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But the near prospect of seeing her presently gave him back his caution, and he answered truthfully that he had left her in Excelsior, and that in his two hours' sojourn in Indian Spring he had not met her once. "But," he added, with a Californian's reverence for the sanctity of a bet, "I reckon you'd better make it a stand-off for twenty-four hours, and I'll find out and let you know."
Benjamin Holliday, then the proprietor of the line, an evidence of his insanity that no one who knew that large-hearted, fastidious, and elegantly-cultured Californian, since allied to foreign nobility, will for a moment doubt. Mr. Royal Thatcher was too old and experienced a mountaineer to do aught but accept patiently and cynically his brother Californian's method of increasing his profits.
Even the Californian's horses are not quick enough to-day for the priest. Ushered in, he finds Colonel Joe on the broad grin. Accepting a cigar, his host cries, "We've struck it rich. A mare's nest. Now, Vimont, give my friend your report."
The Californian's questions and sagacity charm the padre. He is now smoking one of those blessed "Imperiales." An innocent pleasure. They rise to join the circle below. A thought animates the priest. Yes, he will confer with the clear-headed man and tell him of the child below, whose pathway is unguarded by a parent's love. Around the frugal board Colonel Joe enters into the family spirit.
Two of the largest he took back to camp with him. They were gold! From the locality he took out a fortune. Nobody wondered. To the Californian's superstition it was perfectly natural. It was "nigger luck" the luck of the stupid, the ignorant, the inexperienced, the nonseeker the irony of the gods!
Throughout its length, the great artery which crosses the city parallel with its quays is astir with life and movement; trams there are innumerable; carriages with horses, carriages with mules; men bent on business, hurrying to and fro over its stone pavements, past shops thronged with customers; men bent on pleasure, crowding the doors of the "bars," where at all hours are dispensed the Californian's drinks.
But the near prospect of seeing her presently gave him back his caution, and he answered truthfully that he had left her in Excelsior, and that in his two hours' sojourn in Indian Spring he had not once met her. "But," he added, with a Californian's reverence for the sanctity of a bet, "I reckon you'd better make it a standoff for twenty-four hours, and I'll find out and let you know."
The quartermaster, in replying, had felicitously remarked, as a matter of his own observation, that the Californian's love for a horse was only excelled by the Texan's love for a cow, to which, amid uproarious laughter, old man Don arose and bowed his acknowledgment. My brother changed horses and returned to Sponsilier's wagon.
The substance of the Californian's reply was that, through mere lack of knowledge of the country to which he belonged, the well-meaning New-Yorker had greatly underrated the future that awaited San Francisco that long before Macaulay's New-Zealander had transferred himself from the broken arches of London Bridge to those of Brooklyn, it would be the pride and boast of the denizens of those parts that New York had held its own so finely as still to be fairly called the San Francisco of the East!
But Adelle suspected something of his purpose, and more when they turned into that brick maze of small streets that had once been Clark's Field. At this the Californian's mobile face expressed frank contempt, not to say disgust.
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