Port O' Gold Part 22

McTurpin had not seen him with a beard, had failed to recognize him at the polling station. Benito decided to risk it.

One of the largest and most pretentious of Sydney Town's "pubs," or taverns, was The Broken Bottle, kept by a former English pugilist from Botany Bay. He was known as Bruiser Jake, could neither read nor write and was shaped very much like a log, his neck being as large as his head. It was said that the Australian authorities had tried to hang him several times, but failed because the noose slipped over his chin and ears, refusing its usual function. So he finally had been given a "ticket of leave" and had come to California. Curiously enough the Bruiser never drank. He prided himself on his sobriety and the great strength of his ma.s.sive hands in which he could squeeze the water out of a potato. Ordinarily he was not quarrelsome, though he fought like a tiger when aroused.

Benito found this worthy behind his bar and asked for a drink of English ale, a pa.s.sable quality of which was served in the original imported bottles at most public houses.

The Bruiser watched him furtively with little piglike eyes. "And who might ye be, stranger?" he asked when Benito set down his gla.s.s.

"'Awkins--that's as good a nyme as another," said Benito, essaying the c.o.c.kney speech. "And what ye daon't know won't 'urt you, my friend." He threw down a silver piece, took the bottle and gla.s.s with him and sat down at a table near the corner. Hard by he had glimpsed the familiar broad back of McTurpin.

At first the half-whispered converse of the trio at the adjoining table was incomprehensible to his ears, but after a time he caught words, phrases, sentences.

First the word "squatters" reached him, several times repeated; then, "at Rincon." Finally, "the best lots in the city can be held."

After that for a time he lost the thread of the talk. An argument arose, and, in its course, McTurpin's voice was raised incautiously.

"Who's to stop us?" he contended, pa.s.sionately. "The old alcalde grants aren't worth the paper they're written on. Haven't squatters dispossessed the Spaniards all over California? Didn't they take the San Antonio ranch in Oakland, defend it with cannon, and put old Peralta in jail for bothering them with his claims of owners.h.i.+p?" He laughed. "It's a rare joke, this land business. If we squat on the Rincon, who'll dispossess us? Answer me that."

"But it's government ground. It's leased to Ted s.h.i.+llaber," one objected.

"To the devil with s.h.i.+llaber," McTurpin answered. "He won't know we're going to squat till we've put up our houses. And when he comes we'll quote him squatter law. He can buy us off if he likes. It'll cost him uncommon high. He can fight us in the courts and we'll show him squatter justice. We've our friends in the courts, let me tell you."

"Aye, mayhap," returned a lanky, red-haired sailor, "but there's them o'

us, like you and me and Andy, yonder, what isn't hankerin' for courts."

McTurpin leaned forward, and his voice diminished so that Benito could scarcely hear his words. "Don't be afraid," he said. "I've got my men selected for the Rincon business, a full dozen of 'em ... all with clean records, mind ye. Nothing against them." He pounded the table with his fist by way of emphasis. "And when we've done old s.h.i.+llaber, we'll come in closer. We'll claim lots that are worth fifty thou--" He paused. His tone sank even lower, so that some of his sentence was lost.

It was at this juncture that Benito sneezed. He had felt the approach of that betraying reflex for some minutes, but had stifled it. Those who have tried this under similar circ.u.mstances know the futility of such attempts; know the acc.u.mulated fury of sound with which at length bursts forth the startling, terrible and irrepressible

"Ker-CHEW!"

McTurpin and his two companions wheeled like lightning. "Who's this?"

the gambler snarled. He took a step toward the Bruiser. "Who the devil let him in to spy on us?"

"Aw, stow it, Alec!" said the former fighter. "'E's no spy. 'E's one o'

our lads from the bay. Hi can tell by 'is haccent."

Benito rose. His hand crept toward the derringer, but McTurpin was before him. "Don't try that, blast you!" he commanded. "Now, my friend, let's have a look at you.... By the Eternal! It's young Windham!"

"The cove you don hout o' his rawnch?" asked the Bruiser, curiously.

"Shut up, you fool!" roared the gambler. His face was white with fury.

"What are you doing here?" he asked Benito.

"Getting some points on--er--land holding," said Windham. He was perfectly calm. Several times this man had overawed, outwitted, beaten him. Now, though he was in the enemy's country, surrounded by cutthroats and thieves, he felt suddenly the master of the situation. Perhaps it was McTurpin's dismay, perhaps the spur of his own danger. He knew that there was only one escape, and that through playing on McTurpin's anger.

"A most ingenious scheme, but it'll fail you!"

"And why'll it fail, my young jackanapes?" the gambler blazed at him.

"Do you reckon I'll let you go to give the alarm?"

It was then Benito threw his bombsh.e.l.l. It was but a shrewd guess. Yet it worked amazingly. "Your plan will fail," he said with slow distinctness, "because Sam Brennan and Alcalde Geary know you set the town afire. Because they're going to hang you."

Rage and terror mingled in McTurpin's face. Speechless, paralyzing wrath that held him open-mouthed a moment. In that moment Windham acted quickly. He hurled the bottle, still half full of ale, at his antagonist, missed him by the fraction of an inch and sent the missile caroming against the Bruiser's ear, thence down among a pyramid of gla.s.ses. There was a s.h.i.+vering tinkle; then the roar as of a maddened bull. The Bruiser charged. Windham shot twice into the air and fled. He heard a rending crash behind him, a voice that cried aloud in mortal pain, a shot. Then, silence.

CHAPTER x.x.x

"GROWING PAINS"

On the morning of February 28, 1850, Theodore s.h.i.+llaber, with a number of friends, made a visit to the former's leased land on the Rincon, later known as Rincon Hill. Here, on the old government reserve, whose guns had once flanked Yerba Buena Cove, s.h.i.+llaber had secured a lease on a commanding site which he planned to convert into a fas.h.i.+onable residence section. What was his surprise, then, to find the scenic promontory covered with innumerable rickety and squalid huts. A tall and muscular young fellow with open-throated s.h.i.+rt and stalwart, hirsute chest, swaggered toward him, fingering rather carelessly, it seemed to s.h.i.+llaber, the musket he held.

"Lookin' for somebody, stranger?" he inquired, meaningly.

s.h.i.+llaber, somewhat taken aback, inquired by what right the members of this colony held possession.

"Squatter's rights," returned the large youth, calmly, and spat uncomfortably near to s.h.i.+llaber's polished boots.

"And what are squatter's rights, may I ask?" said s.h.i.+llaber, striving to control his rising temper.

The youth tapped his rifle barrel. "Anyone that tries to dispossess us'll soon find out," he returned gruffly, and, turning his back on the visitors, he strode back toward his cabin.

"Wait," called s.h.i.+llaber, red with wrath, "I notify you now, in the presence of witnesses that if you and all your scurvy crew are not gone bag and baggage within twentyfour hours, I'll have the authorities dispossess you and throw you into jail for trespa.s.sing."

The large young man halted and presented a grinning face to his threatener. He did not deign to reply, but, as though he had given a signal, shrill cackles of laughter broke out in a dozen places.

s.h.i.+llaber, who was a choleric man, shook his fist at them. He was too angry for speech.

s.h.i.+llaber had more than his peck of trouble with the Sydney Ducks that roosted on his land. He sent the town authorities to dispossess them, but without result. There were too many squatters and too few police.

Next he sent an agent to collect rents, but the man returned with a sore head and bruised body, minus coin. s.h.i.+llaber was on the verge of insanity. He appealed to everyone from the prefect to the governor. In Sydney Town his antics were the sport of a gay and h.o.m.ogeneous population and at the public houses one might hear the flouted landlord rave through the impersonations of half a dozen clever mimics. At The Broken Bottle a new boniface held forth. Bruiser Jake had mysteriously disappeared on the evening of election. And with him had vanished Alec McTurpin, though a sly-eyed little man now and then brought messages from the absent leader.

In the end s.h.i.+llaber triumphed, for he persuaded Captain Keyes, commander at the Presidio, that the squatters were defying Federal law.

Thus, one evening, a squad of cavalry descended upon the Rincon squatters, scattering them like chaff and demolis.h.i.+ng their flimsy habitations in the twinkling of an eye. But this did not end squatterism. Some of the evicted took up claims on lots closer in. A woman's house was burned and she, herself, was driven off. Another woman was shot while defending her husband's home during his absence.

Meanwhile, San Francisco's streets had been graded and planked. The old City Hall, proving inadequate, was succeeded by a converted hotel. The Graham House, a four-story wooden affair of many balconies, at Kearny and Pacific streets, was now the seat of local government.

For it the council paid the extraordinary sum of $150,000, thereby provoking a storm of newspaper discussion. Three destructive fires had ravaged through the cloth and paper districts, and on their ashes more substantial structures stood.

There was neither law nor order worthy of the name. Only feverish activity. A newsboy who peddled Altas on the streets made $40,000 from his operations; another vendor of the Sacramento Union, boasted $30,000 for his pains. A washerwoman left her hut on the lagoon and built a "mansion." Laundering, enhanced by real estate investments, had given her a fortune of $100,000.

Social strata were not yet established. Caste was practically unknown.

Former convicts married, settled down, became respected citizens.

Carpenters, bartenders, laborers, mechanics from the East and Middle West, became bankers, Senators, judges, merchant princes and promoters.

White linen replaced red flannel, bowie knives and revolvers were sedately hidden beneath frock coats, the vicuna hat was a subst.i.tute for slouch and sombrero.

But, under it all, the fierce, restless heart of San Francis...o...b..at on unchanged. In it stirred the daring, the lawless adventure, the feverish ambition and the hair-trigger pride of argonauts from many lands. And in it burned the deviltry, brutality, licentiousness and greed of criminal elements freed from the curb of legal discipline.