The Adventures of a Forty-niner eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 121 pages of information about The Adventures of a Forty-niner.

The Adventures of a Forty-niner eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 121 pages of information about The Adventures of a Forty-niner.

One night he got betting against the game of Faro, lost, and I suppose got over excited, and in trying to recover his losses, lost every thing, including $30,000.  Of course it was not known that he ever gambled or he would not have been trusted with the money.  As soon as it was known it created great excitement and indignation, that so sacred a fund should have been wasted in that way.  He fled, and the Mayor offered $3,000 reward for his apprehension.  It seems he had escaped on a vessel to the Sandwich Islands, and had no money, and got in debt there and could not leave there as long as he owed any thing, according to their laws, and he was in despair, until one day fortune smiled upon him.  Accidentally he came across a California paper in which was the $3,000 reward offered by the Mayor of San Francisco for his arrest, and this was his opportunity and he seized it at once.  Then hope dawned upon him.  He found a vessel about to sail for San Francisco.  He took the paper and showed it to the captain and told him if he would advance the money so he could pay his debts, he would return with him to San Francisco and he could surrender him and they would divide the reward.  The captain accepted his offer and delivered him up upon his arrival at San Francisco, and got the reward.  Two or three months had elapsed since his departure, and that was more time than so many years in any other country, and all excitement about it had subsided, and I think it was called a breach of trust, and I have no recollection that he was punished in any other way.

MY BLANKET MAN.

When he wrote me that he had traded the blankets for flour, and had gone to the Yuba river with the flour, I knew that it was a lie, and that he was a rascal, and I found that blankets had been in great demand, at a high price, and likewise learned that he had been connected with a forgery in New York city, but that his brother was a respectable merchant there, so for the time I gave up my $800 as lost.  What was my surprise after six weeks at my hotel (which was an expensive one), to see my man at the tea table.  I greeted him most cordially and asked no questions about the blankets, but talked to him about the brig I owned and had running to Stockton; that I had been looking for him to come back; there was such a splendid chance for us to make purchases in San Francisco, and for him to take them up on my vessel and sell them out in the Southern gold mines, near that place; that what we had lost on the blankets we could more than make up on the first venture, and that there would be big money in that kind of a speculation.  We spent the evening together most cordially.  The next morning I detained him in conversation until about the time for the Miners’ Bank to open, then we went out together.  When we got opposite the bank I took out my watch and said to him, that I did not think it was so late.  I said I had a note of $800 due there that morning; I asked him if

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The Adventures of a Forty-niner from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.