Port O' Gold Part 63

"Frank! For G.o.d's sake!" Windham's fingers gripped his nephew's arm.

"Don't let Maizie know. I've tried to live it down these twenty years...."

"d.a.m.n it, do you think I'd tell Aunt Maizie?"

"It's--I can't believe it yet! That you--"

"Maizie wouldn't leave her mother." With a flicker of defiance Robert answered him. "I was young, rudderless, after my people went East.... A little wild, I guess."

"So you sought consolation?"

"Call it what you like," the other answered. "Some things are too strong for men. They overwhelm one--like Fate."

Frank began pacing back and forth, his fingers opening and shutting spasmodically.

"Uncle Bob," he said at length, "... after you married, what became--"

"Her mother sent the child East--to a sister. She was well raised--educated. If she'd only stayed there, in that Ma.s.sachusetts town!"

"Then--Bertha didn't know?"

"Not till she came to San Francisco, after her mother's death. She had to come to settle the estate. The mother left her everything--a string of tenements. She was rich."

"Bertha came to you, then, I suppose."

"Yes, she came to me," said Robert Windham.

Suddenly, as though the memory overwhelmed him, Windham's face sank forward in his hands.

"She was very sweet," his voice broke pitifully. "I--loved her."

Several days later Frank and his father paid a visit to the ruined city.

One had to get pa.s.ses in Oakland and wear them on one's hat. Sightseers were not admitted nor carried on ferry boats, trains.

Already Telegraph Hill was dotted with new habitations. It was rumored that Andrea Sbarbora, banker and patron of the Italian Colony, was bringing a carload of lumber from Seattle which he would sell to fire sufferers on credit and at cost. The spirit of rehabilitation was strong.

Frank was immensely cheered by it. But Francisco was overwhelmed by the desolation. "I am going South," he told his son. "I can't bear to see this. I don't even know where I am."

It was true. One felt lost in those acres of ashes and debris. Familiar places seemed beyond memorial reconstruction, so smitten was the mind by this horror of leveled buildings, gutted walls and blackened streets.

Francisco and Jeanne went to San Diego. There the former tried to refashion the work of many months--two hundred pages of a novel which the flames destroyed. Robert Windham and his family journeyed to Hawaii.

Frank did not see his uncle after that talk in the Berkeley Hills.

Parks and public s.p.a.ces were covered with little green cottages in orderly rows. Refugee camps one termed then and therein lived 20,000 of the city's homeless.

Street cars were running. Pa.s.sengers were carried free until the first of May. Patrick Calhoun was trying to convert the cable roads into electric lines in spite of the objection of the improvement clubs. He was negotiating with the Supervisors for a blanket franchise to electrize all of his routes.

"And he'll get it, too," Aleta told Frank as they dined together. "It's arranged, I understand, for quarter of a million dollars."

Frank pondered. "What'll Langdon say to that?"

William H. Langdon was the district attorney, a former superintendent of schools, whom Ruef had put on his Union Labor ticket to give it tone.

But Langdon had refused to "take program." He had even raided the "protected" gamblers, ignoring Ruef's hot insinuations of "ingrat.i.tude."

"Oh, Ruef's too smart for Langdon," said Aleta. "Every Sunday night he, Schmitz and Big Jim Gallagher hold a caucus. Gallagher is Ruef's representative on the Board. They figure out what will occur at Monday's session of the Supervisors. It's all cut and dried."

"It can't last long," Frank mused. "They're getting too much money.

Those fellows who used to earn from $75 to $100 a month are spending five times that amount. Schmitz is building a palace. He rides around in his automobile with a liveried chauffeur. He's going to Europe they say."

The girl glanced up at him half furtively. "Perhaps I'll go to Europe, too."

"What?" Frank eyed her startled. "Not with--"

"Yes, my friend, the Supervisor." Her tone was defiant. "Why shouldn't I?"

"Don't--Aleta."

"But, why not?"

He was silent. But his eyes were on her, pleadingly.

"Would you care, Frank? Would you care--at all?"

"You know I would," he spoke half angrily. The girl traced patterns with her fork upon the table cloth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I am going South," Francisco told his son. "I cannot bear this."]

CHAPTER Lx.x.xII

AT BAY

On May 21, the United Railway Company received a franchise to electrize any of its street-car routes, "where grades permitted."

At once ensued a public uproar. From the press, the pulpit and the rostrum issued fiery accusations that the city was betrayed. In the midst of it Mayor Schmitz departed for Europe.

Frank met Ruef at the Ferry, where the former had gone to see Aleta off on a road tour with her company. The little boss was twisting his moustache and muttering to himself.

"So His Honor's off on a lark," said the newsman, meaningly.

Ruef glared at him, but made no answer.

Afterward Frank heard that they had quarreled. Ruef, he learned, had charged the mayor with ingrat.i.tude; had threatened, pleaded, warned--without success.

Schmitz had gone; his was the dogged determination which easily-led men sometimes manifest at unexpected moments. One heard of him through the press dispatches, staying at the best hotels of European capitals, making speeches when he had a chance. He was like a boy on a holiday.

But at home Ruef sensed the stirring of an outraged ma.s.s and trembled.

He could no longer control his minions. And, worst of all, he could not manage Langdon. "Big Jim" Gallagher, now the acting mayor, was docile to a fault, however. He would have put his hand into the fire for this clever little man, whom he admired so immensely. Once they discussed the ousting of Langdon.