Chapter XI: Seeing the Sights in 'frisco

It was a fine, sunny afternoon when the _Pacific_ turned her prow landward, and stood straight on for a break in the rugged coast line, like a hound with its nose to the ground. In an hour she was moving swiftly through the far-famed Golden Gate. A fort loomed up at the right, then a semaphore was seen working on a hilltop. In ten minutes more the last point was rounded, the last gun fired, and the city, sprung like magic from the bleak hillsides of its noble bay, welcomed the weary travelers with open arms. The long voyage was ended.

The wharf was already black with people when the steamer came in sight. When within hailing distance a perfect storm of greetings, questions, and answers was tossed from ship to shore. Our two friends scanned the unquiet throng in vain for the sight of one familiar face. No sooner did the gangplank touch the wharf than the crowd rushed pell-mell on board. Women were being clasped in loving arms. Men were frantically hugging each other. While this was passing on board, Walter and Bill made their escape to the pier, hale and hearty, but as hungry as bears. Forty days had passed since their long journey began. What next?

Our two adventurers presently found themselves being hurried along with the crowd, without the most remote idea of where they were going. As soon as possible, however, Bill drew Walter to one side, to get their breath and to take their bearings, as he phrased it. "Well," said he, clapping Walter on the back, "here we be at last!"

Walter was staring every passer-by in the face. From the moment he had set foot on shore his one controlling thought and motive had come back to him with full force.

"Come, come, that's no way to set about the job," observed the practical-minded Bill. "One thing to a time. Let's get sumfin' t' eat fust; then we can set about it with full stomachs. How much have you got?"

Walter drew from his pocket a solitary quarter-eagle, which looked astonishingly small as it lay there in the palm of his hand. Bill pulled out a handful of small change, amounting to half as much more. "But coppers don't pass here, nor anything else under a dime, I'm told," observed Walter. "No matter, they'll do for ballast," was Bill's reply, whose attention was immediately diverted to a tempting list of eatables chalked upon the door-post of a restaurant. Beginning at the top of the list, Bill began reading in an undertone, meditatively stroking his chin the while:

"'Oxtail soup, one dollar.' H'm, that don't go down. 'Pigs' feet, one dollar each.' Let 'em run. 'Fresh Californy eggs, one dollar each.' Eggs is eggs out here. 'Corned beef, one dollar per plate.' No salt horse for Bill. 'Roast lamb, one dollar.' Baa! do they think we want a whole one? 'Cabbage, squash, or beans, fifty cents.' Will you look at that! Move on, Walt, afore they tax us for smellin' the cookin'. My grief!" he added with a long face, as they walked on, "I'm so sharp set that if a fun'ral was passin' along, I b'leeve I could eat the co'pse and chase the mo'ners."

Fortunately, however, Bill was not driven to practice cannibalism, for just that moment a Chinaman came shuffling along, balancing a trayful of pies on his head. Bill was not slow in hailing the moon-eyed Celestial in pigtail, to which the old fellow could not resist giving a sly tweak, just for the fun of the thing: "Mawnin', John. Be you a Whig or Know-Nothin'?" at the same time helping himself to a juicy turn-over, and signing to Walter to do the same.

"Me cakes. Melican man allee my fliend. Talkee true. You shabee, two bitee?" This last remark referred to the pie which Bill had just confiscated.

Sauntering on, jostling and being jostled by people of almost every nation on the face of the earth, they soon reached the plaza, or great square of the city. Not many steps were taken here, when the strains of delicious music floated out to them from the wide-open doors of a building at their right hand. Attracted by the sweet sounds of "Home, Sweet Home," our two wayfarers peered in, and to Walter's amazement at least, brought up as he had been at home, for the first time in his life he found himself gazing into the interior of a gambling-house, in full swing and in broad daylight, like any legitimate business, courting the custom of every passer-by.

"Walk in, gentlemen," said a suave-looking individual who was standing at the door. "Call for what you like. Everything's free here. Free lunch, free drinks, free cigars; walk in and try your luck."

"'Walk into my parlor, sez the spider to the fly,'" was Bill's ironical comment upon this polite invitation. "Walt," he continued, a moment later, "I'm 'feared we throw'd our money away on that Chinee. Here's grub for nothin'." If they had only known it, the person they were looking for was inside that gambling den at that very moment. After rambling about until they were tired, the two companions looked up a place in which to get a night's lodging--a luxury which cost them seventy-five cents apiece for the temporary use of a straw mattress, a consumptive pillow, and a greasy blanket. After making the most frugal breakfast possible, it was found that their joint cash would provide, at the farthest, for only one meal more. The case began to look desperate.

They were sitting on the sill of the wharf, silently ruminating on the situation, when the booming of a cannon announced the arrival of a steamer which had been signaled an hour earlier from Telegraph Hill. A swarm of people was already setting toward the plaza. The movement of a crowd is always magnetic, so Walter and Bill followed on in the same direction.

When within two blocks of the plaza they saw a long zigzag line of men and boys strung out for that distance ahead of them, some standing, some leaning against a friendly awning, some squatted on the edge of the plank sidewalk, while newcomers were every moment lengthening out the already long queue.

"What a long tail our cat's got!" was Bill's pithy remark. "Be they takin' the census, or what?"

It was learned that all these people were impatiently waiting for the opening of the post-office, but how soon that event was likely to happen nobody could tell. So the men smoked, whistled, chaffed every late arrival, and waited.

On the instant Walter was struck with a bright idea. Charley had never written him one word, it is true; but as it was ten to one everybody in the city would be at the post-office during the day, this seemed as likely a place as any to meet with him. Shoving Bill into a vacant place in the line, Walter started toward the head of it, staring hard at every one, and being stared at in return, as he walked slowly along. When nearing the head, without seeing a familiar face, a man well placed in the line sang out, "I say, _hombre_, want a job?"

"What job?"

"Hold my place for me till I kin go git a bite to eat."

"I would in a minute, only I can't stop. I'm looking for some one," said Walter, starting on.

"You can't make five dollars no easier."

This startling proposition to a young fellow who did not know where his next meal was coming from, hit Walter in his weak spot.

"Talk fast. Is it a whack?" the hungry man demanded. "I've been here two hours a'ready; be back before you can say Jack Robinson."

This singular bargain being struck, Walter stepped into line, when his file-leader turned to him with the remark, "Fool you hadn't stuck out for ten. That man runs a bank."

"Does he?" Walter innocently inquired. "What kind of a bank?"

"Faro-bank."

A loud guffaw from the bystanders followed this reply.

As soon as the hungry man came back to claim his place, and had paid over his five dollars, Walter hurried off to where he had left Bill, who stopped him in his story with the whispered words, "I seed him."

"Him? Who? Not Charley?"

"No; t'other duffer."

Walter gave a low whistle. "Where? Here? Don't you see I'm all on fire?"

"Right here. Breshed by me as large as life, and twice as sassy. Oh, I know'd him in spite of his baird. Sez I to myself, 'Walk along, sonny, and smoke your shugarette. Our turn's comin' right along.'"

"Too bad, too bad you didn't follow him." Walter was starting off again, with a sort of blind purpose to find Ramon, collar him, and make him disgorge his ill-gotten gains on the spot, when Bill held him back. "Tut, tut, Walt," he expostulated, "if the lubber sees you before we're good and ready to nab him, won't he be off in a jiffy? Now we know he's here, ain't that something? So much for so much. Lay low and keep shady, is our best holt."

To such sound reasoning Walter was fain to give in. Besides, Bill now insisted upon staying in the line until he could sell out too. With a jerk of the thumb, he pointed to where one or two patient waiters were very comfortably seated on camp-stools, and in a husky undertone proposed finding out where camp-stools could be had. Taking the hint, Walter started off, instanter, in search of a dealer in camp-stools, with whom he quickly struck a bargain for as many as he could carry, by depositing his half-eagle as security. The stools went off like hot cakes, and at a good profit. Bill, too, having got his price, by patient waiting, the two lucky speculators walked away to the first full meal they had eaten since landing, the richer by twenty dollars from the morning's adventure. Bill called it finding money; "just like pickin' it up in the street."