GOLD SEEKERS OF '49

HOW IN THE YEAR 1849 CHARLEY ADAMS AND HIS FATHER
SET OUT FOR FAR CALIFORNIA, THERE TO FIND A GOLD MINE;
HOW THEY CROSSED THE TROPICAL ISTHMUS OF PANAMA, BY
CANOE AND BY MULE TO THE PACIFIC SIDE; HOW THEY LANDED
AT LAST IN WONDERFUL SAN FRANCISCO, AND WHAT BEFELL
THEM THERE AND IN THE HIGH SIERRAS; RELATING HOW
THEY ENCOUNTERED FORTUNE AND MISFORTUNE IN THAT
NEW LAND PEOPLED FROM EVERY QUARTER OF THE GLOBE

BY

EDWIN L. SABIN

AUTHOR OF "WITH CARSON AND FRÉMONT," "ON THE PLAINS WITH
CUSTER," "BUFFALO BILL AND THE OVERLAND TRAIL," ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
CHARLES H. STEPHENS
AND MAPS

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1915,
BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

TO
THE AMERICAN BOY
AND
THIS WONDERFUL LAND WHICH IS HIS
IN WHICH TO GROW AND PROSPER

Part of God's providence it was to found
A Nation's bulwark on this chosen ground;
Not Jesuit's zeal nor pioneer's unrest
Planted these pickets in the distant West,
But He who first the Nation's fate forecast
Placed here His fountains sealed for ages past,
Rock-ribbed and guarded till the coming time
Should fit the people for their work sublime;
When a new Moses with his rod of steel
Smote the tall cliffs with one wide-ringing peal,
And the old miracle in record told
To the new Nation was revealed in gold.
—BRET HARTE

FOREWORD

It has taken Americans to build the Panama Canal, and it took the Americans to build California. These are two great feats of which we Americans of the United States may well be proud: the building of that canal, in the strange tropics 2000 miles away across the water, and the up-rearing of a mighty State, under equally strange conditions, 2000 miles away across plains and mountains.

On the Isthmus men of many nationalities combined like a vast family; each man, from laborer to engineer, doing his stint, without favoritism and without graft, toward the big result. So in California likewise a people collected from practically all the world became Americans together under the Flag, and working shoulder to shoulder—rich and poor, old and young, educated and uneducated, no matter what their manner of life previously—they joined forces to make California worthy of being a State in the Union.

So hurrah for the Panama Canal, built by American methods which encourage every man to do his share; and hurrah for California, raised to Statehood upon the foundation of American equality!

The discovery of gold in California was hailed as an occasion for getting rich quick; but its purpose proved to be the development of character. It seems a long, long way back to Forty-nine, when across the Isthmus and across the plains thousands of men—yes, and not a few women and children—pluckily forged ahead, bound for the Land of Gold. Some made their fortunes, but the best that any of them achieved lay in the towns that they founded, the laws that they enacted, the homes that they established, and the realization that these things were of more importance than the mere frenzy for quick wealth.

In not many years the completion of the Canal will also seem a long, long way back. We Americans will have turned to some other marvelous accomplishment, but the Canal will continue to exist as a monument to American energy and democracy.

So we who share in that California which our elders made, by railroad and canal hurried so comfortably over the trails that they toilsomely opened in years agone, have a great deal to think about and a great deal of which to be proud.

EDWIN L. SABIN

CALIFORNIA,
June 1, 1915.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE STORY OF CALIFORNIA

1542—On September 28, 1542, Captain Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain, on a voyage of exploration along the coast northward from Mexico casts anchor of his two small ships, the San Salvador and the Victoria, in San Diego Bay. He christens it the Puerta de San Miguel (Port of Saint Michael). Thence his ships explore north clear to the line of present Oregon. Mid-voyage he dies from an accident, and is buried on San Miguel Island, opposite present Santa Barbara. The exploration is continued by his lieutenant, Bartolome Ferrelo.

1579—In June, 1579, Sir Francis Drake, English adventurer, lands near the Bay of San Francisco, to overhaul his ship, the Golden Hind. He takes possession of the shore for Queen Elizabeth, christens it New Albion, and erects a monument. His bay is called Francis Drake's Bay.

1587—The Bay of Monterey visited, according to description, in 1587, by the Spanish navigator Pedro de Unamunu, in his ship Nuestra Señora de la Esperança (Our Lady of Hope). He lands and erects a cross, and christens the place Puerta de San Lucas (Port of Saint Luke), taking possession for the King of Spain.

1595—In 1595 the Spanish navigator Sebastian Rodriguez Cermeno is wrecked in Francis Drake's Bay, to which he gives the name Bay of San Francisco. This was a small bay behind Point Reyes, north of the entrance to the Golden Gate.

1602—Cabrillo's Port of San Miguel entered in 1602 by the Spanish navigator Sebastian Vizcaino, with four vessels: the San Diego (Saint James), the Santo Tomas (Saint Thomas), the Tres Reyes (Three Kings), and a launch. He christens the bay San Diego. Voyaging further, he rediscovers the Port of San Lucas, and christens it Monterey, in honor of the Count of Monterey, the ruler for Spain in Mexico.

1769—Sent out by Comandante José de Galvez, inspector general for Spain in Mexico, in 1769 the first expedition by land ascends from Lower California of Mexico into Alta (Upper) California. It is in two parties, one commanded by Captain Rivera y Moncada and accompanied by the Franciscan priest Padre Juan Crespi, the other commanded by Gaspar de Portola, governor of the Californias for Spain, and accompanied by the Franciscan priest Padre Junipero Serra. The object was to establish three Franciscan missions—one at San Diego, one at Monterey, one at San Francisco; and at Monterey a town and a fort. By sea set forth, with another expedition, and with supplies, the ships San Carlos (Saint Charles), San Antonio (Saint Anthony), and San José (Saint Joseph). The San José was disabled at the start. The meeting place was to be San Diego. Here, July 16, 1769, the mission of San Diego de Arcala is founded.

1769—November 2, 1769, the present Bay of San Francisco is discovered, from a hill, by some soldiers in the party of Gaspar de Portola, who had led an expedition northward from San Diego, to search for Monterey.

1770—June 3, 1770, the mission of San Carlos Borromeo de Monterey is founded. Three other missions follow, to September, 1772.

1776—September 17, 1776, the presidio or military station of San Francisco is founded.

1776—October 9, 1776, the mission of San Francisco de Asis is dedicated, on the shore of the real San Francisco Bay. By August 23, 1823, twenty-one missions have been placed.

1781—September 4, 1781, the town of Los Angeles is established.

1794—In 1794, as old records say, the first American arrived, landing from a ship and settling in Santa Barbara. He is called by the Californians, "Boston Boy."

1804—Upper California is made a separate Spanish province, by royal decree of August 29, 1804.

1821—By revolt of Mexico against Spain, in 1821 California becomes a Mexican province.

1826—In 1826 arrive the first Americans by land, being a party of trappers led from Salt Lake by Jedediah S. Smith.

1832—Captain Benjamin Morrell, Jr., of the American vessel Tartar, after having stopped at California publishes, in 1832, a book upon his travels, in which he urges the acquisition of California by the United States.

1835—President Andrew Jackson authorizes Colonel Anthony Butler, American official in Mexico, to purchase, if possible, for the United States, "the whole bay of San Francisco." The plan fails.

1839—July 3, 1839, arrives at Monterey Captain John August Sutter, a Swiss-American. In August he takes up a tract of land on the south bank of the American River, east from present Sacramento, and there establishes a trading post which he names New Helvetia, but which became better known as Sutter's Fort. The post grows to be a rallying place for American trappers and settlers.

1841—In November, 1841, arrive the first company of American immigrants, led by J. Bartleson and John Bidwell, from the Missouri River, along the Oregon Trail to the Salt Lake cut-off, thence down the Humboldt River and across the Sierra Nevada mountains and down the Stanislaus River. Numbering thirty-nine, they reach the ranch of Dr. John Marsh, early American settler, back of the present city of Oakland, opposite San Francisco.

1841—In October and November, 1841, the Bay of San Francisco, and the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers are surveyed by the Government exploring expedition under command of Captain Charles W. Wilkes, United States Navy.

1842—The Honorable Waddy Thompson, United States minister to Mexico, informs President John Tyler, April 29, 1842, that Mexico is willing to sell Texas and Upper California. He emphasizes the importance of California.

1842—October 20, 1842, Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones of the United States Navy raises the American flag over Monterey, thinking that war with Mexico had been declared. The next day he apologizes; but the sale of California is interrupted.

1842-43-44—The American immigration overland gradually increases in 1842, 1843, 1844, and alarms the Mexican authorities, who fear the spread of American influence. The majority of the settlers locate in Northern California.

1844—In February, 1844, Captain John C. Frémont and party, on exploring expedition for the War Department at Washington, cross the Sierra Nevada, to Sutter's Fort, and traverse California from north to south.

1845—Negotiations for the purchase of California are resumed in 1845 by President James K. Polk. The American consul at Monterey, Thomas O. Larkin, is appointed "confidential agent" for the United States, and is instructed to keep watch against any scheming by France or Great Britain, and to influence the California people to unite themselves with the Republic.

1845—In the winter of 1845-1846 Frémont again leads a party to Sutter's Fort, and on toward the coast. He is ordered out; proceeds up for Oregon, and is recalled, May 8, 1846, into California by a naval officer with dispatches for him.

1846—June, 1846, American settlers and adventurers, in the neighborhood of Sutter's Fort, revolt against the Mexican government of California; June 14 they capture Sonoma, north of San Francisco, where they raise the Bear Flag and proclaim California to be an independent republic. Frémont aids the revolution.

1846—Following news of war between the United States and Mexico, on July 7, 1846, Commodore John D. Sloat raises the American flag over Monterey; on July 9 it is raised over San Francisco and Sonoma; on July 11, over Sutter's Fort; on August 13, Los Angeles is invested, and the flag raised there.

1847—After several engagements between the American forces and the Californians, on January 13, 1847, by the treaty of Cahuenga the Californians agree to lay down their arms.

1848—By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between the United States and Mexico, at the close of the Mexican War, and ratified at Washington, March 16, 1848, California is ceded to the United States.

1848—James Marshall, in the employ of Captain Sutter, while washing out a mill-race at Coloma, on the American River, about thirty miles west of Sutter's Fort, on January 24, 1848, discovers flakes of gold. The news spreads; it reaches Monterey, the capital, May 29, and creates intense excitement. In December the news officially reaches Washington, by communication from General Richard B. Mason and former consul James O. Larkin, and is included in President Polk's message to Congress. During 1848 $10,000,000 in gold is gathered by miners in California.

1849—In the spring of 1849 20,000 people are collected at the Missouri River, prepared to start overland 2000 miles to the California gold fields. More than 30,000 people make the land pilgrimage this year. Others sail around Cape Horn. Many others choose to cross the Isthmus of Panama, and reach the Pacific that way. The first shipload of gold seekers arrive in San Francisco February 28, 1849. San Francisco, formerly the hamlet of Yerba Buena (Good Herb), leaps from a population of 500 to one of 15,000, and the harbor has 500 vessels at anchor, flying all flags. In 1849 $40,000,000 of gold is taken from the soil by the miners.

1849—September 1, 1849, a convention to frame a State Constitution assembles at Monterey, the capital. On October 10 the constitution is adopted.

1850—September 9, 1850, California is admitted as a State, into the Union, without having been a Territory. Since then she has forged to the front as one of the richest members of the Republic. Her soil has been found to yield greater treasures than gold, and her people pride themselves upon being among the most progressive of all between the two oceans.

THE PANAMA CANAL

1513—September 25, the young Spanish navigator Vasco Nunez de Balboa and party, from the Atlantic, exploring afoot the Isthmus of Panama (first called the Isthmus of Darien), on the mountain divide sight the Pacific Ocean. This they reach and claim for the King of Spain. They were the first white men to cross the Isthmus, and they discovered the Pacific Ocean.

1516—Balboa again crosses the Isthmus, transporting the material for four ships from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Two thousand native Indians die by the hard labor of jungle travel.

1520-1529—Various other explorations are made by Spain, in hopes of finding a water-way clear through the Isthmus.

1521—Charles the Fifth of Spain orders a Royal Road constructed across the Isthmus between Nombre de Dios on the Atlantic side and Panama on the Pacific side. It crossed the Chagres River at Las Cruces.

1530—Vessels begin to navigate the Chagres up to Gorgona and Cruces, and there connect with the Royal Road from Panama.

1534—The Spanish authorities of this New Spain undertake a survey of the Isthmus, in order to construct a water-way from ocean to ocean. The project fails.

1535-1814—Nothing more has been accomplished toward bettering communication across the Isthmus, although a water route by way of Lake Nicaragua has been much discussed.

1814—Spain authorizes the construction of a canal through the Isthmus, but by a revolution loses her Central America provinces.

1825—The Republic of Central America requests the assistance of the United States in the construction of a canal through Nicaragua.

1826—Aaron H. Palmer, of New York, contracts with the Republic of Central America for the construction of a canal across Nicaragua. This project also fails, and so does an English plan.

1827—President Bolivar of the Republic of Colombia (formed by the States of New Granada, Ecuador and Venezuela, and thus embracing the Isthmus) commissions J. A. Lloyd to survey the Isthmus with a view to a rail-and-water route across. Lloyd recommends a canal from Limon Bay to the Chagres River (as now), the river route as far on as possible, and a railroad thence to the Pacific coast.

1835-1841—The United States further debates the subject of a ship canal across the Isthmus or up through Nicaragua. Commissioners report in favor of the Nicaragua route.

1838—A French company obtains from New Granada a concession to open a route by land or water across the Isthmus. Although many surveys are made, and a canal from Limon Bay to the vicinity of Panama is mapped out, no actual construction work is done.

1847—The Republic of New Granada grants the right to a French syndicate to build a railroad across the Isthmus. The right expired in 1848.

1848—Spurred on by the acquisition of California, the United States secures from New Granada the right of passage across the Isthmus.

1849—The United States secures from Nicaragua the right to construct communication of any sort between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

1840—The American, Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal Company, headed by Cornelius Vanderbilt, is formed, to build across Nicaragua. The company makes fresh surveys of value, but does no construction work, and in 1856 its concession is recalled by Nicaragua.

1849—The Panama Railroad Company is formed by John Lloyd Stevens, William Henry Aspinwall and Henry Chauncy of New York, to build across the Isthmus. Work is started.

1855—After tremendous labor in the jungles and swamps, and the loss of thousands of lives, the railroad is finished. On January 27, 1855, the first locomotive crosses from ocean to ocean. Reconstructed to conform to the canal, the railroad is in operation to-day.

1866—The United States Senate requests the Secretary of the Navy to supply it with all available information upon the feasibility of a canal across the Isthmus.

1867—Nineteen canal and seven railroad projects for the Isthmus region are submitted in the report to the Senate. The report recommends that a route be found through Panama.

1869—President Grant recommends to Congress the building of an American canal across the Isthmus. Resolutions are adopted.

1872—An Interoceanic Canal Commission authorized by Congress begins various surveys throughout the Isthmus country. Its final report (1876) unanimously recommends the route through Nicaragua, instead of through Panama.

1875—France forms a company to secure from the Republic of Colombia, which again controls the Isthmus, the rights to build a canal across, and to operate it for ninety-nine years. Lieutenant Lucien B. Wyse of the French Navy makes a survey and a report.

1879—An International Congress of 135 delegates, eleven being from the United States, is held at Paris, to discuss the route for a canal. Ferdinand de Lesseps, French engineer who had built the Suez Canal, presides. The route selected is that through Panama, between Colon and Panama. The Universal Company of the Panama Interoceanic Canal is incorporated. De Lesseps is made chief engineer. He calculates that the canal can be built in eight years, at a cost of $127,000,000. Shares in the company are widely sold.

1881—Work on the French canal is started.

1892—The French company has already spent eight years and $260,000,000, and has accomplished little actual headway. An enormous amount of money has been wasted. The company is declared insolvent and a receiver is appointed by the French court.

1894—The company is reorganized as the New Panama Canal Company. In five years it expends $8,000,000, in work on about two-fifths of the canal.

1899—By authority of Congress President McKinley appoints an Isthmian Canal Commission to investigate the property of the French company and see by what methods it can be purchased. The commission in its report recommends a route up through Nicaragua. Estimates are made that $102,000,000 and ten years' work will be required.

1901—The question of a Panama canal or a Nicaragua canal is debated in Congress. Expert opinion from engineers and shipping interests favors the Panama route.

1902—By authorizing the purchase of the French company's property and franchises for $40,000,000 the United States declares its purpose to build a Panama canal itself. The Secretary of War is instructed to make plans upon an expense basis not to exceed $130,000,000.

1903-1904—The United States formally takes over the French rights and concludes a canal treaty with Panama, the canal to be completed in fourteen years.

1904—The Canal Commission appointed by the President and under supervision of the Secretary of War, William H. Taft, arrives on the Isthmus to pursue the building of the canal. John F. Wallace is engineer-in-chief. The commission decides on a lock canal, instead of a sea-level canal as originally planned.

1905—John F. Stevens succeeds Mr. Wallace as chief engineer.

1906—The foreign members of an International Board of Consulting Engineers which visits the canal at the invitation of the United States report in favor of a sea-level canal; American members, in the minority, report in favor of the lock canal.

1906—In his message to Congress President Roosevelt supports the minority report favoring the lock canal. Congress adopts the minority report.

1907—Engineer Stevens resigns. The canal work is placed under the direction of the War Department. Lieutenant-Colonel George W. Goethals, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., is made engineer-in-chief. He estimates the cost of a lock canal at $375,000,000; of a sea-level canal, $563,000,000.

1913—October 10 (the anniversary of the day upon which Balboa took possession of the Pacific Ocean) the Gamboa dike, marking the division between the canal waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific, is blown open when President Wilson presses an electric button at the White House. This year a mud scow passes through the canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

1914—January 7, the steam crane boat Alexander la Valley, 1200 tons, makes the passage—the first vessel by steam. February 1 the ocean tug Reliance, Captain R. C. Thompson, having steamed around the Horn returns to the Atlantic through the canal—the first commercial vessel to pass.

1914—The annual report of Colonel Goethals states that the cost of constructing the canal to date, has been $353,559,049, including fortifications.

1915—The great canal is formally opened. Including the $40,000,000 paid to France, and the $10,000,000 paid to the Republic of Panama, the outlay represented by the canal as built by the United States totals about $400,000,000, of which not a cent was misused.

GOLD SEEKERS OF '49

I

THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER

Charley Adams was trudging up to his knees in snow, on his way home from down town. It was Washington's Birthday, 1849, and winter had sent St. Louis a late valentine in shape of a big snowstorm. As this occurred seventy-five years ago, there were no street-cars in St. Louis (or in any other American city, for that matter); and even had there been street-cars they doubtless would have been tied up. At all events, Charley had walked down, and now he was trudging back with the mail.

His father was very anxious to see that mail. It contained the Eastern papers, and these probably would add to the tidings printed in the St. Louis papers, from the marvelous gold fields of California.

Since January, when President Polk's annual message to Congress had been read in St. Louis, in the papers, St. Louis people, like the whole population of the United States, had been crazy over the California gold. It was claimed that as far back as January, 1848, a man named Marshall, while digging a mill-race somewhere in interior Upper California, for a Captain Sutter of Sutter's Fort ranch, on the emigrant trail over the Sierra Nevada mountain-range down to Sacramento, had washed into plain sight an unlimited supply of gold flakes.

However, when the news first had reached Washington and New York and had filtered back to St. Louis, it was several months old and seemed scarcely worth attention, California being such a long way off. But now the President himself was authority for the fact that gold actually was lying around loose, for anybody to pick up, in this fair new land of California, and that thousands of people already were gathering it!

The President offered as proof letters from Colonel Richard B. Mason, the military governor of California, and from the Honorable Thomas O. Larkin, who had been the United States consul in California. The letters said not only that gold had been found, as before stated, but that 10,000 people (nearly all the able-bodied population of California) were out looking for more, and finding it, too! Sailors were deserting the ships and soldiers the ranks; servants were leaving the houses and merchants the stores, and the whole territory was wild. Congressmen at Washington asserted so much gold would be put on the market that gold money would lose its value, it would be so common.

These reports sounded like fairy-tales come true. Think of it! Gold, lying around on the surface of the ground, to be pocketed by the first finders! In spite of the fact that California had been a part of the United States only two years, or since the war with Mexico, and was distant 2000 miles across uninhabited desert and mountains, as soon as the word about gold was guaranteed to be really the truth a tremendous number of people here in the "States" set about dropping everything else and starting right away, to seek their fortunes.

Hundreds of St. Louis people had left, in parties large and small, a few to travel clear around Cape Horn of South America, or to cross the Isthmus of Panama and to sail up the Pacific Coast, but the majority to ride and walk, with wagon and team, across the deserts and mountains from the Missouri River 2000 miles to California. A number of neighbors and other friends of the Adamses had gone. Even Mr. Walker, Billy Walker's father, was going as soon as he could provide so that his family would not suffer in his absence; and he was talking of taking Billy. As Billy was Charley's best chum, this seemed pretty mean—for Charley, not for Billy, of course. To Charley there seemed no chance of his going, traveling across those wild plains and ranges, sleeping out of doors, and fighting Indians, perhaps, and then gathering gold in far California itself. His father was laid up, still recovering from wounds received in the war with Mexico. Charley was proud of his soldier father, who had served under General Scott all through the war, until disabled in the capture of Mexico City; but he did wish that there was some way for them to go to those gold fields.

The snow-storm had about ceased. The snow was two feet deep, in the streets, and the air was nipping chill. The streets were deserted, as evening settled down and Charley neared home. Now when he passed an open stairway, leading up into a building, he saw a huddled figure just inside the entrance.

He hurried on, but suddenly he stopped short. The figure had not stirred, as he passed—it looked odd—maybe it was only crouching there for shelter from the wind and snow—or maybe it was asleep—or maybe frozen. Jiminy! He ought not to go and leave it. Boy Scouts of America had not been organized, in 1849; but Charley was a Boy Scout at heart, so he turned back, anxious to do a good turn if possible.

When he peered into the entrance to the stairway, the huddled figure was there, just as first seen. It was that of a man, in ragged clothing, with worn boots, slouch hat, and unkempt beard visible where the face was bent forward upon the chest and folded arms. The figure did not move, and Charley spoke to it.

"Hello."

There was no response.

"Hello, there! What are you doing?"

Still no answer of any kind.

"Hey! Wake up!" bade Charley, more boldly. "You'll freeze."

Into Charley's throat welled a little tinge of fear; the figure remained so quiet and motionless. He reached in and shook the man by the shoulder. It was cold and stiff.

"Wake up! Wake up!"

Hurrah! The man was alive, anyway, for now he did stir drowsily, and mumbled as if objecting. Charley noticed that his hands were clenched tightly over the side-pockets of his old jacket, where the corners were drawn into his lap.

"Wake up! You'd better get out of here. You'll freeze. Want me to help you?"

Charley tried to lift the man, and to force him to move; but the man sat as a dead weight, and only mumbled crossly, and held back.

"Oh, crickity!" despaired Charley. "I'll have to get somebody to help. He's half frozen already. That's what's the matter with him."

Charley bolted out, to peer up and down the dusky white street. He had a notion to run to a little store about a block away, when he saw a man walking hastily along on the opposite side of the street. Out into the middle of the street floundered Charley, and hailed him.

"Hello! Can you please come over here a minute?"

"Sure, sonny." And he turned off, curiously approaching. "What is it you want, now?"

"There's a man freezing to death in the doorway, yonder," said Charley, excited. "He ought to be taken out."

"Who is he?"

"I don't know."

"What doorway, sonny?"

"That one. I'll show you." And Charley led off, the other man following him. He was a dark complexioned, sharp-faced man, with a little black moustache and a long drooping nose. He had bright black, narrow eyes, piercing but rather shifty. He wore a round fur cap and an overcoat with a cape.

The figure in the stairway entrance sat exactly as Charley had left him, except that he appeared to have gathered his coat pockets tighter.

"See?" directed Charley.

"Humph!" The long-nosed man peered in keenly. "Drunk, isn't he?" And he ordered roughly: "Come! get out o' here! Stir your stumps. This is no place to sleep."

The figure mumbled and swayed.

"I don't think he's drunk," ventured Charley. "He doesn't act like it, does he?"

"I dunno," grunted the long-nosed man, as if irritated. He reached in and, as Charley had done, but more rudely, grasped the figure by the shoulder; shook him and attempted to drag him forward; raised him a few inches and let him drop back again.

"We can't do anything. He looks like a beggar, anyhow. I'll see if I can find a watchman, on my way down town, and send him up."

That sounded inhuman, and Charley, for one, could not think of letting the figure huddle there, in the cold and the night, until the watchman should arrive. He did not like the long-nosed man.

"If you'll help, I'll take him home," volunteered Charley. "'Tisn't far."

"How far?" demanded the long-nosed man.

"Just a block and a half."

"What'll you do with him there?"

"Get him warm. My mother and father'll tend to him. They won't mind."

"Humph!" grunted the long-nosed man. "Well, let's see. But I don't intend to break my back for some no-'count trash such as this is. Come," he ordered, to the figure. "Get out o' here."

He grasped the figure by the arms and pulled him forward. Charley tried to get behind and boost. The tramp (if that was his kind) mumbled and actually resisted—hanging back and fighting feebly. His arms were wrenched from their position across his chest, and his coat corners fell back, with a thud, against the sides of the stairway.

"This fellow must be carrying a brick in each pocket," grumbled the long-nosed man. And halting his operations, despite the other man's resistance he roughly felt of the coat corners. But when he would have thrust in his hand, to investigate further, the other clutched the pockets so tightly and moaned "No! No!" so imploringly, that much to Charley's relief the long-nosed man quit.

Supporting their charge between them, and wading through the snow, they proceeded up the street. The "tramp" half shambled, half slid; darkness had gathered, stars were peeping out in the blue-black sky, the way seemed hard and lonesome, and Charley was glad indeed that they were bound to a place of warmth and shelter: home.

"It's right in the middle of this next block," panted Charley to the long-nosed man. "Where that horse-step is, under the big old oak."

The gate was ajar, and they turned through, dragging their awkwardly shambling burden. As they gained the front porch the front door was flung wide, and Mrs. Adams stood there, peering out, to find what was the meaning of this scuffling and grunting. Charley was glad to see her, framed in the lamp-light.

"Why, Charley!" she exclaimed. "What's the matter?"

"Please, mother, let us in," answered Charley. "We've got a man who was freezing in a stairway. Where'll we put him?"

"Gracious goodness! Take him right through and put him on the sofa. Oh, George!" and she called to Mr. Adams. "Is he badly frozen, Charley?" she asked, as Charley, tugging away, passed her.

"I don't think so, ma'am," replied the long-nosed man, speaking up. "No, ma'am. Not yet. He's fairly limber." And he scolded, to the "tramp": "Come on, now! You weigh a ton, with all your ballast."

Carrying and guiding the man, both, they continued on through the hall, into the pleasant sitting-room lighted by a whale-oil lamp and heated by a large wood-stove. At the call of his wife, Mr. Adams had hastily come from the back part of the house.

"Hello," he greeted. "What's here? Who is he, Charley?"

Charley's father was a tall man (he stood six feet one inch in his stockinged feet), and before the war he had been powerfully muscled. Now he was worn thin, and was a little stooped; and because of the wound in his knee, from a copper bullet, he limped. His full beard, trimmed around, was brown, but his eyes were a bright keen blue. Charley thought him the handsomest man in the world—and about the biggest.

"Somebody they've taken out of a stairway," explained Mrs. Adams, to him. "He was freezing. I told them to put him on the sofa."

"I should say so!" ejaculated Mr. Adams, and limped forward to help. Mrs. Adams quickly rearranged the knitted spread and the pillow; and with Mr. Adams attending to the feet end of the rescued stranger and Charley and the long-nosed man attending to the body and head, on the sofa the unknown was deposited.

"He's so thinly clothed!" cried Mrs. Adams, hovering over. "I'll get some hot milk." And away she bustled, for the kitchen.

"Let's take off his coat and boots," directed Mr. Adams, with soldierly decision. "Hope his feet aren't frozen." And he worked at the boots, to haul them from the cold, stiff feet.

Charley and the long-nosed man had a harder time with the coat. The unknown resisted, as before. He had opened his eyes (they were vacant and frightened) and had roused a little more strength. He even shoved the long-nosed man back.

"You," he appealed, huskily, to Charley, whom he seemed to accept as his friend. "You—take it."

"Well, I'll be jiggered!" ejaculated the long-nosed man. "There's gratitude for you!"

But he stood back, while Charley went ahead removing the coat. The unknown grasped the pockets, for the last time, and tried to hand them on to Charley.

"Keep it. You——" and he fell back, exhausted.

"We don't want your coat, my man," assured Mr. Adams, briskly rubbing the feet.

"He's got something in the pockets, dad," explained Charley. "Something heavy."

"Look and see, then," bade the long-nosed man. "Now's your chance."

"Shall I?" queried Charley, of his father, doubtfully, holding the coat.

"Why, yes, if you want to. Perhaps we ought to know."

"Here's the milk," announced Mrs. Adams, hurrying in bearing glass and steaming pitcher.

Charley, with the long-nosed man peering curiously, and Mr. and Mrs. Adams looking, as well, fished out the weight from the right-hand coat pocket. It was a little buckskin sack, round and heavy with its contents.

"By thunder!" exclaimed the long-nosed man. "Hooray! I suspicioned it. This fellow's from the Californy gold mines, and that sack's stuffed with gold dust, as they call it. Open her up and see. Where's the other one? He's got the mate in t'other pocket, I'll bet you."

"Hold on, Charley. Don't open it," ordered Mr. Adams, as Charley fumbled with the string tied tightly around the puckered mouth of the little sack. "It isn't yours."

"Pass it to me and I'll open it," invited the long-nosed man. "Let me feel. Yes, sirs; that's gold dust, all right; several hundred dollars' worth."

"We'll not open it, just the same," insisted Mr. Adams, firmly. "Put the sack back in the pocket, Charley, and hang coat and all away. Wait, though. Look through the other pockets and see if there are any letters or such things to tell who he is."

Charley sought. In the other side pocket he felt another buckskin sack, round and heavy (just as the long-nosed man, who was watching closely, had predicted), but the inside pockets contained nothing at all.

The unknown murmured weakly.

"I'd better give him a little hot milk, if he can drink it, hadn't I?" proffered Mrs. Adams; she poured a few inches into the glass and held it to his bearded lips. He tried to sip—did sip, greedily, and sank back.

Charley started off with the coat, to hang it over a chair.

"Here, you!" objected the long-nosed man. "What are you going to do? Half that coat's mine, remember. I helped fetch him in. Half the plunder comes to me."

"That's no way to talk, sir," reproved Mr. Adams, sternly. "Would you rob a helpless stranger? Not in this house, sir!"

"He's not dead. He's only fainted," informed Mrs. Adams, indignant.

"But he gave the stuff away, didn't he?" demanded the long-nosed man. "Sure he did. Supposing he dies on your hands, you count on getting all he has, I reckon! But you won't."

"He told me to keep it, anyway, didn't he?" retorted Charley.

"He didn't mean you to keep it for yourself, Charley," corrected Mr. Adams. "That's foolishness. He meant that you should keep it safe until he could use it."

"Of course," nodded Mrs. Adams. "What had we better do with him, George?"

"Let him sleep, if he wants to. His feet are getting warm. He'll be all right."

"Lookee here," blustered the long-nosed man. "I come in for half, remember. I helped fetch him in. If it hadn't been for my help he'd have frozen solid where he was, or else the watchman would have picked him up and taken him off. I'm going, now. I've got business to tend to—same as before I was interrupted. I left a business errand, to help fetch him here. Understand? My time's worth money. I know where this house is, and I know your names; and I'm coming 'round again, to see what's what. Half that dust is mine, or I'll make you trouble."

"If he doesn't use it, himself, it will go to his kin, sir," returned Mr. Adams.

"Kin!" snorted the long-nosed man. "He's from the gold fields. Look at that shirt, and those whiskers and boots; and the dust itself tells the tale. As like as not he hasn't any kin, within reach; and if he has, you're a blamed fool to summon 'em. We've got things in our own hands—understand? Think it over. I'll be 'round. Good-night."

"Good-night," they answered. "Open the door for him, Charley," bade Mr. Adams.

With a grunty grumble the long-nosed man passed out into the night. Charley hastened back to look at the unknown again.

From the California gold fields! Think of that! And with two sacks of gold dust! Who could he be? Where was he going in St. Louis? What had he seen and done, in California? But here he lay, in a stupor, with Mr. Adams rubbing his arms and legs, and Mrs. Adams hovering over with the glass and pitcher.