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 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 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?”
He 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 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 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 sp
angled 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?”
Johnny 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 lookout 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
“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.
*
CHAPTER 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 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, 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 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 hu
ndred and twenty dollars by evening. The further I looked into that proposition, the more absurd, 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.
“I want a job,” said I, “for to-day only.”
“Do ye now?”
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