Port O' Gold Part 47

"Use my common sense--and save the banks," said Ralston shortly. "You two must meet me here this evening. Soon as it's dark. You'll have a hard night's work. My friend Dore will be there also. Can you suggest anyone else--absolutely to be trusted, who will ask no questions?"

"My son," Benito answered; "Robert likes work. He wants to be a postal-carrier."

"Bring him by all means," said Ralston. "If he helps us out tonight, I'll see that he gets anything he wants in San Francisco."

He was boyishly eager; full of excited plans for his daring scheme. The two men left him chuckling as he bit the end off a fresh cigar.

It was nearly nine o'clock when they left the Bank of California.

Theater-going crowds were housed at the play; the streets were extraordinarily silent as the quintet made their way toward the Mint.

Robert was breathing hard. The dark streets, the mysterious Empire ahead, the hint of danger and a mighty stake distilled a toxic and exhilarating fever in his blood. As the pillared front of the federal treasure house loomed up before them, Ralston made a sign for them to halt, advancing cautiously. With astonishment they saw him pa.s.s through the usually guarded door and disappear. Presently he emerged with two sacks.

"Robert and Benito, take these to the bank," he whispered. "The watchmen there will give you the equivalent in gold bars to bring back." He turned to Harpending and Dore. "I'll have yours ready in a minute." Once more he vanished within.

Robert picked up the bag allotted to him. It was very heavy. As he lifted it to his shoulder, the contents clinked.

"Gold coin," said his father, significantly.

"What if we're caught?" asked the boy, half fearfully. Ralston, reappearing, heard the question.

"You won't be," he said. "I've attended to that."

His a.s.surance proved correct. All night the four men toiled between the Mint and the Bank of California sweating, puffing, fatigued to the brink of exhaustion. With the first streak of dawn, Ralston dismissed them.

"You've brought five ton of gold coin to the vault," he said, his eyes agleam. "You've saved San Francisco the worst financial panic that ever a short-sighted federal government unwittingly precipitated." Suddenly he laughed and threw his arms wide. "At ten o'clock the frightened sheep will come running for their deposits.... Well, let 'em come."

"And now you boys go home and get some sleep. By the Eternal, you deserve it!"

CHAPTER LXII

ADOLPH SUTRO'S TUNNEL

William C. Ralston's Bank of California had become the great financial inst.i.tution of the West. Ralston was the Rothschild of America. Through him Central Pacific Railway promoters borrowed $3,000,000 with less formality than a country banker uses in mortgaging of a ten-acre farm.

Two millions took their un.o.btrusive wing to South America, financing mines he had never seen. In Virginia City William Sharon directed a branch of the Bank of California and kept his eye on mineral investment.

Benito sat in Ralston's office one morning, smoking and discussing the Montgomery street problem when a clerk tapped at the door.

"A fellow's out here from Virginia City," he said nervously. "Wants to see you quickly 'and no bones about it.' That's what he told me."

"All right, send him in," said Ralston laughing. "Stay, Benito. He won't take a minute...." Ere he finished there stalked in a wild-eyed individual clad in boots, the slouch hat of the mining man, a suit of handsome broadcloth, mud-bespattered and a heavy golden watch chain with the usual nugget charm. He was a clean-cat type of mining speculator from Nevada.

"Sit down," invited Ralston. "Have a smoke."

The intruder glared at Windham; then he eased himself uncomfortably into a s.p.a.cious leather-covered seat, bit off the end of a cigar, half-viciously and, having found the cuspidor, began.

"I've something for your ear alone, Bill Ralston...."

"Meet Benito Windham," Ralston introduced. "Speak out. I have no secrets from my friends."

The other hemmed and hawed. He seemed averse to putting into words some thought which troubled him beyond repression. "Do you know," he burst out finally, "that your partner, Sharon, has become the most incurable and dissolute gambler in Nevada?"

"You don't say." Ralston did not seem as shocked as one might have expected. "Well, my friend, that sounds quite serious.... What's poor Bill's particular kind of--vice?"

"Poker," said the visitor. "By the Eternal, that man Sharon would stake his immortal soul on a four-card flush and never bat an eye. Time and time again I've seen it."

Ralston leaned back comfortably, his folded hands across his middle. His speculative stare was on a marble statue. At length he spoke. "Does Sharon win or lose?"

"Well," the other man admitted, "I must say he wins...."

"Then he's just the man I want," Ralston spoke with emphasis. He rose, held out his hand toward the fl.u.s.tered visitor. "Thanks for telling me.... And now we'll all go for a drink together."

"That's Bill Ralston!" said Benito to his wife. They laughed about the anecdote which Windham had related at the dinner table. Robert, in his new letter-carrier's uniform, spoke up. "I saw him at the bank this afternoon.... There was a letter from Virginia City and he kept me waiting till he opened it. Then he slapped me on the shoulder. 'If the contents of that letter had been known to certain people, son,' he told me, 'they'd have cleaned up a fortune on the information.' Then he handed me a gold-piece. But I wouldn't take it. 'Don't be proud,' he said and poked me in the ribs. 'And don't forget that Bill Ralston's your friend.'"

"Everybody calls him 'Bill,'" his mother added. "Washerwomen, teamsters, beggars, millionaires. If ever there was a friend of the people it is he."

"Some day, though, he'll overplay his game," Benito prophesied.

Ralston had been euchered out of a railroad to Eureka, planned by Harpending and himself and opposed by the Big Four; "Montgomery to the Bay" was meeting with a host of difficulties; the Grand Hotel was building and Kearny street, where he owned property, was being widened.

Ralston's genial countenance showed sometimes a little strained pucker between the eyes.

Now and then Benito met a man named Adolph Sutro. They called him "The Man With a Dream." Stocky, under average height, intensely businesslike, he was--a German Burgomeister type, with Burnside whiskers and a purpose. He proposed to drive a tunnel four miles long from Carson valley, and strike the Comstock levels 1800 feet below the surface.

An English syndicate was backing him. The work was going on.

Much of Sutro's time was spent in Virginia City, superintending the work on his tunnel. But he fell into the habit of finding Benito whenever he came to town--dragging him from home with awkward but sincere apologies to Alice.

"You will lend me your husband, Hein?" he would say. "I like to tell him of my fancies, for he understands ... the others laugh at me."

Alice smiled into his broad, good humored face. "That's very silly of them."

"Donnerwetter! Some day they will laugh the other way around," he threatened.

Benito and Sutro usually drove or rode through the Presidio and out along a road which skirted cliffs and terminated at the Seal Rock House.

There they dined and watched the seals disporting on some sea-drenched rocks, a stone's throw distant. And there Sutro indulged in more dreams.

"Some day I shall purchase that headland and build me a home ... and farther inland I shall grow a forest out of eucalyptus trees. They come from Australia.... One can buy them cheap enough.... They grow fast like bamboo in the Tropics." He clapped a hand upon Benito's knee. "I shall call it Mount Parna.s.sus."

Benito tried to smile appreciatively. He felt rather dubious about the scheme. But he liked to see the other's quiet eyes flash with an unexpected fire. Perhaps his genius might indeed reclaim this desolate region. Inward from the beach lay the waste of sand-hills known as Golden Gate Park. There was talk among the real estate visionaries of making it a pleasure ground.

So regularly did they end their outings with a dinner at the Seal Rock House that Alice always knew where to find her husband in case some clamorous client sought Benito's aid. And tonight as an attendant called his name he answered with no other thought than that he would be asked to make a will or soothe some jealous and importunate wife who wanted a divorce without delay. They usually did want them that way. He rose, leisurely enough, and made his way to the door. There, instead of the usual messenger boy, stood Alice.