Port O' Gold Part 20

"She and Mrs. Stanley and the baby went to Preacher Taylor's house. Is the fire out?"

"No," returned Benito. Once more he plunged down hill, seized a bucket and began the interminable pa.s.sing of water. He looked about for Adrian but did not see him. He became a machine, dully, persistently, desperately performing certain ever-repeated tasks.

Hours seemed to pa.s.s. Then, of a sudden, something interrupted the accustomed trend. He held out his hands and no bucket met it. With a look of stupid surprise he stared at the man behind him. He continued to hold out his hand.

"Wake up," cried the other, and gave him a whack across the shoulders.

"Wake up, Benito, man. The fire's out."

Robert Parker, whose hotel was a litter of smoking timbers, and Tom Maguire, owner of what once had been the Eldorado gambling house, were discussing their losses.

"Busted?" Parker asked.

"Cleaned!" Maguire answered.

"Goin' to rebuild?"

"Yep. And you?"

"Sartin. Sure. Soon as I can get the lumber and a loan."

"Put her there, pard."

Their hands met with a smack.

"That's the spirit of San Francisco," Ridley remarked. "Well we've learned a lesson. Next time we'll be ready for this sort of thing.

Broderick's planning already for an engine company."

"I reckon," Adrian commented as he joined the group, "a vigilance committee is what we need even more."

To this Benito made no answer. Into his mind flashed a memory of the trio that had left Thieves' Hollow at daybreak.

CHAPTER XXVII

POLITICS AND A WARNING

Benito Windham rose reluctantly and stretched himself. It was very comfortable in the living-room of the ranch house, where a fire crackled in the huge stone grate built by his grandfather's Indian artisans. Many of the valuable tapestries imported from Spain had been removed by McTurpin during his tenure, but even bare adobe walls were cheerful in the light of blazing logs, and rugs of native weave accorded well with the simple mission furniture. In a great chair that almost swallowed her sat Alice, gazing dreamily into the embers. Family portraits hung upon the wall, and one of these, stiff and haughty in the regimentals of a soldado de cuero, seemed to look down upon the domestic picture with a certain austere benignity. This was the painting of Francisco Garvez of hidalgo lineage, who had stood beside Ortega, the Pathfinder, when that honored scout of Portola had found the bay of San Francisco and the Golden Gate.

"Carissima, how he would have loved you, that old man!" Benito's tone was dreamy.

Alice Windham turned. "You are like him, Benito," she said fondly.

"There is the same flash in your eye. Come, sit for awhile by the fire.

It's so cosy when it storms."

Benito kissed her. "I would that I might, but today there is an election in the city," he reminded. "I must go to vote. Perhaps I can persuade the good Broderick to dine with us this evening; or Brannan--though he is so busy nowadays. Often I look about unconsciously for Nathan Spear.

It seems impossible that he is dead."

"He was 47, but he seemed so young," commented Alice. She rose hastily.

"You must be very careful, dear," she cautioned, with a swift anxiety, "of the cold and wet--and of the hoodlums. They tell me there are many.

Every week one reads in the _Alta_ that So-and-So was killed at the Eldorado or the Verandah. Never more than that. In my home in the East they would call it murder. There would be a great commotion; the a.s.sa.s.sin would be hanged."

"Ah, yes; but this is a new country," he said, a little lamely.

"Will there never be law in San Francisco?" Alice asked him, pa.s.sionately. "I have not forgotten--how my father died."

Benito's face went suddenly white. "Nor I," he said, with an odd intensity; "there are several things ... that you may trust me ... to remember."

"You mean," she queried in alarm, "McTurpin?"

Benito's mood changed. "There, my dear." He put an arm about her shoulders soothingly. "Don't worry. I'll be careful; neither storm nor bullets shall harm me. I will promise you that."

Early as it was in the day's calendar--for San Francisco had no knack of rising with the sun--Benito found the town awake, intensely active when he picked his way along the edge of those dangerous bogs that pa.s.sed for business streets. Several polling places had been established. Toward each of them, lines of citizens converged in patient single-file detachments that stretched usually around the corner and the length of another block. Official placards announced that all citizens of the United States were ent.i.tled to the ballot and beneath one of these, a wag had written with white chalk in a large and sprawling hand:

"No Chinese Coolies in Disguise Need Apply."

No one seemed to mind the rain, though a gale blew from the sea, causing a mult.i.tude of tents to sway and flap in dangerous fashion. Now and then a canvas habitation broke its moorings and went racing down the hill, pursued by a disheveled and irate occupant, indulging in the most violent profanity.

At Kearny and Sacramento streets Benito, approaching the voting station, was told to get in line by Charley Elleard, the town constable. Elleard rode his famous black pony. This pony was the pet of the town and had developed a sagacity nearly human. It was considered wondrous sport to give the little animal a "two-bit" piece, which it would gravely hold between its teeth and present to the nearest bootblack, placing its forefeet daintily upon the footrests for a "shine."

As he neared the polls in the slow succession of advancing voters, Benito was beset by a rabble of low-voiced, rough-dressed men, who thrust their favorite tickets into his hands and bade him vote as indicated, often in a threatening manner. Raucously they tried to cry each other down. "Here's for Geary and the good old council," one would shout. "Geary and his crowd forever."

"We've had the old one too long," a red-shirted six-footer bellowed.

"Fresh blood for me. We want sidewalks and clean streets."

This provoked a chorus of "Aye! Aye! That's the ticket, pard," until a satirical voice exclaimed, "Clean streets and sidewalks! Gor a'mighty.

He's dreamin' o' Heaven!"

A roar of laughter echoed round the town at this sally. It was repeated everywhere. The campaign slogan was hastily dropped.

At the polling desk Benito found himself behind a burly Kanaka sailor, dark as an African.

"I contest his vote," cried one of the judges. "If he's an American, I'm a Hottentot."

"Where were you born?" asked the challenging judge of election.

"New York," whispered a voice in the Kanaka's ear, and he repeated the word stammeringly. "Where was your father born?" came the second question, and again the word was repeated. "What part of New York?"

"New York, New York." The answer was parrot-like. Someone laughed.

"Ask him what part of the Empire State he hails from?" suggested another. The question was put in simpler form, but it proved too much for the Islander. He stammered, stuttered, waved his hand uncertainly toward the ocean. Perceiving that he was the b.u.t.t of public jest, he broke out of the line and made off as fast as his long legs could transport him.

The man whose whispered promptings had proved unavailing, fell sullenly into the background, after venomous glance at the successful objector.

Benito caught his eyes under the dripping crown of a wide-brimmed slouch hat. They seemed to him vaguely familiar. Almost instinctively his hand sought the pocket in which his derringer reposed. Then, with a laugh, he dismissed the matter. He had no quarrel with the fellow; that murderous look was aimed at Henry Mellus, not at him. So he cast his ballot and went out.

Opposite the Square he paused to note the progress of rehabilitation in the burned area. It was less than a fortnight since he had stood there feverishly pa.s.sing buckets of water in a fight against the flames, but already most of the evidences of conflagration were hidden behind the framework of new buildings. The Eldorado announced a grand opening in the "near future"; Maguire's Jenny Lind Theater notified one in conspicuous letters, "We Will Soon Be Ready for Our Patrons, Bigger and Grander Than Ever."