Port O' Gold Part 11

"How about the lots that lie south?" cried a voice.

"They are one hundred varas square, same terms, same fees," replied Hyde. He stepped down and Brannan began his address.

"The site of San Francisco is known to all navigators and mercantile men to be the most commanding commercial position on the entire eastern coast of the Pacific Ocean," he shouted, quoting from former Alcalde Bryant's announcement of three months previous. "The town itself is destined to become the commercial emporium of western America."

"Bravo!" supplemented the Dona Briones, waving her fan. She was the center of a little group composed of Benito and Inez Windham, Adrian Stanley and Nathan Spear. Near them, keeping out of their observance, stood Aleck McTurpin.

"The property offered for sale is the most valuable in or belonging to the town," Brannan went on, enthusiastically; "it will require work to make it tenable. You'll have to wrest it from the waves, gentlemen ...

and ladies," he bowed to Juana and her companion, "but, take my word for it--and I've never deceived you--everyone who buys will bless my memory half a dozen years from now...."

"Why don't ye get in yerself and practice what ye preach?" cried a scoffing sailor.

Brannan looked him up and down. "Because I'm trying to serve the commonwealth--which is more than a drunken deserter from his ship can claim," he shot back hotly, "but I'm going to buy my share, never fear.

Bill Leidesdorff's my agent. He has $5,000 and my power of attorney.

That's fair enough, isn't it boys? Or, shall we let the sailor act as auctioneer?"

"No! No!" a dozen cried. "'Rah for Sam. Go on! You're doin' fine!"

"Thank you," Brannan acknowledged. "Who's to make the first bid? Speak up, now, don't be bashful."

"Twenty-five dollars," called Juana Briones.

"Thirty," said a voice behind her, a voice that caused young Windham and his sister to start, involuntarily. "McTurpin," whispered Inez to Adrian.

"Thirty-five," spoke Juana, imperturbably.

"Forty."

Brannan looked straight into McTurpin's eyes. "Sold to Juana Briones for thirty-five dollars," he said, as his improvised gavel fell on the table before him.

"I bid forty!" stormed McTurpin. All eyes turned to him. But Brannan paid him no attention. Someone laughed.

"Next! Who bids?" invited the auctioneer.

"Twenty-five," began Benito.

This time there were other bidders, all of whom Brannan recognized courteously and promptly. Finally, Benito's bid of fifty seemed to win.

Then McTurpin shouted, "Fifty-five!"

Brannan waited for a moment. There were no more bids. "Sold to Benito Windham for fifty dollars," he announced.

"Curse you!" cried the gambler, pushing forward, "you heard me bid higher, Sam Brannan!"

Into his path stepped the tall figure of Robert Windham. "We are not taking bids from convicts," he said, loudly and distinctly.

CHAPTER XV

THE BEGINNING OF LAW

McTurpin's look of blind astonishment at Windham's words was succeeded by a whitehot fury. Two eyes gleamed with snake-like venom and two spots of red glowed in his cheeks, as though each had felt the impact of a sudden blow. For a moment he neither moved nor spoke. Then a hand, which trembled slightly, made a lightning move toward his hip.

"I wouldn't," drawled the voice of Robert Windham. His right hand, loosely in a pocket of his coat, moved slightly. "I've got you covered, Sydney Duck McTurpin ... if that's your real name."

The other's hand fell at his side. The two men's glances countered, held each other, one calm, dignified, unafraid; the other, murderous, searching, baffled. Presently, McTurpin turned and strode away. Windham looked after the departing gambler. "'Fraid I've spoiled his morning,"

he remarked to Nathan Spear.

"Yes--to chance a knife or bullet in the back," retorted Spear, uneasily. Their further confidence was drowned in Brannan's exhortations: "On with the sale, boys," he shouted. "The side show's over ... with n.o.body hurt, thank Heaven! What'll you bid for a lot in the southern part of town? They're a hundred varas square--four times as big as the others. Not as central, maybe, but in ten years I bet they'll bring a thousand dollars. What's bid for a south lot, my hearties?"

"Twenty-five dollars," said Inez Windham.

"Oh, come, now, Senorita," cried the auctioneer, intriguingly, "twenty-five dollars for a hundred-vara lot. Have you no more faith in San Francisco?"

"Its--all I have...." the girl spoke almost in a whisper.

Brannan frowned. He looked about him threateningly. "Does anyone bid higher than Miss Windham?" he demanded. There was no response. Brannan's gavel fell, decisively. "Sold!" he cried, and half a dozen voices cheered.

Inez Windham made her way to the auctioneer's stand and handed three banknotes to Alcalde Hyde. "But, my dear young lady," he expostulated, "you need only pay a fourth of the money down. Six dollars and a quarter is enough."

"Oh," said Inez, "then I could have bought more, couldn't I!" She turned to Brannan, eagerly. "I could have bought four lots--if I'd only known."

Brannan smiled at her. Then he turned to the crowd. "What d'ye say, boys, shall we let her have 'em?" he inquired. Instantly the answer came: "Yes, yes, give her the four. G.o.d bless her. She'll bring us luck."

Impulsively, Inez mounted the platform; astonished at her own temerity, at the exuberance of some new freedom, springing from the barriers of a shielded life, she shouted at these strange, rough men about her: "Thank you, gentlemen!" Then her mother's look of horrified, surprise brought a sudden red into her cheeks. She turned and fled. Her father smiled, indulgently; Anita's frown changed presently into a look of whimsical, perplexed affection. "I am always forgetting, Inez mia," she said, softly, "that this is a new day--the day of the Americano."

She watched Benito shouting bids at the side of Adrian, vying with such men as Howard, Mellus, Clark and Leidesdorff in the quest for lots.

"Fifty of them have been sold already," Windham told her. "The auction will last three days because there are four hundred more."

Suddenly, Anita Windham put forth a hand and touched that of her husband. "Buy one, for me, Roberto," she pleaded.

"But--" he hesitated, "Anita carissima, what will you do with a rectangle of mire in this rough, unsettled place?"

"For sentiment," she answered, softly, "in memory of my father, who had such abundant faith in San Francisco.... And, perhaps, Don Samuel is right. We may yet bless his name."

The summer of 1847 had pa.s.sed. Inez Windham was the wife of Adrian Stanley. He had given up his school for larger matters. Every day his ox-teams struggled over sandy bottoms to the tune of snapping whips and picturesque profanity by Indian drivers. Men with shovels leveling the sand hills, piled the wagons high with shimmering white grains which were carried to the sh.o.r.e and dumped into pile-surrounded bogs till the tides left them high and dry. San Francisco reached farther and farther into the bay, wresting irregular nooks and corners from the ebbing-flowing waters, building rickety, improvised piers, sometimes washed out by the northers which unexpectedly came down with tempestuous fury. Quaint, haphazard buildings made their appearance, strange architectural mushrooms grown almost over night, clapboarded squares with paper or muslin part.i.tions for inner walls. Under some the tides washed at their full and small craft discharged cargoes at their back doors. Ships came from Boston, Bremen, Sitka, Chile, Mexico, the Sandwich Islands, bringing all manner of necessities and luxuries.

Monthly mails had been established between San Francisco and San Diego, as well as intermediate points, and there was talk of a pony express to Independence, Missouri.

There were many crimes of high and low degree, from rifled tills to dead men found half buried in the sands. Rumor told of thieves and murderers encamped in the hollow bowl of a great sandhill, where they slept or caroused by day, venturing forth only at night. Aleck McTurpin's name was now and then a.s.sociated with them as a leader. Men were importing safes from the States and carrying derringers at night--even the peaceful Mormons. At this time Governor Mason addressed to Alcalde Hyde an order for the election of a Town Council.

Adrian was full of these doings when he came home from an executive session before which he had appeared as an expert on reclamation. "They are good men, Inez," he declared, enthusiastically. "They'll bring law to San Francisco. And law is what we need more than all else, my dear."

"And how will they go about it, with no prison-house, no courts or judges?" asked Inez, wonderingly.

"Oh, those will soon be provided," he a.s.sured, "When there is a will for law the machinery comes." He smiled grimly. "McTurpin and his ilk had better look to themselves.... We are going after the gamblers."