Gordon Young

“ The Plaza remained through the turbulence of San Francisco's growth and many disasters, and, under the name of Portsmouth Square, is still the Plaza.
Here in '49 mingled the miners and merchants. Horses, mules, oxen, wagons, heaps of goods, were crowded on the Plaza. Venders hawked their wares, candy, peanuts, medicine. Native Californians in bright trappings with little bells jingling, rode by. Richly dressed women, proud of themselves though all knew them for what they were, swept along among men who respectfully made way. ”

“ The largest mirror in California, it remained the largest for many months, too, was set into the wall behind the bar.
The proprietor of the Magnolia, Monsieur Max—no one knew that he had more of a name than that—was a short tubby fellow, with a heavy black mustache, tightly crinkled at the ends. He wore a wide red sash; diamonds glittered on his shirt front, flashed from his fingers.
The negroes on their platform blared and tooted. The crowd gaped and craned across the bar; miners stared fascinated at unfamiliar bearded faces they knew for their own. ”

“ Elvira rode near, flanked with young dandies that swore valiantly, but made no bold movements. Hales sat with his hand on his hip, turned backward toward the handle of his revolver. His sombrero was pushed up. The Hounds were not distinguished for personal bravery. They hunted in packs. They had a pack now, but there was that in Hales' bearing which did not encourage quarrelsomeness.
"What do you mean, sir," cried Elvira wrathfully, her black eyes ablaze as she looked intently at him, "mistreating one of my friends! I won't have it!"
"Choose your friends with more care, then," said Hales. ”

“ After looking the cockney up and down with a half-suspicious scrutiny, Lee grinned broadly, amused.
"Just in, eh? Well, youngster, the gentleman that is being escorted off with a hole near his heart lost two hundred ounces of gold in about an hour, then had the bad judgment to argue with Stewart Dawes, the same being the man that deals this game. If this fool dies, he will be the second that Mr. Dawes has sent to the happy hunting ground within a month."
"Yer mean—yer mean men is killed like that!" Martin cried, leaving his mouth adroop as if to catch the answer. ”

“ Hales lifted his hand and said sharply:
"That is not it. You have known of no one else? Never heard the name here—here in San Francisco?"
"I think I have," she said, lying readily. "Yes—" she watched carefully as she spoke, searching his features for something to guide her—"I know I have. There was a man"—she paused—"a man who called himself Hales, Dick Hales. Claimed to be the officer who——"
Her cleverness missed the mark. Interest in what she was saying went out of his face.
"Any man that wants it is welcome to the name," he said indifferently. ”

“ He moved closer and looked a little wistfully at his sleeping partner. But he also thought of Stewart Dawes, the tall, pale, cold gambler, who had shot a man as indifferently as he brushed the glint of gold dust from his dark sleeve. ”

“ Real gold. The stuff that would buy anything! Yet he had seen so much gold piled about and carelessly handled on the gambling tables—stacks of it, pouches of it—that for a moment he wondered how it could be so valuable.
He had hardly a vague idea as to what gold dust was worth.
If a fellow was lucky at gambling—? Martin had never seen monte played before this night, but he had quite readily caught onto the simple game.
Martin weighed the bag thoughtfully in his small hand. It was light, very light.
"Heavy as lead," he remembered saying as he held the well-filled pouch of the amiable Mr. Lee. ”

“ Can't play. Can't drink. Can't do nothing but sleep when you're broke. Where you stoppin'?"
"I ain't found a plyce yet," said Martin.
"Come on with me, pard," said the miner and laid a forcible hand on Martin, nearly dragging him out of the Magnolia and across the Plaza, which, on nearly the whole of two sides and a part of the third was brilliantly fringed by the blazing, and never closed, doorways of the gambling houses.
The lodging houses being full when Burton, heavy with dust, came into the city, he had chanced upon a tent and carelessly paid four ounces for a week's rent. ”

“ His name was Hales.
As he rode to the Plaza he let his glance fall here and there, noticing the bustle, the queer mixture of men. It was all strange, but he seemed hardly curious.
A strolling vender of candy passed near. Hales leaned from the saddle.
"Do you know Hubert Lee?"
"He's out of town. Up to the mines."
The vender raised a bag of candy, but Hales shook his head and rode on.
He sat erect in the saddle and picked his way with care, guiding his horse this way and that by a touch of the reins to avoid people on foot. There were many men on horseback coming and going through the streets ”

“ The gambler moved his chair an inch or two, opened the drawer of his table and brought out several stacks of gold coin which he arranged methodically in the center of the table. With unhurried movement he drew a derringer and placed it on the table at his elbow, then shuffled the thin Spanish cards dexterously. He noticed particularly that Hales kept his eyes fastened on the cards. ”

“ He's got saddle sore from the way he twitches. He's no good as a hoss till he's fed three months, and feed is high. But I'll give two hundred, an' not a blamed cent more."
Silence followed. Then the bearded miner stooped, searched about for a clean straw, examined it studiously, stuck it into his mouth and said with unconcern:
"Two-fifty, pard."
"You've bought a hoss, a worthless hoss, I reckon," Hank answered in disgust, throwing aside his stick and returning the knife to his pocket.
"It's all yourn," said some one.
"Two-fifty?" asked the miner, staring at Hales. "Dust?" ”

“ He liked this strange massive gentleman, who had an old-fashioned manner of speech and bearing; but could hardly see why a person of age and evident experience would care for any legal assistance from a young man not admitted to the bar. But the judge was convincing. Taylor listened and forgot his doubts.
"Sir, the gentleman with whom you saw me conversing on the Plaza is a merchandise broker. Instead of refunding to certain English merchants the money collected for their goods, which he disposed of profitably, he has invested it in city property. His wealth grows apace. ”

“ At that moment a man hurried up to Mr. Lee, saying:
"I've been looking all over for you, Lee. Mr. Tesla, whom we' ve been expecting, you know, came in today ready to do business. It's lucky you got in tonight. Other people—you can guess who—are trying to crowd you out of the deal. They are over to the Bella Union. Monsieur Max is over there too, waiting."
Lee and his friend walked off hurriedly.
8 A tipsy miner of huge size arose from a bench at a monte table as the gambler's lookout tossed the markers from a heavy bag of dust, and placed the bag among the bank's heap of gold. ”

“ Lonely men that did not drink and would not gamble entered such gambling halls as the Magnolia, the Bella Union, the El Dorado, the Verandah, and a dozen other houses, where there were bright furnishings, a blaze of lights, carpets, music, people. ”

“ The cockney, Martin O'Day, by headlong squirming pressed through the crowd and emerged before a monte table where a tall gambler, pale, expressionless except for a gleam of eye and thinner line at his thin mouth, stood with hand to derringer on the table before him and watched a drunken miner being helped off.
The little cockney demanded rapidly of the men about him, turning from one to another:
"Wot's the muss? ”

“ Lee, taking back the pouch.
"Ow' do yer get there? I come to get there, I did. An' I'm in a bloomin' 'urry', I am!"
Mr. Lee, in an amiable mood, explained that a gold hunter first went to Stockton or Sacramento, from where he took his departure for the mines. The fare to either place was about three ounces of gold. Gold was, roughly, sixteen dollars the ounce in San Francisco; less at the mines. The miner must have an outfit of shovel, pick, pan—pans at one time had been sixteen dollars, but were now down to two or three dollars. ”

“ Other men, of all classes, stood three and four deep, reaching across to lay their bets. A curious invisibility seemed to hide the clothes a man wore, and beards concealed many of the faces. Where all men were strangers names were unimportant. ”

“ Excepting saloons and gambling houses there were no other places of amusement, unless one went among the Chilean encampment where the lowest of women, owned by men lower than themselves, aided in the robbery, often the murder, of those who came to them ”

“ He points out that he has merely taken advantage of an opportunity. He acknowledges his debt, but he is so heavily involved that to gather in the necessary cash for a settlement would greatly injure, if not ruin his investments. The English merchants are taking what feeble means they can, being so remote from this unsettled community, to recover their property. ”

“ He touched his sombrero with a careless half military- salute, reined his horse about and rode on to the Plaza.
"Hmm-hmm!" said Doña Elvira, gazing after him with widened eyes. "It isn't a man he's looking for! Hales? Dick Hales—ah——"
3 In the center of the Plaza was a flagpole where Captain Montgomery had raised the American flag three years before and given to the Plaza the name of his ship, Portsmouth ”