Port O' Gold Part 19

It was the morning of December 24, 1849--the first Christmas eve following the gold rush. Windham, who had lain awake since midnight, pondered upon this and other things. Events had succeeded each other with such riotous activity of late that life seemed more like a dream than a reality. His turbulent months at the mines, his high preliminary hopes of fortune, their gradual waning to a slow despair; the advent of James Burthen and his daughter; then love, his partner's murder and the girl's abduction; his pursuit and illness. Alice's rescue and their marriage; his return to find the claim covered with snow; finally a clerical post in San Francisco.

A sudden distaste for the feverish, riotous town a.s.sailed him--a longing for the peace and beauty of those broad paternal acres he had lost upon the gaming table wrenched his heart.

He pictured Alice in the old rose patio, where his American father had wooed his Spanish mother.

Involuntarily his steps turned eastward. At Sacramento and Leidesdorff streets he left solid ground to tread a four-foot board above the water, to the theoretical line of Sansome street; thence south upon a similar foothold to the solid ground of Bush street, where an immense sand-*hill with a hollow in its middle, like a crater, struck across the path. Some called this depression Thieves Hollow, for in it deserting sailors, ticket-of-leave men from Botany Bay prison colony and all manner of human riff-raff consorted for nefarious intrigue.

Benito, mounting the slope, looked down at a welter of tents, shacks, deck houses and galleys of wrecked ships. He had expected their occupants to be asleep, for they were nighthawks who reversed man's usual order in the prosecution of nocturnal and ill-favored trades. He was astonished to note a general activity. At the portholes of dwellings retrieved from the wreck of the sea, unkempt bearded faces stared; smoke leaped from a dozen rickety, unstable chimneys, and in the open several groups of men and women plied frying pans and coffee pots over driftwood fires.

Benito observed them with a covert interest. A black-browed man with a s.h.a.ggy beard and something leonine about him, seemed the master of the chief of this G.o.dless band. He moved among them, giving orders, and with two companions finally ascended to the top. Benito, concealing himself behind a scrub oak, watched them, animatedly conversing, as they descended and picked their way inland toward the Square. So swift their movements and so low their tones he could not make out the tenor of their discourse. He caught the words, "like tow," but that was all.

Musingly, he went on.

Up the broad and muddy path to Market street, thence west again to Third, he made his way. Now south to Mission and once more west, a favored route for caballeros. Benito had never traveled it before afoot.

But his horse had succ.u.mbed to the rigors of that frantic ride in pursuit of Alice and McTurpin several months ago. Mounts were a luxury now.

He skirted the edge of a lagoon that stretched from Sixth to Eighth streets and on the ascent beyond observed a tiny box-like habitation, brightly painted, ringed with flowers and crowned with an imposing flagpole from which floated the Star-Spangled Banner. It was a note of gay melody struck athwart the discordant monotony of soiled tent houses, tumble-down huts and oblong, flat-roofed buildings stretching their disorderly array along the road. Coming closer he saw the name, "Pipesville," printed on the door, and knew that this must be the "summer home," as it was called, of San Francisco's beloved minstrel, Stephen Ma.s.sett, otherwise "Jeems Pipes of Pipesville," singer, player, essayist and creator of those wondrous one-man concerts dear to all the countryside.

"Jeems" himself appeared in the doorway to wave a greeting and Benito went on oddly cheered by the encounter. In front of the Mansion House, adjoining Mission Dolores, stood Bob Ridley, talking with his partner.

"You look warm, son," he remarked paternally to Windham, "let me mix you up a milk punch and you'll feel more like yourself. Where's your boss and whither are ye bound?"

"Died," Benito answered. "Going to my--to the ranch."

"Thought so," Ridley said. "I hear there's no one on it. Why not steal a march on that tin-horn gambler and scallawag. Rally up some friends and take possession. That's nine points of the law, my boy, and a half-dozen straight-shooting Americans is nine hundred more, now that Geary's alcalde and that weak-kneed psalm-singing Leavenworth's resigned under fire."

"You're sure--there's no one at the place?" Benito questioned.

"Pretty sure. But what's it matter? Everybody knows it's yours by rights. Wait," he cried, excitedly. "I'll get horses. Stuart and I will go along. We'll pick up six or seven bully boys along the way. Is it a go?"

"A go!" exclaimed Benito, his eyes ashine. "You--you're too good, Bob Ridley." He pressed the other's hand. "My wife," he mused, "among the roses in the patio! The old home, Dear G.o.d! Let it come true!"

An hour later ten men galloped through the gate of the Windham rancho.

No one offered them resistance. It had the look of a place long abandoned. Dead leaves and litter everywhere. All of the animals had been driven off--sold, no doubt. The hacienda had been ransacked of its valuables. It was almost bare of furniture. The rose court, neglected, unkempt, brought back a surge of memories. A chimney had fallen; broken adobe bricks lay scattered on the gra.s.s.

But to Benito it spelled home. For him and for Alice. This should be his Christmas gift. Old Antonio, his former major-domo, lingered still in San Francisco. He would send him out this very day to set the place in order. Tomorrow he and Alice would ride--his brow clouded. He should have to borrow two horses. No matter. Tomorrow they would ride--

A startled exclamation from Bob Ridley roused him from his rhapsody.

"Benito, come here! Look! What the devil is that?"

From their eminence the town of San Francisco was plainly visible; tall, thin shafts of smoke rising straight and black from many chimneys; the blue bay shimmering in the morning sunshine; the curious fretwork shadows of that great flotilla of deserted ships. But there was something more; something startlingly unnatural; a great pillar of black vapor--beneath it a livid red thing that leaped and grew.

"Good G.o.d! The town's afire!" cried Benito.

CHAPTER XXVI

FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

Benito's first thought was of Alice. He had left her sleeping. Perhaps she had not yet awakened, for the morning was young. Adrian had gone to San Jose the previous afternoon. His wife, his sister and her child would be alone.

Benito sprang upon his horse; the others followed. In less than half an hour they crossed Market street and were galloping down Kearny toward the Square. At California street they were halted by a crowd, pushing, shouting, elbowing this way and that without apparent or concerted purpose. Above the human babel sounded a vicious crackle of burning wood like volleys of shots from small rifles. Red and yellow flames shot high and straight into the air. Now and then a gust of wind sent the licking fire demon earthward, and before its hot breath people fled in panic.

Benito flung his reins to a bystander. He was scarcely conscious of his movements; only that he was fighting for breath in a surging, suffocating press of equally excited human beings. From this he finally emerged, hatless, disheveled, into a small cleared s.p.a.ce filled with flying sparks and stifling heat. Across it men rushed feverishly carrying pails of water. Dennison's Exchange on Kearny street, midway of the block facing Portsmouth Square, was a roaring furnace. Flame sprang like red, darting tongues from its windows and thrust impertinent fingers here and there through the sloping roof.

Somewhere--no one seemed to know precisely--a woman screamed, "My baby!

Save my baby!" The sound died to a moan, was stilled. Benito, pa.s.sing a bucket along the line, stared, white faced, at his neighbor. "What was that?" he asked.

"Quien sabe?" said the other, "hurry along with that pail. The roof's falling."

It was true. The shingle-covered s.p.a.ce above the burning building stirred gently, undulating like some wind-ruffled pond. The mansard windows seemed to bow to the watchers, then slowly sink forward. With a roar, the whole roof sprang into fire, buckled, collapsed; the veranda toppled. Smoke poured from the eight mansard windows of the Parker House, next door. South of the Parker House were single-storied buildings, one of wood, another of adobe; the first was a restaurant; over its roof several foreign-looking men spread rugs and upon them poured a red liquid.

"It's wine," Bob Ridley said. "But they'll never save it. Booker's store is going, too. Looks like a clean sweep of the block."

Broderick's commanding figure could be seen rushing hither and thither.

"No use," Benito heard him say to one of his lieutenants. "Water won't stop it. Not enough.... Is there any powder hereabouts?"

"Powder!" cried the other with a blanching face. "By the Eternal, yes! A store of it is just around the corner. Mustn't let the fire reach--"

Broderick cut him short. "Go and get it. You and two others. Blow up or pull down that building," he indicated a sprawling ramshackle structure on the corner.

"But it's mine," one of the fire-fighters wailed. "Cost me ten thousand dollars--"

Fiercely Broderick turned upon him. "It'll cost the town ten millions if you don't hurry," he bellowed. "You can't save it, anyhow. Do you want the whole place to burn?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Broderick's commanding figure was seen rushing hither and thither.... "You and two others. Blow up or pull down that building," he indicated a sprawling, ramshackle structure.]

"All right, all right, Cap. Don't shoot," the other countered with a sudden laugh. "Come on, boys, follow me." Benito watched him and the others presently returning with three kegs. They dived into the building indicated. Presently, with the noise of a hundred cannon, the corner building burst apart. Sticks and bits of plaster flew everywhere. The crowd receded, panic-stricken.

"Good work!" cried the fire marshal.

It seemed, indeed, as though the flames were daunted. The two small structures were blazing now. The Parker House, reeling drunkenly, collapsed.

Unexpectedly a gust of wind sent fire from the ruins of Dennison's Exchange northward. It reached across the open s.p.a.ce and flung a rain of sparks down Washington street toward Montgomery. Instantly there came an answering crackle, and exasperated fire-fighters rushed to meet the latest sortie of their enemy. Once more three men, keg laden, made their way through smoke and showering brands. Again the deafening report reverberated and the crowd fell back, alarmed.

Someone grasped Benito's arm and shook it violently. He turned and looked into the feverishly questioning eyes of Adrian Stanley.

"I've just returned," the other panted. "Tell me, is all well--with Inez? The women?"

"Don't know," said Benito, half bewildered. The woman's wail for a lost child leaped terrifyingly into his recollection. His hand went up as if to ward off something. "Don't know," he repeated. "Wasn't home when--fire started."

It came to him weirdly that he was talking like a drunken man; that Adrian eyed him with a sharp disfavor. "Where the devil were you, then?"

"At the ranch," he answered. Suddenly he laughed. It all seemed very funny. He had meant to give his wife a Christmas present; later he had ridden madly to her rescue, yet here he was pa.s.sing buckets in a fire brigade. And Adrian, regarding him with suspicion, accusing him silently with his eyes.

"You take the pail," he cried. "You fight the fire." And while Stanley looked puzzledly after him, Benito charged through a circle of spectators up the hill. He did not know that his face was almost black; that his eyebrows and the little foreign moustache of which they had made fun at the mines was charred and grizzled. He knew only that Alice might be in danger. That the fire might have spread west as well as east and north.

As he sped up Washington street another loud explosion drummed against his ears. A shout followed it. Benito neither knew nor cared for its significance. Five minutes later he stumbled across his own doorsill, calling his wife's name. There was no answer. Frenziedly he shouted "Alice! Alice!" till at last a neighbor answered him.