“Oh, those will soon be provided,” he assured, “When there is a will for law the machinery comes.”  He smiled grimly.  “McTurpin and his ilk had better look to themselves....  We are going after the gamblers.”

[Illustration:  Men with shovels, leveling the sand-hills, piled the wagons high with shimmering grains which were dumped into pile-surrounded bogs.  San Francisco reached farther and farther out into the bay.]

CHAPTER XVI

Gold!  Gold!  Gold!

San Francisco never could remember when the first rumor of gold reached it.  Gold was to mean its transformation from a struggling town into a turbulent, riotous city, a mecca of the world’s adventurers.

Benito Windham, early in the spring of ’48 brought home an echo of it from San Jose.  One of Sutter’s teamsters had exchanged a little pouch of golden grains for a flask of aguardiente.  Afterward he had told of finding it in the tail-race of Marshall’s mill on the south fork of the American River.  Little credence had been given his announcements.  In the south, near San Fernando Mission, gold had long ago been found, but not in sufficient quantities to allure the fortune hunter.

“See, is it not pretty?” asked Benito, pouring out a handful of the shining stuff which he had purchased from the teamster.

“Pretty, yes, but what’s it worth?” asked Adrian, dubiously.

“Some say it’s true value is $16 for an ounce,” responded Inez, her eyes shining.  “Samuel Brannan had a letter from a member of his band who says they wash it from the river sand in pans.”

“Sam’s skeptical, though,” retorted Stanley.  “And, as for me, I’ve a mine right here in San Francisco.”  He spoke enthusiastically.  “Moving sandhills into the bay.  Making a new city front out of flooded bogs!  That’s realism.  Romance.  And what’s better, fortune!  Isn’t it, my girl?”

Inez’ eyes were proud.  “Fortune, yes, and not a selfish one.  For it is making others richer, San Francisco better.”

“Which is well enough for you,” returned Benito with a hint of sullenness.  “But I am tired of clerking for Ward & Smith at two dollars a day.  There’s no romance in that.”  With a quick, restless motion he ran the golden dust through his fingers again.  “I hope they are true, these stories.  And if they are—­” he looked at the others challengingly, “then I’m off to the mines, muy pronto.”

“Come,” said Stanley, “let us have a game of chess together.”  But Benito, with a muttered apology, left them and went out.  San Francisco had streets now, since the O’Farrell survey’s adoption by the council.  The old Calle de Fundacion had become Dupont street and below it was Kearny street, named after the General and former Governor.  To the west were parallel roads, scarcely worthy of the name of thoroughfares, christened in honor of Commodore Stockton, Surgeon Powell of the