Port O\' Gold by Louis John Stellman

L >> Louis John Stellman >> Port O\' Gold

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 12560-h.htm or 12560-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/1/2/5/6/12560/12560-h/12560-h.htm)
or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/1/2/5/6/12560/12560-h.zip)

PORT O' GOLD

A History-Romance of the San Francisco Argonauts

LOUIS J. STELLMAN

1922

[Illustration: As they looked the sunlight triumphed, scattering
the fog into queer floating shapes, luminous and fraught with weird
suggestions.... One might have thought a splendid city lay before
them, ... impalpable, yet triumphant, with its hint of destiny.]

TO THE CITY OF MY ADOPTION AND REBIRTH
SAN FRANCISCO

Oft from my window have I seen the day
Break o'er thy roofs and towers like a dream
In mystic silver, mirrored by the Bay,
Bedecked with shadow craft ... and then a gleam
Of golden sunlight cleaving swiftly sure
Some narrow cloud-rift--limning hill or plain
With flecks of gypsy-radiance that endure
But for the moment and are gone again.

Then I have ventured on thy strident streets,
Mid whir of traffic in the vibrant hour
When Commerce with its clashing cymbal greets
The mighty Mammon in his pomp of power....
And in the quiet dusk of eventide,
As wearied toilers quit the marts of Trade,
Have I been of their pageant--or allied
With Passion's revel in the Night Parade.

Oh, I have known thee in a thousand moods
And lived a thousand lives within thy bounds;
Adventured with the throng that laughs or broods,
Trod all thy cloisters and thy pleasure grounds,
Seen thee, in travail from the fiery torch,
Betrayed by Greed, smirched by thy sons' disgrace--
Rise with a spirit that no flame can scorch
To make thyself a new and honored place.

Ah, Good Gray City! Let me sing thy song
Of western splendor, vigorous and bold;
In vice or virtue unashamed and strong--
Stormy of mien but with a heart of gold!
I love thee, San Francisco; I am proud
Of all thy scars and trophies, praise or blame
And from thy wind-swept hills I cry aloud
The everlasting glory of thy name.

PREFACE

This is the story of San Francisco. When a newspaper editor summoned me
from the mountains to write a serial he said:

"I've sent for you because I believe you love this city more than any
other writer of my acquaintance or knowledge. And I believe the true
story of San Francisco will make a more dramatic, vivid, human narrative
than any fiction I've ever read.

"Take all the time you want. Get everything straight, and _put all
you've got into this story_. I'm going to wake up the town with it."

To the best of my ability, I followed the editor's instructions. He
declared himself satisfied. The public responded generously. The serial
was a success.

But, ah! I wish I might have written it much better ... or that Robert
Louis Stevenson, for instance, might have done it in my stead.

"Port O' Gold" is history with a fiction thread to string its episodes
upon. Most of the characters are men and women who have lived and played
their parts exactly as described herein. The background and chronology
are as accurate as extensive and painstaking research can make them.

People have informed me that my fictional characters, vide Benito, "took
hold of them" more than the "real ones" ... which is natural enough,
perhaps, since they are my own brain-children, while the others are
merely adopted. Nor is this anything to be deplored. The writer, after
all, is first an entertainer. Indirectly he may edify, inform or teach.
My only claim is that I've tried to tell the story of the city that I
love as truly and attractively as I was able. My only hope is that I
have been worthy of the task.

Valuable aid in the accumulation of historical data for this volume was
given by:

Robert Rea, librarian, San Francisco Public Library;

Mary A. Byrne, manager Reference Department, San Francisco Public
Library;

John Howell and John J. Newbegin, booksellers and collectors of
Californiana, for whose cheerful interest and many courtesies the author
is sincerely grateful.

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS

I Yerba Buena.
II The Gambled Patrimony.
III The Gringo Ships.
IV American Occupation.
V An Offer and a Threat.
VI The First Election.
VII The Rancheros Revolt.
VIII McTurpin's Coup.
IX The Elopement.
X Hull "Capitulates".
XI San Francisco is Named.
XII The New York Volunteers.
XIII The "Sydney Ducks".
XIV The Auction on the Beach.
XV The Beginning of Law.
XVI Gold! Gold! Gold!
XVII The Quest of Fortune.
XVIII News of Benito.
XIX The Veiled Woman.
XX A Call in the Night.
XXI Outfacing the Enemy.
XXII Shots in the Dark.
XXIII The New Arrival.
XXIV The Chaos of '49.
XXV Retrieving a Birthright.
XXVI Fire! Fire! Fire!
XXVII Politics and a Warning.
XXVIII On the Trail of McTurpin.
XXIX The Squatter Conspiracy.
XXX "Growing Pains".
XXXI The Vigilance Committee.
XXXII The People's Jury.
XXXIII The Reckoning.
XXXIV The Hanging of Jenkins.
XXXV The People and the Law.
XXXVI Fevers of Finance.
XXXVII "Give Us Our Savings".
XXXVIII King Starts the Bulletin.
XXXIX Richardson and Cora.
XL The Storm Gathers.
XLI The Fateful Encounter.
XLII The Committee Organizes.
XLIII Governor Johnson Mediates.
XLIV The Truce is Broken.
XLV The Committee Strikes.
XLVI Retribution.
XLVII Hints of Civil War.
XLVIII Sherman Resigns.
XLIX Terry Stabs Hopkins.
L The Committee Disbands.
LI Senator Broderick.
LII A Trip to Chinatown.
LIII Enter Po Lun.
LIV The "Field of Honor".
LV The Southern Plot.
LVI Some War Reactions.
LVII Waters Pays the Price.
LVIII McTurpin Turns Informer.
LIX The Comstock Furore.
LX The Shattered Bubble.
LXI Desperate Finance.
LXII Adolph Sutro's Tunnel.
LXIII Lees Solves a Mystery.
LXIV An Idol Topples.
LXV Industrial Unrest.
LXVI The Pick-Handle Parade.
LXVII Dennis Kearney.
LXVIII The Woman Reporter.
LXIX A New Generation.
LXX Robert and Maizie.
LXXI The Blind Boss.
LXXII Fate Takes a Hand.
LXXIII The Return.
LXXIV The "Reformer".
LXXV A Nocturnal Adventure.
LXXVI Politics and Romance.
LXXVII Aleta's Problem.
LXXVIII The Fateful Morn.
LXXIX The Turmoil.
LXXX Aftermath.
LXXXI Readjustment.
LXXXII At Bay.
LXXXIII In the Toils.
LXXXIV The Net Closes.
LXXXV The Seven Plagues.
LXXXVI A New City Government.
LXXXVII Norah Finds Out.
LXXXVIII The Shooting of Heney.
LXXXIX Defeat of the Prosecution.
XC The Measure of Redemption.
XCI Conclusion.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

As they looked, the sunlight triumphed, scattering the fog into queer,
floating shapes, luminous and fraught with weird suggestions.... One
might have thought a splendid city lay before them, ... impalpable, yet
triumphant, with its hint of destiny.

"Ah, Senor," Inez' smile had faded, ... "they have cause for hatred".

Men with shovels, leveling the sand-hills, piled the wagons high with
shimmering grains which were ... dumped into pile-surrounded bogs. San
Francisco reached farther and farther out into the bay.

Samuel Brannan rode through the streets, holding a pint flask of
gold-dust in one hand ... and whooping like a madman: "Gold! Gold! Gold!
From the American River".

Passersby who laughed at the inscription witnessed simultaneously the
rescue of an almost submerged donkey by means of an improvised derrick.

Broderick's commanding figure was seen rushing hither and thither....
"You and two others. Blow up or pull down that building," he indicated a
sprawling, ramshackle structure.

There sat the redoubtable captain, all the ... austerity of his West
Point manner melted in the indignity of sneezes and wheezes.... "Money!
God Almighty! Sherman, there's not a loose dollar in town".

"Draw and defend yourself," he said loudly. He shut his eyes and a
little puff of smoke seemed to spring from the end of his fingers,
followed ... by a sharp report.

In front of the building on a high platform, two men stood.... A
half-suppressed roar went up from the throng.

Terry, who had taken careful aim, now fired. Broderick staggered,
recovered himself. Slowly he sank to one knee.

The concourse broke into applause. Then it was hysteria, pandemonium.
Fifty thousand knew their city was safe for Anti-Slavery.

Half a thousand jobless workers, armed and reckless, marched toward the
docks. They bore torches.... "A hell-bent crew," said Ellis.

"My boy ... you're wasting your time as a reporter. Listen," he laid a
hand upon Francisco's knee. "I've a job for you.... The new Mayor will
need a secretary".

"Perhaps I shall find me a man--big, strong, impressive--with a mind
easily led.... Then I shall train him to be a leader.... I shall furnish
the brain".

"I am going South," Francisco told his son. "I cannot bear this".

All at once he stepped forward.... Tears were streaming down his face.
Then the judge's question, clearly heard, "What is your plea?" "Guilty!"
Ruef returned.

A HISTORY-ROMANCE OF THE SAN FRANCISCO ARGONAUTS

PROLOGUE

THE VISION

"Blessed be the Saints. It is the Punta de Los Reyes." The speaker was a
bearded man of middle years. A certain nobleness about him like an
ermine garment of authority was purely of the spirit, for he was neither
of imposing height nor of commanding presence. His clothing hung about
him loosely and recent illness had drawn haggard lines upon his face.
But his eyes flashed like an eagle's, and the hand which pointed
northward, though it trembled, had the fine dramatic grace of one who
leads in its imperious gesture. He swept from his head the once
magnificent hat with its scarred velour and windtorn plume, bending one
knee in a movement of silent reverence and thanksgiving. This was Gaspar
de Portola, October 31,1769.

Near him stood his aides. All of them were travel-stained, careworn with
hardship and fatigue. Following their chieftain they uncovered and
knelt. To one side and a little below the apex of a rocky promontory
that contained the little group, Christian Indians, muleteers and
soldados crossed themselves and looked up questioningly. In a dozen
litters sick men tossed and moaned. A mule brayed raucously, startling
flocks of wild geese to flight from nearby cliffs, a herd of deer on a
mad stampede inland.

Portola rose and swept the horizon with his half-fevered gaze. To the
south lay the rugged shore line with its sea-corroded cliffs, indented
at one point into a half-moon of glistening beach and sweeping on again
into vanishing and reappearing shapes of mist.

Far to the northwest a giant arm of land reached out into the water,
high and stark and rocky; further on a group of white farallones lay in
the tossing foam and over them great flocks of seabirds dipped and
circled. Finally, along the coast to the northward, they descried those
chalk cliffs which Francis Drake had aptly named New Albion, and still
beyond, what seemed to be the mouth of an inlet.

Dispute sprang up among them. Since July 14th they had been searching
between this place and San Diego for the port of Monterey. "Perhaps this
is the place," said Crespi, the priest, reluctantly. "Vizcaino may have
been amiss when he located it in 37 degrees."

"Yes," spoke Captain Fernando de Rivera, "these explorers are careless
dogs. One seldom finds the places they map out so gaily. And what do
they care who dies of the hunger or scurvy--drinking their flagons in
Mexico or Madrid? A curse, say I, on the lot of them."

Portola turned an irritated glance of disapproval on his henchmen. "What
say you, my pathfinder?" he addressed Sergeant Jose Ortega, chief
of Scouts.

"That no one may be certain, your excellency," the scout-chief answered.
"But," his eyes met those of his commander with a look of grim
significance, "one may learn."

Portola laid a hand almost affectionately on the other's leather-covered
shoulder. Here was a man after his heart. Always he had been ahead of
the van, selecting camp sites, clearing ways through impenetrable brush,
fighting off hostile savages. Now, ill and hungry as he was, for rations
had for several days been down to four tortillas per man, Ortega was
ready to set forth again.

"You had better rest, Saldado. You are far from well. Start to-morrow."

Ortega shrugged. "Meanwhile they mutter," his eyes jerked to the
indiscriminate company below.

"When men march and have a motive, they forget their grievances. When
they lie in camp the devil stalks about and puts mischief into their
thought. I have been a soldier for fourteen years, your excellency."

"And I for thirty," said the other dryly, but he smiled. "You are
right, my sergeant. Go. And may your patron saint, the reverend father
of Assisi, aid you."

Ortega saluted and withdrew. "I will require three days with your
excellency's grace," he said. Portola nodded and observed Ortega's sharp
commands wheel a dozen mounted soldados into line. They galloped past
him, their lances at salute and dashed with a clatter of hoofs into the
valley below.

Young Francisco Garvez spurred his big mare forward till he rode beside
the sergeant. A tall, half-lanky lad he was with the eager prescience of
youth, its dreams and something of its shyness hidden in the dark
alertness of his mien.

"Whither now, my sergeant?" he inquired with a trace of pertness as he
laid a hand upon the other's pommel. "Do we search again for that
elusive Monterey? Methinks Vizcaino dreamed it in his cups." He smiled,
a flash of strong, white teeth relieving the half-weary relaxation of
his features, and Ortega turning, answered him:

"Perhaps the good St. Francis hid it from our eyes--that we might first
discover this puerto christened in his honor. We have three days to
reach the Punta de los Reyes, which Vizcaino named for the kings
of Cologne."

For a time the two rode on in silence. Then young Garvez muttered: "It
is well for Portola that your soldados love you.... Else the expedition
had not come thus far." The sergeant looked at his companion
smolderingly, but he did not speak. He knew as well as anyone that the
Governor's life was in danger; that conspiracy was in the air. And it
was for this he had taken with him all the stronger malcontents. Yes,
they loved him--whatever treachery might have brooded in their minds.
His eyes kindled with the knowledge. He led them at a good pace forward
over hill and dale, through rough and briery undergrowth, fording here
and there a stream, spurring tired horses over spans of dragging sand
until darkness made further progress impossible. But with the break of
day he was on again after a scanty meal. Just at sunrise he led his
party up to a commanding headland where he paused to rest. His winded
mount and that of Garvez panted side by side upon the crest while his
troopers, single file, picked their way up the narrow trail. Below them
was the Bay of San Francisco guarded by the swirling narrows of the
Golden Gate. And over the brown hilltops of the Contra Costa a great
golden ball of sunlight battled with the lacy mists of dawn.

It was a picture to impress one with its mystery and magnificence. The
two men gazed upon it with an oddly blended sense of awe and exultation.
And as they looked the sunlight triumphed, scattering the fog into queer
floating shapes, luminous and fraught with weird suggestions of castle,
dome, of turret, minaret and towering spire. One might have thought a
splendid city lay before them in the barren cove of sand-dunes, a city
impalpable, yet triumphant, with its hint of destiny; translucent silver
and gold, shifting and amazing--gone in a flash as the sun's full
radiance burst forth through the vapor-screen.

"It was like a sign from Heaven!" Garvez breathed.

Ortega crossed himself. The younger man went on, "Something like a voice
within me seemed to say 'Here shall you find your home--you and your
children and their children's children.'"

Ortega looked down at the dawn-gold on the waters and the tree-ringed
cove. Here and there small herds of deer drank from a stream or browsed
upon the scant verdure of sandy meadows. In a distant grove a score of
Indian tepees raised their cone shapes to the sky; lazy plumes of
blue-white smoke curled upward. Canoes, rafts of tules, skillfully bound
together, carried dark-skinned natives over wind-tossed waters, the ends
of their double paddles flashing in the sun.

"One may not know the ways of God." Ortega spoke a trifle bruskly. "What
is plain to me is that we cannot journey farther. This estero cuts our
path in two. And in three days we cannot circle it to reach the Contra
Costa. We must return and make report to the commander."

He wheeled and shouted a command to his troopers. The cavalcade rode
south but young Francisco turning in the saddle cast a farewell glance
toward the shining bay. "Port O' Gold!" he whispered raptly, "some day
men shall know your fame around the world!"

PORT O' GOLD

CHAPTER I

YERBA BUENA

It was 1845. Three quarters of a century had passed since young
Francisco Garvez, as he rode beside Portola's chief of Scouts, glimpsed
the mystic vision of a city rising from the sandy shores of San
Francisco Bay.

Garvez, so tradition held, had taken for his spouse an Indian maiden
educated by the mission padres of far San Diego. For his service as
soldado of old Spain he had been granted many acres near the Mission of
Dolores and his son, through marriage, had combined this with another
large estate. There a second generation of the Garvez family had looked
down from a palatial hacienda upon spreading grain-fields, wide-reaching
pastures and corrals of blooded stock. They had seen the Mission era wax
and wane and Mexico cast off the governmental shackles of Madrid. They
had looked askance upon the coming of the "Gringo" and Francisco Garvez
II, in the feebleness of age, had railed against the destiny that gave
his youngest daughter to a Yankee engineer. He had bade her choose
between allegiance to an honored race and exile with one whom he termed
an unknown, alien interloper. But in the end he had forgiven, when she
chose, as is the wont of women, Love's eternal path. Thus the Garvez
rancho, at his death became the Windham ranch and there dwelt Dona Anita
with her children Inez and Benito, for her husband, "Don Roberto"
Windham lingered with an engineering expedition in the wilds of Oregon.

Just nineteen was young Benito, straight and slim, combining in his
fledgling soul the austere heritage of Anglo-Saxons with the leaping
fires of Castile. Fondly, yet with something anxious in her glance, his
mother watched the boy as he sprang nimbly to the saddle of his favorite
horse. He was like her husband, strong and self-reliant. Yet,--she
sighed involuntarily with the thought,--he had much of the manner of her
handsome and ill-fated brother, Don Diego, victim of a duel that had
followed cards and wine.

"Why so troubled, madre mia?" The little hand of Inez stole into her
mother's reassuringly. "Is it that you fear for our Benito when he rides
among the Gringos of the puebla?"

Her dark crowned and exquisite head rose proudly and her eyes flashed as
she watched her brother riding with the grace of splendid horsemanship
toward the distant town of Yerba Buena. "He can take care of himself,"
she ended with, a toss of her head.

"To be sure, my little one," the Dona Windham answered smiling. No doubt
it was a foolish apprehension she decided. If only the Dona Briones who
lived on a ranchita near the bay-shore did not gossip so of the
Americano games of chance. And if only she might know what took Benito
there so frequently.

* * * * *

Benito spurred his horse toward the puebla. A well-filled purse jingled
in his pocket and now and then he tossed a silver coin to some
importuning Indian along the road. As he passed the little ranch-house
of Dona Briones he waved his hat gaily in answer to her invitation to
stop. Benito called her Tia Juana. Large and motherly she was, a woman
of untiring energy who, all alone cultivated the ranchito which supplied
milk, butter, eggs and vegetables to ships which anchored in the cove of
Yerba Buena. She was the friend of all sick and unfortunate beings, the
secret ally of deserting sailors whom she often hid from searching
parties. Benito was her special favorite and now she sighed and shook
her head as he rode on. She had heard of his losses at the gringo game
called "pokkere." She mistrusted it together with all other alien
machinations.

Benito reached the little hamlet dreaming in the sun, a welter of
scrambled habitations. There was the little ship's cabin, called Kent
Hall, where dwelt that genial spirit, Nathan Spear, his father's friend.
Nearby was the dwelling, carpenter and blacksmith shop of Calvert Davis;
the homes of Victor Pruden, French savant and secretary to Governor
Alvarado; Thompson the hide trader who married Concepcion Avila,
reigning beauty of her day; Stephen Smith, pioneer saw-miller, who
brought the first pianos to California.

Where a spring gushed forth and furnished water to the ships, Juan
Fuller had his washhouse. Within a stone's throw was the grist mill of
Daniel Sill where a mule turned, with the frequent interruptions of his
balky temperament, a crude and ponderous treadmill. Grain laden ox-carts
stood along the road before it.

Farther down was Finch's, better known as John the Tinker's bowling
alley; Cooper's groggery, nicknamed "Jack the Sailor's," Vioget's house,
later to be Yerba Buena's first hotel. The new warehouse of William
Leidesdorff stood close to the waterline and, at the head of the plaza,
the customs house built by Indians at the governor's order looked down
on the shipping.

Benito reined his horse as he reached the Plaza where a dozen other
mounts were tethered and left his steed to crop the short grass without
the formality of hitching. He remembered how, nine years ago, Don Jacob
Primer Leese had given a grand ball to celebrate the completion of his
wooden casa, the first of its kind in Yerba Buena. There had been music
and feasting with barbecued meats and the firing of guns to commemorate
the fourth of July which was the birth of Americano independence. Long
ago Leese had moved his quarters farther from the beach and sold his
famous casa to the Hudson's Bay company. Half perfunctorily, young
Windham made his way there, entered and sat down in the big trading room
where sailormen were usually assembled to discourse profanely of the
perils of the sea. Benito liked to hear them and to listen to the
drunken boasts of Factor William Rae, who threatened that his company
would drive all Yankee traders out of California. Sometimes Spear would
be there, sardonically witty, drinking heavily but never befuddled by
his liquor. But today the place was silent, practically deserted so
Benito, after a glass of fiery Scotch liquor with the factor, made his
way into the road again. There a hand fell on his shoulder and Spear's
hearty voice saluted him:

"How fares it at the ranch, Camerado?"

"Moderately," the young man answered, "for my mother waits impatiently
the coming of my father. She is very lonely since my uncle died. Though
Inez tries to comfort her, she, too, is apprehensive. The time set by my
father for home-coming is long past."

"It is the way of women," Spear said gently. "Give them my respects. If
you ride toward home I will accompany you a portion of the way."

Benito turned an almost furtive glance on his companion. "Not yet," ...
he answered hastily, "a thousand pardons, senor. I have other
errands here."

He nodded half impatiently and made his way along the embarcadero. Spear
saw him turn into the drinking place of Cooper.

A stranger caught Spear's glance and smiled significantly. "I saw the
lad last night at poker with a crowd that's not above a crooked deal....
Someone should stop him." In the voice was tentative suggestion.

"I've no authority," Spear answered shortly. He turned his back upon the
other and strode toward the plaza.

CHAPTER II

THE GAMBLED PATRIMONY

The stranger took his way toward the waterfront and into "Jack the
Sailor's." Cooper, who had earned this nickname, stood behind a counter
of rough boards polishing its top with a much soiled towel. He hailed
the newcomer eagerly. "Hello, Alvin Potts! What brought you here? And
how is all at Monterey?"

"All's well enough," said Potts, concisely. He glanced about. Several
crude structures, scarcely deserving the name of tables, were centers of
interest for rings of rough and ill-assorted men. There were
loud-voiced, bearded fellows from the whaler's crew. In tarpaulins and
caps pulled low upon their brows; swarthy Russians with oily, brutish
faces and slow movements--relics of the abandoned colony at Fort Ross;
suave, soft-spoken Spaniards in broad-brimmed hats, braided short coats
and laced trousers tucked into shining boots; vaqueros with colored
handkerchiefs about their heads and sashes around their middles. A few
Americans were sprinkled here and there. Usually one player at each
table was of the sleek and graceful type, which marks the gambler. And
usually he was the winner. Now and then a man threw down his cards,
pushed a little pile of money to the center of the table and shuffled
out. Cooper passed between them, serving tall, black bottles from which
men poured their potions according to impulse; they did not drink in
unison. Each player snatched a liquid stimulus when the need arose. And
one whose shaky nerves required many of these spurs was young Benito.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25