Gold Part 56

"Boys," he said quaintly, "San Francisco is a very lonesome place for the G.o.dly. The hosts of sin are very strong, and the faithful are very few. Mortal flesh is weak; and mortal spirit is p.r.o.ne to black discouragement. When I bought those chickens I bought eighteen dollars'

worth of hope. Somehow Sunday morning seems more like the Sabbath with them clicking around sleepy and lazy and full of sun."

We liked him so much that we turned to at odd times and helped him with his carpenter work. While thus engaged he confided to us his intention to preach against the gambling the next Sunday in the Plaza. We stopped hammering to consider this.

"I shouldn't, if I were you," said I. "The gamblers own the Plaza; they are respected by the bulk of the community; and they won't stand any nonsense. They none of them think anything of shooting a man in their places. I don't think they will stand for it. I am afraid you will be roughly handled."

"More likely shot," put in Johnny bluntly.

"Well, well, boys, we'll see," said Taylor easily.

Nor could we move him, in spite of the fact that, as we came to see his intention was real, we urged very earnestly against it.

"Well, if you will, you will," Johnny conceded at last, with a sigh.

"We'll see what we can do to get you a fair show."

"Now that is just what I don't want you to do," begged the old man earnestly. "I want no vain contention and strife. If the Lord desires that I preach to these sinners, He will protect me."

In the end he extorted from us a reluctant promise not to mingle in the affair.

"He's just _looking_ for trouble," muttered Johnny, "and there's no doubt he'll find it. The gamblers aren't going to stand for a man's cussing 'em outright on their own doorsteps--and I don't know as I blame them. Gambling isn't such a terrible, black, unforgivable sin as I see it."

"That's because you're ahead of the game, Johnny," drawled Yank.

"Just the same the old fool is wrong," persisted Johnny, "and he's as obstinate as a mule, and he makes me mad clean through. Nevertheless he's a good old sort, and I'd hate to see him hurt."

The news spread abroad, and there was much speculation as to what would happen. In general the sentiment was hostile to the preacher. It was considered an unwarrantable interference with freedom for any man to attempt to dictate the conduct of another. Everybody agreed that religion was all right; but by religion they meant some vague utterance of plat.i.tudes. On the appointed Sunday a very large crowd gathered in the Plaza. n.o.body knew just what the gamblers intended to do about it.

Those competent citizens were as close mouthed as ever. But it was understood that no nonsense was to be permitted, and that this annoying question must be settled at once and fully. As one man expressed it:

"We'll have these fellows caterwauling all over the place if we don't shut down on them right sharp off quick."

Taylor arrived about ten o'clock and proceeded briskly to the pork barrel that had been rolled out to serve as a pulpit. He faced a lowering, hostile mob.

"Gentlemen," said he, "if some means of communication existed by which the United States could this morning know that street preaching was to be attempted in the streets of San Francisco, the morning papers, badly informed as to the temper and disposition of the people of this new country, would feel themselves fully justified in predicting riot, if not actual bloodshed. Furthermore, I do not doubt that the greater dailies would hold their forms open to report the tragedy when news of it should come in. But we of the West know better than that. We know ourselves rough and ready, but we know ourselves also to be lovers of fair play. We know that, even though we may not agree with a man, we are willing to afford him a fair hearing. And as for rioting or bloodshed, we can afford to smile rather than become angry at such wide misconception of our decency and sense of fair dealing."

Having in this skilful fas.h.i.+on drawn the venom from the fangs of the mob, he went directly ahead at his sermon, hammering boldly on his major thesis. He finished in a respectful silence, closed his Bible with a snap, and strode away through the lane the crowd opened for him.

Truth to tell, there was much in the sermon. Gambling, although considered one of the respectable amus.e.m.e.nts, undoubtedly did a great deal of harm. Men dropped their last cents at the tables. I remember one young business man who had sold out his share in his firm for ten thousand dollars in cash and three notes for five thousand each. He had every intention of taking this little fortune back to his family in the East, but he began gambling. First, he lost his ten thousand dollars in cash. This took him just two days. After vacillating another day, he staked one of the notes, at a discount, of course. This he lost. A second note followed the first; and everybody confidently expected that the third would disappear in the same fas.h.i.+on. But Jim Reckett, who was a very good sort, took this man aside, and gave him a good talking-to.

"You confounded fool," said he, "you're barred from my tables. My advice to you is to go to your old partners, tell them what an a.s.s you've made of yourself, and ask them to let you have a few thousand on that last note. And then you leave on to-day's Panama steamer. And, say, if they won't do it, you come to me."

The young fellow took this advice.

The Panama steamers were crowded to the rail. Indeed, the exodus was almost as brisk as the immigration, just at this time of year. A moderate proportion of those going out had been successful, but the great majority were disappointed. They were tired, and discouraged, and homesick; and their minds were obsessed with the one idea--to get back.

We who remained saw them go with considerable envy, and perhaps a good deal of inner satisfaction that soon we were to follow. Of the thousands who were remaining in California, those who had definitely and permanently cast their lot with the country were lost in the crowd. The rest intended to stay another year, two years, perhaps even three; but then each expected to go back.

[Footnote A: Broderick actually manufactured coins with face value of $5 and $10 containing but $4 and $8 worth of gold. The inscription on them was simply that of the date, the location, and the value. They pa.s.sed everywhere because they were more convenient than dust, and it was realized that only the last holders could lose.]

CHAPTER XLV

THE CATASTROPHE

So things went along for a month. Christmas drew near. Every joint in town was preparing for a big celebration, and we were fully in the mood to take part in it. The Ward Block was finished. From top to bottom it had been swept and cleared. Crowds came every day to admire the varnish, the gla.s.s, the fireplaces, the high plastered walls; to sniff the clean new smell of it. Everybody admitted it to be the finest building in the city. Yank, Johnny, and I spent most of our time proudly showing people around, pointing out the offices the various firms intended to occupy.

Downstairs Jim Reckett was already installing some of the splendours that were to make the transplanted El Dorado the most gorgeous gambling place in town. Here the public was not admitted. The grand opening, on New Year's day, was not thus to lose its finest savour.

On Christmas eve we went to bed, strangely enough, very early. All the rest of the town was celebrating, but we had been busy moving furniture and fixtures, had worked late in order to finish the job, and were very tired. By this time we were so hardened that we could sleep through any sort of a racket, so the row going on below and on both sides did not bother us a bit. I, personally, fell immediately into a deep slumber.

The first intimation of trouble came to me in my sleep. I dreamed we were back on the Porcupine, and that the stream was in flood. I could distinctly hear the roar of it, as it swept by; and I remember Johnny and myself were trying desperately to climb a big pine tree in order to get above the encroaching waters. A wind sprang up and shook the pine violently. I came slowly to waking consciousness, the dream fading into reality. Yank was standing by my cot, shaking me by the shoulder. He was fully dressed, and carried his long rifle.

"Get up!" he told me. "There's a big fire one or two doors away, and it's headed this way."

Then I realized that the roar of the flames had induced my dream.

I hastily slipped on my clothes and buckled my gold belt around my waist. The fire was humming away in a steady crescendo, punctuated by confused shouts of many men. Light flickered redly through the cracks of the loosely constructed hotel building. I found Johnny awaiting me at the door.

"It's a hummer," he said; "started in Denison's Exchange. They say three men have been killed."

The Plaza was black with men, their faces red with the light of the flames. A volunteer crew were busily darting in and out of the adjacent buildings, carrying out all sorts of articles and dumping them in the square.

"There's no water nearer than the bay," an acquaintance shouted in our ears. "There ain't much to do. She'll burn herself out in a few minutes."

The three buildings were already gutted. A sheet of fire sucked straight upward in the still air, as steadily as a candle flame, and almost as unwavering. It was a grand and beautiful spectacle. The flimsy structures went like paper. Talbot saw us standing at a little elevation, and forced his way to us.

"It will die down in five minutes," said he. "What do you bet on Warren's place? Do you think she'll go?"

"It's mighty hot all around there," said I doubtfully.

"Yes, but the flames are going straight up; and, as you say, it will begin to die down pretty soon," put in Johnny.

"The walls are smoking a little," commented a bystander judicially.

"She's a fine old bonfire, anyway," said Talbot.

Fifteen or twenty men were trying to help Warren's place resist the heat. They had blankets and pails of water, and were attempting to interpose these feeble defences at the points most severely attacked.

Each man stood it as long as he could, then rushed out to cool his reddened face.

"Reminds me of the way I used to pop corn when I was a kid," grinned a miner. "I wouldn't care for that job."

"Just the same, they'll save it," observed Talbot judicially.

Almost coincident with his words a long-drawn _a-ah_! burst from the crowd. A wandering gust of wind came in from the ocean. For the briefest instant the tall straight column of flame bent gracefully before it, then came upright again as it pa.s.sed. In that instant it licked across the side wall of Warren's place, and immediately Warren's place burst into flame.

"Hard luck!" commented Talbot.

The firefighters swarmed out like bees from a disturbed hive.