The Golden Dream: Adventures in the Far West, R. M. Ballantyne [to read list .txt] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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“I’ll go down to-night,” said Larry, drawing on his heavy boots.
“You’d better wait till to-morrow,” suggested the captain. “The poor thing will be in no humour to see any one to-night, and we can make a halt near the hut for an hour or so.”
Larry, with some reluctance, agreed to this delay, and the rest of the evening was spent by the little party in making preparations for a start on the following day; but difficulties arose in the way of settling with the purchasers of their claims, so that another day passed ere they got fairly off on their journey towards Sacramento.
On reaching the mouth of the Little Creek, Larry O’Neil galloped ahead of his companions, and turned aside at the little hut, the locality of which Sinton had described to him minutely. Springing off his horse, he threw the reins over a bush and crossed the threshold. It is easier to conceive than to describe his amazement and consternation on finding the place empty. Dashing out, he vaulted into the saddle, and almost galloped through the doorway of the nearest hut in his anxiety to learn what had become of his friends.
“Halloo! stranger,” shouted a voice from within, “no thoroughfare this way; an’ I wouldn’t advise ye for to go an’ try for to make one.”
“Ho! countryman, where’s the sick Irishman and his sister gone, that lived close to ye here?”
“Wall, I ain’t a countryman o’ yourn, I guess; but I can answer a civil question. They’re gone. The man’s dead, an’ the gal took him away in a cart day b’fore yisterday.”
“Gone! took him away in a cart!” echoed Larry, while he looked aghast at the man. “Are ye sure?”
“Wall, I couldn’t be surer. I made the coffin for ’em, and helped to lift it into the cart.”
“But where have they gone to?”
“To Sacramento, I guess. I advised her not to go, but she mumbled something about not havin’ him buried in sich a wild place, an’ layin’ him in a churchyard; so I gave her the loan o’ fifty dollars—it was all I could spare—for she hadn’t a rap. She borrowed the horse and cart from a countryman, who was goin’ to Sacramento at any rate.”
“You’re a trump, you are!” cried Larry, with energy; “give us your hand, me boy! Ah! thin yer parents were Irish, I’ll be bound; now, here’s your fifty dollars back again, with compound interest to boot—though I don’t know exactly what that is—”
“I didn’t ax ye for the fifty dollars,” said the man, somewhat angrily. “Who are you that offers ’em!”
“I’m her—her—friend,” answered Larry, in some confusion; “her intimate friend; I might almost say a sort o’ distant relation—only not quite that.”
“Wall, if that’s all, I guess I’m as much a friend as you,” said the man, re-entering his cabin, and shutting the door with a bang.
Larry sighed, dropped the fifty dollars into his leather purse, and galloped away.
The journey down to Sacramento, owing to the flooded state of the country, was not an easy one. It took the party several days’ hard riding to accomplish it, and during all that time Larry kept a vigilant look-out for Kate Morgan and the cart, but neither of them did he see. Each day he felt certain he would overtake them, but each evening found him trying to console himself with the reflection that a “stern chase” is proverbially a long one, and that next day would do it. Thus they struggled on, and finally arrived at the city of Sacramento, without having set eyes on the wanderer. Poor Larry little knew that, having gone with a man who knew the road thoroughly, Kate, although she travelled slowly, had arrived there the day before him; while Ned had lengthened the road by unwittingly making a considerable and unnecessary détour. Still less did he know that, at the very hour he arrived in the city, Kate, with her sad charge, embarked on board a small river steamer, and was now on her way to San Francisco.
As it was, Larry proposed to start back again, supposing they must have passed them; but, on second thoughts, he decided to remain where he was and make inquiries. So the three friends pushed forward to the City Hotel to make inquiries after Tom Collins.
“Mr Collins?” said the waiter, bowing to Sinton—“he’s gone, sir, about a week ago.”
“Gone!” exclaimed Ned, turning pale.
“Yes, sir; gone down to San Francisco. He saw some advertisement or other in the newspaper, and started off by the next steamer.”
Ned’s heart beat freely again. “Was he well when he left?”
“Yes, sir, pretty well. He would have been the better of a longer rest, but he was quite fit to travel, sir.”
Captain Bunting, who, during this colloquy, had been standing with his legs apart, and his eyes glaring at the waiter, as if he had been mad, gave a prolonged whistle, but made no further remark. At this moment Larry, who had been conversing with one of the under-waiters, came rushing in with a look of desperation on his countenance.
“Would ye belave it,” he cried, throwing himself down on a splendid crimson sofa, that seemed very much out of keeping with the dress of the rough miners whom it was meant to accommodate—“would ye belave it, they’re gone!”
“Who are gone, and where to!” inquired Ned.
“Kate an’—an’ the caffin. Off to San Francisco, be all that’s onlucky; an’ only wint little more nor an hour ago.”
The three friends looked at each other.
“Waiter,” said Captain Bunting, in a solemn voice, “bear-chops for three, pipes and baccy for six, an’ a brandy-smash for one; an’, d’ye hear, let it be stiff!”
“Yes, sir.”
A loud laugh from Ned and Larry relieved their over-excited and pent-up feelings; and both agreed that, under the circumstances, the captain’s order was the best that could be given at that stage of their perplexities. Having ascertained that there was not another steamer to San Francisco for a week, they resolved to forget their anxieties as much as possible, and enjoy themselves in the great city of Sacramento during the next few days; while they instituted inquiries as to what had become of their comrade, Bill Jones, who, they concluded, must still be in the city, as they had not met him on the way down.
It is said that gold can accomplish anything; and, in some respects, the saying is full of truth; in some points of view, however, the saying is altogether wrong. Gold can, indeed, accomplish almost anything in the material world—it can purchase stone, and metal, and timber; and muscles, bones, thews, and sinews, with life in them, to any extent. It can go a step further—it can purchase brains, intellect, genius; and, throwing the whole together, material and immaterial, it can cut, and carve, and mould the world to such an extent that its occupants of fifty years ago, were they permitted to return to earth, would find it hard to recognise the scene of their brief existence. But there are things and powers which gold cannot purchase. That worn-out old millionnaire would give tons of it for a mere tithe of the health that yonder ploughman enjoys. Youth cannot be bought with gold. Time cannot be purchased with gold. The prompt obedience of thousands of men and women may be bought with that precious metal, but one powerful throb of a loving heart could not be procured by all the yellow gold that ever did or ever will enrich the human family.
But we are verging towards digression. Let us return to the simple idea with which we intended to begin this chapter—the wonder-working power of gold. In no country in the wide world, we venture to affirm, has this power been exemplified so strikingly as in California. The knowledge of the discovery of gold was so suddenly and widely disseminated over the earth, that human beings flowed into the formerly-uninhabited wilderness like a mighty torrent, while thousands of ships flooded the markets with the necessaries of life. Then gold was found to be so abundant, and, at first, so easily procured, that the fever was kept up at white-heat for several years. The result of this was, as we have remarked elsewhere, that changes, worthy of Aladdin’s lamp or Harlequin’s wand, were wrought in the course of a few weeks, sometimes in a few days.
The city of Sacramento was one of the most remarkable of the many strange and sudden growths in the country. The river on which it stands is a beautiful stream, from two to three hundred yards wide, and navigable by large craft to a few miles above the city. The banks, when our friends were there, were fringed with rich foliage, and the wild trees of the forest itself stood growing in the streets. The city was laid out in the form of a square, with streets crossing each other at right angles; a forest of masts along the embarcadero attested the growing importance and wealth of the place; and nearly ten thousand inhabitants swarmed in its streets. Many of those streets were composed of canvas tents, or erections scarcely more durable. Yet here, little more than a year before, there were only four thousand in the place!
Those who chanced to be in possession of the land here were making fortunes. Lots, twenty feet by seventy, in the best situations, brought upwards of 3500 dollars. Rents, too, were enormous. One hotel paid 30,000 dollars (6000 pounds) per annum; another, 35,000 dollars. Small stores fetched ten and twelve thousand dollars a year; while board at the best hotels was five dollars a day. Truly, if gold was plentiful, it was needed; for the common necessaries of life, though plentiful, were bought and sold at fabulous prices. The circulation of gold was enormous, and the growth of the city did not suffer a check even for a day, although the cost of building was unprecedented. And this commercial prosperity continued in spite of the fact that the place was unhealthy—being a furnace in summer, and in winter little better than a swamp.
“It’s a capital hotel,” remarked Captain Bunting to his companions, as they sat round their little table, enjoying their pipes after dinner; “I wonder if they make a good thing out of it?”
“Sure, if they don’t,” said Larry, tilting his chair on its hind legs, and calmly blowing a cloud of smoke towards the roof, “it’s a losin’ game they’re playin’, for they sarve out the grub at a tearin’ pace.”
“They are doing well, I doubt not,” said Ned Sinton; “and they deserve to, for the owner—or owners, I don’t know how many or few there are—made a remarkable and enterprising start.”
“How was that?” asked the captain.
“I heard of it when I was down here with Tom,” continued Sinton. “You must know that this was the first regular hotel opened in the city, and it was considered so great an event that it was celebrated by salvos of artillery, and, on the part of the proprietors, by a great unlimited feast to all who chose to come.”
“What!” cried Larry, “free, gratis, for nothin’?”
“Ay, for nothing. It was done in magnificent style, I assure you. Any one who chose came and called for what he wanted, and got it at once. The attendance was prompt, and as cheerfully given as though it had been paid for. Gin-slings, cocktails, mint-juleps, and brandy-smashes went round like a circular storm, even champagne flowed like water; and venison, wild-fowl, salmon, grizzly-bear-steaks, and pastry—all the delicacies of the season, in short—were literally to be had for the asking. What it cost the spirited proprietors I know not, but certainly it was a daring stroke of genius that deserved patronage.”
“Faix it did,” said Larry, emphatically; “and they
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