Days of '49/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
1
The center of the Spanish town of Yerba Buena, changed but shortly before gold was discovered to San Francisco, was, as is usual in Spanish towns the world over, the Plaza, a vacant wind-swept sandy block of ground, where caballeros left their horses and wagoners halted their creaking carretas, and on which stores fronted. The Plaza remained through the turbulence of San Francisco's growth and many disasters, and, under the name of Portsmouth Square, is still the Plaza.
Here in '49 mingled the miners and merchants. Horses, mules, oxen, wagons, heaps of goods, were crowded on the Plaza. Venders hawked their wares, candy, peanuts, medicine. Native Californians in bright trappings with little bells jingling, rode by. Richly dressed women, proud of themselves though all knew them for what they were, swept along among men who respectfully made way.
It was here, facing the Plaza, that Washington Hall, a famous, or infamous, house of shameless women looked brazenly at the Public Institute, a stone's throw away, where children gathered to school and on Sundays religious service was held; and, side by side, nearly encircling the Plaza the best known and largest gambling houses flourished.
One of the most luxurious of these gambling houses was the Magnolia.
2
On a July noon a horseman, showing all the marks of a far traveler, rode slowly through the dusty streets and toward the Plaza.
The midsummer wind as usual whoofed through the streets, flinging sandy dust and straw fibers all about with gusty hands, as if, too, taking part in the turbulent life of the city. Men bent their heads into it as they walked, turned their backs against it as they stood bartering together. Occasionally newcomers had their hats blown away and awkwardly gave chase.
The horseman had the complexion of a brown biscuit and wore a heavy sombrero with leather thongs tied under his chin to hold the tent-like hat. The ends of a scarf bound around his head, Spanish fashion, whipped at the back of his neck. A heavy short-handled whip dangled on his wrist, and he rode a California saddle, high of horn, deep of seat, with wide wooden stirrups. His eyes were narrowed as protection from the driving wind and sand, and one could not see their color. A rifle was in a scabbard under his knee, and a small roll of blankets was tied to the saddle, behind him. His name was Hales.
As he rode to the Plaza he let his glance fall here and there, noticing the bustle, the queer mixture of men. It was all strange, but he seemed hardly curious.
A strolling vender of candy passed near. Hales leaned from the saddle.
"Do you know Hubert Lee?"
"He's out of town. Up to the mines."
The vender raised a bag of candy, but Hales shook his head and rode on.
He sat erect in the saddle and picked his way with care, guiding his horse this way and that by a touch of the reins to avoid people on foot. There were many men on horseback coming and going through the streets; most of them rode recklessly. Hawkers cried their wares. Oxen bellowed. In the distance an auctioneer's gong was being beaten, calling the crowd to bargain and bid.
A storm of riders came round a corner, five or six young men, with a woman among them, and bore down the street. Their arms flopped and they bounced in their saddles as they rode. Some held to saddle horns. They rode without skill, but recklessly, and whooped:
"Out o' the way—we're Hounds! Hounds are coming!"
The woman rode easily at their head. She was not laughing, but sat with a kind of watchfulness. They lashed her horse from behind and lashed their own to keep up with her. She was a skilful rider. They were trying to see just how skilful.
"Out o' the way, greaser!" a Hound yelled and deliberately guided his horse toward Hales.
Hales, moving at a walk, did not turn aside. It sounded and looked like a bad joke, and he was not in a mood for pleasantry.
Then Jerry Fletcher, a dandy among the Hounds, lifted his whip on the gallop and struck, crying as he passed: "I'll teach you respect for"
The blow had fallen on the sombrero.
Hales, with jerk of rein, wheeled his horse and, spurred, the horse leaped with plunging bound on bound. Hales lurched forward in his saddle, seized Fletcher by the collar, reined up sharply and Fletcher's horse galloped from under him. The dandified Hound fell, sprawling backward into the dust.
"Down! Keep down there!" said Hales as his horse trampled restively near the frightened fellow.
"You'll step on me! I thought you was a greaser!" Fletcher cried.
"And who are you," asked Hales with rising anger and deepening frown, "to raise a whip on a Spaniard!"
"I was just playin'. Having a little fun—honest, mister!"
"Fun, and strike a Spaniard with a whip?" asked Hales with puzzled wrath. He knew the Spanish Californians. "Down! Down there and keep down!"
Under the menace of Hales' whip Fletcher sank back into the dust and looked wildly about for his friends.
A crowd had rushed forward and gazed watchfully, most of the men well pleased to see a Hound in the dust. They eyed Hales, wondering if he knew just what he was about in angering this bunch of dandified assassins.
Now he had turned and was looking toward the party of Hounds that, having with difficulty checked their horses, were coming back.
Elvira rode near, flanked with young dandies that swore valiantly, but made no bold movements. Hales sat with his hand on his hip, turned backward toward the handle of his revolver. His sombrero was pushed up. The Hounds were not distinguished for personal bravery. They hunted in packs. They had a pack now, but there was that in Hales' bearing which did not encourage quarrelsomeness.
"What do you mean, sir," cried Elvira wrathfully, her black eyes ablaze as she looked intently at him, "mistreating one of my friends! I won't have it!"
"Choose your friends with more care, then," said Hales. He neither touched his hat nor bowed.
"Jerry," she asked, "Jerry, are you hurt?"
"Yes—yes—oh, I am hurt!" he whined.
"Get up. Don't lie there!"
"Down!" said Hales.
Jerry sank back and stared imploringly.
"What do you mean, sir!" Elvira demanded."This is outrageous! Who are you?"
She was looking closely into Hales' face—brown, lean, covered with a stubbly beard. The bewildering Elvira was herself now a little bewildered.
In a city where men were humble to her slightest frown there was at least a new sensation for her in the poise, that was like mystery, of this man.
"Why, sir," she asked, altering her tone a little, "do you insult me?"
Hales looked at her as if the question was hardly worth an answer.
"You are mistaken. If the object on the ground is dear to you, my compliments, madam! Take it off with you! "
Snickers and a few guffaws broke out from those that stood near. She glanced disdainfully about. To her the Hounds were hardly more than grooms; they might be more familiar than grooms, and were at times companions of a sort, but socially her friends were such men as Col. Nevinson, and Monsieur Max of the Magnolia.
"Sir, you are insolent!"
"Madam, in all courtesy, I offer you back your—hound."
His nearly insolent composure and purely insolent boldness interested her, and she half liked the steadiness in his eyes, that had in them not challenge, but dominance.
"Why," she asked with sudden softening of tone and man ner, "are you rude to me?".
He looked at her with a peculiar scrutiny. If he knew anything of race, she was Spanish, or partly so.
Jerry Fletcher, like a furtive cripple, was trying to steal off. Some one in the crowd shouted, "He's gittin' away, mister!" Hales reined back, glanced down, raised his whip. With a quick lunge he leaned far from the saddle, and as the lash fell on Fletcher's head a bullet passed over the saddle.
One of the Hounds, on horseback, summoning what boldness he could, had put his hand into his pocket and, waiting until Hales' head was turned, fired with a derringer. The bullet struck an onlooker. The crowd, as if the report was an explosion that sent them tottering backward, gave way, turning and stumbling to be clear of bullets.
Hales, with blow of spurs and jerk of reins, wheeled his horse and straightened up. A hubbub of panicky cries broke out from those who thought themselves in line of fire.
But Elvira herself had struck down the derringer with one blow, and with the second lashed her riding whip full into the face of the Hound, who cried out in pain, covered his face with an arm, kicked frantically at his horse, and rode off as fast as he could go. The other Hounds followed him.
"Madam," said Hales, loosening the thongs under his chin and lifting his sombrero, "I thank you. "
She answered with flippant coolness:
"He is such a poor marksman I knew he would hit some one else."
"Then you should have been more careful, madam, for I see they are helping some poor devil off."
Elvira laughed softly with head high. This man interested her; she was not quite sure that he pleased her.
"I would like to know your name," she said.
"Do you know Hubert Lee?"
"Hubert Lee? Why, yes," she said a little doubtfully. Hubert Lee was well known, though she did not know him. She knew of him. Her very good friend, Col. Nevinson, and Hubert Lee were not friends.
"Where can I find out about him? I am looking for him."
"Oh?" She wondered if his interest in Lee was friendly. "I don't think he is here, now. He is your friend? You are looking for Mr. Lee?"
He nodded.
"And your name?" she asked amiably.
"Dick Hales."
"Oh! Hales? Dick Hales—Hales?" she repeated slowly, lowering her lashes, but keeping her eyes on him. "I believe I know the name?"
On the instant Hales pressed his horse almost to her side. His look was intense. He demanded in a low voice:
"If you do, madam, tell me! Where have you heard it? I will pay"
She was rather startled. There was a quiet angered intensity in his manner. His gaze was searching.
"There was a Hales," she began doubtfully, like one who makes a timid step where there may be danger, "that made a famous name for himself during the Mexican War—why I heard of him even in Cuba! He"
Hales lifted his hand and said sharply:
"That is not it. You have known of no one else? Never heard the name here—here in San Francisco?"
"I think I have," she said, lying readily. "Yes—" she watched carefully as she spoke, searching his features for something to guide her—"I know I have. There was a man"—she paused—"a man who called himself Hales, Dick Hales. Claimed to be the officer who"
Her cleverness missed the mark. Interest in what she was saying went out of his face.
"Any man that wants it is welcome to the name," he said indifferently.
She could not tell that his thoughts were far off, not on her, not on what he was saying.
He touched his sombrero with a careless half military- salute, reined his horse about and rode on to the Plaza.
"Hmm-hmm!" said Doña Elvira, gazing after him with widened eyes. "It isn't a man he's looking for! Hales? Dick Hales—ah"
3
In the center of the Plaza was a flagpole where Captain Montgomery had raised the American flag three years before and given to the Plaza the name of his ship, Portsmouth; encircling this pole was a rough corral; within the corral were the horses and oxen of traders.
Men gathered about and bought and sold stock. They lounged against wagons, or the fence, eyeing cattle. They chewed tobacco, whittled, bargained shrewdly in tones of drawling disinterest.
Hales rode near the corral, reined up, looked slowly about. He said to an idling miner:
"Who's buying?"
The miner rubbed the back of his hand back and forth across his bearded mouth, eyeing Hales, then slowly turning toward a group of men, shouted:
"Hey, ye danged swindlin' Yankee hoss thieves! Here's a man with a hoss to sell. Gather up an' lie to him!"
Men from many sides looked up, and moving slowly, with an air of boredom, came toward Hales, examining him first, then the horse. Some, on second glance, were a little surprised that he was not a Spaniard.
There was a Spanish brand on the horse, but not one American in two hundred knew anything of brands, excepting vaguely that Spaniards put them on horses.
A slope-shouldered, coatless fellow, with new broad suspenders that held his homespun trousers well against his ribs, studied the horse for a moment, then looked away, took out his pocket-knife, picked up a bit of wood, began whittling and said disconsolately:
"Ye might call that a hoss, I reckon." Then, with head cocked to one side as he eyed the horse from fetlocks to ears. "Fifty dollars. Coin."
Coin was at a premium. Banks made money exchanging gold pieces for gold dust.
"Everything as it stands," said Hales. "Saddle, rifle, bridle, blankets."
"An' hoss?" inquired the miner, absently eyeing the rifle.
"Horse, too."
"Hundred dollars. Dust," said a voice.
"What kind o' rifle?" inquired the miner, holding a piece of tobacco before his mouth, as if whether or not he bit into it depended on the answer.
"St.Louis."
"Then it's a danged good one, I bet. Ever kill a bear with it?"
No."
"Would", I reckon, heh?"
The lean coatless man who was known as Hank said wearily:
"We're buyin' a hoss—not a rifle."
"Don't be too sure," said the miner.
"Hundred. Coin," said Hank.
Voices began rapidly: "One twenty-"—"Forty"—"Fifty."
"One-sixty," said Hank, and went on whittling.
"One-eighty!"
"That hoss," said Hank, whittling slowly, and pausing between words to see how thin a shaving he could peel, "is nigh lame in the left fore foot. He's nigh wind broke, I bet a pretty. He's got saddle sore from the way he twitches. He's no good as a hoss till he's fed three months, and feed is high. But I'll give two hundred, an' not a blamed cent more."
Silence followed. Then the bearded miner stooped, searched about for a clean straw, examined it studiously, stuck it into his mouth and said with unconcern:
"Two-fifty, pard."
"You've bought a hoss, a worthless hoss, I reckon," Hank answered in disgust, throwing aside his stick and returning the knife to his pocket.
"It's all yourn," said some one.
"Two-fifty?" asked the miner, staring at Hales. "Dust?"
"Yes."
The miner drew a heavy buckskin pouch from his pocket and went to a wide board on two barrels, where there was gold scales. He adjusted the scales.
"Here, some o' you fellers, hold your hats against this danged wind."
Men sheltered the scales against the thievish gusts of wind and the miner poured in dust.
"Where's your bag?" he asked, looking up at Hales, who remained in the saddle.
Hales drew an empty buckskin pouch from his pocket and tossed it to the miner. It was a pouch Hales had made.
"Kinda lean an' underfed, this here sack. All skin, like one O' Hank's hosses."
The miner poured the dust into it, drew the strings, and handed it up to Hales, who threw aside the reins as he dismounted. He stood for a moment staring at the row of gambling houses, then with spurs clattering, strode directly toward the Magnolia.
Behind him the miner was saying, as he removed the rifle and looked at it with satisfaction:
"Now, fellers, gather up, gather up. All I bought was a rifle. Here's a hoss for sale. Saddle, bridle, blankets. You know any hoss Hank offers two hundred for is worth five. That's why I bid 'bove him. An ' this here, gentlemen, is one of the best hosses in Californy.
"I happen as how to know, gentlemen, somethin' about this hoss. See that there brand. To you fellers it may look like a picture of the devil with the cramps, like a feller up to Sacramento said. That there is the de Soler brand—somethin' they call a cross in a circle. There was a string of de Soler hosses up to Sacramento just before I come down. Now just look at this here hoss. What am I bid? Hank he just said two hundred, so we'll start off with that. He don't care nothin' about this rifle. He's buying a hoss. Two hundred an' what? "
Hank stooped for his piece of wood and reached for his knife, cocked his head, and walked half way around the horse as though he had never seen it before; then:
"Fifty. Coin."
4
The Magnolia was a wide and very long room, rather low of ceiling, partly of adobe walls, partly of rough lumber. A long marble-topped bar ran across one end. Near an end of the bar was a low platform that belonged to the negro orchestra. At the rear of the room was a glassed-in balcony. The floor of the balcony was scarcely higher than a rather short man's head; and if a tall man entered the balcony apartment, or "office," as it was called, his head would strike the ceiling. Monsieur Max, who owned the Magnolia, did not care. He was a short man.
The Magnolia, and other gambling houses too, looked very much like the halls of warlike barbarians who had plundered a luxurious people, filling their rude shelter with treasures. Some of the tables used for gambling were of carved teak; others of rough lumber, covered with blankets, velvet or baize. Before the tables were rough benches; above some were glass candelabra, above others, lanterns.
The noon hour was the dullest hour in San Francisco life; this being the low ebb of revelry which lasted through the night and reawakened in the afternoon.
When Hales entered there were two or three gamblers sitting at their tables, and at these a few men dabbled with small sums.
He glanced about, hardly pausing, and went directly to a table where a tall, pale man, with a slight thread of a scar on his temple, sat alone, idly shuffling his cards.
"Is your game open?" asked Hales.
The gambler Dawes gave him a steady searching look, answering quietly:
"Certainly, sir. Be seated."
"Deal," said Hales, and remained standing.
The gambler moved his chair an inch or two, opened the drawer of his table and brought out several stacks of gold coin which he arranged methodically in the center of the table. With unhurried movement he drew a derringer and placed it on the table at his elbow, then shuffled the thin Spanish cards dexterously. He noticed particularly that Hales kept his eyes fastened on the cards.
Hales cut them and squeezed the two parts of the deck into alignment. Then his hand, as if absently, touched his revolver and came to rest on his hip, palm turned backward. Dawes touched his derringer, moving it half an inch.
Their eyes met for a moment. Neither spoke. The gambler's fingers, with no more tremor than a lifeless hand would have shown, drew off the monte layout.
Hales, saying "All of it," dropped his pouch on the bottom layout, playing an ace, watching the deal with frank and menacing suspicion.
He won. He bet everything and a few seconds later won again.
"Ah, you are in luck," said Dawes pleasantly. "My congratulations."
"Deal," said Hales.
Without a word, and with an air of calmness, imperturbably, Dawes again opened his drawer and drew out two large bags of gold dust.
"Once more," said Hales.
He won.
"How about trying just once more?" Dawes asked, temptingly opening his drawer.
"No. But I'll be back. You happen to know if Hubert Lee is in town?"
"He is not. Unless he came today."
Hales gathered up his gold, sticking the coins into the pouch pockets of his wide belt, and squeezing the bags of gold dust into his jacket. He turned and went from the Magnolia, walking with rattle and clatter of spur rowels.
Not a shade of expression crossed Dawes' cool white face. He quietly opened his drawer, estimated his loss, returned the derringer to his pocket, touched the hilt of the bowie knife in a sheath under his coat, then began shuffling his cards, waiting imperturbably for the next who would come to try what fortune offered.
5
About the same hour that Hales had reached the city, the Martin O'Day, out of New York, came in. Packed somehow between decks, there came also five hundred and twenty-three passengers; among them were three women, two of whom were young and beautiful. The women had vanished quickly from view.
The passengers, in a sort of bewildered flurry, were brought to a rickety landing by boatmen who charged two dollars per head. They were greeted by a loud-mouthed urging from hawkers and barkers, showers of business cards fell about them; and here and there was lifted the enticing cry: "Gold! Gold! Gold! Here's where you get your gold! A hundred dollars if you guess the ace!" Sharpers fiddled with studied clumsiness at cards spread on barrel heads.
Of more interest than passengers to the city was the fact that the Martin O'Day brought a huge mirror for the Magnolia.
During the afternoon this was lowered in a web of ropes from the ship to a lighter on which Monsieur Max fretted in proprietory excitement. A crowd, there were always crowds, gathered to watch the crated mirror brought ashore.
Hales, passing that way, paused, rolled a cornhusk cigaret, and looked on without interest.
A small fellow of sparrow-like alertness and impudent cockney cast of face jostled Hales and rushed by to slap the back of a man standing near.
The cockney wore a cap that settled about his ears, with visor turned up like a shabby coronet. His coat was much too large and the sleeves were rolled back over his wrists.
As he slapped the tall young man he cried:
"I-Oh, Johnny Tyler! We're 'ere at larst, eh, matey-O? The Marty Ho'Day's a bloomin 'ooker, even if she was nymed arfter me. An' shipmyte, I'll give it to yer stryght—Miss Tesler likes yer, Johnny. Stryght!"
John Taylor regarded the cockney with startled embarrassment and disapproval. He was tall, very erect, young and self-consciously reserved of bearing. At the first glance of his face as he turned, Hales felt that he ought to recognize the boy as some one that he knew. But whatever it was that had suggested a remembrance slipped away as elusively as a vague wisp of dream-thought.
"There is no need, sir," said Taylor, firmly, "for you to address me in that manner. Or at all, sir!"
The little cockney grinned with unruffled friendliness.
"Blimey, Johnny, yer a lucky bloke! Ow, now wot the 'ell!"
The cockney dashed off to where the stevedores were lifting the mirror and wading about in the shallow water and mud.
Young Taylor had not been in the city three hours, and was increasingly bewildered. The city was not as he had expected. He was from Boston. This was like the riotous camping place of nomadic barbarians.
The four months on shipboard had been difficult enough, but he had managed to keep pretty much to himself among the crowd of passengers that pressed his elbows and tramped about the deck. That strange foreign gentleman, Mr. Tesla, and his daughter, had been almost the only acquaintances that Taylor had made. Mr. Tesla was the most important passenger. He, of all on board, had a stateroom to himself, as well as another for his daughter and her attendant.
This cockney had been discovered as a stowaway. The mate, bringing him to the captain, had dragged him aft and thrown him down the stairs. He fell at the feet of Mr. Tesla and his daughter, who were just coming on deck. She had been very angry at the mate. But Mr. Tesla, a little bored, offered to pay the stowaway's passage, and privately did, though Miss Tesla demanded that the stowaway be given passage to compensate for such mistreatment.
"What's your name?"
"Martin Ho'Day, " said the cockney, instantly."I thought as 'ow I 'ad the right on a bloody'ooker as is nymed arfter me!"
Miss Tesla was already wearied by the tedium of ship life. Besides her maid, a tall, well-favored, but ominous-looking Spanish type of woman, there was only one other woman on board; and though this was a very agreeable and pretty young woman, with the smallest of rosebud mouths, she traveled alone and permitted men to be attentive to her. There was no doubt as to Madame Renault's caste.
Miss Tesla would not so much as look, even disdainfully, at the sinful little French woman.
In the naïve impudence of the small cockney, Miss Tesla had found much amusement. His comments delighted her. He was as full of meddlesome tricks and self-assurance as a monkey.
One day in perverse curiosity she asked:
"Don't you think the French woman is pretty, Martin?"
"'Er? Not by 'arf!" he answered rapidly out of his street-bred wisdom. "See 'er mouf? No bigger'n a mouse 'ole, it ain't. Look out for them as 'as a little mouf. Them as 'as little mouves is stingy as 'ell!"
"My brother, who some years ago went West and took up a farm," said John Taylor one day to Mr. Tesla, "wrote that he was going overland to California. I was ready to take my bar examination, but his letter gave me the gold fever. I don't know a person there, but I have a letter to Mr. Hubert Lee, who, I understand, is prominent in the country. He has lived there for many years. Was a trader and hide-buyer until he made a fortune in the gold fields."
"So?" said Mr. Tesla with quiet interest. "Hubert Lee? It must be the same gentleman. He owns an interest in the syndicate—"
So it was that John Taylor, who had very strict ideas, learned that Mr. Tesla was the manager of a big gambling syndicate.
Young Taylor came from a rather proud Boston family, a Puritan family in which there had appeared a most distressing strain of wayward blood. His own sister, who had married a young officer, the son of a wealthy family, had become a notorious woman; and, until she disappeared, had seemed to delight in creating scandal. It had all developed, presumably, through a weakness for drink.
The mirror off the Martin O 'Day was now being escorted up the street by a swarm of men. The little cockney ran among them, busily, as if helping to superintend.
As Taylor went off, Hales looked after him, thinking:
"—something about that boy. Fine, clean fellow _looks out of place in this city.... Since Hubert Lee isn't in town I suppose I'll have to look for that poor woman wherever I can. I don't think much of Lee for not taking her—not taking care of her, since he knew who she was. I shall tell him so. He could have done that as well as write me. My God, I almost hope that I don't find her!
6
John Taylor picked up his two heavy bags and struggled toward the Plaza. They were leaden with the weight of books.
He stopped to rest his arms.
Near by two men were talking. One was sharply featured, with a sort of nervous good-nature and the look of a man shrewd at business. The other was a large man, tall, rotund of body, massive, full and round of face. His voice was deep, deliberate, sonorous. He carried a heavy cane with gold knob, wore a black frock coat, and when he removed his wide brimmed soft black hat to wipe his forehead it was disclosed that he was as bald as a friar, with a fringe of gray reaching from ear to ear.
He was addressed repeatedly as "Judge," and except for the genial repose of his countenance, a tolerant kindliness in his bearing, he might have been taken for one who was a bit pompous, particularly as he used flowing sentences and had a rather formal manner of address.
"I can't lose, Judge. My rents are going up. Land is doubling every three months. As I explained to you, yesterday, I can't lose! And, nothing risked, nothing gained, Judge!"
"Sir, we do not win Heaven by shaking dice with the devil!"
Said the shrewd man of business in rather petulant raillery:
"When I get my hands full of earthly goods, I'll look out for heaven. I am not a thief, but I would be a fool not to use other people's money when I got the chance. Now honestly, don't you think it worth the risk?"
"'Worth', sir, is a term of vague import. The things that are worth while to me, sir, are sound sleep, a clear head, ripe digestion. I would not undergo your anxieties for ten times the gain that you anticipate."
"But, Judge, as a lover of poetry, you know that there is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune."
"Ah," said the judge, with freshened interest, tapping the ground with his cane, "a money-changer with the words of a poet on his lips is alarmingly suggestive of the devil quoting Scripture. Return to that same poet and learn that he has most fittingly called this Fortune a blind goddess careening over the world on a rolling stone. Sir, my fortune is of such modest proportions that—
I fear not loss, I hope not gain,
I envy none, I none disdain."
"No Yankee wrote that!" cried the man of business with satisfaction. "You get that poetry nonsense out of your head."
"Poetry, sir", said the judge with amiable composure, "is to the soul as wine to the flesh. It warms and enlivens and sets aglow—"
But the man of business waved his hand in pretended disgust, in which there was no doubt true feeling, and went away, hurrying.
The judge stood for a moment in broad good-nature, watching his friend rush off among men who also rushed. Then he turned massively and noticed Taylor, looked at his bags on the ground, at his clothes, looked carefully at his face.
"Ah, young man, you have not been long in our fair city. "You too, I take it, come with the hope that yours will be the touch of Midas, turning mud and sand into gold. What do you think of our city?"
"It seems a Babel, or," Taylor added, unconscious of humor, "a shabby Babylon."
"Excellent!" said the judge, looking more closely at him. "Will you, sir, join me in a drink?"
"I do not drink."
The judge regarded him with mild surprise: "You do not drink? Why not?"
"I think I am better off without liquor."
"You have studied for the—ah-ministry?" said the judge slowly, kindly.
"No. I was reading for the bar."
"A lawyer, ah!" The judge thoughtfully looked at Taylor, noting him in every detail, measuring him with the penetration of one who for thirty years has heard the searching confession of clients, studied jurors, examined witnesses. "You have friends accompanying you?"
"I came today, alone. I wouldn't have come at all, but my brother is coming, overland."
"And you have been studying for the bar? This is fortunate. There is in fact a professional matter upon which I would value the opinion of a younger man than myself. Will you accompany me, sir? Come with me, right with me!"
The judge spoke with cordial insistence, and bending with some slight effort and a mild grunt, he took up one of Taylor's bags and started on his way.
They went about a block from the Plaza and came to a stairway that led up the side of a hardware store in a frame building. It was a rickety stairs and trembled under the massive figure of the judge.
He led the way into a room that seemed almost bare. The floor was bare. There were two plain kitchen chairs. A rough table was the desk. Shelves were made of boxes, and on these shelves were many books, most of them bound in heavy ochre-colored sheepskin. They looked like law books, but they were not. On one wall was a large engraved portrait of Daniel Webster, his frog-like jaws set in an expression of stern truculence. On another wall was a portrait of Chief Justice Marshall, sternly ascetic and intellectually aloof.
There was a lamp with a badly smoked chimney on the table, and a muslin curtain on a wire was drawn across the room for a partition, behind which were the sleeping quarters for the judge and a small Spanish boy.
This boy, Mateo, was about fifteen or sixteen, with a shy girlish smile, who had lived in the city all his life, knew all the history and gossip of Spanish families in the vicinity and ran errands for the judge.
"Sit down, sir," said the judge, and added a few lines of poetry to the invitation.
Taylor lingered a moment, running his eyes over the backs of the books, for a book lover is as bad as a drunkard, and at the sight of what charms him, goes to it hungrily. Here were names which Taylor, though he thought himself pretty well educated, knew only by the dimmest report: Rabelais, Hudibras, a North's Plutarch, Old English Plays, a ponderous and well-worn Bible, Shakespeare, and a very familiar name, "Paradise Lost."
"The advisors of my youth, the companions of my maturity," said the judge, with a gesture as if really introducing the young man to the volumes. "But sit down, sir."
Taylor sat down, wonderingly. The judge put aside his gold-headed cane and, standing with hands under his coat tails, balancing himself now on his heels, now on his toes, looked at the young man carefully.
"Sir," he began with sonorous modulation, "you are newly equipped for the bar. I am an old and rusty lawyer, but not too old, sir, not too proud of my gray hairs, to put my ears to the lips of a younger man. And, sir, as one counselor to another, I seek a little assistance, for which, sir—" he drew a heavy leather wallet from under his coat tail and clinked it on the palm of his hand—"I shall readily bestow fitting remuneration."
Taylor felt confused and doubtful. He liked this strange massive gentleman, who had an old-fashioned manner of speech and bearing; but could hardly see why a person of age and evident experience would care for any legal assistance from a young man not admitted to the bar. But the judge was convincing. Taylor listened and forgot his doubts.
"Sir, the gentleman with whom you saw me conversing on the Plaza is a merchandise broker. Instead of refunding to certain English merchants the money collected for their goods, which he disposed of profitably, he has invested it in city property. His wealth grows apace.
"He makes no secret of this speculation. He points out that he has merely taken advantage of an opportunity. He acknowledges his debt, but he is so heavily involved that to gather in the necessary cash for a settlement would greatly injure, if not ruin his investments. The English merchants are taking what feeble means they can, being so remote from this unsettled community, to recover their property. He has asked me to assume charge of his difficulty and relieve him of the pressure that is being brought to bear to compel a settlement. Now, sir, what procedure do you suggest?"
"That he pay what he owes," said Taylor, whose ideas of honesty were simple and rigid.
"I see. I see. Um-hmm. There is much money involved. Our fees would be quite munificent."
"He is a thief, however successful. I would advise him, but not defend his theft!"
The judge nodded gravely:
"Ah I, see. I see. And I am reassured. I felt that perhaps I had remained too old-fashioned and was not up to the wrinkles and quiddities of the day. But the principles of equity and honesty are eternal. I advised him, sir, that his defense should begin after his restitution. I am delighted that a young attorney should confirm my elderly judgment. Furthermore, sir, in this shabby Babylon—a most excellent phrase, that!—there is more drawing of deeds, devises, conveyances, contracts, more work suitable to a clerk, than a man of my years can take pleasure in. And there are so many cases of doubtful merit offered for my consideration that I would value, value, sir! the advice and association of a young man for whose judgment I have the greatest respect. Sir, I invite you to enter into a partnership with myself."
Taylor flushed with excitement and stammered:
"But I am not a lawyer—yet!"
"Sir, it is of course necessary at times to know something of law in order to be a lawyer. But the great essentials of a good lawyer, sir, are honesty of judgment and love of justice, to which should be added a profound reverence for the poets. For mark you, sir, in thirty years at Bar and Bench, I have never known an evil man, or an unwise man, to venerate the poets; who, sir, are men of God as surely as were the prophets of Judea. Sir, your hand. We now enter into partnership as the legal firm of Deering and—by the way, sir, what is your name?"
7
That evening there was much excitement in the Magnolia. The largest mirror in California, it remained the largest for many months, too, was set into the wall behind the bar.
The proprietor of the Magnolia, Monsieur Max—no one knew that he had more of a name than that—was a short tubby fellow, with a heavy black mustache, tightly crinkled at the ends. He wore a wide red sash; diamonds glittered on his shirt front, flashed from his fingers.
The negroes on their platform blared and tooted. The crowd gaped and craned across the bar; miners stared fascinated at unfamiliar bearded faces they knew for their own.
It was as if the toilers of Babel had gathered there. The great room was packed with people, moving restlessly. A film of tobacco smoke hung over their heads. Nearly all voices were low-pitched, mumbling, buzzing About the gambling tables the crowd was silent except for an occasional low exclamation from those that lost or won. The faint metallic staccato of soft clinking was heard through the hum and drone of voices, for hundreds of men shuffled and toyed with gold and silver coins in their hands.
The streets, without sidewalks and unlighted, were nearly deserted. Excepting saloons and gambling houses there were no other places of amusement, unless one went among the Chilean encampment where the lowest of women, owned by men lower than themselves, aided in the robbery, often the murder, of those who came to them; or among the cribs and taverns of the waterfront. Lonely men that did not drink and would not gamble entered such gambling halls as the Magnolia, the Bella Union, the El Dorado, the Verandah, and a dozen other houses, where there were bright furnishings, a blaze of lights, carpets, music, people.
Ragged miners and Southern gentlemen, dignified Mexicans and tipsy sailors, sat together on the same bench at monte tables. Other men, of all classes, stood three and four deep, reaching across to lay their bets. A curious invisibility seemed to hide the clothes a man wore, and beards concealed many of the faces. Where all men were strangers names were unimportant.
Gamblers and lookouts were at all the tables. Lookouts were needed when the play was made by so many people.
These professional gamblers of the higher caste were, in manner and in dress, as much alike as if they were a trained and costumed brotherhood. They dealt with studied slowness, and with studied unconcern watched the cards fall. There was seldom the flicker of an eyelash, whatever the gold won or lost. With sinister indifference they seemed never to notice who was playing against them, or for how much, but they dealt with a revolver, and often a bowie knife, too, on the table at their elbows.
A flare of voices rose, sharp with anger. The next instant a shot was fired. Frightened cries broke out, then there was a moment's hush and pause all through the room; and, as no more shots followed, some men surged toward the scene; others, merely glancing that way, went on with their conversation. Some players at distant tables did not turn their heads. The orchestra, with only a discordant note or two, went on with "Turkey in the Straw."
The cockney, Martin O'Day, by headlong squirming pressed through the crowd and emerged before a monte table where a tall gambler, pale, expressionless except for a gleam of eye and thinner line at his thin mouth, stood with hand to derringer on the table before him and watched a drunken miner being helped off.
The little cockney demanded rapidly of the men about him, turning from one to another:
"Wot's the muss? I sy, wot's the row?"
The gambler, attracted by the shrill insistence of the cockney voice, glanced toward him; the gaze lingered with penetrative searching for a moment, but the gambler disdained to speak; then, casually brushing at a glint of gold dust on his dark sleeve, reseated himself, and without a glance toward any one began shuffling the thin Spanish cards.
"Make your bets, gentlemen! Make your bets," droned his companion, the lookout, indifferently.
"I sy," Martin demanded, a little subdued by the gambler's eyes, but insistent on knowing what it was all about, and grasping at the arm of a man near him, "I sy, wot's the row?"
This man was Hubert Lee, tall, browned, clean shaven. He wore a new broadcloth suit, freshly polished boots, and a sombrero. He had been in California for years as the agent, trader, hide-buyer, for a firm of big leather merchants in the States.
At the first news of gold, he, being used to the country and to trading with Indians, had employed a large number of them, profitably until rum sellers crowded too close to the diggings. But he had made a fortune and invested heavily in San Francisco property. He was one of the important men of the city, with many enemies.
After looking the cockney up and down with a half-suspicious scrutiny, Lee grinned broadly, amused.
"Just in, eh? Well, youngster, the gentleman that is being escorted off with a hole near his heart lost two hundred ounces of gold in about an hour, then had the bad judgment to argue with Stewart Dawes, the same being the man that deals this game. If this fool dies, he will be the second that Mr. Dawes has sent to the happy hunting ground within a month."
"Yer mean—yer mean men is killed like that!" Martin cried, leaving his mouth adroop as if to catch the answer.
Lee good naturedly tapped his own revolver, thrust into a broad leather belt that was studded with silver pieces.
"In this country each man has to look out for himself, and if he's a quarrelsome cuss, he doesn't have to wait long to get buried. Have a drink, youngster?"
"I ain't quarrelsome, I ain't!"
Martin called it "quarle-s'm, " but his meaning was clear.
The busy bartender greeted Mr. Lee respectfully by name: "I thought you were out of the city, sir."
"I just went to Sacramento for a day," said Lee. "Came down on a little schooner. Just got in about sundown."
Lee tossed a buckskin pouch to the bar. The bartender, with an air of preoccupied haste, for customers were waiting, took a pinch of dust between finger and thumb, which he dropped into a dish on the shelf behind the bar.
What could be taken between finger and thumb, though one man's finger and thumb might be larger than another, passed in those free-handed days for a dollar.
"I sy, Mr.Lee, is there any gold left in this bloomin' country f'r some of us fellers wot's jus' come in?"
"Mountains of it!" Mr. Lee affirmed, encouragingly, at the same time handing the bag to Martin, so that he might for a moment hold a sack of real gold, feel its weight.
"Blimey! It's 'eavy as lead!"
"And some of it is soft as flour," said Mr. Lee, taking back the pouch.
"Ow' do yer get there? I come to get there, I did. An' I'm in a bloomin' 'urry', I am!"
Mr. Lee, in an amiable mood, explained that a gold hunter first went to Stockton or Sacramento, from where he took his departure for the mines. The fare to either place was about three ounces of gold. Gold was, roughly, sixteen dollars the ounce in San Francisco; less at the mines. The miner must have an outfit of shovel, pick, pan—pans at one time had been sixteen dollars, but were now down to two or three dollars. In the early days—about six months before—even wooden washbowls had brought as high as thirty dollars. A pick was now five dollars. One must have blankets, boots—boots were $40 a pair—pans, grub.
At that moment a man hurried up to Mr. Lee, saying:
"I've been looking all over for you, Lee. Mr. Tesla, whom we' ve been expecting, you know, came in today ready to do business. It's lucky you got in tonight. Other people—you can guess who—are trying to crowd you out of the deal. They are over to the Bella Union. Monsieur Max is over there too, waiting."
Lee and his friend walked off hurriedly.
8
A tipsy miner of huge size arose from a bench at a monte table as the gambler's lookout tossed the markers from a heavy bag of dust, and placed the bag among the bank's heap of gold.
The burly miner, with an easy, almost cheerful air of unconcern, shoved his way through the encircling group and headed for the door. His legs were the least bit unsteady. In avoiding one man he bumped into Martin O'Day.
"Pardner, old world don't seem big enough for the two of us, eh?"
He paused, and with tipsy deliberation eyed the little cockney, who wore clothes intended for a man twice his size; then, said the miner with drunken earnestness:
"You've shrunk!"
"I ain't. I didn't dare grow big as you. Lots o' times I 'ad ter sleep in a barrel on rainy nights. An' if yer too big yer get yer feet wet. I'm pertykular wiv my feet, I am!"
The miner pondered the explanation judiciously and seemed satisfied.
"Now take me—William Burton, that's me. I'm the biggest ass in this barnyard full of big asses. Eight months ago I come down from the mines with my stake. Gambled, lost, sold my ticket to get back to the mines. Dug out another stake. Got as far as Sacramento. Lost it. Back to the mines. Dug out some more. Started for home. Got no home, but I started anyhow. Got to playin' here. Now broke. Haven't got any steamer ticket this time to sell. Don't know how I'll get back to the mines, but I got to go an' dig."
"Let me go wiv yer!"
Bill Burton eyed him with tipsy gravity, then admitted:
"You might be lucky. But I'm broke—"
As he spoke he fumbled about in his pockets and drew out a flabby buckskin bag, squeezing it through his hand.
"—all I got left. Just a pinch. You want to be my pard? I'm Bill Burton. No damn good. Broke."
"Yer all right. I'm wiv yer! "
"I was in here on a ship when the news hit—gold! The whole crew jumped for the mines. Made my stake three times. Plenty more up there. You furnish the outfit, we'll go pards. Here"—he thrust the flabby bag at Martin—"all I got. We're pards. Shake!"
They shook hands, settling the bargain; then Burton started off, suddenly humming.
"I sy." Martin ran after him."I sy, where yer goin'!"
"Bed. Can't play. Can't drink. Can't do nothing but sleep when you're broke. Where you stoppin'?"
"I ain't found a plyce yet," said Martin.
"Come on with me, pard," said the miner and laid a forcible hand on Martin, nearly dragging him out of the Magnolia and across the Plaza, which, on nearly the whole of two sides and a part of the third was brilliantly fringed by the blazing, and never closed, doorways of the gambling houses.
The lodging houses being full when Burton, heavy with dust, came into the city, he had chanced upon a tent and carelessly paid four ounces for a week's rent. It was some four blocks from the plaza.
"We bunk here," he said, and pushed Martin through the door. Burton lighted a lantern and hung it on a nail. He was too tall to stand upright and moved about as if crouching to spring on somebody.
The floor and corners were littered with odd scraps, among which Martin, with the eager deftness of one who has pawed ash barrels and alley rubbish, rummaged. He found a broken flint-lock rifle, a powder horn, a pouch heavy with bullets, a decayed rubber blanket, a half sack of wormy beans, empty cans.
There was but one bunk. Burton flung a bundle of blankets off it, saying:
"One thing, we got blankets. These are mine. I kept 'em for the ship. Give me a dollar or something. We'll flip to see who gets the bunk. The other fellow sleeps on the floor."
"I ain't got no bloomin' dollar, " said Martin cheerfully. Then added hastily, remembering that their partnership was based on his being able to buy the outfit—"I don't sleep good on no bunk. Yer 'ave it, Billy. I won't 'ave' it, I won't!"
Burton sat down, yawning prodigiously. He threw his boots, one after the other, across the room. Then tossed away his hat.
"Night, little pard. Look out a rat don't lug you off—plenty of 'em big enough."
Burton fell back on the bunk, gave the blanket a swirl and, though it fell in a way that only partly covered his body, sighed deeply and almost at once began the regular deep breathing of one who sleeps soundly.
"Gor blimey! Where the bloomin' 'ell can I fin' money! I got ter 'ave it, I 'ave!"
Martin waggled his head doubtfully. Five hundred dollars, Mr. Lee had estimated. That in itself was wealth. He was skillful in evasions and explanations, but he knew that on the morrow, whatever his explanations, he would lose this big pardner if he did not have the money.
All that he had was the flabbily empty buckskin pouch which Burton had thrust into his hand; and now, getting close to the lantern, Martin pulled open the mouth of the pouch and peered hard. A few pinches of brilliant dust lay in the bottom. He shook some of it into his hand, and with inquiring finger poked at the dust.
Gold. Real gold. The stuff that would buy anything! Yet he had seen so much gold piled about and carelessly handled on the gambling tables—stacks of it, pouches of it—that for a moment he wondered how it could be so valuable.
He had hardly a vague idea as to what gold dust was worth.
If a fellow was lucky at gambling—? Martin had never seen monte played before this night, but he had quite readily caught onto the simple game.
Martin weighed the bag thoughtfully in his small hand. It was light, very light.
"Heavy as lead," he remembered saying as he held the well-filled pouch of the amiable Mr. Lee.
He licked his lips and swallowed with dry throat as an idea trembled through his mind. He moved closer and looked a little wistfully at his sleeping partner. But he also thought of Stewart Dawes, the tall, pale, cold gambler, who had shot a man as indifferently as he brushed the glint of gold dust from his dark sleeve.
Then he began to rummage among the litter of rubbish in the corner of the tent, and his thin, impudent, pinched features had an odd look of determination.