Gold Part 13

"Well, what of it?" I asked, after a moment's pause; since Johnny seemed to expect some astonishment. "Boys are imitative little monkeys."

"Yes, but they're getting it," insisted Johnny.

"What!" cried Talbot. "You're crazy. Panning gold--here in the streets.

It's absurd!"

"It's not absurd; come and see."

We crossed the Plaza. Two small Americans and a Mexican youth were scooping the surface earth into the palms of their hands and blowing it out again in a slantwise stream. When it was all gone, they examined eagerly their hands. Four others working in partners.h.i.+p had spread a small sheet. They threw their handfuls of earth into the air, all the while fanning vigorously with their hats. The breeze thus engendered puffed away the light dust, leaving only the heavier pieces to fall on the canvas. Among these the urchins searched eagerly and carefully, their heads close together. Every moment or so one of them would wet a forefinger to pick up carefully a speck of something which he would then transfer to an old buckskin sack.

As we approached, they looked up and nodded to Johnny in a friendly fas.h.i.+on. They were eager, alert, precocious gamins, of the street type and how they had come to California I could not tell you. Probably as cabin boys of some of the hundreds of vessels in the harbour.

"What are you getting, boys?" asked Talbot after a moment.

"Gold, of course," answered one of them.

"Let's see it."

The boy with the buckskin sack held it open for our inspection, but did not relax his grip on it. The bottom of the bag was thickly gilded with light glittering yellow particles.

"It looks like gold," said I, incredulously.

"It _is_ gold," replied the boy with some impatience. "Anyway, it buys things."

We looked at each other.

"Gold diggings right in the streets of San Francisco," murmured Yank.

"I should think you'd find it easier later in the day when the wind came up?" suggested Talbot.

"Of course; and let some other kids jump our claim while we were waiting," grunted one of the busy miners.

"How much do you get out of it?"

"Good days we make as high as three or four dollars."

"I'm afraid the diggings are hardly rich enough to tempt us," observed Talbot; "but isn't that the most extraordinary performance! I'd no notion----"

We returned slowly to the hotel, marvelling. Yesterday we had been laughing at the gullibility of one of our fellow-travellers who had believed the tale of a wily s.h.i.+p's agent to the effect that it was possible to live aboard the s.h.i.+p and do the mining within reach ash.o.r.e at odd hours of daylight! Now that tale did not sound so wild; although of course we realized that the gold must occur in very small quant.i.ties.

Otherwise somebody beside small boys would be at it. As a matter of fact, though we did not find it out until very much later, the soil of San Francisco is not auriferous at all. The boys were engaged in working the morning's sweepings from the bars and gambling houses which the lavish and reckless handling of gold had liberally impregnated. In some of the mining towns nearer the source of supply I have known of from one hundred to three hundred dollars a month being thus "blown" from the sweepings of a bar.

We ate a frugal breakfast and separated on the agreed business of the day. Yank started for the water front to make inquiries as to ways of getting to the mines; Talbot set off at a businesslike pace for the hotel as though he knew fully what he was about; Johnny wandered rather aimlessly to the east; and I as aimlessly to the west.

It took me just one hour to discover that I could get all of any kind of work that any dozen men could do, and at wages so high that at first I had to ask over and over again to make sure I had heard aright. Only none of them would bring me in two hundred and twenty dollars by evening. The further I looked into that proposition, the more absurd, of course, I saw it to be. I could earn from twenty to fifty dollars by plain day-labour at some jobs; or I could get fabulous salaries by the month or year; but that was different. After determining this to my satisfaction I came to the sensible conclusion that I would make what I could.

The first thing that caught my eye after I had come to this decision was a wagon drawn by four mules coming down the street at a sucking walk.

The sight did not impress me particularly; but every storekeeper came out from his shop and every pa.s.serby stopped to look with respect as the outfit wallowed along. It was driven by a very large, grave, blond man with a twinkle in his eye.

"That's John A. McGlynn," said a man next my elbow.

"Who's he?" I asked.

The man looked at me in astonishment.

"Don't know who John McGlynn is?" he demanded. "When did you get here?"

"Last night."

"Oh! Well, John has the only American wagon in town. Brought it out from New York in pieces, and put it together himself. Broke four wild California mules to drag her. He's a wonder!"

I could not, then, see quite how this exploit made him such a wonder; but on a sudden inspiration I splashed out through the mud and climbed into the wagon.

McGlynn looked back at me.

"Freightin'," said he, "is twenty dollars a ton; and at that rate it'll cost you about thirty dollars, you dirty hippopotamus. These ain't no safe-movers, these mules!"

Unmoved, I clambered up beside him.

"I want a job," said I, "for to-day only."

"Do ye now?"

"Can you give me one?"

"I can, mebbe. And do you understand the inner aspirations of mules, maybe?"

"I was brought up on a farm."

"And the principles of elementary navigation by dead reckoning?"

I looked at him blankly.

"I mean mudholes," he explained. "Can you keep out of them?"

"I can try."

He pulled up the team, handed me the reins, and clambered over the wheel.

"You're hired. At six o'clock I'll find you and pay you off. You get twenty-five dollars."

"What am I to do?"

"You go to the sh.o.r.e and you rustle about whenever you see anything that looks like freight; and you look at it, and when you see anything marked with a diamond and an H inside of it, you pile it on and take it up to Howard Mellin & Company. And if you can't lift it, then leave it for another trip, and bullyrag those skinflints at H. M. & Co.'s to send a man down to help you. And if you don't know where they live, find out; and if you bog them mules down I'll skin you alive, big as you are. And anyway, you're a fool to be working in this place for twenty-five dollars a day, which is one reason I'm so glad to find you just now."

"What's that, John?" inquired a cool, amused voice. McGlynn and I looked around. A tall, perfectly dressed figure stood on the sidewalk surveying us quizzically. This was a smooth-shaven man of perhaps thirty-five years of age, grave faced, clean cut, with an air of rather ponderous slow dignity that nevertheless became his style very well. He was dressed in tall white hat, a white winged collar, a black stock, a long tailed blue coat with gilt b.u.t.tons, an embroidered white waistcoat, dapper buff trousers, and varnished boots. He carried a polished cane and wore several heavy pieces of gold jewellery--a watch fob, a scarf-pin, and the like. His movements were leisurely, his voice low. It seemed to me, then, that somehow the perfection of his appointments and the calm deliberation of his movement made him more incongruous and remarkable than did the most bizarre whims of the miners.

"Is it yourself, Judge Girvin?" replied McGlynn, "I'm just telling this young man that he can't have the job of driving my little California canaries for but one day because I've hired a fine lawyer from the East at two hundred and seventy-five a month to drive my mules for me."

"You have done well," Judge Girvin in his grave, courteous tones. "For the whole business of a lawyer is to know how to manage mules and a.s.ses so as to make them pay!"