Like a startled deer, Inez Windham fled from McTurpin and the stranger, her little, high-heeled slippers sinking unheeded into the horse-trodden mire of Portsmouth Square, her silk skirt spattered and soiled; her hair, freed from the protecting mantilla, blowing in the searching trade wind. Thus, as Commander Hull sat upon the custom house veranda, reading the latest dispatch from Captain Ward, she burst upon him--a flushed, disheveled, lovely vision with fear-stricken eyes.
"Senor," she panted, "Senor Commandante ... I must speak with you at once!"
Hull rose. "My dear young lady"--he regarded her with patent consternation--"my dear young lady ... w-what is wrong?"
She was painfully aware of her bedraggled state, the whirlwind lack of ceremony with which she had propelled herself into his presence. Suddenly words failed her, she was conscious that an arm stretched toward her as she swayed. Next she lay upon a couch in an inner chamber, the commander, in his blue-and-gold-braid stiffness bending over her, gravely anxious.
She rose at once, ignoring his protesting gesture.
"I--I fainted?" she asked perplexedly. Hull nodded. "Something excited you. A fight in the street below. A man was stabbed--"
"Oh!" The white face of the bearded stranger sprang into her memory, "Is he dead?"
"No, but badly hurt, I fancy," said the Commander. "They have taken him to the City Hotel."
Desperately, she forced herself to speak. "I have come, senor, to ask a pardon for my brother. He is very dear to me--and to my mother"--she clasped her hands and held them toward him supplicatingly. "Senor, if Benito should be captured--you will have mercy?"
The commander regarded her with puzzled interest. "Who is Benito, little one?"
"His name is Windham. My father was a gring--Americano, Commandante."
Hull frowned. "An American ... fighting against his country?" he said sharply.
"Ah, sir"--the girl came closer in her earnestness--"he does not fight against the United States ... only against robbers who would hide behind its flag." In her tone there was the outraged indignation of a suffering people. "Horse thieves, cattle robbers."
"Hush," said Hull, "you must not speak thus of American officials. Their seizures, I am told, were unavoidable--for military needs alone."
"You have never heard our side," the girl spoke bitterly. "Was it military need that filched two hundred of our blooded horses from the ranches? Was it military need that robbed my ailing mother of her pet, the mare Diablo? Was it military need that gave our finest steeds to your Alcalde for his pleasure, that enabled half a dozen false officials to recruit their stables from our caponeras and sell horses in the open market?" Her eyes blazed. "Senor, it was tyranny and theft, no less. Had I been a man, like Benito, I, too, should have ridden with Sanchez."
"Can you prove these things?" asked the Commander, sternly.
"Si, senor," said Inez quickly. "It is well known hereabouts. Do not take my word," she smiled, "I am a woman--a Spaniard, on my mother's side. Ask your own countrymen--Samuel Brannan, Nathan Spear, William Leidesdorff."
Hull pulled at his chin reflectively. "Something of this sort I have already heard," he said, "but I believed it idle gossip.... If your brother had come to me, instead of riding with the enemy--"
"He is a youth, hot-blooded and impulsive, Senor Commandante." Swiftly, and to Hull's intense embarrassment, she knelt before him. "We love him so: my mother, who is ill, and I," she pleaded. "He is all we have.... Ah, senor, you will spare him--our Benito!"
"Get up," said Hull a trifle brusquely. His tone, too, shook a little. "Confound it, girl, I'm not a murderer." He forced a smile. "If my men haven't shot the young scoundrel you may have him back."
"And that," he added, as the girl rose with a shining rapture in her eyes, "may be tomorrow." He picked up a paper from the desk and regarded it thoughtfully. "There is truce at present. Sanchez will surrender if I give my word that there shall be no further raids."
"And--you will do this, Commandante?" the girl asked, breathlessly.
"I--will consult with Brannan, Leidesdorff and Spear, as you suggested," Hull replied. But his eyes were kind. The Senorita Inez had her answer. Impetuously, her arms went around his neck. An instant later, dazed, a little red, a moist spot on his cheek and a lingering fragrance clinging subtly like the touch of vanished arms, Hull watched her flying heels upon the muddy square.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he said, explosively.
In the room which had been Inez' whilom prison--and which proved to be the only one available in the City Hotel, Adrian Stanley lay tossing and muttering. The woman who sat at his bedside watched anxiously each movement of his lips, listening eagerly to catch the incoherent, whispered words. For a time she could make of them no intelligent meaning. But now, after a long and quiet interval, he began to ask questions, though his eyes were still closed. "Am I going to die?"
"No," said Inez, for it was she, "you've lost a lot of blood, but the doctor says there's small danger."
The bearded face looked up half quizzically. "Are you glad?"
"Oh ... yes," said Inez, with a quick-taken respiration.
"Then it's all right," the patient murmured sleepily. His eyes closed.
Inez' color heightened as she watched him. What had he meant, she wondered, and decided that his brain was not quite clear. But, somehow, this was not the explanation she desired.
Presently Dr. Elbert Jones came in, cheering her with his breezy, jovial drawl.
"Getting tired of your task?" he questioned. But Inez shook her head. "He protected me," she said. "It was while defending me that he was wounded." Her eyes searched the physician's face. "Where," she questioned fearfully, "is--"
"McTurpin?" returned the doctor. "Lord knows. He vamoosed, absquatulated. You'll hear no more of him, I think, Miss Windham."
For a moment the dark lashes of the patient rose as if something in the doctor's words had caught his attention; then they fell again over weary eyes and he appeared to sleep. But when Doctor Jones was gone, Inez found him regarding her with unusual interest.
"Did I hear him call you Windham?" he inquired, "Inez Windham?"
"Yes, that is my name," she answered.
"And your father's?"
"He is Don Roberto Windham of the Engineers," Inez leaned forward. "Oh!" her eyes shone with a hope she dared not trust. "Tell me, quickly, have you news of him?"
"Yes," said Stanley. "He is ill, but will recover. He will soon return." His eyes dwelt on the girl in silence, musingly.
"Tell me more!" she pleaded. "We believed him lost. Ah, how my mother's health will mend when she hears this. We have waited so long...."
"I was with him in the North," said Stanley. "Often, sitting at the camp-fire, while the others slept, he told me of his wife, his daughter, and his son, Benito. In my coat," he pointed to a garment hanging near the door, "you will find a letter--" He followed her swift, searching fingers, saw her press the envelope impulsively against her heart. While she read his eyes were on her dreamily, until at last he closed them with a little sigh.
Evening on the Windham rancho. Far below, across a vast green stretch of meadow sloping toward the sea, the sun sank into crimson canopies of cloud. It was one of those perfect days which come after the first rains, mellow and exhilarating. The Trio in the rose arbor of the patio were silent under the spell of its beauty. Don Roberto Windham, home again, after long months of wandering and hardship, stood beside the chair in which Senora Windham rested against a pillow. She had mended much since his return, and her eyes as she looked up at him held the same flashing, fiery tenderness which in the long ago had caused her to renounce Castilian traditions and become the bride of an Americano. At her feet upon a low stool sat her daughter, Inez, and Windham, as he looked down, was a little startled at her likeness to the Spanish beauty he had met and married a generation before.
Conscious of his glance, her eyes turned upward and she held out her hand to him. "Father, mine," she said in English, "you have made the roses bloom again in mother's cheeks. And in my heart," she added with a quick, impulsive tenderness.
Robert Windham bent and kissed her wind-tossed hair. "I think another has usurped me in the latter task." He smiled, although not without a touch of sadness. "Ah, well, Adrian is a fine young fellow. You need not blush so furiously."
"I think he comes," said the Senora Anita, and, unconsciously, her arm went around the girl. "Is not that his high-stepping mare and his beanpole of a figure riding beside Benito in yon cloud of dust?"
She smiled down at Inez. "Do not mind your mother's jesting--Go now to smooth your locks and place a rose within them--as I used to do when Don Roberto came."
Inez rose and made her way into the casa. She heard a clatter of hoofs and voices. At the sound of one her heart leaped strangely.
"We have famous news," she heard her brother say. "The name of Yerba Buena has been changed to San Francisco. Here is an account of it in Brannan'sCalifornia Star." She heard the rustle of a paper then, once more her brother's voice: "San Francisco!" he pronounced it lovingly. "Some day it will be a ciudad grande--perhaps even in my time."
"A great city!" repeated his mother. "Thus my father dreamed of it.... But you will pardon us, Don Adrian, for you have other things in mind than Yerb--than San Francisco's future. See, my little one! Even now she comes to bid you welcome."
Inez as she joined them gave her hand to Stanley. "Ah, Don Adrian, your color is high"--her tone was bantering, mock-anxious. "You have not, perchance, a touch of fever?"
He eyed her hungrily. "If I have," he spoke with that slow gentleness she loved so well, "it is no fever that requires roots or herbs.... Shall I," he came a little closer, "shall I put a name to it, Senorita?" His words were for her ears alone. Her eyes smiled into his. "Come, let us show you the rose garden, Senor Stanley," she said with playful formality and placed her silk-gloved fingers on his arm.
Senora Windham's hand groped for her husband's. There were tears in her eyes, but he bent down and kissed them away. "Anita, mia, do not grieve. He is a good lad."
"It is not that." She hid her face against his shoulder. "It is not that--"
"I understand," he whispered.
After a little time Benito spoke. "Mother, I learned something from the warring of the rancheros aganist Alcalde Bartlett." He came forward and picked up the newspaper which had fallen from his mother's lap. "I learned," his hand fell on his father's shoulder, "that I am an American."
"Benito!" said his mother quickly.
"I am Don Roberto's son, as well as thine, remember, madre mia!" he spoke with unusual gentleness. "Even with Sanchez, Vasquez and Guerrero at my side in battle, I did not shoot to kill. Something said within, 'These men are brothers. They are of the clan of Don Roberto, of thy father.' So I shot to miss. And when the commandante, Senor Hull, dismissed me with kind words--he who might have hanged me as a traitor--my heart was full of love for all his people. And contrition. Mother, you will forgive? You, who have taught me all the pride of the Hidalgo. For I must say the truth, to you and everyone...." He knelt at her feet, impressing a kiss of love and reverence upon her outstretched hand.
"Rise, my son," she said, tremulously. "You are right, and it is well." She smiled. "Who am I to say my boy is no Americano? I, who wed the best and noblest of them all."
There was a little silence. Inez and Don Adrian, returning, paused a moment, half dismayed. "Come, my children," said Anita Windham.
"Ah," cried Inez, teasingly, "we are not the only ones who have been making love." She led her companion forward. "We have come to ask your blessing, mother, father mine," she whispered. "I," her eyes fell, "I am taken captive by a gringo."
"Do not use that name," her mother said reprovingly. But Don Roberto laughed. "You are the second to declare allegiance to the Stars and Stripes." He took Benito's hand. "My son's discovered he's American, Don Adrian."
Presently Benito spoke again. "That is not all, my father. There is soon to be a meeting for relief of immigrants lost in the Sierra Nevada snows. James Reed will organize an expedition from Yerb--from San Francisco. And I wish to go. There are women and children starving, perhaps."
"It is the Donner party. They tried a short cut and the winter overtook them. I, too, will go," said Don Roberto.
"And I," volunteered Stanley.
But the women had it otherwise. "You have been too long gone from me," Anita quavered. "I would fear your loss again." And Inez argued that her Adrian was not recovered from his wound or illness. Finally it was decided that Benito only would accompany the expedition. The talk fell upon other matters. Alcalde Bartlett had been discredited, though not officially, since his return from capture by the rancheros. He was soon to be displaced and there would be no further commandeering of horses and cattle.
"The commandante tells me," Windham said, "that there is still no news of the Warren's launch which was sent last December to pay the garrison at Sutter's Fort. Bob Ridley's men, who cruised the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, found nothing."
"But--the boat and its crew couldn't vanish completely?" Benito's tone held puzzled incredulity. "There would be Wreckage. Floating bodies--"
"Unless," said Adrian, "they had been hidden--buried secretly, perhaps."
"Adrian, what do you mean?" asked Inez in excitement. "It was about the time that--"
"McTurpin left," responded Stanley. "I've heard more than a whisper of his possible connection with the disappearance. McTurpin didn't leave alone. He rounded up half a dozen rough-looking fellows and they rode out of town together."
There was a silence. Then Benito spoke. "We haven't seen the last of him, I fear."
It was almost a month later that Inez galloped home from San Francisco with a precious missive from the absent brother. They had outfitted at Johnson's ranch near Sacramento and, encountered the first expedition returning with twenty-two starved wretches from the Donner Camp. Many women and children still remained there.
"We started on the day which is a gringo fete because it is the natal anniversary of the great George Washington," Benito's chronicle concluded. "May it prove a good omen, and may we bring freedom, life to the poor souls engulfed by the snowdrifts. I kiss your hands. BENITO."
A fortnight passed before there came another letter. The second relief party had reached Donner Camp without mishap but, with seventeen survivors, had been storm-bound on a mountain summit and returned with but eleven of the rescued after frightful hardship. Benito was recuperating in a Sacramento hospital from frozen feet.
"Look, Roberto," exclaimed Senora Windham as they cantered into San Francisco one morning. "A ship all gay with banners! See the townsfolk are excited. They rush to the Embarcadero. The band plays. It must be the festival of some Americano patron saint."
"It is the long expected New York volunteers," replied her husband. "They've been recruited for the past year for service in California. Colonel Stevenson, the commander, is a most distinguished man. The president himself made him an offer of command if he could raise a regiment of California volunteers." Windham smiled. "I believe it is for colonization rather than actual military duty that they've been sent out here ... three shiploads of them with two doctors and a chaplain."
As they picked their way along a narrow footpath toward the beach, the portly Leidesdorff advanced to greet them. "Would that I had a cloak of velvet," he said gallantly, "so that I might lay it in the mire at your feet, fair lady." Anita Windham flashed a smile at him. "Like the chivalrous Don Walter Raleigh," she responded. "Ah, but I am not a Queen Elizabeth. Nor is this London." She regarded with a shrug of distaste the stretch of mud-flats reaching to the tide-line, rubbish--littered and unfragrant. Knee-deep in its mire, bare-legged Indians and booted men drove piles for the superstructure of a new pier.
Lieutenant Bryant joined them, brisk and natty in his naval garb. He was the new alcalde, Bartlett having been displaced and ordered to rejoin his ship.
"No, it's not London," he took up Anita's statement, "but it's going to be a better San Francisco if I have my way. We'll fill that bog with sand and lay out streets between Fort Montgomery and the Rincon, if the governor'll cede the tide-flats to the town. Jasper O'Farrell is making a map."
"See, they are landing," cried the Dona Windham, clapping her hands.
A boat put off amid hails from the shore. Soon four officers and a boat's crew stood upon the landing pier and gazed about them curiously.
"That's Colonel Stevenson," said Bryant, nodding toward the leader. On the verge of fifty, statesmanlike of mien and manner, stood the man who had recruited the first volunteer company which came around The Horn. He fingered his sword a bit awkwardly, as though unused to military dress formalities. But his eyes were keen and eager and commanding.
More boats put off from the anchored vessel. By and by the parade began, led by Captain Stevenson. It was a straggling military formation that toiled up-hill through the sand toward Portsmouth Square. These men were from the byways and hedges of life. Some of them had shifty eyes and some bold, predatory glances which forebode nothing good for San Francisco's peace. Adventurers for the most part, lured to this new land, some by the wander spirit, others by a wish to free themselves from the restraints of law. Certain of them were to die upon the gallows; others were to be the proud and honored citizens of a raw, potential metropolis. They talked loudly, vehemently, to one another as they marched like school boys seeing strange sights, pointing eagerly at all that aroused their interest. The officers marched more stiffly as though conscious of official noblesse oblige.
"I wish that Inez might have seen it," Mrs. Windham said a little wistfully. "But she must help the Indian seamstress with her gown for the dance. Don Adrian is to be there."
"He has decided that there are other ways of serving God than in the pulpit," remarked Stanley. "They talk of making him the master of the school ... if our committee can ever decide on a location and what's to pay for it."
In the full regimentals of his rank, Colonel Stevenson graced Leidesdorff's ballroom that evening, cordially exchanging smiles and bows with San Francisco's citizenry. Besides him was his quartermaster, Captain Joseph Folsom who, though less than thirty, had seen active service in a Florida campaign against the Seminoles. He held himself slightly aloof with the class consciousness of the West Pointer.
Nearby stood a lanky surgeon of the volunteers discussing antiseptics with Dr. Jones. Leidesdorff was everywhere, pathetically eager to please, an ecstatic, perspiring figure, making innumerable inquiries as to the comfort of his guests.
"He's like a mother hen worried over a brood of new chicks," said Brannan to Jasper O'Farrell.
"And a damned fine little man," the Irishman answered. "Oh--I beg your pardon, Senorita."
Inez Windham smiled forgiveness, nodding when he asked her for a dance. "Tell me," she asked eagerly, "of the grand new map you make for San Francisco."
"Ah," O'Farrell said, "they laugh at it because I have to change Vioget's acute and obtuse angles. They call it 'O'Farrell's Swing.' You see, I've had to change the direction of some streets. There are many more now. Eight hundred acres laid out like a city."
As the music stopped he led her to a bench and fumbled in his pocket for a drawing which he straightened on his knees. "See, here is a new road through the center, a broad way, straight as an arrow from the bay to the foot of Twin Peaks. It parallels the Mission camino, and Bryant wants to call it Market street."
"But how is this?" asked Inez puzzled, "streets where there is only mud and water--"
"They will be reclaimed with the waste from our leveled sand hills," said O'Farrell. He glanced about him searchingly, then whispered: "Tonight Governor Mason told me confidentially he would cede the tide flats to our local government, provided they are sold at auction for the benefit of San Francisco. They'll go cheap; but some day they'll be worth thousands. Tell your father--"
He broke off hastily. Toward them stalked Benito Windham, covered with dust as though from a long ride. There was trouble in his eyes. With a swift apology he drew his sister aside. "McTurpin," he panted. "He is back ... with a dozen men ... riding toward the rancho."
Dazed with the suddenness of Benito's announcement and its menacing augury, Inez sought her father and Adrian. The latter acted instantly. "Do not tell your wife," he said to Windham. "There may be nothing amiss. And if there should be, she will find no profit in knowing. Tell her you are called away and follow me to the square. We will ride at once to the rancho."
He pressed Inez' hand and was gone. "Take care of your mother," he said over his shoulder, an admonition which Don Roberto repeated a moment later as he hurried out. She was left alone in a maze of doubts, fears, speculations. What was McTurpin doing in San Francisco? Why had he and his companions ridden toward the Windham rancho? There was only one answer. Most of the vaqueros were at a fandango in the Mission. Only the serving women and a few men too old for dancing remained at home.
Meawhile her brother, father, lover were speeding homeward, into what? A trap? An ambush? Certainly to battle with a foe out-numbering them four to one.
At the Mission were a dozen of their servants; men whose fathers and grandfathers had ridden herd for her family. Any one of them would give his life to serve a Windham.
Inez looked about her feverishly. Should she ask O'Farrell to accompany her? He was dancing with one of the Mormon women. Brannan and Spear were not to be seen. Leidesdorff was impossible in such an emergency. Besides, she could not take him from his guests. She would go alone, decided Inez. Quietly she made her way to the cloak-room, in charge of an Indian servant, caught up her mantilla and riding crop and fled. On the square her horse whinnied at her approach as if eager to be gone. Swiftly she climbed into the saddle and spurred forward.
Far ahead gleamed the lights of the Mission. They were making merry there with the games and dance of old Spain. And to the south Benito, Adrian, her father, rode toward a battle with treacherous men. Breathlessly she spurred her horse to greater effort. Trees flashed by like witches in the dark. Presently she heard the music of the fandango.
Another picture framed itself before her vision. Excited faces round her. A sudden stoppage of the music, a frocked priest making anxious inquiries. Her own wild words; a jingle of spurs. Then many hoofs pounding on the road beside her.
She never knew just what had happened, what she had said. But now she felt the sting of the bay breeze in her face and Antonio's steady hand upon her saddle pommel.
"Caramba!" he was muttering. "The pig of a gringo once more. And your father; the little Benito. Hurry, comrades, faster! faster! To the rescue!"
Came a third picture, finally more clear, more disconcerting. The entrance to her father's ranch barred by armed riders. McTurpin smiling insolent in the moonlight, bowing to her while Antonio muttered in suppressed wrath.
"We have three hostages here, senorita ... relatives of yours and ah--a friend." His voice, cold, threatening, spoke on. "They are unharmed--as yet."
"I don't believe you," Inez stormed at him.
"Tell them, Senor Windham," said McTurpin, "that I speak the truth."
"Inez, it is true," her father spoke out of some shadowed darkness. "We were ambushed. Taken by surprise."
"What do you propose?" asked Antonio, unable longer to restrain himself.
"To turn them loose ... upon their word not to trouble us further," said McTurpin. "I have merely assumed control of my property. I hold the conveyance of Benito Windham. It is all quite regular," he laughed shortly.
Antonio moved uneasily. His hand upon the lariat itched for a cast. McTurpin saw it. "You'll do well to sit still in the saddle," he reminded, "all of you. We have you covered."
"What are your orders, master?" said the chief vaquero tensely. "Say the word and we will--"
"No," commanded Windham. "There shall be no fighting now. We will go. Tomorrow we shall visit the Alcalde. I can promise no more than this."
"It's enough," McTurpin answered. "I've possession. I've a deed with your son's signature. And a dozen good friends to uphold me." He turned. "Take their pistols, friends, and let them go."
George Hyde looked up from a sheaf of drawing which lay on the table before him and which represented the new survey of San Francisco. A boy with a bundle of papers under his arm entered unannounced, tossed a copy of "The California Star" toward him and departed. Hyde picked it up and read:
"GREAT SALE OF VALUABLE REAL ESTATE INTHE TOWN OF SAN FRANCISCO, UPPER CALIFORNIA."By the following decree of His Excellency, General S.W. Kearny, Governor of California, all the right, title and interest of the United States and of the territory of California to the BEACH AND WATER lots on the east front of the town of San Francisco have been granted, conveyed and released to the people or corporate authorities of said town--"
Hyde read on. There was a post-script by Edwin Bryant, his predecessor as alcalde, calling a public sale for June 29. That was rather soon. But he would see. Hyde had an antipathy to any rule or circumstance fixed by another. His enemies called him "pig-headed"; his friends "forceful," though with a sigh. There was something highhanded in the look and manner of him, though few men had better intent. Now his glance fell on another, smaller item in the newspaper.
"SYDNEY DUCKS ARRIVE.""In recent vessels from the antipodes have come numerous men from Australia who, according to rumor, are deported English criminals, known as 'Sydney Ducks.' It is said that the English government winks at the escape of these birds of ill omen, who are lured hither by tales of our lawlessness carried by sailormen. It is high time we had a little more law in San Francisco."
That was another of his problems, Hyde reflected irritably. "Sydney Ducks." There would be many more no doubt, for San Francisco was growing. It had 500 citizens, irrespective of the New York volunteers; 157 buildings. He would need helpers in the task of city-governing. Half idly he jotted down the names of men that would prove good henchmen:
"William A. Leidesdorff, Robert A. Parker, Jose P. Thompson, Pedro Sherreback, John Rose, Benjamin Buckalew."
It had a cosmopolitan smack, though it ignored some prominent and capable San Franciscans. William Clark, for instance, with whom Washington Bartlett had quarreled over town lots, Dr. Elbert Jones and William Howard. Hyde was not certain whether they would be amenable to his program. Well, he would see.
A shadow loomed in his doorway. He looked up to see Adrian Stanley and Robert Windham.
"Come in. Come in." He tried to speak cordially, but there was a shade of irritation in his tone. They, too, were a problem.
"Be seated," he invited, as the two men entered. But they stood before him rather stiffly.
"Is there any--news?" asked Adrian.
"Nothing favorable," said Hyde uneasily. He made an impatient gesture. "You can see for yourselves, gentlemen, that my hands are tied. The man--what's-his-name?--McTurpin, has a perfectly correct conveyance signed by your son. Benito, I understand, does not deny his signature. And his right is unquestioned, for the property came to him direct from his uncle, who was Francisco Garvez' only son."
"But--" began Adrian hotly.
"Yes, yes, I know," Hyde interrupted. "The man is a rascal. But what of that? It does not help us; I have no power to aid you, gentlemen."
It was the morning of July 20. Fog drifts rode the bay like huge white swans, shrouding the Island of Alcatraz with a rise and fall of impalpable wings and casting many a whilom plume over the tents and adobe houses nestling between sandhills and scrub-oaks in the cove of San Francisco.
Robert and Benito Windham, on the hill above Clark's Point, looked down toward the beach, where a crowd was gathering for the auction of tidewater lots. The Windhams, since their dispossession by McTurpin, had been guests of hospitable Juana Briones. Through the Alcalde's order they had secured their personal effects. But the former gambler still held right and title to the Windham acres. Adrian Stanley made his home at the City Hotel and had been occupied with an impromptu school where some four score children and half a dozen illiterates were daily taught the mysteries of the "Three Rs."
"Adrian has determined to buy some of these mud-lots," said Windham to his son. "He believes some day they will be valuable and that he will make his fortune." He sighed. "I fear my son-to-be is something of a visionary."
Benito gave his father a quick, almost furtive glance. "Do not condemn him for that," he said, with a hint of reproach. "Adrian is far-sighted, yes; but not a dreamer."
"What can he do with a square of bog that is covered half of the time by water?" asked Windham.
"Ah," Benito said, "we've talked that over, Adrian and I. Adrian has a plan of reclamation. An engineering project for leveling sandhills by contract and using the waste to cover his land. He has already arranged for ox-teams and wagons. It is perfectly feasible, my father."
Robert Windham smiled at the other's enthusiasm. "Perhaps you are right," he said. "God grant it--and justify your faith in that huddle of huts below."
Below them a man had mounted an improvised platform. He was waving his arms, haranguing an ever-growing audience. Benito stirred uneasily. "I must go," he said. "I promised Adrian to join him."
"Very well," returned his father. He watched the slight and supple figure riding down the slope.
Slowly he made his way back to the Rancho Briones. His wife met him at the gate.
"Juana and Inez have gone to the sale," she announced. "Shall we join them in the pueblo later on?"
"Nay, Anita," he said, "unless you wish it.... I have no faith in mire."
She looked up at him anxiously. "Roberto! I grieve to hear it. They--" she checked herself.
"They--what, my love?" he asked curiously.
"They have gone to buy," said Anita. "Juana has great faith. She has considerable money. And Inez has taken her jewels--even a few of mine. The Senor O'Farrell whispered to her at the ball that the lots would sell for little and their value would increase immensely."
"So, that is why Benito has his silver-mounted harness," Windham spoke half to himself. He smiled a little ruefully. "You are all gamblers, dreamers.... You dear ones of Spanish heritage."
On the beach a strangely varied human herd pressed close around a platform upon which stood Samuel Brannan and Alcalde Hyde. The former had promised to act as auctioneer and looked over a sheaf of notes while Hyde in his dry, precise and positive tone read the details of the forthcoming sale. It would last three days, Hyde informed his hearers, and 450 lots would be sold. North of the broad street paralleling the Mission Camino lots were sixteen and a half varas wide and fifty varas deep. All were between the limits of low and high water mark.
"What's a vara?" shouted a new arrival.
"A Spanish yard," explained Hyde, "about thirty-three and a third inches of English measure. Gentlemen, you are required to fence your lots and build a house within a year. The fees for recording and deed will be $3.62, and the terms of payment are a fourth down, the balance in equal payments during a period of eighteen months."
"How about the lots that lie south?" cried a voice.
"They are one hundred varas square, same terms, same fees," replied Hyde. He stepped down and Brannan began his address.
"The site of San Francisco is known to all navigators and mercantile men to be the most commanding commercial position on the entire eastern coast of the Pacific Ocean," he shouted, quoting from former Alcalde Bryant's announcement of three months previous. "The town itself is destined to become the commercial emporium of western America."
"Bravo!" supplemented the Dona Briones, waving her fan. She was the center of a little group composed of Benito and Inez Windham, Adrian Stanley and Nathan Spear. Near them, keeping out of their observance, stood Aleck McTurpin.
"The property offered for sale is the most valuable in or belonging to the town," Brannan went on, enthusiastically; "it will require work to make it tenable. You'll have to wrest it from the waves, gentlemen ... and ladies," he bowed to Juana and her companion, "but, take my word for it--and I've never deceived you--everyone who buys will bless my memory half a dozen years from now...."
"Why don't ye get in yerself and practice what ye preach?" cried a scoffing sailor.
Brannan looked him up and down. "Because I'm trying to serve the commonwealth--which is more than a drunken deserter from his ship can claim," he shot back hotly, "but I'm going to buy my share, never fear. Bill Leidesdorff's my agent. He has $5,000 and my power of attorney. That's fair enough, isn't it boys? Or, shall we let the sailor act as auctioneer?"
"No! No!" a dozen cried. "'Rah for Sam. Go on! You're doin' fine!"
"Thank you," Brannan acknowledged. "Who's to make the first bid? Speak up, now, don't be bashful."
"Twenty-five dollars," called Juana Briones.
"Thirty," said a voice behind her, a voice that caused young Windham and his sister to start, involuntarily. "McTurpin," whispered Inez to Adrian.
"Thirty-five," spoke Juana, imperturbably.
"Forty."
Brannan looked straight into McTurpin's eyes. "Sold to Juana Briones for thirty-five dollars," he said, as his improvised gavel fell on the table before him.
"I bid forty!" stormed McTurpin. All eyes turned to him. But Brannan paid him no attention. Someone laughed.
"Next! Who bids?" invited the auctioneer.
"Twenty-five," began Benito.
This time there were other bidders, all of whom Brannan recognized courteously and promptly. Finally, Benito's bid of fifty seemed to win. Then McTurpin shouted, "Fifty-five!"
Brannan waited for a moment. There were no more bids. "Sold to Benito Windham for fifty dollars," he announced.
"Curse you!" cried the gambler, pushing forward, "you heard me bid higher, Sam Brannan!"
Into his path stepped the tall figure of Robert Windham. "We are not taking bids from convicts," he said, loudly and distinctly.
McTurpin's look of blind astonishment at Windham's words was succeeded by a whitehot fury. Two eyes gleamed with snake-like venom and two spots of red glowed in his cheeks, as though each had felt the impact of a sudden blow. For a moment he neither moved nor spoke. Then a hand, which trembled slightly, made a lightning move toward his hip.
"I wouldn't," drawled the voice of Robert Windham. His right hand, loosely in a pocket of his coat, moved slightly. "I've got you covered, Sydney Duck McTurpin ... if that's your real name."
The other's hand fell at his side. The two men's glances countered, held each other, one calm, dignified, unafraid; the other, murderous, searching, baffled. Presently, McTurpin turned and strode away. Windham looked after the departing gambler. "'Fraid I've spoiled his morning," he remarked to Nathan Spear.
"Yes--to chance a knife or bullet in the back," retorted Spear, uneasily. Their further confidence was drowned in Brannan's exhortations: "On with the sale, boys," he shouted. "The side show's over ... with nobody hurt, thank Heaven! What'll you bid for a lot in the southern part of town? They're a hundred varas square--four times as big as the others. Not as central, maybe, but in ten years I bet they'll bring a thousand dollars. What's bid for a south lot, my hearties?"
"Twenty-five dollars," said Inez Windham.
"Oh, come, now, Senorita," cried the auctioneer, intriguingly, "twenty-five dollars for a hundred-vara lot. Have you no more faith in San Francisco?"
"Its--all I have...." the girl spoke almost in a whisper.
Brannan frowned. He looked about him threateningly. "Does anyone bid higher than Miss Windham?" he demanded. There was no response. Brannan's gavel fell, decisively. "Sold!" he cried, and half a dozen voices cheered.
Inez Windham made her way to the auctioneer's stand and handed three banknotes to Alcalde Hyde. "But, my dear young lady," he expostulated, "you need only pay a fourth of the money down. Six dollars and a quarter is enough."
"Oh," said Inez, "then I could have bought more, couldn't I!" She turned to Brannan, eagerly. "I could have bought four lots--if I'd only known."
Brannan smiled at her. Then he turned to the crowd. "What d'ye say, boys, shall we let her have 'em?" he inquired. Instantly the answer came: "Yes, yes, give her the four. God bless her. She'll bring us luck."
Impulsively, Inez mounted the platform; astonished at her own temerity, at the exuberance of some new freedom, springing from the barriers of a shielded life, she shouted at these strange, rough men about her: "Thank you, gentlemen!" Then her mother's look of horrified, surprise brought a sudden red into her cheeks. She turned and fled. Her father smiled, indulgently; Anita's frown changed presently into a look of whimsical, perplexed affection. "I am always forgetting, Inez mia," she said, softly, "that this is a new day--the day of the Americano."
She watched Benito shouting bids at the side of Adrian, vying with such men as Howard, Mellus, Clark and Leidesdorff in the quest for lots. "Fifty of them have been sold already," Windham told her. "The auction will last three days because there are four hundred more."
Suddenly, Anita Windham put forth a hand and touched that of her husband. "Buy one, for me, Roberto," she pleaded.
"But--" he hesitated, "Anita carissima, what will you do with a rectangle of mire in this rough, unsettled place?"
"For sentiment," she answered, softly, "in memory of my father, who had such abundant faith in San Francisco.... And, perhaps, Don Samuel is right. We may yet bless his name."
The summer of 1847 had passed. Inez Windham was the wife of Adrian Stanley. He had given up his school for larger matters. Every day his ox-teams struggled over sandy bottoms to the tune of snapping whips and picturesque profanity by Indian drivers. Men with shovels leveling the sand hills, piled the wagons high with shimmering white grains which were carried to the shore and dumped into pile-surrounded bogs till the tides left them high and dry. San Francisco reached farther and farther into the bay, wresting irregular nooks and corners from the ebbing-flowing waters, building rickety, improvised piers, sometimes washed out by the northers which unexpectedly came down with tempestuous fury. Quaint, haphazard buildings made their appearance, strange architectural mushrooms grown almost over night, clapboarded squares with paper or muslin partitions for inner walls. Under some the tides washed at their full and small craft discharged cargoes at their back doors. Ships came from Boston, Bremen, Sitka, Chile, Mexico, the Sandwich Islands, bringing all manner of necessities and luxuries. Monthly mails had been established between San Francisco and San Diego, as well as intermediate points, and there was talk of a pony express to Independence, Missouri.
There were many crimes of high and low degree, from rifled tills to dead men found half buried in the sands. Rumor told of thieves and murderers encamped in the hollow bowl of a great sandhill, where they slept or caroused by day, venturing forth only at night. Aleck McTurpin's name was now and then associated with them as a leader. Men were importing safes from the States and carrying derringers at night--even the peaceful Mormons. At this time Governor Mason addressed to Alcalde Hyde an order for the election of a Town Council.
Adrian was full of these doings when he came home from an executive session before which he had appeared as an expert on reclamation. "They are good men, Inez," he declared, enthusiastically. "They'll bring law to San Francisco. And law is what we need more than all else, my dear."
"And how will they go about it, with no prison-house, no courts or judges?" asked Inez, wonderingly.
"Oh, those will soon be provided," he assured, "When there is a will for law the machinery comes." He smiled grimly. "McTurpin and his ilk had better look to themselves.... We are going after the gamblers."