Port O' Gold

by Louis J. Stellman

  "Well, never mind," the woman answered. "Take these two. It may comecold 'fore morning. And I've got more than I can use. We brung thewagon." She drew the girl aside and nudged her in the ribs.

  "We ain't married, either--Jim 'n' me. But what's the diff?"

  CHAPTER LXXX

  AFTERMATH

  About daylight the next morning Frank was awakened by a soft patteringsound. He jumped to his feet. Was it raining? All about folk stirred,held forth expectant hands to feel the drops. But they were fine whiteflakes--ashes from the distant conflagration. Aleta still lay moveless,wrapped in her blanket some ten feet away. They had been up most of thenight, watching the flames, had seen them creep across Market street, upPowell, Mason, Taylor, Jones streets to Nob Hill. Finally Frank hadpersuaded Aleta to seek a little rest. Despite her protest that sleepwas impossible, he had rolled her in one of the borrowed blankets,wrapping himself, Indianwise, in the other. Toward morning slumber hadcome to them both.

  Aleta, now awake, smiled at Frank and declared herself refreshed. "Whathad we better do next?" she questioned.

  Frank pondered. "Go to the Presidio, I guess. The army's serving foodout there, I hear." He returned the blankets to their owner and the twoof them set forth. On Oak street, near the mouth of Golden Gate Park, abroken street main spouted geyser-like out of the asphalt. They snatcheda hurried drink, laved their faces and hands and went on, passing acracker wagon, filled with big tin containers, and surrounded by ahungry crowd. The driver was passing out crackers with both hands,casting aside the tins when they were empty.

  "It's like the Millennium," Aleta remarked. "All classes of peopleherded together in common good will. Do you see that well-fed lookingfellow carrying the ragged baby? He's a corporation lawyer. He makes$50,000 a year I'm told. And the fat woman he's helping with hernumerous brood is a charwoman at the Alcazar theatre."

  Frank looked and laughed. "Why--it's my Uncle Robert!" he exclaimed.

  Robert Windham held out his free hand to Frank and Aleta. His family wassafe, he told them. So were Francisco and Jeanne, who had joined theWindhams when the Stanley home was dynamited. They had gone to Berkeleyand would stay with friends of Maizie's.

  Frank wrote down the address. He decided to remain in San Francisco.There was Aleta.... And, somehow, Bertha must be located.

  Everyone was bound for the Presidio.

  "You may find me there later," said Windham. "I've some--er--business onthis side."

  * * * * *

  At the great military post which slopes back on the green headlands fromthe Golden Gate, Frank and Aleta found a varied company. The hospitalswere filled with men and women burned in the fire or hurt by fallingwalls. There were scores--perhaps a hundred of them. Frank, with hisheart in his mouth, made a survey of the hospitals, after finding tentroom for Aleta. His press badge gained admittance for him everywhere andhe went through a pretence of taking notes. But he was looking forBertha. At a large tent they were establishing an identification bureau,a rendezvous for separated families, friends or relatives. Many peoplecrowded this with frantic inquiries.

  Soup was being served at the mess kitchens. Great wagons filled withloaves of bread drove in and were apportioned. Men, women and childrenformed in line to get their shares.

  The sky was still covered with smoke. Late comers reported that the firehad crossed Van Ness avenue. There were orders posted all about that onemust not build fires indoors nor burn lights at night. Those whodisobeyed would be shot. The orders were signed by Mayor Schmitz.Saloons had been closed for an indefinite period. Two men, found lootingthe dead, had been summarily executed by military order. Hundreds ofbuildings were being dynamited. The dull roar of these frequentexplosions was plainly discernible at the Presidio.

  * * * * *

  After they had eaten Frank said good-bye to Aleta. He was going back totown. The feverish adventure of it called him. And he had learned thatthere were many other camps of refugees. In one of these he might findBertha. A milk wagon, clattering over the cobblestones overtook him and,without an invitation, he climbed aboard. Frank had little sense ofdestination or purpose. He wanted action. The thought of Bertha tuggedat him now like a pain, insistent, quenchless. He tried to stifle it bymovement, by absorbing interest in the wondrous drama all about him.

  Suddenly he sprang from the wagon. They had reached the park where hehad learned of Bertha's love. Frank scarcely recognized the tinypleasure ground, so covered was it with tents and bedding. It swarmedwith people--a fact which Frank resented oddly. In the back of his mindwas a feeling that this spot was sacred.

  He made his way among the litter of fabrics and humanity. These weremostly people from the valley where a foreign section lay. Loudly andexcitedly they chattered in strange tongues, waving their hands about.Children wailed. All was disorder, uncontrol.

  Sickened of the place Frank turned to go, but something tugged at hiscoatsleeve; a haggard, elderly dishevelled man.

  Frank looked at the fellow in wonder. Then he gave a cry and tookthe fellow by the shoulders. He had recognized, despite disguisingsuperficialities of garb and manner, Bertha's once spick-and-spanbutler.

  "God Almighty, Jarvis!" Frank could scarcely speak, his heart waspounding so. "Wh--where is she--Bertha?"

  "Come with me, sir," said the old man sadly. He led the way pastsheet-hung bushes, over crumb-and-paper sprinkled lawns to a littleretreat under sheltering trees. One had to stoop to enter that arbored,leaf encircled nest through which the sun fell like a dappled pattern onthe grass. Frank adjusted his eyes to the dimmer light before he took inthe picture: a girl lying, very pale and still, upon a gorgeous Indianblanket. She looked at him, cried out and stretched her armsforth feebly.

  "Bertha!" He knelt down beside her, pressed his lips to hers. Her armsabout his neck were cold but strangely vibrant. For a moment theyremained thus. Then he questioned, anxiously, "Bertha? What is wrong?"

  "Everything! The world!" she whispered. "When you left me dearest, I washappy! I had never dreamed that one could be so glad! But afterward ...I didn't dare to face the morning--and the truth!" Her lips quivered."I--I couldn't stand it, Frank," she finished weakly.

  "She took morphia," said Jarvis. "When the earthquake came I couldn'twake her. I was scared. I carried her out here."

  "You tried to kill yourself!" Frank's tone was shocked, condemning."After Tuesday night?"

  Her eyes craved pardon. She essayed to speak but her lips made wordlesssounds. Finally she roused a little, caught his hand and held it toher breast.

  "Ask your Uncle Robert, dear?" she whispered. Her eyes looked into hiswith longing, with renunciation. A certain peace stole into them andslowly the eyelids closed.

  Frank, who had half grasped the meaning of her words, leaned forwardfearfully. The hand which held his seemed colder, more listless. Therewas something different. Something that he could not name--thatfrightened him.

  Suddenly he realized its meaning. The heart which had pulsed beneath hisfingers was still.

  CHAPTER LXXXI

  READJUSTMENT

  Of the trip to Berkeley which followed, Frank could not afterward recallthe slightest detail. Between the time when, like a madman, he had triedto rouse his sweetheart from that final lethargy which knew no waking,and the moment when he burst upon his Uncle Robert with what must haveseemed an insane question, Frank lost count of time.

  He was in the library of an Alameda county lawyer, host of the Stanleyand the Windham families. Across the mahogany table, grasping the backof a chair for support, one hand half outstretched in a supplicatinggesture, stood his Uncle Robert--pale, shaken ghost of theself-possessed man that he usually was. Between them, imminent withsubtle violence, was the echo of Frank's question, hurled, like anexplosive missile at the elder man:

  "Why did Bertha Larned kill herself?"

  After an interval of silence Windham pulled himself together; lookedabout him hastily ere he spoke. "Hush
! Not here! Not now!" The eyeswhich sought Frank's were brilliant with suffering. "Is she--dead?"

  The young man nodded dumbly. Something like a sob escaped the elder. Hewas first to speak. "Come. We must get out of here. We must have atalk." He opened the door and went out, Frank following. In the street,which sloped sharply downward from a major elevation, they could see thebay of San Francisco, the rising smoke cloud on the farther shore. Theywalked together upward, away from the houses, toward a grove ofeucalyptus trees. Here Robert halted and sat down. He seemed utterlyweary. Frank stood looking down across the valley.

  "Bertha Larned was my daughter," said his uncle almost fiercely.

  Frank did not turn nor start as Windham had expected. One might havethought he did not hear. At length, however, he said slowly, "Isuspected that--a little. But I want to know."

  "I--can't tell you more," said the other brokenly.

  "Who--who was her mother, Uncle Bob?"

  "If you love her, Frank, don't ask that question."

  The young man snapped a dry twig from a tree and broke it with a sort ofsilent concentration into half a dozen bits. "Then--it's true ... thetale heard round town! That you and--"

  "Yes, yes," Windham interrupted, "Frank, it's true."

  "The--procuress?"

  "Frank! For God's sake!" Windham's fingers gripped his nephew's arm."Don't let Maizie know. I've tried to live it down these twentyyears...."

  "Damn it, do you think I'd tell Aunt Maizie?"

  "It's--I can't believe it yet! That you--"

  "Maizie wouldn't leave her mother." With a flicker of defiance Robertanswered him. "I was young, rudderless, after my people went East.... Alittle wild, I guess."

  "So you sought consolation?"

  "Call it what you like," the other answered. "Some things are too strongfor men. They overwhelm one--like Fate."

  Frank began pacing back and forth, his fingers opening and shuttingspasmodically.

  "Uncle Bob," he said at length, "... after you married, what became--"

  "Her mother sent the child East--to a sister. She was wellraised--educated. If she'd only stayed there, in that Massachusettstown!"

  "Then--Bertha didn't know?"

  "Not till she came to San Francisco, after her mother's death. She hadto come to settle the estate. The mother left her everything--a stringof tenements. She was rich."

  "Bertha came to you, then, I suppose."

  "Yes, she came to me," said Robert Windham.

  Suddenly, as though the memory overwhelmed him, Windham's face sankforward in his hands.

  "She was very sweet," his voice broke pitifully. "I--loved her."

  * * * * *

  Several days later Frank and his father paid a visit to the ruined city.One had to get passes in Oakland and wear them on one's hat. Sightseerswere not admitted nor carried on ferry boats, trains.

  Already Telegraph Hill was dotted with new habitations. It was rumoredthat Andrea Sbarbora, banker and patron of the Italian Colony, wasbringing a carload of lumber from Seattle which he would sell to firesufferers on credit and at cost. The spirit of rehabilitationwas strong.

  Frank was immensely cheered by it. But Francisco was overwhelmed by thedesolation. "I am going South," he told his son. "I can't bear to seethis. I don't even know where I am."

  It was true. One felt lost in those acres of ashes and debris. Familiarplaces seemed beyond memorial reconstruction, so smitten was the mind bythis horror of leveled buildings, gutted walls and blackened streets.

  Francisco and Jeanne went to San Diego. There the former tried torefashion the work of many months--two hundred pages of a novel whichthe flames destroyed. Robert Windham and his family journeyed to Hawaii.Frank did not see his uncle after that talk in the Berkeley Hills.

  Parks and public spaces were covered with little green cottages inorderly rows. Refugee camps one termed then and therein lived 20,000 ofthe city's homeless.

  Street cars were running. Passengers were carried free until the firstof May. Patrick Calhoun was trying to convert the cable roads intoelectric lines in spite of the objection of the improvement clubs. Hewas negotiating with the Supervisors for a blanket franchise toelectrize all of his routes.

  "And he'll get it, too," Aleta told Frank as they dined together. "It'sarranged, I understand, for quarter of a million dollars."

  Frank pondered. "What'll Langdon say to that?"

  William H. Langdon was the district attorney, a former superintendent ofschools, whom Ruef had put on his Union Labor ticket to give it tone.But Langdon had refused to "take program." He had even raided the"protected" gamblers, ignoring Ruef's hot insinuations of "ingratitude."

  "Oh, Ruef's too smart for Langdon," said Aleta. "Every Sunday night he,Schmitz and Big Jim Gallagher hold a caucus. Gallagher is Ruef'srepresentative on the Board. They figure out what will occur at Monday'ssession of the Supervisors. It's all cut and dried."

  "It can't last long," Frank mused. "They're getting too much money.Those fellows who used to earn from $75 to $100 a month are spendingfive times that amount. Schmitz is building a palace. He rides around inhis automobile with a liveried chauffeur. He's going to Europethey say."

  The girl glanced up at him half furtively. "Perhaps I'll go to Europe,too."

  "What?" Frank eyed her startled. "Not with--"

  "Yes, my friend, the Supervisor." Her tone was defiant. "Why shouldn'tI?"

  "Don't--Aleta."

  "But, why not?"

  He was silent. But his eyes were on her, pleadingly.

  "Would you care, Frank? Would you care--at all?"

  "You know I would," he spoke half angrily. The girl traced patterns withher fork upon the table cloth.

  "I am going South," Francisco told his son. "I cannotbear this."]

  CHAPTER LXXXII

  AT BAY

  On May 21, the United Railway Company received a franchise to electrizeany of its street-car routes, "where grades permitted."

  At once ensued a public uproar. From the press, the pulpit and therostrum issued fiery accusations that the city was betrayed. In themidst of it Mayor Schmitz departed for Europe.

  Frank met Ruef at the Ferry, where the former had gone to see Aleta offon a road tour with her company. The little boss was twisting hismoustache and muttering to himself.

  "So His Honor's off on a lark," said the newsman, meaningly.

  Ruef glared at him, but made no answer.

  Afterward Frank heard that they had quarreled. Ruef, he learned, hadcharged the mayor with ingratitude; had threatened, pleaded,warned--without success.

  Schmitz had gone; his was the dogged determination which easily-led mensometimes manifest at unexpected moments. One heard of him through thepress dispatches, staying at the best hotels of European capitals,making speeches when he had a chance. He was like a boy on a holiday.But at home Ruef sensed the stirring of an outraged mass and trembled.He could no longer control his minions. And, worst of all, he could notmanage Langdon. "Big Jim" Gallagher, now the acting mayor, was docile toa fault, however. He would have put his hand into the fire for thisclever little man, whom he admired so immensely. Once they discussed theousting of Langdon.

  "It would be quite legal," Ruef contended. "The Mayor and Board havepower to remove a district attorney and select his successor."

  Henry Ach, advisor of the boss, looked dubious. "I'm not sure of that.Moreover, it's bad politics. It would be better seemingly to cooperatewith Langdon. He has the public confidence. We've not.... Besides, whomwould we put in Langdon's place?"

  "Ruef," said "Big Jim," with his ready admiration. "He's the man."

  "Hm!" the little boss exclaimed, reflectively. "Well we shall see."

  * * * * *

  Frank liked Langdon. He was rather a slow-thinking man; not so clever atexpedient as Ruef. But he was grounded in the Law--and honest. Moreover,he had courage. Powerful enemies and their machinations only stirredhis zest.

&n
bsp; Single-handed Langdon might have been outwitted by the power andastuteness of his foes. But another mind, a keener one was soon to addits force to Langdon's. Francis J. Heney, special investigator of theRoosevelt government, who had unmasked and overthrown corruption in highplaces, was in town.

  Frank knew that he had come to San Francisco for a purpose. He met thisnervous, wiry, sharp-eyed man in the managing editor's office now andagain. Once he had entered rather unexpectedly upon a conference ofHeney, former Mayor James D. Phelan, Rudolph Spreckels, son of the sugarnabob, and William J. Burns. Frank, who guessed he was intruding, made anoiseless exit; not, however, till he heard that there would be athorough, secret search into the trolley franchise and some otheractions of the Ruef administration. Spreckels and Phelan guaranteed toraise $100,000 for this purpose. Burns and his detectives had forseveral months been quietly at work.

  On October 24 District Attorney Langdon publicly announced theappointment of Francis J. Heney as his assistant, stating that athorough and fearless search into the actions of the city governmentwould ensue.

  On October 25 the Supervisors met. Frank, himself, went to the councilchamber to learn what was afoot. He suspected a sensation. But the Boardmet quietly enough at 2:30 o'clock, with Jim Gallagher in the chair. At2:45 a special messenger called the acting Mayor to Ruef's office. Threehours later he was still absent from the angry and impatient Board.

  That some desperate move was imminent Frank realized. Here was Ruefbetween two bodeful dates. Yesterday had come the news that Langdon hadappointed Heney--the relentless enemy of boodlers--to a place of power.Tomorrow would begin the impaneling of a Grand Jury, whose avowedpurpose it was to "investigate municipal graft."