Within ten hours men were at work rebuilding. Within ten days the burned area was all rebuilt. It took us just about the former period of time to determine that we would be unable to save anything from the wreck; and about the latter period for the general public to find it out.

Talbot made desperate efforts for a foothold, and in succession interviewed all the big men. They were sorry but they were firm. Each had been hard hit by the fire; each had himself to cover; each was forced by circumstances to grasp every advantage. Again, they were sorry.

“Yes, they are!” cried Talbot; “they just reach out and grab what ought to be my profits! Well, it’s the game. I’d do the same myself.”

By that night we knew that Talbot had lost every piece of property he owned–or thought he owned. The destruction of the Ward Block swept away every cent of income, with the exception of the dividends from the Wharf Company stock. These latter could not begin to meet the obligations of interest and agreed payments on the other property.

The state of affairs became commonly known in about ten days simply because, in those rapid times, obligations 434 were never made nor money lent for longer periods than one month. At the end of each thirty days they had to be renewed. Naturally Talbot could not renew them.

We knew all that long in advance, and we faced the situation with some humour.

“Well, boys,” said Talbot, “here we are. About a year ago, as I remember it, our assets were a bundle of newspapers and less than a hundred dollars. Haven’t even got a newspaper now, but I reckon among us we could just about scrape up the hundred dollars.”

“I’ve got nearer twenty-seven hundred in my belt,” I pointed out.

An embarrassed silence fell for a moment; then Talbot spoke up, picking his words very carefully.

“We’ve talked that over, Frank,” said he, “and we’ve come to the conclusion that you must keep that and go home, just as you planned to do. You’re the only man of us who has managed to keep what he has made. Johnny falls overboard and leaves his in the bottom of the Sacramento; Yank gets himself busted in a road-agent row; I–I–well, I blow soap bubbles! You’ve kept at it, steady and strong and reliable, and you deserve your good luck. You shouldn’t lose the fruits of your labour because we, each in our manner, have been assorted fools.”

I listened to this speech with growing indignation; and at its conclusion I rose up full of what I considered righteous anger. My temper is very slow to rouse, but when once it wakes, it takes possession of me.

“Look here, you fellows!” I cried, very red in the 435 face, they tell me. “You answer me a few questions. Are we or are we not partners? Are we or are we not friends? Do you or do you not consider me a low-lived, white-livered, mangy, good-for-nothing yellow pup? Why, confound your pusillanimous souls, what do you mean by talking to me in that fashion? For just about two cents I’d bust your fool necks for you–every one of you!” I glared vindictively at them. “Do you suppose I’d make any such proposition to any of you–to ask you to sneak off like a whipped cur leaving me to take the-”

“Hold on, Frank,” interposed Talbot soothingly. “I didn’t mean-”

“Didn’t you?” I cried. “Well, what in hell did you mean? Weren’t you trying to make me out a quitter?” I had succeeded in working loose my heavy gold belt, and I dashed it on the table in front of them. “There! Now you send for some gold scales, right now, and you divide that up! Right here! Damn it all, boys,” I ended, with what to a cynical bystander would have seemed rather a funny slump into the pathetic, “I thought we were all real friends! You’ve hurt my feelings!”

It was very young, and very ridiculous–and perhaps (I can say it from the vantage of fifty years) just a little touching. At any rate, when I had finished, my comrades were looking in all directions, and Talbot cleared his throat a number of times before he replied.

“Why, Frank,” he said gently, at last, “of course we’ll take it–we never dreamed–of course–it was stupid of us, I’ll admit. Naturally, I see just how you feel-”

436“It comes to about seven hundred apiece, don’t it?” drawled Yank.

The commonplace remark saved the situation from bathos, as I am now certain shrewd old Yank knew it would.

“What are you going to do with your shares, boys?” asked Talbot after a while. “Going back home, or mining? Speak up, Yank.”

Yank spat accurately out the open window.

“I’ve been figgering,” he replied. “And when you come right down to it, what’s the use of going back? Ain’t it just an idee we got that it’s the proper thing to do? What’s the matter with this country, anyway–barring mining?”

“Barring mining?” echoed Talbot.

“To hell with mining!” said Yank; “it’s all right for a vacation, but it ain’t noways a white man’s stiddy work. Well, we had our vacation.”

“Then you’re not going back to the mines?”

“Not any!” stated Yank emphatically.

“Nor home?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“I’m going to take up a farm up thar whar the Pine boys is settled, and I’m going to enjoy life reasonable. Thar’s good soil, and thar’s water; thar’s pleasant prospects, and lots of game and fish. What more does a man want? And what makes me sick is that it’s been thar all the time and it’s only just this minute I’ve come to see it.”

“Mines for you, Johnny, or home?” asked Talbot.

“Me, home?” cried Johnny; “why-” he checked himself, and added more quietly. “No, I’m not going 437 home. There’s nothing there for me but a good time, when you come right down to it. And mines? It strikes me that fresh gold is easy to get, but almighty hard to keep.”

“You never said a truer word than that, Johnny,” I put in.

“Besides which, I quit mining some time ago, as you remember,” went on Johnny, “due to an artistic aversion to hard work,” he added.

“Any plans?” asked Talbot.

“I think I’ll just drift up to Sonoma and talk things over with Danny Randall,” replied Johnny vaguely. “He had some sort of an idea of extending this express service next year.”

“And you?” Talbot turned to me.

“I,” said I, firmly, “am going to turn over my share in a business partnership with you; and in the meantime I expect to get a job driving team with John McGlynn for enough to pay the board bill while you rustle. And that goes!” I added warningly.

“Thank you, Frank,” replied Talbot, and I thought I saw his bright eye dim. He held silent for a moment. “Do you know,” he said suddenly, “I believe we’re on the right track. It isn’t the gold. That is a bait, a glittering bait, that attracts the world to these shores. It’s the country. The gold brings them, and out of the hordes that come, some, like us, will stick. And after the gold is dug and scattered and all but forgotten, we will find that we have fallen heirs to an empire.”

THE END

The author desires fully to acknowledge his indebtedness to the following writers, from whose books he has drawn freely, both for historical fact, incidents, and the spirit of the times:

The author desires further to announce that, provided nothing interferes, he hopes to supplement this novel with two others. They also will deal with early days, and will be entitled The Gray Dawn, and The Rose Dawn.