably would have quarrelled. As it was, we merely humped over, and motioned the astonished Manuel to return to the shore. Our boat’s head turned, we dropped down under the bow of the ship. In order to avoid the sweep of the seas Manuel held us as closely as possible under the bowsprit. We heard a hail above us. Looking up we saw Yank bending over the rail.

We stared at him, our mouths open, so astonished that for a moment we did not even think to check the boat. Then we came back in a clumsy circle. Yank yelled at us; and we yelled back at him; but so great was the crash of waters and the whistling of wind that we could make out nothing. Then Yank motioning us to remain where we were, disappeared, to return after a short interval, with a speaking trumpet.

“Have you got your baggage with you?” he roared.

81We shook our heads and waved our arms.

“Go get it!” he ordered.

We screamed something back at him.

“Go get it!” he repeated; and withdrew his head entirely.

We rowed back to town; it was no longer necessary to return to the exposed beach where we had waited to sight the ships. Johnny and I indulged in much excited speculation, but Talbot refused to show curiosity.

“He’s there, and he’s evidently engaged us passage; and he wants us aboard to claim it,” said he, “and that’s all we can know now; and that’s enough for me.”

On our way we met a whole fleet of boats racing their belated way from town. We grinned sardonically over the plight of these worthies. A half-hour sufficed us to change our clothes, collect our effects, and return to the water front. On the return journey we crossed the same fleet of boats inward bound. Their occupants looked generally very depressed.

Yank met us at the top of the gangway, and assisted us in getting our baggage aboard. Johnny and I peppered him with questions, to which he vouchsafed no answer. When we had paid off the boatman, he led the way down a hatch into a very dark hole near the bows. A dim lantern swayed to and fro, through the murk we could make out a dozen bunks.

“They call this the fo’cas’le,” said Yank placidly. “Crew sleeps here. This is our happy home. Everything else full up. We four,” said he, with a little flash of triumph, “are just about the only galoots of the whole b’iling at Panama that gets passage. She’s loaded to the 82 muzzle with men that’s come away around the Horn in her; and the only reason she stopped in here at all is to get a new thing-um-a-jig of some sort that she had lost or busted or something.”

“Well, I don’t like my happy home while she wobbles so,” said Johnny. “I’m going to be seasick, as usual. But for heaven’s sake, Yank, tell us where you came from, and all about it. And make it brief, for I’m going to be seasick pretty soon.”

He lay down in one of the bunks and closed his eyes.

“You’d much better come up on deck into the fresh air,” said Talbot.

“Fire ahead, Yank! Please!” begged Johnny.

“Well,” said Yank, “when I drew that steamer ticket, it struck me that somebody might want it a lot more than I did, especially as you fellows drew blank. So I hunted up a man who was in a hurry, and sold it to him for five hundred dollars. Then I hired one of these sail-rigged fishing boats and laid in grub for a week and went cruising out to sea five or six miles.”

Johnny opened one eye.

“Why?” he demanded feebly.

“I was figgerin’ on meeting any old ship that came along a little before the crowd got at her,” said Yank. “And judgin’ by the gang’s remarks that just left, I should think I’d figgered just right.”

“You bet you did,” put in Talbot emphatically.

“It must have been mighty uncomfortable cruising out there in that little boat so long,” said I. “I wonder the men would stick.”

83“I paid them and they had to,” said Yank grimly.

“Why didn’t you let us in on it?” I asked.

“What for? It was only a one-man job. So then I struck this ship, and got aboard her after a little trouble persuading her to stop. There wasn’t no way of making that captain believe we’d sleep anywheres we could except cash; so I had to pay him a good deal.”

“How much?” demanded Talbot.

“It came to two hundred apiece. I’m sorry.”

“Glory be!” shouted Talbot, “we’re ahead of the game. Yank, you long-headed old pirate, let me shake you by the hand!”

“I wish you fellows would go away,” begged Johnny.

We went on deck. The dusk was falling, and the wind with it; and to westward an untold wealth of gold was piling up. Our ship rolled at her anchor, awaiting the return of those of her people who had gone ashore. On the beach tiny spots of lights twinkled where some one had built fires. A warmth was stealing out from the shore over the troubled waters. Talbot leaned on the rail by my side. Suddenly he chuckled explosively.

“I was just thinking,” said he in explanation, “of us damfools roosting on that beach in the rain.”

Thus at last we escaped from the Isthmus. At the end of twenty-four hours we had left the island of Tobago astern, and were reaching to the north.

PART II

THE GOLDEN CITY

87CHAPTER X
THE GOLDEN CITY

We stood in between the hills that guarded the bay of San Francisco about ten o’clock of an early spring day. A fresh cold wind pursued us; and the sky above us was bluer than I had ever seen it before, even on the Isthmus. To our right some great rocks were covered with seals and sea lions, and back of them were hills of yellow sand. A beautiful great mountain rose green to our left, and the water beneath us swirled and eddied in numerous whirlpools made by the tide.

Everybody was on deck and close to the rail. We strained our eyes ahead; and saw two islands, and beyond a shore of green hills. None of us knew where San Francisco was located, nor could we find out. The ship’s company were much too busy to pay attention to our questions. The great opening out of the bay beyond the long narrows was therefore a surprise to us; it seemed as vast as an inland sea. We hauled to the wind, turning sharp to the south, glided past the bold point of rocks.

Then we saw the city concealed in a bend of the cove. It was mainly of canvas; hundreds, perhaps thousands of tents and canvas houses scattered about the sides of hills. The flat was covered with them, too, and they extended for some distance along the shore of the cove. A great dust, 88 borne by the wind that had brought us in, swept across the city like a cloud of smoke. Hundreds and hundreds of vessels lay at anchor in the harbour, a vast fleet.

We were immediately surrounded by small boats, and our decks filled with men. We had our first sight of the genuine miners. They proved to be as various as the points of the compass. Big men, little men, clean men, dirty men, shaggy men, shaven men, but all instinct with an eager life and energy I have never seen equalled. Most wore the regulation dress–a red shirt, pantaloons tucked into the tops of boots, broad belts with sometimes silver buckles, silk Chinese sashes of vivid raw colours, a revolver, a bowie knife, a floppy old hat. Occasionally one, more dignified than the rest, sported a shiny top hat; but always with the red shirt. These were merchants, and men permanently established in the town.

They addressed us eagerly, asking a thousand questions concerning the news of the outside world. We could hardly answer them in our desire to question in return. Were the gold stories really true? Were the diggings very far away? Were the diggings holding out? What were the chances for newcomers? And so on without end; and the burden always of gold! gold! gold!

We were answered with the enthusiasm of an old-timer welcoming a newcomer to any country. Gold! Plenty of it! They told us, in breathless snatches, the most marvellous tales–one sailor had dug $17,000 in a week; another man, a farmer from New England, was taking out $5,000 to $6,000 daily. They mentioned names and places. They pointed to the harbour full of shipping. 89 “Four hundred ships,” said they, “and hardly a dozen men aboard the lot! All gone to the mines!” And one man snatching a long narrow buckskin bag from his pocket, shook out of its mouth to the palm of his hand a tiny cascade of glittering yellow particles–the Dust! We shoved and pushed, crowding around him to see this marvellous sight. He laughed in a sort of excited triumph, and tossed the stuff into the air. The breeze caught it and scattered it wide. A number of the little glittering particles clung to my rough coat, where they flashed like spangles.

“Plenty more where that came from!” cried the man; and turned away with a reckless laugh.

Filled with the wine of this new excitement we finally succeeded in getting ashore in one of the ship’s boats.

We landed on a flat beach of deep black sand. It was strewn from one end to the other by the most extraordinary wreckage. There were levers, cogwheels, cranks, fans, twisted bar, and angle iron, in all stages of rust and disintegration. Some of these machines were half buried in the sand; others were tidily laid up on stones as though just landed. They were of copper, iron, zinc, brass, tin, wood. We recognized the genus at a glance. They were, one and all, patent labour-saving gold washing machines, of which we had seen so many samples aboard ship. At this sight vanished the last remains of the envy I had ever felt for the owners of similar contraptions.

We looked about for some sort of conveyance into which to dump our belongings. Apparently none existed. 90 Therefore we piled most of our effects neatly above high tide, shouldered our bundles, and started off up the single street.

On either side this thoroughfare stood hundreds of open sheds and buildings in the course of construction. Goods of all sorts, and in great quantity, lay beneath them, wholly or partially exposed to the dust and weather. Many unopened bales had been left in the open air. One low brick building of a single story seemed to be the only substantial structure in sight. We saw quantities of calicos, silks, rich furniture, stacks of the pieces of knock-down houses, tierces of tobacco, piles of all sorts of fancy clothing. The most unexpected and incongruous items of luxury seemed to have been dumped down here from the corners of the earth, by the four hundred ships swinging idly at anchor in the bay.

The street was, I think, the worst I have ever seen anywhere. It was a morass of mud, sticky greasy mud, of some consistency, but full of water-holes and rivulets. It looked ten feet deep; and I should certainly have ventured out on it with misgivings. And yet, incongruously enough, the surface ridges of it had dried, and were lifting into the air in the form of dust! This was of course my first experience with that common California phenomenon, and I was greatly astonished.

An attempt had been made to supply footing for pedestrians. Bags of sand had been thrown down, some rocks, a very few boxes and boards. Then our feet struck something soft and yielding, and we found we were walking over hundred pound sacks of flour marked as from Chili. 91 There must have been many hundred of them. A man going in the opposite direction sidled past us.

“Cheaper than lumber,” said he briefly, seeing our astonishment.

“I’d hate to ask the price of lumber,” remarked one of our ship’s companions, with whom–and a number of others–we were penetrating the town. This man carried only a very neat black morocco satchel and a net bag containing a half dozen pineapples, the last of a number he had brought from the Isthmus. The contrast of that morocco bag with the rest of him was quite as amusing as any we saw about us; though, of course, he did not appreciate that.

We walked on flour for a hundred feet or so, and then came to cook stoves. I mean it. A battalion of heavy iron cook stoves had been laid side by side to form a causeway. Their weight combined with the traffic over them had gradually pressed them down into the mud until their tops were nearly level with the surface. Naturally the first merry and drunken joker had shied the lids into space. The pedestrian had now either to step in and out of fire boxes or try his skill on narrow ledges! Next we came to a double row of boxes of tobacco; then to some baled goods, and so off onto solid ground.

We passed many people, all very intent on getting along safely. From the security of the shed stores the proprietors and an assorted lot of loafers watched proceedings with interest. The task of crossing the street from one side to the other, especially, was one not lightly to be undertaken! A man had to balance, to leap, to poise; and at last probably, 92 to teeter back and forth trying to keep his balance like a small boy on a fence rail, until, with an oath of disgust, he stepped off into the slime.

When we had gained the dry ground near the head of the street we threw down our burdens for a rest.

“I’ll give you ten dollars for those pineapples!” offered a passerby, stopping short.

Our companion quickly closed the bargain.

“What do you think of that?” he demanded of us wide-eyed, and in the hearing of the purchaser.

The latter grinned a little, and hailed a man across the street.

“Charley!” he yelled. “Come over here!”

The individual addressed offered some demur, but finally picked his way across to us.

“How do you like these?” demanded the pineapple purchaser, showing his fruit.

“Jerusalem!” cried Charley admiringly, “where did you get them? Want to sell ’em?”

“I want some myself, but I’ll sell you three of them.”

“How much?”

“Fifteen dollars.”

“Give ’em to me.”

The first purchaser grinned openly at our companion.

The latter followed into the nearest store to get his share of the dust weighed out. His face wore a very thoughtful expression.

We came shortly to the Plaza, since called Portsmouth Square. At that time it was a wind-swept, grass-grown, 93 scrubby enough plot of ground. On all sides were permanent buildings. The most important of these were a low picturesque house of the sun-dried bricks known as adobes, in which, as it proved, the customs were levied; a frame two-story structure known as the Parker House, and a similar building labelled “City Hotel.” The spaces between these larger edifices was occupied by a dozen or so of smaller shacks. Next door to the Parker House stood a huge flapping tent. The words El Dorado were painted on its side.

The square itself was crowded with people moving to and fro. The solid majority of the crowd consisted of red or blue shirted miners; but a great many nations and frames of minds seemed to be represented. Chinese merchants, with red coral buttons atop their stiff little skullcaps, wandered slowly, their hands tucked in capacious sleeves of the richest brocade. We had seen few of this race; and we looked at them with the greatest interest, examining closely their broad bland faces, the delicate lilacs and purples and blues of their rich costumes, the swaying silk braided queues down their backs. Other Chinese, of the lower castes, clad in blue canvas with broad bowl-shaped hats of straw on their heads, wormed their way through the crowd balancing baskets at the ends of poles. Rivalling the great Chinese merchants in their leisure, strolled the representatives of the native race, the Spanish Californians. They were darkly handsome men, dressed gloriously in short velvet jackets, snowy ruffles, plush trousers flaring at the bottom, and slit up the side of the leg, soft leather boots, and huge spurs ornamented with 94 silver. They sauntered to and fro smoking brown-paper cigarettos. Beside these two, the Chinese and the Californians, but one other class seemed to be moving with any deliberation. These were men seen generally alone, or at most in pairs. They were quiet, waxy pale, dressed always neatly in soft black hat, white shirt, long black coat, and varnished boots. In the face of a general gabble they seemed to remain indifferently silent, self-contained and aloof. To occasional salutations they responded briefly and with gravity.

“Professional gamblers,” said Talbot.

All the rest of the crowd rushed here and there at a great speed. We saw the wildest incongruities of demeanour and costume beside which the silk-hat-red-shirted combination was nothing. They struck us open-mouthed and gasping; but seemed to attract not the slightest attention from anybody else. We encountered a number of men dressed alike in suits of the finest broadcloth, the coats of which were lined with red silk, and the vests of embroidered white. These men walked with a sort of arrogant importance. We later found that they were members of that dreaded organization known as The Hounds, whose ostensible purpose was to perform volunteer police duty, but whose real effort was toward the increase of their own power. These people all surged back and forth good-naturedly, and shouted at each other, and disappeared with great importance up the side streets, or darted out with equal busyness from all points of the compass. Every few minutes a cry of warning would go up on one side of the square or another. The crowd would scatter to right and left, and down through the 95 opening would thunder a horseman distributing clouds of dust and showers of earth.

“Why doesn’t somebody kill a few of those crazy fools!” muttered Talbot impatiently, after a particularly close shave.

“Why, you see, they’s mostly drunk,” stated a bystander with an air of explaining all.

We tacked across to the doors of the Parker House. There after some search was made we found the proprietor. He, too, seemed very busy, but he spared time to trudge ahead of us up two rickety flights of raw wooden stairs to a loft where he indicated four canvas bunks on which lay as many coarse blue blankets.

Perhaps a hundred similar bunks occupied every available inch in the little loft.

“How long you going to stay?” he asked us.

“Don’t know; a few days.”

“Well, six dollars apiece, please.”

“For how long?”

“For to-night.”

“Hold on!” expostulated Talbot. “We can’t stand that especially for these accommodations. At that price we ought to have something better. Haven’t you anything in the second story?”

The proprietor’s busy air fell from him; and he sat down on the edge of one of the canvas bunks.

“I thought you boys were from the mines,” said he. “Your friend, here, fooled me.” He pointed his thumb at Yank. “He looks like an old-timer. But now I look at you, I see you’re greenhorns. Just get here to-day? Have a smoke?”

96He produced a handful of cigars, of which he lit one.

“We just arrived,” said Talbot, somewhat amused at this change. “How about that second story?”

“I want to tell you boys a few things,” said the proprietor, “I get sixty thousand dollars a year rent for that second story just as she stands. That tent next door belongs to my brother-in-law. It is just fifteen by twenty-five feet, and he rents it for forty thousand.”

“Gamblers?” inquired Talbot.

“You’ve guessed it. So you see I ain’t got any beds to speak of down there. In fact, here’s the whole layout.”

“But we can’t stand six dollars a night for these things,” expostulated Johnny. “Let’s try over at the other place.”

“Try ahead, boys,” said the proprietor quite good-naturedly. “You’ll find her the same over there; and everywhere else.” He arose. “Best leave your plunder here until you find out. Come down and have a drink?”

We found the City Hotel offered exactly the same conditions as did the Parker House; except that the proprietor was curt and had no time for us at all. From that point, still dissatisfied, we extended our investigations beyond the Plaza. We found ourselves ankle deep in sandhills on which grew coarse grass and a sort of sage. Crazy, ramshackle huts made of all sorts of material were perched in all sorts of places. Hundreds of tents had been pitched, beneath which and in front of which an extremely simple housekeeping was going on. Hunt as we might we could find no place that looked as though it would take lodgers. Most of even the better looking houses were simply tiny skeletons covered with paper, cloth or paint. By painstaking 97 persistence we kept at it until we had enquired of every building of any pretensions. Then, somewhat discouraged, we picked our way back to the shore after our heavier goods.

The proprietor of the Parker House greeted us with unabated good nature.

“I know how you boys feel,” said he. “There’s lots in your fix. You’d better stick here to-night and then get organized to camp out, if you’re going to be here long. I suppose, though, you’re going to the mines? Well, it’ll take you several days to make your plans and get ready. When you get back from the mines you won’t have to think about these things.”

“There’s plenty of gold?” ventured Johnny.

“Bushels.”

“I should think you’d be up there.”

“I don’t want any better gold mine than the old Parker House,” said he comfortably.

We paid him twenty-four dollars.

By now it was late in the afternoon. The wind had dropped, but over the hills to seaward rolled a soft beautiful bank of fog. The sun was blotted out behind it and a chill fell. The crowds about the Plaza thinned.

We economized our best at supper, but had to pay some eight dollars for the four of us. The bill was a la carte and contained such items as grizzly steak, antelope, elk, and wild duck and goose. Grizzly steak, I remember, cost a dollar and a quarter. By the time we had finished, it had grown dark. The lamps were alight, and the crowds were beginning to gather. All the buildings and the big tent 98 next door were a blaze of illumination. The sounds of music and singing came from every side. A holiday spirit was in the air.

Johnny and I were crazy to be up and doing, but Talbot sternly repressed us, and Yank agreed with his decision by an unusually emphatic nod.

“It is all a lot of fun, I’ll admit,” said he; “but this is business. And we’ve got to face it. Sit down here on the edge of this veranda, and let’s talk things over. How much money have you got, Yank?”

“Two hundred and twenty dollars,” replied Yank promptly.

“You’re partners with me, Frank, so I know our assets,” said Talbot with tact. “Johnny?”

“Hanged if I know,” replied that youth. “I’ve got quite a lot. I keep it in my pack.”

“Well, go find out,” advised Talbot.

Johnny was gone for some time. We smoked and listened to the rather blatantly mingled strains of music, and watched the figures of men hurrying by in the spangled darkness.

Johnny returned very much excited.

“I’ve been robbed!” he cried.

“Robbed? Is your money all gone?”

“No, there’s a little left, but─”

Talbot laughed quietly.

“Sit down, Johnny, and cool off,” he advised. “If anybody had robbed you, they’d have taken the whole kit and kaboodle. Did you come out ahead on those monte games?”

99Johnny blushed, and laughed a little.

“I see what you’re at, but you’re away off there. I just played for small stakes.”

“And lost a lot of them. I sort of look-out your game. But that’s all right. How much did the ‘robbers’ leave you?”

“Twelve dollars, besides what I have in my clothes–twenty-one dollars in all,” said Johnny.

“Well, that’s pretty good. You beat Frank and me to death. There’s our total assets,” said Talbot, and laid a ten-dollar gold piece and a dime on his knee.

“We’ll call that dime a curiosity,” said he, “for I notice a quarter is the smallest coin they use out here. Now you see that we’ve got to talk business. Frank and I haven’t got enough to live on for one more day.”

“There’s enough among us─” began Yank.

“You mean you already have your share of the partnership finances,” corrected Talbot, quickly. “If we’re going to be partners–and that’s desired and understood, I suppose?” We all nodded emphatic agreement. “We must all put in the same amount. I move that said amount be two hundred and twenty dollars apiece. Yank, you can loaf to-morrow; you’ve got your share all made up. You can put in the day finding out all about getting to the mines, and how much it costs, and what we will need.”

“All right; I’ll do it,” said Yank.

“As for the rest of us,” cried Talbot, “we’ve got to rustle up two hundred and twenty dollars each before to-morrow evening!”

“How?” I asked blankly

100“How should I know? Out there” he waved his hand abroad at the flickering lights. “There is the Golden City, challenging every man as he enters her gates. She offers opportunity and fortune. All a man has to do is go and take them! Accept the challenge!”

“The only way I could take them would be to lift them off some other fellow at the point of a gun,” said Johnny gloomily.

101CHAPTER XI
I MAKE TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS

We talked the situation over thoroughly, and then turned in, having lost our chance to see the sights. Beneath us and in the tent next door went on a tremendous row of talking, laughing, and singing that for a little while prevented me from falling asleep. But the last month had done wonders for me in that way; and shortly I dropped off.

Hours later I awakened, shivering with cold to find the moonlight pouring into the room, and the bunks all occupied. My blanket had disappeared, which accounted for my dreams of icebergs. Looking carefully over the sleeping forms I discerned several with two blankets, and an equal number with none! At first I felt inclined to raise a row; then thought better of it, by careful manipulation I abstracted two good blankets from the most unprotected of of my neighbours, wrapped them tightly about me, and so slept soundly.

We went downstairs and out into the sweetest of mornings. The sun was bright, the sky clear and blue, the wind had not yet risen, balmy warmth showered down through every particle of the air. I had felt some May days like this back on our old farm. Somehow they were associated in my mind with Sunday morning and the drawling, lazy clucking of hens. Only here there were no hens, and if it 102 was Sunday morning–which it might have been–nobody knew it.

The majority of the citizens had not yet appeared, but a handful of the poorer Chinese, and a sprinkling of others, crossed the Plaza. The doors of the gambling places were all wide open to the air. Across the square a number of small boys were throwing dust into the air. Johnny, with his usual sympathy for children, naturally gravitated in their direction. He returned after a few moments, his eyes wide.

“Do you know what they are doing?” he demanded.

We said politely that we did not.

“They are panning for gold.”

“Well, what of it?” I asked, after a moment’s pause; since Johnny seemed to expect some astonishment. “Boys are imitative little monkeys.”

“Yes, but they’re getting it,” insisted Johnny.

“What!” cried Talbot. “You’re crazy. Panning gold–here in the streets. It’s absurd!”

“It’s not absurd; come and see.”

We crossed the Plaza. Two small Americans and a Mexican youth were scooping the surface earth into the palms of their hands and blowing it out again in a slantwise stream. When it was all gone, they examined eagerly their hands. Four others working in partnership had spread a small sheet. They threw their handfuls of earth into the air, all the while fanning vigorously with their hats. The breeze thus engendered puffed away the light dust, leaving only the heavier pieces to fall on the canvas. Among these the urchins searched eagerly and carefully, 103 their heads close together. Every moment or so one of them would wet a forefinger to pick up carefully a speck of something which he would then transfer to an old buckskin sack.

As we approached, they looked up and nodded to Johnny in a friendly fashion. They were eager, alert, precocious gamins, of the street type and how they had come to California I could not tell you. Probably as cabin boys of some of the hundreds of vessels in the harbour.

“What are you getting, boys?” asked Talbot after a moment.

“Gold, of course,” answered one of them.

“Let’s see it.”

The boy with the buckskin sack held it open for our inspection, but did not relax his grip on it. The bottom of the bag was thickly gilded with light glittering yellow particles.

“It looks like gold,” said I, incredulously.

“It is gold,” replied the boy with some impatience. “Anyway, it buys things.”

We looked at each other.

“Gold diggings right in the streets of San Francisco,” murmured Yank.

“I should think you’d find it easier later in the day when the wind came up?” suggested Talbot.

“Of course; and let some other kids jump our claim while we were waiting,” grunted one of the busy miners.

“How much do you get out of it?”

“Good days we make as high as three or four dollars.”

“I’m afraid the diggings are hardly rich enough to tempt 104 us,” observed Talbot; “but isn’t that the most extraordinary performance! I’d no notion─”

We returned slowly to the hotel, marvelling. Yesterday we had been laughing at the gullibility of one of our fellow-travellers who had believed the tale of a wily ship’s agent to the effect that it was possible to live aboard the ship and do the mining within reach ashore at odd hours of daylight! Now that tale did not sound so wild; although of course we realized that the gold must occur in very small quantities. Otherwise somebody beside small boys would be at it. As a matter of fact, though we did not find it out until very much later, the soil of San Francisco is not auriferous at all. The boys were engaged in working the morning’s sweepings from the bars and gambling houses which the lavish and reckless handling of gold had liberally impregnated. In some of the mining towns nearer the source of supply I have known of from one hundred to three hundred dollars a month being thus “blown” from the sweepings of a bar.

We ate a frugal breakfast and separated on the agreed business of the day. Yank started for the water front to make inquiries as to ways of getting to the mines; Talbot set off at a businesslike pace for the hotel as though he knew fully what he was about; Johnny wandered rather aimlessly to the east; and I as aimlessly to the west.

It took me just one hour to discover that I could get all of any kind of work that any dozen men could do, and at wages so high that at first I had to ask over and over again to make sure I had heard aright. Only none of them would bring me in two hundred and twenty dollars by evening. The further I looked into that proposition, the more absurd, 105 of course, I saw it to be. I could earn from twenty to fifty dollars by plain day-labour at some jobs; or I could get fabulous salaries by the month or year; but that was different. After determining this to my satisfaction I came to the sensible conclusion that I would make what I could.

The first thing that caught my eye after I had come to this decision was a wagon drawn by four mules coming down the street at a sucking walk. The sight did not impress me particularly; but every storekeeper came out from his shop and every passerby stopped to look with respect as the outfit wallowed along. It was driven by a very large, grave, blond man with a twinkle in his eye.

“That’s John A. McGlynn,” said a man next my elbow.

“Who’s he?” I asked.

The man looked at me in astonishment.

“Don’t know who John McGlynn is?” he demanded. “When did you get here?”

“Last night.”

“Oh! Well, John has the only American wagon in town. Brought it out from New York in pieces, and put it together himself. Broke four wild California mules to drag her. He’s a wonder!”

I could not, then, see quite how this exploit made him such a wonder; but on a sudden inspiration I splashed out through the mud and climbed into the wagon.

McGlynn looked back at me.

“Freightin’,” said he, “is twenty dollars a ton; and at that rate it’ll cost you about thirty dollars, you dirty hippopotamus. These ain’t no safe-movers, these mules!”

Unmoved, I clambered up beside him.

106“I want a job,” said I, “for to-day only.”

“Do ye now?”

“Can you give me one?”

“I can, mebbe. And do you understand the inner aspirations of mules, maybe?”

“I was brought up on a farm.”

“And the principles of elementary navigation by dead reckoning?”

I looked at him blankly.

“I mean mudholes,” he explained. “Can you keep out of them?”

“I can try.”

He pulled up the team, handed me the reins, and clambered over the wheel.

“You’re hired. At six o’clock I’ll find you and pay you off. You get twenty-five dollars.”

“What am I to do?”

“You go to the shore and you rustle about whenever you see anything that looks like freight; and you look at it, and when you see anything marked with a diamond and an H inside of it, you pile it on and take it up to Howard Mellin & Company. And if you can’t lift it, then leave it for another trip, and bullyrag those skinflints at H. M. & Co.’s to send a man down to help you. And if you don’t know where they live, find out; and if you bog them mules down I’ll skin you alive, big as you are. And anyway, you’re a fool to be working in this place for twenty-five dollars a day, which is one reason I’m so glad to find you just now.”

“What’s that, John?” inquired a cool, amused voice. McGlynn and I looked around. A tall, perfectly dressed 107 figure stood on the sidewalk surveying us quizzically. This was a smooth-shaven man of perhaps thirty-five years of age, grave faced, clean cut, with an air of rather ponderous slow dignity that nevertheless became his style very well. He was dressed in tall white hat, a white winged collar, a black stock, a long tailed blue coat with gilt buttons, an embroidered white waistcoat, dapper buff trousers, and varnished boots. He carried a polished cane and wore several heavy pieces of gold jewellery–a watch fob, a scarf-pin, and the like. His movements were leisurely, his voice low. It seemed to me, then, that somehow the perfection of his appointments and the calm deliberation of his movement made him more incongruous and remarkable than did the most bizarre whims of the miners.

“Is it yourself, Judge Girvin?” replied McGlynn, “I’m just telling this young man that he can’t have the job of driving my little California canaries for but one day because I’ve hired a fine lawyer from the East at two hundred and seventy-five a month to drive my mules for me.”

“You have done well,” Judge Girvin in his grave, courteous tones. “For the whole business of a lawyer is to know how to manage mules and asses so as to make them pay!”

I drove to the beach, and speedily charged my wagon with as large a load as prudence advised me. The firm of Howard Mellin & Company proved to have quarters in a frame shack on what is now Montgomery Street. It was only a short haul, but a muddy one. Nearly opposite their store a new wharf was pushing its way out into the bay. I could see why this and other firms clung so tenaciously to 108 their locations on rivers of bottomless mud in preference to moving up into the drier part of town.

I enjoyed my day hugely. My eminent position on the driver’s seat–eminent both actually and figuratively–gave me a fine opportunity to see the sights and to enjoy the homage men seemed inclined to accord the only wagon in town. The feel of the warm air was most grateful. Such difficulties as offered served merely to add zest to the job. At noon I ate some pilot bread and a can of sardines bought from my employers. About two o’clock the wind came up from the sea, and the air filled with the hurrying clouds of dust.

In my journeys back and forth I had been particularly struck by the bold, rocky hill that shut off the view toward the north. Atop this hill had been rigged a two-armed semaphore, which, one of the clerks told me, was used to signal the sight of ships coming in the Golden Gate. The arms were variously arranged according to the rig or kind of vessel. Every man, every urchin, every Chinaman, even, knew the meaning of these various signals. A year later, I was attending a theatrical performance in the Jenny Lind Theatre on the Plaza. In the course of the play an actor rushed on frantically holding his arms outstretched in a particularly wooden fashion, and uttering the lines, “What means this, my lord!”

“A sidewheel steamer!” piped up a boy’s voice from the gallery.

Well, about three o’clock of this afternoon, as I was about delivering my fifth load of goods, I happened to look up just as the semaphore arms hovered on the rise. It 109 seemed that every man on the street must have been looking in the same direction, for instantly a great shout went up.

“A sidewheel steamer! The Oregon!”

At once the streets were alive with men hurrying from all directions toward the black rocks at the foot of Telegraph Hill, where, it seems, the steamer’s boats were expected to land. Flags were run up on all sides, firearms were let off, a warship in the harbour broke out her bunting and fired a salute. The decks of the steamer, as she swept into view, were black with men; her yards were gay with colour. Uptown some devoted soul was ringing a bell; and turning it away over and over, to judge by the sounds. I pulled up my mules and watched the vessel swing down through the ranks of the shipping and come to anchor. We had beaten out our comrades by a day!

At five o’clock a small boy boarded me.

“You’re to drive the mules up to McGlynn’s and unhitch them and leave them,” said he. “I’m to show you the way.”

“Where’s McGlynn?” I asked.

“He’s getting his mail.”

We drove to a corral and three well-pitched tents down in the southern edge of town. Here a sluggish stream lost its way in a swamp of green hummocky grass. I turned out the mules in the corral and hung up the harness.

“McGlynn says you’re to go to the post-office and he’ll pay you there,” my guide instructed me.

The post-office proved to be a low adobe one-story building, with the narrow veranda typical of its kind. A 110 line of men extended from its door and down the street as far as the eye could reach. Some of them had brought stools or boxes, and were comfortably reading scraps of paper.

I walked down the line. A dozen from the front I saw Johnny standing. This surprised me, for I knew he could not expect mail by this steamer. Before I had reached him he had finished talking to a stranger, and had yielded his place.

“Hullo!” he greeted me. “How you getting on?”

“So-so!” I replied. “I’m looking for a man who owes me twenty-five dollars.”

“Well, he’s here,” said Johnny confidently. “Everybody in town is here.”

We found McGlynn in line about a block down the street. When he saw me coming he pulled a fat buckskin bag from his breeches pocket, opened its mouth, and shook a quantity of its contents, by guess, into the palm of his hand.

“There you are,” said he; “that’s near enough. I’m a pretty good guesser. I hope you took care of the mules all right; you ought to, you’re from a farm.”

“I fixed ’em.”

“And the mud? How many times did you get stuck?”

“Not at all.”

He looked at me with surprise.

“Would you think of that, now!” said he. “You must have loaded her light.”

“I did.”

“Did you get all the goods over?”

“Yes.”

111“Well, I’ll acknowledge you’re a judgematical young man; and if you want a job with me I’ll let that lawyer go I spoke to the judge about. He handed it to me then, didn’t he?” He laughed heartily. “No? Well, you’re right. A man’s a fool to work for any one but himself. Where’s your bag? Haven’t any? How do you carry your dust? Haven’t any? I forgot; you’re a tenderfoot, of course.” He opened his buckskin sack with his teeth, and poured back the gold from the palm of his hand. Then he searched for a moment in all his pockets, and produced a most peculiar chunk of gold metal. It was nearly as thick as it was wide, shaped roughly into an octagon, and stamped with initials. This he handed to me.

“It’s about a fifty-dollar slug,” said he, “you can get it weighed. Give me the change next time you see me.”

“But I may leave for the mines to-morrow,” I objected.

“Then leave the change with Jim Recket of the El Dorado.”

“How do you know I’ll leave it?” I asked curiously.

“I don’t,” replied McGlynn bluntly. “But if you need twenty-five dollars worse than you do a decent conscience, then John A. McGlynn isn’t the man to deny you!”

Johnny and I left for the hotel.

“I didn’t know you expected any mail,” said I.

“I don’t.”

“But thought I saw you in line─”

“Oh, yes. When I saw the mail sacks, it struck me that there might be quite a crowd; so I came up as quickly as I could and got in line. There were a number before me, but I got a place pretty well up in front. Sold the place 112 for five dollars, and only had to stand there about an hour at that.”

“Good head!” I admired. “I’d never have thought of it. How have you gotten on?”

“Pretty rotten,” confessed Johnny. “I tried all morning to find a decent opportunity to do something or deal in something, and then I got mad and plunged in for odd jobs. I’ve been a regular errand boy. I made two dollars carrying a man’s bag up from the ship.”

“How much all told?”

“Fifteen. I suppose you’ve got your pile.”

“That twenty-five you saw me get is the size of it.”

Johnny brightened; we moved up closer in a new intimacy and sense of comradeship over delinquency. It relieved both to feel that the other, too, had failed. To enter the Plaza we had to pass one of the larger of the gambling places.

“I’m going in here,” said Johnny, suddenly.

He swung through the open doors, and I followed him.

The place was comparatively deserted, owing probably to the distribution of mail. We had full space to look about us; and I was never more astonished in my life. The outside of the building was rough and unfinished as a barn, having nothing but size to attract or recommend. The interior was the height of lavish luxury. A polished mahogany bar ran down one side, backed by huge gilt framed mirrors before which were pyramided fine glasses and bottles of liquor. The rest of the wall space was thickly hung with more plate mirrors, dozens of well-executed oil paintings, and strips of tapestry. At one end was a small raised 113 stage on which lolled half-dozen darkies with banjos and tambourines. The floor was covered with a thick velvet carpet. Easy chairs, some of them leather upholstered, stood about in every available corner. Heavy chandeliers of glass, with hundreds of dangling crystals and prisms, hung from the ceiling. The gambling tables, a half dozen in number, were arranged in the open floor space in the centre. Altogether it was a most astounding contrast in its sheer luxury and gorgeous furnishing to the crudity of the town. I became acutely conscious of my muddy boots, my old clothes, my unkempt hair, my red shirt and the armament strapped about my waist.

A relaxed, subdued air of idleness pervaded the place. The gamblers lounged back of their tables, sleepy-eyed and listless. On tall stools their lookouts yawned behind papers. One of these was a woman, young, pretty, most attractive in the soft, flaring, flouncy costume of that period. A small group of men stood at the bar. One of the barkeepers was mixing drinks, pouring the liquid, at arm’s length from one tumbler to another in a long parabolic curve, and without spilling a drop. Only one table was doing business, and that with only three players. Johnny pushed rapidly toward this table, and I, a little diffidently, followed.

The game was roulette. Johnny and the dealer evidently recognized each other, for a flash of the eye passed between them, but they gave no other sign. Johnny studied the board a moment then laid twenty-two dollars in coin on one of the numbers. The other players laid out small bags of gold dust. The wheel spun, and the ball rolled. Two of the men lost; their dust was emptied into a drawer beneath 114 the table and the bags tossed back to them. The third had won; the dealer deftly estimated the weight of his bet, lifting it in the flat of his left hand; then spun several gold pieces toward the winner. He seemed quite satisfied. The gambler stacked a roll of twenty-dollar pieces, added one to them, and thrust them at Johnny. I had not realized that the astounding luck of winning off a single number had befallen him.

“Ten to one–two hundred and twenty dollars!” he muttered to me.

The other three players were laying their bets for the next turn of the wheel. Johnny swept the gold pieces into his pocket, and laid back the original stake against even. He lost. Thereupon he promptly arose and left the building.

115CHAPTER XII
TALBOT DESERTS

I followed him to the hotel somewhat gloomily; for I was now the only member of our party who had not made good the agreed amount of the partnership. It is significant that never for a moment did either Johnny or myself doubt that Talbot would have the required sum. Johnny, his spirits quite recovered, whistled like a lark.

We arrived just in time for the first supper call, and found Talbot and Yank awaiting us. Yank was as cool and taciturn, and nodded to us as indifferently, as ever. Talbot, however, was full of excitement. His biscuit-brown complexion had darkened and flushed until he was almost Spanish-black, and the little devils in his eyes led a merry dance between the surface and unguessed depths. He was also exceedingly voluble; and, as usual when in that mood, aggravatingly indirect. He joked and teased and carried on like a small boy; and insisted on ordering an elaborate dinner and a bottle of champagne, in the face of even Johnny’s scandalized expostulations. When Johnny protested against expenditure, it was time to look out!

“This is on me! This is my party! Dry up, Johnny!” cried Talbot. “Fill your glasses. Drink to the new enterprise; the Undertakers’ Mining Company, Unlimited.”

“Undertakers?” I echoed.

116“Well, you all look it. Call it the Gophers, then. Capital stock just eight hundred and eighty dollars, fully subscribed. I suppose it is fully subscribed, gentlemen?” He scrutinized us closely. “Ah, Frank! I see we’ll have to take your promissory note. But the artistic certificates are not yet home from the engravers. Take your time. Maybe a relative will die.”

“Talbot,” said I disgustedly, “if I hadn’t happened to smell your breath before supper I’d think you drunk.”

“I am drunk, old deacon,” rejoined Talbot, “but with the Wine of Enchantment–do you know your Persian? No? Well, then, this:

“Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I’ll not ask for wine!”

“A woman!” grumbled the literal Yank.

“The best, the most capricious, the most beautiful woman in the world,” cried Talbot, “whose smile intoxicates, whose frown drives to despair.”

“What are you drivelling about?” I demanded.

“The goddess fortune–what else? But come,” and Talbot rose with a sudden and startling transition to the calm and businesslike. “We can smoke outside; and we must hear each other’s reports.”

He paid for the dinner, steadfastly refusing to let us bear our share. I noticed that he had acquired one of the usual buckskin sacks, and shook the yellow dust from the mouth of it to the pan of the gold scales with quite an accustomed air.

117We lit our pipes and sat down at one end of the veranda, where we would not be interrupted.

“Fire ahead, Yank,” advised Talbot.

“There’s two ways of going to the mines,” said Yank: “One is to go overland by horses to Sutter’s Fort or the new town of Sacramento, and then up from there into the foothills of the big mountains way yonder. The other is to take a boat and go up river to Sacramento and then pack across with horses.”

“How much is the river fare?” asked Talbot.

“You have to get a sailboat. It costs about forty dollars apiece.”

“How long would it take?”

“Four or five days.”

“And how long from here to Sutter’s Fort by horse?”

“About the same.”

“Depends then on whether horses are cheaper here or there.”

“They are cheaper there; or we can get our stuff freighted in by Greasers and hoof it ourselves.”

“Then I should think we ought to have a boat.”

“I got one,” said Yank.

“Good for you!” cried Talbot. “You’re a man after my own heart! Well, Johnny?”

Johnny told his tale, a little proudly and produced his required two hundred and twenty dollars.

“You had luck,” said Talbot non-committally, “and you ran a strong risk of coming back here without a cent, didn’t you? I want to ask you one question, Johnny. If you had 118 lost, would you have been willing to have taken the consequences?”

“What do you mean?” asked Johnny blankly.

“Would you have been willing to have dropped out of this partnership?”

Johnny stared.

“I mean,” said Talbot kindly, “that you had no right to try to get this money by merely a gambler’s chance unless you were willing to accept the logical result if you failed. It isn’t fair to the rest of us.”

“I see what you mean,” said Johnny slowly. “No; I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“Well, as I said, you had luck,” repeated Talbot cheerfully, “so we needn’t think of it further.” It was characteristic that Johnny took this veiled rebuke from Talbot Ward in a meek and chastened spirit; from any one else his high temper could never stand even a breath of criticism. “How about you, Frank?” Talbot asked me.

I detailed my experiences in a very few words and exhibited my gold slug.

“That’s the best I can do,” I ended, “and half of that does not belong to me. I can, however, in a few days scrape up the full amount; there is plenty to do here. And barring bull luck, like Johnny’s, I don’t see much show of beating that, unless a man settled down to stay here.”

Talbot stared at me, ruminatively, until I began to get restive. Then he withdrew his eyes. He made no comment.

“I suppose you have your money,” suggested Yank to him, after a pause.

119“Oh–yes,” said Talbot as though awaking from profound reverie.

“Well, tell us about it. How did you get it? How long did it take you?”

“About half an hour. I figured that everybody in a place like this would be wanting news. So I sorted out that bundle of old newspapers you fellows were always laughing at, and I went out and sold them. Lucky I got busy with them early; for I don’t doubt the arrival of the Oregon broke the market.”

“How much did you get for them?” asked Johnny.

“A dollar apiece for most, and fifty cents for the rest. I came out two hundred and seventy dollars ahead all told. That, with Frank’s and my ten dollars, gave me sixty dollars above the necessary amount.”

Johnny arose and kicked himself solemnly.

“For not guessing what newspapers were good for,” he explained. “Go on! What next? What did you do with the rest of the day?”

Talbot leaned forward, and all the animation of the dinner table returned to his manner and to his face.

“Boys,” said he earnestly, “this is the most wonderful town that has ever been! There has been nothing like it in the past; and there will never be anything like it again. After I had sold out my papers I went wandering across the Plaza with my hands in my pockets. Next the El Dorado there is a hole in the ground. It isn’t much of a hole, and the edges are all caving in because it is sandy. While I was looking at it two men came along. One was the owner of the hole, and the other said he was a lawyer. The owner 120 offered to rent the hole to the lawyer for two hundred and fifty dollars a month; and the lawyer was inclined to take him up. After they had gone on I paced off the hole, just for fun. It was twelve feet square by about six feet deep! Then I walked on down toward the water front, and talked with all the storekeepers. They do a queer business. All these goods we see around came out here on consignment. The local storekeepers have a greater or lesser share and sell mainly on commission. Since they haven’t any adequate storehouses, and can’t get any put up again, they sell the stuff mainly at auction and get rid of it as quickly as possible. That’s why some things are so cheap they can make pavements of them when a ship happens to come in loaded with one article. I talked with some of them and told them they ought to warehouse a lot of this stuff so as to keep it over until the market steadied. They agreed with that; but pointed out that they were putting up warehouses as fast as they could–which wasn’t very fast–and in the meantime the rains and dust were destroying their goods. It was cheaper to sell at auction.”

“And a heap more exciting,” put in Johnny. “I went to one of them.”

“Well, I wandered down to the shore, and looked out over the bay. It was full of shipping, riding high at anchor. I had an idea. I hired a boat for five dollars, and rowed out to some of the ships. Believe me or not, most of them were empty; not even a watchman aboard! I found some of the captains, however, and talked with each of them. They all told the same story.”

“Crews skipped to the mines, I suppose?” said Yank.

121“Exactly. And they couldn’t get any more. So I offered to hire a few of them.”

“The captains?” I inquired.

“No; the ships.”

“The what?” we yelled in chorus.

“The ships.”

“But if the captains can’t get crews─”

“Oh, I don’t want to sail them,” went on Talbot impatiently. “It was hard work getting them to agree; they all cherished notions they could get crews and go sailing some more–good old salts! But I hired four, at last. Had to take them for only a month, however; and had to pay them in advance five hundred apiece.”

“I beg pardon,” said Johnny softly, “for interrupting your pleasing tale; but the last item interested me. I do not know whether I quite heard it right.”

“Oh, shut up, Johnny,” said Yank; “let the man tell his story. Of course he didn’t have the money in his pocket. How did you get it, Tal?”

Ward shot him a grateful glance.

“I told them I’d pay them at four o’clock which gave me plenty of time.”

“Two thousand dollars–oh, of course!” murmured Johnny.

“So then,” continued Talbot, “I hustled ashore; and went to see some of my merchant friends. In two hours I had contracts with twelve of them that totalled six thousand dollars.”

“Why didn’t some of them go out and hire ships on their own account?” asked Yank shrewdly.

122“Because I didn’t mention the word ‘ship’ until I had their business,” said Talbot. “I just guaranteed them storage, waterproof, practically fireproof, dustproof, and within twenty-four hours. I guess most of them thought I was crazy. But as it didn’t cost them anything, they were willing to take a chance.”

“Then you didn’t raise your ten thousand dollars from them in advance payments!” I marvelled.

“Certainly not. That would have scared off the whole lot of them. But I got their agreements; I told you it took me two hours. Then I walked up the street figuring where I’d get the money. Of course I saw I’d have to divide the profits. I didn’t know anybody; but after a while I decided that the best chance was to get some advice from honest and disinterested man. So I asked the first man I met who ran the biggest gambling place in town. He told me Jim Recket.”

“Jim Recket?” I echoed. “He’s the man I was to leave change for my gold slug with.”

“Recket keeps the El Dorado, next door in the tent. He impressed me as a very quiet, direct, square sort of a fellow. The best type of professional gambler, in matters of this sort, generally is.

“‘I am looking for a man,’ said I, ‘who has a little idle money, some time, no gold-mining fever, plenty of nerve, and a broad mind. Can you tell me who he is?’

“He thought a minute and then answered direct, as I knew he would.

“‘Sam Brannan,’ he said.

“‘Tell me about him.’

123“‘To take up your points,’ said Recket, checking off his fingers, ‘he came out with a shipload of Mormons as their head, and he collected tithes from them for over a year; that’s your idle money. He has all the time the Lord stuck into one day at a clip; that’s your “some time.” He has been here in the city since ’48 which would seem to show he doesn’t care much for mining. He collected the tithes from those Mormons, and sent word to Brigham Young that if he wanted the money to come and get it. That’s for your nerve. As for being broad minded–well, when a delegation of the Mormons, all ready for a scrap, came to him solemnly to say that they were going to refuse to pay him the tithes any more, even if he was the California head of the church, he laughed them off the place for having been so green as to pay them as long as they had.’

“I found Sam Brannan, finally, at the bar in Dennison’s Exchange.”

“What was he like?” asked Johnny eagerly. “I’ll bet I heard his name fifty times to-day.”

“He is a thickset, jolly looking, curly headed fellow, with a thick neck, a bulldog jaw, and a big voice,” replied Talbot. “Of course he tried to bully me, but when that didn’t work, he came down to business. We entered into an agreement.

“Brannan was to furnish the money, and take half the profits, provided he liked the idea. When we had settled it all, I told him my scheme. He thought it over a while and came in. Then we rowed off and paid the captains of the ships. It was necessary now to get them warped in 124 at high tide, of course, but Sam Brannan said he’d see to that–he has some sort of a pull with the natives, enough to get a day’s labour, anyway.”

“Warp them in?” I echoed.

“Certainly. You couldn’t expect the merchants to lighter their stuff off in boats always. We’ll beach these ships at high tide, and then run some sort of light causeway out to them. There’s no surf, and the bottom is soft. It’ll cost us something, of course; but Sam and I figure we ought to divide three thousand clear.”

“I’d like to ask a question or so,” said I. “What’s to prevent the merchants doing this same hiring of ships for themselves?”

“Nothing,” said Talbot, “after the first month.”

“And what prevented Brannan, after he had heard your scheme, from going out on his own hook, and pocketing all the proceeds?”

“You don’t understand, Frank,” said Talbot impatiently. “Men of our stamp don’t do those things.”

“Oh!” said I.

“This,” said Johnny, “made it about two o’clock, as I figure your story. Did you then take a needed rest?”

“Quarter of two,” corrected Talbot, “I was going back to the hotel, when I passed that brick building–you know, on Montgomery Street. I remembered then that lawyer and his two hundred and fifty dollars for a hole in the ground. It seemed to me there was a terrible waste somewhere. Here was a big brick building filled up with nothing but goods. It might much better be filled with people. There is plenty of room for goods in those ships; 125 but you can’t very well put people on the ships. So I just dropped in to see them about it. I offered to hire the entire upper part of the building; and pointed out that the lower part was all they could possibly use as a store. They said they needed the upper part as storehouse. I offered to store the goods in an accessible safe place. Of course they wanted to see the place; but I wouldn’t let on, naturally, but left it subject to their approval after the lease was signed. The joke of it is they were way overstocked anyway. Finally I made my grand offer.

“‘Look here,’ said I, ‘you rent me that upper story for a decent length of time–say a year–and I’ll buy out the surplus stock you’ve got up there at a decent valuation.’ They jumped at that; of course they pretended not to, but just the same they jumped. I’ll either sell the stuff by auction, even if at a slight loss, or else I’ll stick it aboard a ship. Depends a good deal on what is there, of course. It’s mostly bale and box goods of some sort or another. I’ve got an inventory in my pocket. Haven’t looked at it yet. Then I’ll partition off that wareroom and rent it out for offices and so forth. There are a lot of lawyers and things in this town just honing for something dignified and stable. I only pay three thousand a month for it.”

Johnny groaned deeply.

“Well,” persisted Talbot, “I figure on getting at least eight thousand a month out of it. That’ll take care of a little loss on the goods, if necessary. I’m not sure a loss is necessary.”

126“And how much, about, are the goods?” I inquired softly.

“Oh, I don’t know. Somewhere between ten and twenty thousand, I suppose.”

“Paid for how, and when?”

“One third cash, and the rest in notes. The interest out here is rather high,” said Talbot regretfully.

“Where do you expect to get the money?” I insisted.

“Oh, money! money!” cried Talbot, throwing out his arms with a gesture of impatience. “The place is full of money. It’s pouring in from the mines, from the world outside. Money’s no trouble!”

He fell into an intent reverie, biting at his short moustache. I arose softly to my feet.

“Johnny,” said I, in a strangled little voice, “I’ve got to give back McGlynn’s change. Want to go with me?”

We tiptoed around the corner of the building, and fell into each other’s arms with shrieks of joy.

“Oh!” cried Johnny at last, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Money’s no trouble!”

After we had to some extent relieved our feelings we changed my gold slug into dust–I purchased a buckskin bag–and went to find McGlynn. Our way to his quarters led past the post-office, where a long queue of men still waited patiently and quietly in line. We stood for a few moments watching the demeanour of those who had received their mail, or who had been told there was nothing for them. Some of the latter were pathetic, and looked fairly dazed with grief and disappointment.

127The letters were passed through a small window let in the adobe of the wall; and the men filed on to the veranda at one end and off it at the other. The man distributing mail was a small, pompous, fat Englishman. I recognized McGlynn coming slowly down with the line, and paid him half the dust in my bag.

As McGlynn reached the window, the glass in it slammed shut, and the clerk thrust a card against it.

“Mails close at 9 P.M.”

McGlynn tapped at the glass, received no attention, and commenced to beat a tattoo. The window was snatched open, and the fat clerk, very red, thrust his face in the opening.

“What do you want?” he demanded truculently.

“Any letters for John A. McGlynn?”

“This office opens at 8:30 A.M.” said the clerk, slamming shut the window.

Without an instant’s hesitation, and before the man had a chance to retire, McGlynn’s huge fist crashed through the glass and into his face.

The crowd had waited patiently; but now, with a brutal snarl, it surged forward. McGlynn, a pleasant smile on his face, swung slowly about.

“Keep your line, boys! Keep your line!” he boomed. “There’s no trouble! It’s only a little Englishman who don’t know our ways yet.”

Inside the building the postal force, white and scared yet over the menacing growl of the beast they had so nearly roused, hastened to resume their tasks. I heard later that the last man in line reached the window only at three 128 o’clock in the morning. Also that next day McGlynn was summoned by Geary, then postmaster, to account for his share in the row; and that in the end Geary apologized and was graciously forgiven by McGlynn! I can well believe it.

We found Yank and Talbot still at the edge of the hotel veranda.

“Look here, Tal!” said Johnny at once. “How are you going to finish all this business you’ve scared up, and get off to the mines within a reasonable time? We ought to start pretty soon.”

“Mines?” echoed Talbot, “I’m not going to the mines! I wouldn’t leave all this for a million mines. No: Yank and I have been talking it over. You boys will have to attend to the mining end of this business. I’ll pay Frank’s share and take a quarter of the profits, and Frank can pay me in addition half his profits. In return for the work I don’t do, I’ll put aside two hundred and twenty dollars and use it in my business here, and all of us will share in the profits I make from that amount. How does that strike you?”

“I don’t like to lose you out of this,” said Johnny disappointedly.

“Nor I,” said I.

“And I hate to lose the adventure, boys,” agreed Talbot earnestly. “But, honestly, I can’t leave this place now even if I want to; and I certainly don’t want to.”

I turned in that night with the feeling that I had passed a very interesting day.

129CHAPTER XIII
UP-RIVER

Two days later Yank, Johnny, and I embarked aboard a small bluff-bowed sailboat, waved our farewells to Talbot standing on the shore, and laid our course to cross the blue bay behind an island called Alcatraz. Our boatman was a short, swarthy man, with curly hair and gold rings in his ears. He handled his boat well, but spoke not at all. After a dozen attempts to get something more than monosyllables out of him, we gave it up, and settled ourselves to the solid enjoyment of a new adventure.

The breeze was strong, and drove even our rather clumsy craft at considerable speed. The blue waters of the bay flashed in the sun and riffled under the squalls. Spray dashed away from our bows. A chill raced in from the open Pacific, diluting the sunlight.

We stared ahead of us, all eyes. The bay was a veritable inland sea; and the shores ahead of us lay flat and wide, with blue hazy hills in the distance, and a great mountain hovering in midair to our right. Black cormorants going upwind flapped heavily by us just above the water, their necks stretched out. Gulls wheeled and screamed above us, or floated high and light like corks over the racing waves. Rafts of ducks lay bobbing, their necks furled, their head close to their bodies. A salt 130 tang stirred our blood; and on the great mountain just north of the harbour entrance the shadows of cañons were beginning most beautifully to define themselves.

Altogether it was a pleasant sail. We perched to windward, and smoked our pipes, and worked ourselves to a high pitch of enthusiasm over what we were going to see and do. The sailor too smoked his pipe, leaning against the long, heavy tiller.

The distant flat shores drew nearer. We turned a corner and could make out the mouth of a river, and across it a white line that, as we came up on it, proved to be the current breaking against the wind over a very solid bar. For the first time our sailor gave signs of life. He stood on his feet, squinted ahead, ordered us amidships, dropped the peak of the mainsail, took the sheet in his hand. We flew down against the breakers. In a moment we were in them. Two sickening bumps shook our very vertebræ. The mast swayed drunkenly from side to side as the boat rolled on her keel, the sail flopped, a following wave slopped heavily over the stern, and the water swashed forward across our feet. Then we recovered a trifle, staggered forward, bumped twice more, and slid into the smoother deep water. The sailor grunted, and passed us a dipper. We bailed her out while he raised again the peak of his sail.

Shortly after this experience we glided up the reaches of a wide beautiful river. It had no banks, but was bordered by the tall reeds called tules. As far as the eye could reach, and that was very far when we climbed part way up the mast to look, these tules extended. League after 131 league they ran away like illimitable plains, green and brown and beautiful, until somewhere over the curve of the earth straight ahead they must have met distant blue hills. To the southeast there seemed no end but the sky.

From the level of the boat, however, we saw only a little way into the outer fringe. The water lay among the stalks, and mud hens with white bills pushed their way busily into intricate narrow unguessed waterways. Occasionally the hedge of the tules broke to a greater or lesser opening into a lagoon. These were like shallow lakes, in which sometimes grew clumps of grasses. They were covered with waterfowl. Never have I seen so many ducks and geese of all kinds. They literally covered the surface of the water, and fairly seemed to jostle each other as they swam busily to and fro, intent on some business of their own. Their comfortable, low conversational clucking and quacking was a pleasure to hear. When, out of curiosity, we fired a revolver shot, they rose in the air with a roar like that of a great waterfall, and their crossing lines of flight in the sky was like the multitude of midges in the sun. I remember one flock of snow-white geese that turned and wheeled, alternately throwing their bodies in shadow or in the sunlight, so that they flashed brilliantly.

As the sun declined, the wind fell. Fortunately the current in the river was hardly perceptible. We slipped along on glassy waters. Thousands upon thousands of blackbirds dipped across us uttering their calls. Against a saffron sky were long lines of waterfowl, their necks outstretched. A busy multitudinous noise of marsh birds 132 rose and fell all about us. The sun was a huge red ball touching the distant hills.

At last the wind failed us entirely, but the sailor got out a pair of sweeps, and we took turns rowing. Within a half hour we caught the silhouette of three trees against the sky, and shortly landed on a little island of solid ground. Here we made camp for the night.

All next day, and the days after, being luckily favoured by steady fair winds, we glided up the river. I could not but wonder at the certainty with which our sailor picked the right passage from the numerous false channels that offered themselves. The water was beautifully clear and sweet; quite different from the muddy currents of to-day. Shortly the solid ground had drawn nearer; so that often we passed long stretches of earth standing above the tule-grown water. Along these strips grew sycamore and cottonwood trees of great size, and hanging vines of the wild grape. The trees were as yet bare of leaves, but everything else was green and beautiful. We could see the tracks of many deer along the flats, but caught no sight of the animals themselves. At one place, however, we did frighten a small band of half a dozen elk. They crashed away recklessly through the brush, making noise and splashing enough for a hundred. Yank threw one of his little pea bullets after them; and certainly hit, for we found drops of blood. The sailor shook his head disparagingly over the size of the rifle balls, to Yank’s vast disgust. I never saw him come nearer to losing his temper. As a matter of fact I think the sailor’s contention had something in it; the long accurate weapon with its tiny missile 133 was probably all right when its user had a chance to plant the bullet exactly in a fatal spot, but not for such quick snap shooting as this. At any rate our visions of cheap fresh meat vanished on the hoof.

The last day out we came into a wide bottomland country with oaks. The distant blue hills had grown, and had become slate-gray. At noon we discerned ahead of us a low bluff, and a fork in the river; and among the oak trees the gleam of tents, and before them a tracery of masts where the boats and small ships lay moored to the trees. This was the embarcadero of Sutter’s Fort beyond; or the new city of Sacramento, whichever you pleased. Here our boat journey ended.

We disembarked into a welter of confusion. Dust, men, mules, oxen, bales, boxes, barrels, and more dust. Everything was in the open air. Tents were pitched in the open, under the great oaks, anywhere and everywhere. Next, the river, and for perhaps a hundred yards from the banks, the canvas structures were arranged in rows along what were evidently intended to be streets; but beyond that every one simply “squatted” where he pleased. We tramped about until we found a clear space, and there dumped down our effects. They were simple enough; and our housekeeping consisted in spreading our blankets and canvas, and unpacking our frying pan and pots. The entire list of our provisions consisted of pork, flour, salt, tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, and some spirits.

After supper we went out in a body to see what we could find out concerning our way to the mines. We did not even possess a definite idea as to where we wanted to go!

134In this quest we ran across our first definite discouragement. The place was full of men and they were all willing to talk. Fully three quarters were, like ourselves, headed toward the mines; and were consequently full of theoretical advice. The less they actually knew the more insistent they were that theirs was the only one sure route or locality or method. Of the remainder probably half were the permanent population of the place, and busily occupied in making what money they could. They were storekeepers, gamblers, wagon owners, saloonkeepers, transportation men. Of course we could quickly have had from most of these men very definite and practical advice as to where to go and how to get there; but the advice would most likely have been strongly tempered with self-interest. The rest of those we encountered were on their way back from the mines. And from them we got our first dash of cold water in the face.

According to them the whole gold-fable was vastly exaggerated. To be sure there was gold, no one could deny that, but it occurred very rarely, and in terrible places to get at. One had to put in ten dollars’ worth of work, to get out one dollars’ worth of dust. And provisions were so high that the cost of living ate up all the profits. Besides, we were much too late. All the good claims had been taken up and worked out by the earliest comers. There was much sickness in the mines, and men were dying like flies. A man was a fool ever to leave home but a double-dyed fool not to return there as soon as possible. Thus the army of the discouraged. There were so many of them, and they talked so convincingly, that I, for one, 135 felt my golden dream dissipating; and a glance at Johnny’s face showed that he was much in the same frame of mind. We were very young; and we had so long been keyed up so high that a reaction was almost inevitable. Yank showed no sign; but chewed his tobacco imperturbably.

We continued our inquiries, however, and had soon acquired a mass of varied information. The nearest mines were about sixty miles away; we could get our freight transported that far by the native Californian cargadores at fifty dollars the hundredweight. Or we could walk and carry our own goods. Or we might buy a horse or so to pack in our belongings. If we wanted to talk to the cargadores we must visit their camp over toward the south; if we wanted to buy horses we could do nothing better than to talk to McClellan, at Sutter’s Fort. Fifty dollars a hundred seemed pretty steep for freighting; we would not be able to carry all we owned on our backs; we decided to try to buy the horses.

Accordingly next morning, after a delicious sleep under the open sky, we set out to cover the three or four miles to Sutter’s Fort.

This was my first sight of the California country landscape, and I saw it at the most beautiful time of year. The low-rolling hills were bright green, against which blended the darker green of the parklike oaks. Over the slopes were washes of colour where the wild flowers grew, like bright scarves laid out in the sun. They were of deep orange, or an equally deep blue, or, perhaps, of mingled white and purple. Each variety, and there were many of them, seemed to grow by itself so that the colours were 136 massed. Johnny muttered something about “the trailing glory–banners of the hills”; but whether that was a quotation or just Johnny I do not know.

The air was very warm and grateful, and the sky extraordinarily blue. Broad-pinioned birds wheeled slowly, very high; and all about us, on the tips of swaying bushes and in the tops of trees, thousands of golden larks were singing. They were in appearance like our meadow-larks back east, but their note was quite different; more joyous and lilting, but with the same liquid quality. We flushed many sparrows of different sorts; and we saw the plumed quail, the gallant, trim, little, well-groomed gentlemen, running rapidly ahead of us. And over it all showered the clear warmth of the sun, like some subtle golden ether that dissolved and disengaged from the sleeping hills multitudinous hummings of insects, songs of birds, odours of earth, perfumes of flowers.

In spite of ourselves our spirits rose. We forgot our anxious figurings on ways and means, our too concentrated hopes of success, our feverish, intent, single-minded desire for gold. Three abreast we marched forward through the waving, shimmering wild oats, humming once more the strains of the silly little song to which the gold seekers had elected to stride:

“I soon shall be in mining camps,
And then I’ll look around,
And when I see the gold-dust there,
I’ll pick it off the ground.
“I’ll scrape the mountains clean, old girl,
I’ll drain the rivers dry;
I’m off for California.
Susannah, don’t you cry!”

137Even old Yank joined in the chorus, and he had about as much voice as a rusty windmill, and about the same idea of tune as a hog has of war.

“Oh, Susannah! don’t you cry for me!
I’m off to California with my washbowl on my knee!”

We topped a rise and advanced on Sutter’s Fort as though we intended by force and arms to take that historic post.

PART III

THE MINES

141CHAPTER XIV
SUTTER’S FORT

Sutter’s Fort was situated at the edge of the live-oak park. We found it to resemble a real fort, with high walls, bastions, and a single gate at each end through which one entered to a large enclosed square, perhaps a hundred and fifty yards long by fifty wide. The walls were not pierced for guns; and the defence seemed to depend entirely on the jutting bastions. The walls were double, and about twenty-five feet apart. Thus by roofing over this space, and dividing it with partitions, Sutter had made up his barracks, blacksmith shop, bakery, and the like. Later in our investigations we even ran across a woollen factory, a distillery, a billiard room, and a bowling alley! At the southern end of this long space stood a two-story house. Directly opposite the two-story house and at the other end of the enclosure was an adobe corral.

The place was crowded with people. A hundred or so miners rushed here and there on apparently very important business, or loafed contentedly against the posts or the sun-warmth of adobe walls. In this latter occupation they were aided and abetted by a number of the native Californians. Perhaps a hundred Indians were leading horses, carrying burdens or engaged in some other heavy toil. They were the first we had seen, and we examined 142 them with considerable curiosity. A good many of them were nearly naked; but some had on portions of battered civilized apparel. Very few could make up a full suit of clothes; but contented themselves with either a coat, or a shirt, or a pair of pantaloons, or even with only a hat, as the case might be. They were very swarthy, squat, villainous-looking savages, with big heads, low foreheads, coarse hair, and beady little eyes.

We stopped for some time near the sentry box at the entrance, accustoming ourselves to the whirl and movement. Then we set out to find McClellan. He was almost immediately pointed out to us, a short, square, businesslike man, with a hard gray face, dealing competently with the pressure. A score of men surrounded him, each eager for his attention. While we hovered, awaiting our chance, two men walked in through the gate. They were accorded the compliment of almost a complete silence on the part of those who caught sight of them.

The first was a Californian about thirty-five or forty years of age, a man of a lofty, stern bearing, swarthy skin, glossy side whiskers, and bright supercilious eyes. He wore a light blue short jacket trimmed with scarlet and with silver buttons, a striped silk sash, breeches of crimson velvet met below by long embroidered deerskin boots. A black kerchief was bound crosswise on his head entirely concealing the hair; and a flat-crowned, wide, gray hat heavily ornamented with silver completed this gorgeous costume. He moved with the assured air of the aristocrat. The splendour of his apparel, the beauty of his face and figure, and the grace of his movements attracted the first 143 glance from all eyes. Then immediately he was passed over in favour of his companion.

The latter was a shorter, heavier man, of more mature years. In fact his side whiskers were beginning to turn gray. His costume was plain, but exquisitely neat, and a strange blend of the civil and the military. The jacket for example, had been cut in the trim military fashion, but was worn open to exhibit the snowy cascade of the linen beneath. But nobody paid much attention to the man’s dress. The dignity and assured calm of his face and eye at once impressed one with conviction of unusual quality.

Johnny stared for a moment, his brows knit. Then with an exclamation, he sprang forward.

“Captain Sutter!” he cried.

Sutter turned slowly, to look Johnny squarely in the face, his attitude one of cold but courteous inquiry. Johnny was approaching, hat in hand. I confess he astonished me. We had known him intimately for some months, and always as the harum-scarum, impulsive, hail fellow, bubbling, irresponsible. Now a new Johnny stepped forward, quiet, high-bred, courteous, self-contained. Before he had spoken a word, Captain Sutter’s aloof expression had relaxed.

“I beg your pardon for addressing you so abruptly,” Johnny was saying. “The surprise of the moment must excuse me. Ten years ago, sir, I had the pleasure of meeting you at the time you visited my father in Virginia.”

“My dear boy!” cried Sutter. “You are, of course the 144 son of Colonel Fairfax. But ten years ago–you were a very young man!”

“A small boy, rather,” laughed Johnny.

They chatted for a few moments, exchanging news, I suppose, though they had drawn beyond our ear-shot. In a few moments we were summoned, and presented; first to Captain Sutter, then to Don Gaspar Martinez. The latter talked English well. Yank and I, both somewhat silent and embarrassed before all this splendour of manner, trailed the triumphal progress like two small boys. We were glad to trail, however. Captain Sutter took us about, showing us in turn all the many industries of the place.

“The old peaceful life is gone,” said he. “The fort has become a trading post for miners. It is difficult now to get labour for my crops, and I have nearly abandoned cultivation. My Indians I have sent out to mine for me.”

He showed us a row of long troughs outside the walls to which his Indian workmen had come twice a day for their rations of wheat porridge. “They scooped it out with their hands,” he told us, “like animals.” Also he pointed out the council circle beneath the trees where he used to meet the Indians. He had great influence with the surrounding tribes; and had always managed to live peacefully with them.

“But that is passing,” said he. “The American miners, quite naturally, treat them as men; and they are really children. It makes misunderstanding, and bloodshed, and reprisals. The era of good feeling is about over. They still trust me, however, and will work for me.”

145Don Gaspar here excused himself on the ground of business, promising to rejoin us later.

“That trouble will come upon us next,” said Captain Sutter, nodding after the Spaniard’s retreating form. “It is already beginning. The Californians hold vast quantities of land with which they do almost nothing. A numerous and energetic race is coming; and it will require room. There is conflict there. And their titles are mixed; very mixed. It will behoove a man to hold a very clear title when the time comes.”

“Your own titles are doubtless clear and strong,” suggested Johnny.

“None better. My grant here came directly from the Mexican government itself.” The Captain paused to chuckle, “I suspect that the reason it was given me so freely was political–there existed at that time a desire to break up the power of the Missions; and the establishment of rival colonies on a large scale would help to do that. The government evidently thought me competent to undertake the opening of this new country.”

“Your grant is a large one?” surmised Johnny.

“Sixty miles by about twelve,” said Captain Sutter.

We had by now finished our inspection, and stood by the southern gate.

“I am sorry,” said Captain Sutter, “that I am not in a position to offer you hospitality. My own residence is at a farm on the Feather River. This fort, as no doubt you are aware, I have sold to the traders. In the changed conditions it is no longer necessary to me.”

“Do you not regret the changed conditions?” asked 146 Johnny after a moment. “I can imagine the interest in building a new community–all these industries, the training of the Indians to work, the growing of crops, the raising of cattle.”

“One may regret changed conditions; but one cannot prevent their changing,” said Captain Sutter in his even, placid manner. “The old condition was a very pleasant dream; this is a reality.”

We walked back through the enclosure. Our companion was greeted on all sides with the greatest respect and affection. To all he responded with benign but unapproachable dignity. From the vociferating group he called the trader, McClellan, to whom he introduced us, all three, with urbane formality.

“These young men,” he told McClellan, who listened to him intently, his brows knit, “are more than acquaintances, they are very especial old friends of mine. I wish to bespeak your good offices for what they may require. They are on their way to the mines. And now, gentlemen, I repeat, I am delighted to have had this opportunity; I wish you the best of luck; and I sincerely hope you may be able to visit me at Feather River, where you are always sure of a hearty welcome. Treat them well, McClellan.”

“You know, Cap’n, friends of your’n are friends of mine,” said McClellan briefly.

At the end of half an hour we found ourselves in possession of two pack-horses and saddles, and a load of provisions.

“Look out for hoss thieves,” advised McClellan. “These 147 yere Greasers will follow you for days waitin’ for a chance to git your stock. Don’t picket with rawhide rope or the coyotes are likely to knaw yore animiles loose. Better buy a couple of ha’r ropes from the nearest Mex. Take care of yoreselves. Good-bye.” He was immediately immersed in his flood of business.

We were in no hurry to return, so we put in an hour or so talking with the idlers. From them we heard much praise for Sutter. He had sent out such and such expeditions to rescue snow-bound immigrants in the mountains; he had received hospitably the travel-worn transcontinentals; he had given freely to the indigent; and so on without end. I am very glad that even at second hand I had the chance to know this great-hearted old soldier of Charles X while in the glory of his possessions and the esteem of men. Acre by acre his lands were filched from him; and he died in Washington vainly petitioning Congress for restitution.

148CHAPTER XV
THE GOLD TRAIL

We loaded our pack-horses, and set off next morning early on the trail up the American River. At last, it seemed to us, we were really under way; as though our long journeyings and many experiences had been but a preparation for this start. Our spirits were high, and we laughed and joked and sang extravagantly. Even Yank woke up and acted like a frisky colt. Such early wayfarers as we met, we hailed with shouts and chaffing; nor were we in the least abashed by an occasional surly response, or the not infrequent attempts to discourage our hopes. For when one man said there was no gold, another was as confident that the diggings were not even scratched.

The morning was a very fine one; a little chilly, with a thin white mist hanging low along the ground. This the sun soon dissipated. The birds sang everywhere. We trudged along the dusty road merrily.

Every little while we stopped to readjust the burdens to our animals. A mountaineer had showed us how to lash them on, but our skill at that sort of thing was miner’s, and the packs would not hold. We had to do them one at a time, using the packed animal as a pattern from which to copy the hitch on the other. In this painful manner 149 we learned the Squaw Hitch, which, for a long time, was to be the extent of our knowledge. However, we got on well enough, and mounted steadily by the turns and twists of an awful road, following the general course of the river below us.

On the hills grew high brush, some of it very beautiful. The buckthorn, for example, was just coming out; and the dogwood, and the mountain laurel. At first these clumps of bush were few and scattered; and the surface of the hills, carpeted with short grass, rolled gently away, or broke in stone dikes and outcrops. Then later, as we mounted, they drew together until they covered the mountainsides completely, save where oaks and madrone kept clear some space for themselves. After a time we began to see a scrubby long-needled pine thrusting its head here and there above the undergrowth. That was as far as we got that day. In the hollow of a ravine we found a tiny rill of water, and there we camped. Johnny offered some slight objections at first. It was only two o’clock of the afternoon, the trees were scrubby, the soil dusty, the place generally uncomfortable. But Yank shook his head.

“If we knew how they played this game, it might be all right to go ahead. But we don’t,” said he. “I’ve been noticing this trail pretty close; and I ain’t seen much water except in the river; and that’s an awful ways down. Maybe we’ll find some water over the next hill, and maybe we won’t. But we know there’s water here. Then there’s the question of hoss thieves. McClellan strikes me as a man to be believed. I don’t know how they act; but you bet no hoss thief gets off with my hoss and me watchin’. 150 But at night it’s different, I don’t know how they do things. But I do know that if we tie our hosses next us, they won’t be stolen. And that’s what I aim to do. But if we do that, we got to give them a chance to eat, hain’t we? So we’ll let them feed the rest of the afternoon, and we’ll tie em up to-night.”

This was much talk for Yank. In fact, the only time that taciturn individual ever would open up was in explanation of or argument about some expedient of wilderness life or travel. It sounded entirely logical. So we made camp.

Yank turned the two horses out into a grass meadow, and sat, his back against an oak tree, smoking his pipe and watching them. Johnny and I unrolled the beds, sorted out the simple cooking utensils, and started to cook. Occasional travellers on the road just above us shouted out friendly greetings. They were a miscellaneous lot. Most were headed toward the mountains. These journeyed in various ways. Some walked afoot and unencumbered, some carried apparently all their belongings on their backs, one outfit comprising three men had three saddle horses and four packs–a princely caravan. One of the cargadores’ pack-trains went up the road enveloped in a thick cloud of dust–twenty or thirty pack-mules and four men on horseback herding them forward. A white mare, unharnessed save for a clanging bell, led the way; and all the mules followed her slavishly, the nose of one touching the tail of the other, as is the mule’s besotted fashion. They were gay little animals, with silver buttons on their harness, and yellow 151 sheepskin linings to their saddles. They carried a great variety of all sorts of things; and at the freighting rates quoted to us must have made money for their owners. Their drivers were a picturesque quartette in sombreros, wide sashes, and flowing garments. They sat their animals with a graceful careless ease beautiful to behold.

Near sundown two horsemen turned off the trail and rode down to our little trickle of water. When they drew near we recognized in one of them Don Gaspar Martinez. He wore still his gorgeous apparel of the day before, with only the addition of a pair of heavy silver ornamented spurs on his heels, and a brace of pistols in his sash. His horse, a magnificent chestnut, was harnessed in equal gorgeousness, with silvered broad bit, silver chains jangling therefrom, a plaited rawhide bridle and reins, a carved leather, high-pommelled saddle, also silver ornamented, and a bright coloured, woven saddle blanket beneath. The animal stepped daintily and proudly, lifting his little feet and planting them among the stones as though fastidiously. The man who rode with Don Gaspar was evidently of a lower class. He was, however, a straight handsome young fellow enough, with a dark clear complexion, a small moustache, and a pleasant smile. His dress and accoutrements were on the same general order as those of Don Gaspar, but of quieter colour and more serviceable material. His horse, however, was of the same high-bred type. A third animal followed, unled, packed with two cowhide boxes.

The Spaniard rode up to us and saluted courteously; then his eye lit with recognition.

152“Ah,” said he, “the good friends of our Capitan Sutter! This is to be well met. If it is not too much I would beg the favour of to camp.”

“By all means, Don Gaspar,” said Johnny rising. “The pleasure is of course our own.”

Again saluting us, Don Gaspar and his companion withdrew a short distance up the little meadow. There the Spaniard sat down beneath a bush and proceeded to smoke a cigaretto, while his companion unsaddled the horses, turned them loose to graze, stacked up their saddles, and made simple camping arrangements.

“Old Plush Pants doesn’t intend to do any work if he catches sight of it first,” observed Johnny.

“Probably the other man is a servant?” I suggested.

“More likely a sort of dependent,” amended Johnny. “They run a kind of patriarchal establishment, I’ve been told.”

“Don’t use them big words, Johnny,” complained Yank, coming up with the horses.

“I meant they make the poor relations and kid brothers do the hustling,” said Johnny.

“Now I understand you,” said Yank. “I wish I could see what they do with their hosses nights. I bet they know how. And if I was a hoss thief, I’d surely take a long chance for that chestnut gelding.”

“You might wander over later and find out,” I suggested.

“And get my system full of lead–sure,” said Yank.

The two camps did not exchange visits. We caught the flicker of their little fire; but we were really too tired 153 to be curious, and we turned in early, our two animals tied fast to small trees at our feet.

The next day lifted us into the mountains. Big green peaks across which hung a bluish haze showed themselves between the hills. The latter were more precipitous; and the brush had now given way to pines of better size and quality than those seen lower down. The river foamed over rapids or ran darkling in pools and stretches. Along the roadside, rarely, we came upon rough-looking log cabins, or shacks of canvas, or tents. The owners were not at home. We thought them miners; but in the light of subsequent knowledge I believe that unlikely–the diggings were farther in.

We came upon the diggings quite suddenly. The trail ran around the corner of a hill; and there they were below us! In the wide, dry stream bottom perhaps fifty men were working busily, like a lot of ants. Some were picking away at the surface of the ground, others had dug themselves down waist deep, and stooped and rose like legless bodies. Others had disappeared below ground, and showed occasionally only as shovel blades. From so far above the scene was very lively and animated, for each was working like a beaver, and the red shirts made gay little spots of colour. On the hillside clung a few white tents and log cabins; but the main town itself, we later discovered, as well as the larger diggings, lay around the bend and upstream.

We looked all about us for some path leading down to the river, but could find none; so perforce we had to continue on along the trail. Thus we entered the camp 154 of Hangman’s Gulch; for if it had been otherwise I am sure we would have located promptly where we had seen those red-shirted men.

The camp consisted merely of a closer-knit group of tents, log shacks, and a few larger buildings constructed of a queer combination of heavy hewn timbers and canvas. We saw nobody at all, though in some of the larger buildings we heard signs of life. However, we did not wait to investigate the wonders of Hangman’s Gulch, but drove our animals along the one street, looking for the trail that should lead us back to the diggings. We missed it, somehow, but struck into a beaten path that took us upstream. This we followed a few hundred yards. It proceeded along a rough, boulder-strewn river-bed, around a point of rough, jagged rocks, and out to a very wide gravelly flat through which the river had made itself a narrow channel. The flat swarmed with men, all of them busy, and very silent.

Leading our pack-horses we approached the nearest pair of these men, and stood watching them curiously. One held a coarse screen of willow which he shook continuously above a common cooking-pot, while the other slowly shovelled earth over this sieve. When the two pots, which with the shovel seemed to be all the tools these men possessed, had been half filled thus with the fine earth, the men carried them to the river. We followed. The miners carefully submerged the pots, and commenced to stir their contents with their doubled fists. The light earth muddied the water, floated upward, and then flowed slowly over the rim of the pots and down the current. After a 155 few minutes of this, they lifted the pots carefully, drained off the water, and started back.

“May we look?” ventured Johnny.

The taller man glanced at us, and our pack-horses, and nodded. This was the first time he had troubled to take a good look at us. The bottom of the pot was covered with fine black sand in which we caught the gleam and sparkle of something yellow.

“Is that gold?” I asked, awed.

“That’s gold,” the man repeated, his rather saturnine features lighting up with a grin. Then seeing our interest, he unbent a trifle. “We dry the sand, and then blow it away,” he explained; and strode back to where his companion was impatiently waiting.

We stumbled on over the rocks and débris. There were probably something near a hundred men at work in the gulch. We soon observed that the pot method was considered a very crude and simple way of getting out the gold. Most of the men carried iron pans full of the earth to the waterside, where, after submerging until the lighter earth had floated off, they slopped the remainder over the side with a peculiar twisting, whirling motion, leaving at last only the black sand–and the gold! These pan miners were in the great majority. But one group of four men was doing business on a larger scale. They had constructed what looked like a very shallow baby-cradle on rockers into which they poured their earth and water. By rocking the cradle violently but steadily, they spilled the mud over the sides. Cleats had been nailed in the bottom to catch the black sand.

156We wandered about here and there, looking with all our eyes. The miners were very busy and silent, but quite friendly, and allowed us to examine as much as we pleased the results of their operations. In the pots and cradles the yellow flake gold glittered plainly, contrasting with the black sand. In the pans, however, the residue spread out fan-shaped along the angle between the bottom and the side, and at the apex the gold lay heavy and beautiful all by itself. The men were generally bearded, tanned with working in this blinding sun, and plastered liberally with the red earth. We saw some queer sights, however; as when we came across a jolly pair dressed in what were the remains of ultra-fashionable garments up to and including plug hats! At one side working some distance from the stream were small groups of native Californians or Mexicans. They did not trouble to carry the earth all the way to the river; but, after screening it roughly, tossed it into the air above a canvas, thus winnowing out the heavier pay dirt. I thought this must be very disagreeable.

As we wandered about here and there among all these men so busily engaged, and with our own eyes saw pan after pan show gold, actual metallic guaranteed gold, such as rings and watches and money are made of, a growing excitement possessed us, the excitement of a small boy with a new and untried gun. We wanted to get at it ourselves. Only we did not know how.

Finally Yank approached one of the busy miners.

“Stranger,” said he, “we’re new to this. Maybe you can tell us where we can dig a little of this gold ourselves.”

157The man straightened his back, to exhibit a roving humorous blue eye, with which he examined Yank from top to toe.

“If,” said he, “it wasn’t for that eighteen-foot cannon you carry over your left arm, and a cold gray pair of eyes you carry in your head, I’d direct you up the sidehill yonder, and watch you sweat. As it is, you can work anywhere anybody else isn’t working. Start in!”

“Can we dig right next to you, then?” asked Yank, nodding at an unbroken piece of ground just upstream.

The miner clambered carefully out of his waist-deep trench, searched his pockets, produced a pipe and tobacco. After lighting this he made Yank a low bow.

“Thanks for the compliment; but I warn you, this claim of mine is not very rich. I’m thinking of trying somewhere else.”

“Don’t you get any gold?”

“Oh, a few ounces a day.”

“That suits me for a beginning,” said Yank decidedly. “Come on, boys!”

The miner hopped back into his hole, only to stick his head out again for the purpose of telling us:

“Mind you keep fifteen feet away!”

With eager hands we slipped a pick and shovels from beneath the pack ropes, undid our iron bucket, and without further delay commenced feverishly to dig.

Johnny held the pail, while Yank and I vied with each other in being the first to get our shovelfuls into that receptacle. As a consequence we nearly swamped the pail first off, and had to pour some of the earth out again. 158 Then we all three ran down to the river and took turns stirring that mud pie beneath the gently flowing waters in the manner of the “pot panners” we had first watched. After a good deal of trouble we found ourselves possessed of a thick layer of rocks and coarse pebbles.

“We forgot to screen it,” I pointed out.

“We haven’t any screen,” said Johnny.

“Let’s pick ’em out by hand?” suggested Yank.

We did so. The process emptied the pail. Each of us insisted on examining closely; but none of us succeeded in creating out of our desires any of that alluring black sand.

“I suppose we can’t expect to get colour every time?” observed Johnny disappointedly. “Let’s try her again.”

We tried her again: and yet again; and then some more; but always with the same result. Our hands became puffed and wrinkled with constant immersion in the water, and began to feel sore from the continual stirring of the rubble.

“Something wrong,” grunted Johnny into the abysmal silence in which we had been carrying on our work.

“We can’t expect it every time,” I reminded him.

“All the others seem to.”

“Well, maybe we’ve struck a blank place; let’s try somewhere else,” suggested Yank.

Johnny went over to speak to our neighbour, who was engaged in tossing out shovelfuls of earth from an excavation into which he had nearly disappeared. At Johnny’s hail, he straightened his back, so that his head bobbed out of the hole like a prairie dog.

159“No, it doesn’t matter where you dig,” he answered Johnny’s question. “The pay dirt is everywhere.”

So we moved on a few hundred feet, picked another unoccupied patch, and resumed our efforts. No greater success rewarded us here.

“I believe maybe we ought to go deeper,” surmised Yank.

“Some of these fellows are taking their dirt right off top of the ground,” objected Johnny.

However, we unlimbered the pickaxe and went deeper; to the extent of two feet or more. It was good hard work, especially as we were all soft for it. The sun poured down on our backs with burning intensity; our hands blistered; and the round rocks and half-cemented rubble that made the bar were not the easiest things in the world to remove. However, we kept at it. Yank and I, having in times past been more or less accustomed to this sort of thing, got off much easier than did poor Johnny. About two feet down we came to a mixed coarse sand and stones, a little finer than the top dirt. This seemed to us promising, so we resumed our washing operations. They bore the same results as had the first; which was just the whole of nothing.

“We’ve got to hit it somewhere,” said Johnny between his teeth. “Let’s try another place.”

We scrambled rather wearily, but with a dogged determination, out of our shallow hole. Our blue-eyed, long-bearded friend was sitting on a convenient boulder near at hand, his pipe between his teeth, watching our operations.

“Got any tobacco, boys?” he inquired genially. “Smoked my last until to-night, unless you’ll lend.”

160Yank produced a plug, from which the stranger shaved some parings.

“Struck the dirt?” he inquired. “No, I see you haven’t.” He stretched himself and arose. “You aren’t washing this stuff!” he cried in amazement, as his eye took in fully what we were about.

Then we learned what we might have known before–but how should we?–that the gold was not to be found in any and every sort of loose earth that might happen to be lying about, but only in either a sort of blue clay or a pulverized granite. Sometimes this “pay dirt” would be found atop the ground. Again, the miner had to dig for it.

“All the surface diggings are taken up,” our friend told us. “So now you have to dig deep. It’s about four feet down where I’m working. It’ll probably be deeper up here. You’d better move back where you were.”

Yank, stretched himself upright.

“Look here,” he said decidedly; “let’s get a little sense into ourselves. Here’s our pore old hosses standing with their packs on, and we no place to stay, and no dinner; and we’re scratchin’ away at this bar like a lot of fool hens. There’s other days comin’.”

Johnny and I agreed with the common sense of the thing, but reluctantly. Now that we knew how, our enthusiasm surged up again. We wanted to get at it. The stranger’s eyes twinkled sympathetically.

“Here, boys,” said he, “I know just how you feel. Come with me.”

He snatched up our bucket and strode back to his 161 own claim, where he filled the receptacle with some of the earth he had thrown out.

“Go pan that,” he advised us kindly.

We raced to the water, and once more stirred about the heavy contents of the pail until they had floated off with the water. In the bottom lay a fine black residue; and in that residue glittered the tiny yellow particles. We had actually panned our first gold!

Our friend examined it critically.

“That’s about a twelve-cent pan,” he adjudged it.

Somehow, in a vague way, we had unreasonably expected millions at a twist of the wrist; and the words, “twelve cents,” had a rankly penurious sound to us. However, the miner patiently explained that a twelve-cent pan was a very good one; and indubitably it was real gold.

Yank, being older and less excitable, had not accompanied us to the waterside.

“Well, boys,” he drawled, “that twelve cents is highly satisfactory, of course; but in the meantime we’ve lost about six hundred dollars’ worth of hoss and grub.”

Surely enough, our animals had tired of waiting for us, and had moved out packs and all. We hastily shouldered our implements.

“Don’t you want to keep this claim next me?” inquired our acquaintance.

We stopped.

“Surely!” I replied. “But how do we do it?”

“Just leave your pick and shovel in the hole.”

“Won’t some one steal them?”

“No.”

162“What’s to prevent?” I asked a little skeptically.

“Miners’ law,” he replied.

We almost immediately got trace of our strayed animals, as a number of men had seen them going upstream. In fact we had no difficulty whatever in finding them for they had simply followed up the rough stream-bed between the cañon walls until it had opened up to a gentler slope and a hanging garden of grass and flowers. Here they had turned aside and were feeding. We caught them, and were just heading them back, when Yank stopped short.

“What’s the matter with this here?” he inquired. “Here’s feed, and water near, and it ain’t so very far back to the diggings.”

We looked about us, for the first time with seeing eyes. The little up-sloping meadow was blue and dull red with flowers; below us the stream brawled foam flecked among black rocks; the high hills rose up to meet the sky, and at our backs across the way the pines stood thick serried. Far up in the blue heavens some birds were circling slowly. Somehow the leisurely swing of these unhasting birds struck from us the feverish hurry that had lately filled our souls. We drew deep breaths; and for the first time the great peace and majesty of these California mountains cooled our spirits.

“I think it’s a bully place, Yank,” said Johnny soberly, “and that little bench up above us looks flat.”

We clambered across the slant of the flower-spangled meadow to the bench, just within the fringe of the pines. It proved to be flat, and from the edge of it down the hill seeped a little spring marked by the feathery bracken. 163 We entered a cool green place, peopled with shadows and the rare, considered notes of soft-voiced birds. Just over our threshold, as it were, was the sunlit, chirpy, buzzing, bright-coloured, busy world. Overhead a wind of many voices hummed through the pine tops. The golden sunlight flooded the mountains opposite, flashed from the stream, lay languorous on the meadow. Long bars of it slanted through an unguessed gap in the hills behind us to touch with magic the very tops of the trees over our heads. The sheen of the precious metal was over the land.

164CHAPTER XVI
THE FIRST GOLD

We arose before daylight, picketed our horses, left our dishes unwashed, and hurried down to the diggings just at sun-up carrying our gold pans or “washbowls,” and our extra tools. The bar was as yet deserted. We set to work with a will, taking turns with the pickaxe and the two shovels. I must confess that our speed slowed down considerably after the first wild burst, but we kept at it steadily. It was hard work, and there is no denying it, just the sort of plain hard work the day labourer does when he digs sewer trenches in the city streets. Only worse, perhaps, owing to the nature of the soil. It has struck me since that those few years of hard labour in the diggings, from ’49 to ’53 or ’54, saw more actual manual toil accomplished than was ever before performed in the same time by the same number of men. The discouragement of those returning we now understood. They had expected to take the gold without toil; and were dismayed at the labour it had required. At any rate, we thought we were doing our share that morning, especially after the sun came up. We wielded our implements manfully, piled our débris to one side, and gradually achieved a sort of crumbling uncertain excavation reluctant to stay emptied.