Gold Part 17

Did you then take a needed rest?"

"Quarter of two," corrected Talbot, "I was going back to the hotel, when I pa.s.sed 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; 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 part.i.tion 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."

"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.

The letters were pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s in it slammed shut, and the clerk thrust a card against it.

"_Mails close at 9 P.M._"

McGlynn tapped at the gla.s.s, received no attention, and commenced to beat a tattoo. The window was s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 gla.s.s 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 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 pa.s.sed a very interesting day.

CHAPTER 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.es 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 tang stirred our blood; and on the great mountain just north of the harbour entrance the shadows of canons 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 sh.o.r.es 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 b.u.mps shook our very vertebrae. 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, b.u.mped twice more, and slid into the smoother deep water. The sailor grunted, and pa.s.sed 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 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 gra.s.ses. 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 mult.i.tude 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 gla.s.sy 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 mult.i.tudinous noise of marsh birds 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.