"I beg your pardon," he said humbly. "I will never offend in that way again."

"But the building of the wharves and the filling in of the waterfront belong to a later time and we are back in Spanish days. When Vancouver landed he tells us that he cast anchor within a small inlet surrounded by green hills, on which herds and cattle were grazing. Historians say that his ship lay about where the Ferry Building now stands and that the crew put off for the shore in small boats. This place was a waste of sand-dunes and chaparral but the Englishmen were refreshed by the cool waters of the arroyo and spent a pleasant morning shooting quail and grouse."

"Quail, grouse and chaparral," he repeated, as his eyes traveled up and down the solidly built blocks and rested on the pedestrians hurrying in and out of the buildings. "Let's take a look at the bed of the arroyo."

We paused at the corner and for a moment watched the car laboriously climb the Sacramento Street hill and disappear over the crest; then we turned for another look at the mass of buildings now resting on the solid ground which had taken the place of the shining waters of Yerba Buena Cove.

"It was about here," I announced, "that the arroyo opened out into the Laguna Dulce, a little fresh water pool where Richardson's Indians delighted to take a cold plunge on leaving their steaming temescal."

"Richardson? Hardly a Spanish name!"

"No, but a Spaniard by naturalization and marriage. He was an Englishman who had come to the coast in the whaler 'Orion,' and being fascinated by the country and the carefree Spanish life, had married a lovely little señorita, the daughter of Lieutenant Martinez, later Comandante of the Presidio. Richardson settled on a ranch at Sausalito and in 1835, when Governor Figueroa decided to establish a commercial city on the shore of Yerba Buena Cove, he appointed as harbor master, this Englishman, who was already carrying on a small business with the Yankee skippers, and the future town was made a port of entry for all vessels trading up and down the coast. Richardson built the first house in the little settlement of Yerba Buena, afterwards San Francisco."

"Since this is an historic pilgrimage, we must take a look at the spot where the first house stood. Is it far?"

"Only a few blocks," I assured him. "But we shall have to venture into the heart of Chinatown."

We made our way up Sacramento Street, where the straight-lined grey business blocks gave way to fantastic pagoda-like buildings gaily decorated in green, red, and yellow. Bits of carved ivory, rich lacquer ware and choice pieces of satsuma and cloisonné appeared in the windows. In quiet, padded shoes, the sallow-faced, almond-eyed throng shuffled by, us; here a man with a delicate lavender lining showing below his blue coat, there a slant-eyed woman with her sleek black hair rolled over a brilliant jade ornament, leading by the hand a little boy who looked as if he had stepped out of a picture book with his yellow trousers and pink coat.

We turned to the right at Grant Avenue, passing a building conspicuous on account of its elaborately carved balconies hung with yellow lanterns and ornamented with plants growing in large blue and white china pots. The Bostonian looked curiously at the Orientals lounging about the door, then his face brightened as he read the words, "Chop Suey."

"It's a Chinese restaurant," he exclaimed delightedly. "Let's go in for a cup of tea, as soon as we have taken a look at your historic landmarks."

On the northwest corner of Grant Avenue and Clay Street, we paused before a dingy four-story brick building on whose sides were pasted long strips of red paper ornamented with quaint Chinese characters. I secretly wished that the building had been designed as a gay pagoda with bright colored, turned-up eaves like many of those in Chinatown and that its windows had displayed the choice embroideries and carved ivories of some of its neighbors, but as we peered through the glass, we saw only utilitarian articles for the coolie Chinaman.

"Rather a sordid setting for my story," I bemoaned. "The first house in commercial San Francisco stood here. It was only a sail stretched around four pine posts, but two years later was replaced by a picturesque, red-tiled adobe, so commodious that the Spaniards called it the Casa Grande. I am afraid the building now occupying the spot where the second house stood will be equally disappointing," I said ruefully, as we recrossed the street to where a Chinese butcher and vegetable vender was displaying his wares. We gazed curiously at the dangling pieces of dried fish, strings of sausage-like meat, unfamiliar vegetables, lichee nuts and sticks of green sugar cane.

"Somewhat different from the silks, satins and laces displayed on this spot by Jacob Leese in Spanish days," I reflected. "He was a Bostonian, who like Richardson had become an adopted son of California and settled at Yerba Buena for the purpose of trading with the American vessels."

"This must have been a lively business center." The man raised his voice above the rumble of the wagons and cars. "Two little houses in the midst of a sea of sand-dunes and no settlement nearer than the Mission."

"Oh, it didn't take the American long to make things hum," I assured him. "He arrived here on July second. Two days later he had built a house and was entertaining all the Spaniards from miles around, at a grand Fourth of July celebration."

"Quick work even for a Yankee," laughed my companion. "But rather hard on his English neighbor, I should think. Did Richardson attend?"

"Of course he did! Delivered the invitations, too! Leese was busy building his house, so the Englishman, in his little launch, called at all the ranchos and settlements about the bay and invited the Spaniards to come to Yerba Buena for a Fourth of July fandango."

We retraced our steps and a few doors beyond entered the gay, balconied restaurant, in quest of a cup of tea served in Oriental style. Climbing the steep stairs, we passed the first floor where laborers were being served with steaming bowls of rice; then mounted to the more aristocratic level where we were seated at elaborately carved teakwood tables, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. While waiting for our tea, we stepped onto the balcony which we had regarded with so much interest from the street. Above us hung the gorgeous lanterns, swaying like bright bubbles in the breeze, and below moved the silent blue-coated throng.

"So there was a Fourth of July celebration here even in Spanish times?" said the man. "Somewhat prophetic of the American days to come, wasn't it?"

We caught a glint of color in the street and leaned far over the balcony to watch a violet-coated Chinese girl thread her way among the sombre crowd.

"It must have been just below us that the early festivities were held," I suggested. "Leese's house was not large enough to accommodate his guests, so a big marquee surmounted by Mexican and American flags, and gaily decorated with bunting, was spread about where the street now runs. Can't you picture it all? The dainty little señoritas in their silk and satin gowns, with filmy mantillas thrown over their heads and shoulders, and the men not less gorgeous in lace-trimmed velvet suits and elaborate serapes. I can almost hear the applause and the booming of the cannon that followed General Vallejo's glowing tribute to Washington, and see the graceful Spanish dancers as they assembled for the evening ball. It was doubtless at this time that Leese met General Vallejo's fascinating sister, whom he married after a short and business-like courtship."

"Short, and she a Californian?" He sent me an amused glance.

"Perhaps Leese thought delay dangerous," I suggested, "for Señorita
María Rosalia was one of the belles of the new military outpost at
Sonomá and more than one gaily clad caballero was suing for her hand."

"No wonder the American pushed the matter," laughed my companion. "Did many Boston men marry Spanish Señoritas?"

"Nearly all who came to the Coast," I answered. "The California women were among the most fascinating in the world and held a peculiar charm for these sturdy New Englanders."

"I can understand that," he said, bending for a better look at my face.
"But what could the dainty señoritas see in these crude; raw-boned
Yankees?"

"Just what any woman would see," I declared. "Men of sterling character, working against terrible odds, with that courage which does not know the word failure. They saw men of perseverance, energy and brains who were bringing into the country the indomitable spirit of New England."

"I am glad you have a good word for the early Yankees," he said, "and I wish your enthusiasm extended to a later generation."

He turned toward me and I felt the telltale color sweep my cheeks as I became conscious that I was thinking less of Leese and his compatriots than of the Bostonian at my side.

"It wasn't the New England spirit," he declared, "that gave these early settlers the strength and determination to succeed. It was the women who had faith in them. A man can accomplish anything if the woman he loves— " My companion had moved close to my side, and his voice was low as he bent over me. "Little girl," he began, "last year in Boston when you came into my life—"

The harsh jangle of a Chinese orchestra broke the dull murmur of the street and in an instant the little balcony was crowded with gazers eager to catch a glimpse of the musicians through the windows opposite.

My companion and I moved aside for the new corners and turned again toward the interior. Through the open door we could see the waiter placing steaming cups of tea upon the table we had deserted, and re-entering the room, we seated ourselves in the big carved arm-chairs. Sipping the delicious beverage, we glanced toward the other tables, where groups of Chinamen were talking in a curious jargon and dexterously handling the thin ebony chop-sticks. On the wide matting-covered couches extending along the sidewalls, lounged sallow-faced Orientals, while in and out among the diners noiselessly moved the waiters, balancing on their heads, large brown straw trays. Snowy rice cakes, shreds of candied cocoanut, preserved ginger and brown paper-shell nuts with the usual Chinese eating utensils were placed before us. We tried the slender chop-sticks with laughable failure and then, declaring that fingers were made first, we had no further trouble. We took a farewell look at the gilt carved screens and long banners, which in quaint Chinese characters wished us health and happiness. Then following our smiling attendant to the door, we were bowed down the stairway. A Chinaman leaned over the railing and called the amount of our bill to the attendant on the second floor, who like an echo took it up and sent it on to the main entrance, where we settled our account.

Again on the sidewalk, we mingled with the Oriental throng whose expressionless yellow faces gave no hint of joy or sorrow. At the corner we turned east and made our way toward Portsmouth Square. I paused and let my eyes run over my companion, from his emaculate linen collar to his well-polished shoes.

"You'll look sadly out of place here," I warned. "No artist would ever take such a well-groomed person for a model, nor would you be suspected of belonging to the great army of the unemployed."

"Are they the only classes allowed? Then I speak now for the purchasing right of your portrait."

"Oh, I'll pose very well as the 'Amelican' teacher of those little Chinese butterflies fluttering after that kite. Aren't they attractive in their lavender, pink, and blue sahms?" I said, as we seated ourselves on the bench.

"To be honest, to be kind, to earn a little, to spend a little less,'" he read from the face of the fountain standing against a clump of trees whose soft foliage drooped caressingly over it. "Why, that's from Stevenson's Christmas sermon. Look at that unappreciative brute! He drank without reading a word!" exclaimed the man indignantly.

"Yes, but he feels the better for coming here. He received the refreshment most needed and that is what Stevenson would have wished. Some other may need and will receive the spiritual help."

"Why is it here?" he asked.

"Because Stevenson loved this place and came often to sit on the benches and study the wrecked and drifting lives of the men who lounged in the square."

"And the gilded ship on top with its full blown sails—that must suggest his Treasure Island, doesn't it?"

"Yes, and also the Manila Galleon, that splendid treasure-ship ladened with silk, wax and spices from the Philippines and China, which once each year made its landfall near Cape Mendocino and followed the line of the coast down to Mexico."

He leaned with arm outstretched along the back of the bench and surveyed the park.

"This, you said, was the old Spanish Plaza. What was here then?"

"At first just a sweep of tawny sand-dunes, surrounded by scrub oak and chaparral." I dropped my eyes to the gravel walk, that I might shut out the emerald green lawns, and flowering shrubs. "Over the shifting hillocks wandered a little minty vine bearing a delicate white and lavender flower not unlike your trailing arbutus. It was from the medicinal qualities of this plant that the little settlement was named Yerba Buena, the good herb. Over there on the northwest corner where that dingy Chinese restaurant now floats the flag of Chop Suey stood the old adobe Custom House, the first building erected on the Plaza, and it was in front of this that the Stars and Stripes were run up when General Montgomery, who had arrived in the sloop-of-war Portsmouth, took possession in the name of the United States."

"So that is where the square got its name—from the ship 'Portsmouth?'"
His voice rang with the joy of discovery.

"Yes, but the new name never completely replaced the old. We love the terms which come to us from Spanish days, and so, to many of us, this is still the Plaza."

"I presume there was a great outcry when Montgomery pulled down the Mexican flag and ran up the American. But I understand the country was helpless."

"Yes, it was poorly fortified, and the Californians had known for some time that Mexico was losing its hold, so the event was not unexpected. But there was no flag to pull down for the receiver of customs, realizing that resistance was useless, had packed the Mexican flag in a trunk with his official papers for safe keeping, so without opposition General Montgomery marched with seventy men accompanied by fife and drum from the waterfront to the Plaza, and raised the Stars and Stripes on the vacant flag pole. Thus the country came into the possession of the Americans and our historic pilgrimage is at an end," I concluded, rising.

But my companion seemed loath to leave the place. We sauntered by dark-eyed Italian girls lolling on the benches, shaggy bearded old sailors, whose scarred faces told of fierce battles with the elements, and stopped to examine the plaster casts presented for our inspection by a weary-eyed street vender. At a distance, a laughing gypsy girl in a white waist and much beruffled red plaid skirt was enticing the crowd to cross her hand with silver that she might tell their fortunes.

"What need have we for gypsies?" he demanded pulling me down on a bench.
"I'll, read your palm."

"Can you tell fortunes?" I questioned as I drew off my glove.

"I can tell yours," he declared straightening out my fingers in his big strong hand, and examining the lines.

"He's a tall dark man, wearing glasses—"

Instinctively I looked up into the uncovered brown eyes, then dropped mine in confusion as I met his laughing gaze.

"Only when he reads," added the Bostonian, holding on to my fingers, as
I tried to withdraw my hand.

An angry voice broke the silence and we sprang to our feet to see an old man shaking his fist in the face of a young Irish policeman.

"You let me alone!" he shouted. "You let me alone!"

For a moment the officer hesitated. Then he seized the old man by the collar. "Come along quietly! There ain't no use making a howl. There's a vagrancy law in this city and I'll show you it ain't to be sniffed at. I've been watching you ever since I've been on this beat and you ain't done nothing but sit around this Plaza."

"And ain't I a right to sit 'round this Plaza?" The man pulled himself free and again defied the officer of the law with a clenched fist. "Didn't I help make it? When you were playing with a rattle in your crib over in Dublin, I was a-stringing up a man to the eaves of the old Custom House over there on the corner. And now you try to arrest me—me a Vigilante of '51—" His fury choked him, and with a quick turn of the hand, the officer again had him by the collar. But the old man wrenched himself loose.

"You keep your hands off me." He raised his angry voice in warning. Then drawing a bundle of papers from his pocket he thrust them into the officer's face. "Look at that—and that—and that—biggest business blocks in San Francisco. If I choose to wear a loose shirt and sit 'round the Plaza it isn't any business of yours. In the good old days of forty-nine—"

I touched the Bostonian on the arm. "Let's go to the Exposition," I suggested. "We've seen everything here."

"There's no need to hurry! We've all the afternoon before us." He edged a little closer to the old man, about whom a crowd was gathering.

"In the good old days of forty-nine," rang out again and I glanced nervously at my companion. "We didn't have any dipper-dapper policemen making mistakes." He snapped his fingers in the officer's face. "We had good red-shirted miners who knew their business."

The policeman moved uneasily and handed back the papers. "I guess they're all right," he acknowledged. "The law doesn't seem to touch you."

"Touch me! Well, I guess not!" The officer moved off and the old man returned to his bench. Before I realized my companion's intention, we were seated beside the miner. He was still muttering maledictions on the head of the Irish policeman.

"The scoundrel!" He dug his stick into the gravel path. "Had the nerve to arrest me! Me, who strung up Jenkins in the first Vigilante Committee, and Casey and Cora in the second."

"You must have come here in early days," remarked the Bostonian.

"Early days," echoed the miner, "well, I guess I did. I'm a forty-niner." He straightened himself proudly and looked to see the effect of his words.

"I think we had better go." Again I touched the Antiquary's arm but he gave no heed to my signal.

"There must have been some stirring times here in the days of the gold rush."

"You bet there were," agreed the forty-niner, "and the entire history of San Francisco was made around this Plaza. Here were built the first hotel, the first school-house, the first bank; within a stone's throw the first Protestant sermon was preached, the first newspaper was printed and the first post office was opened. It was through the Plaza that Sam Brannan ran with a bottle of yellow dust in one hand, waving his hat with the other and shouting, 'Gold! gold! from the American River!' It was here that the big gambling houses sprang up, where fortunes were made and lost in a night, and here the first Vigilance Committee met and executed justice." The old man paused for breath.

I was on the edge of the bench ready for flight. All my good work of the last two days was rapidly being undermined. I heard again the skeptic's contemptuous tone of yesterday. "It's either before the fire" or "in the good old days of forty-nine."

"We—we must go," I stammered, "it's getting very late." The Bostonian looked at his watch. "Not three o'clock yet." He leaned back comfortably. "You ought to be interested in this. Your grandfather was a forty-niner."

I looked at him searchingly. I ought to be interested! I, who cherished every memory of pioneer days! I, who had bitten my lips a dozen times that afternoon, and was glorying in the tact and strength of mind which had avoided this period of our history!

The miner, apparently aware of my presence for the first time, sent me a piercing glance from beneath his shaggy eyebrows. "So your grandfather—"

"He wasn't exactly a forty-niner," I acknowledged. "He arrived outside the Heads the night of December thirty-first but there was a heavy fog and the vessel didn't get inside until the next morning."

"Hard luck," sympathized the old man, "coming near to being a forty-niner and missing it."

"But it's practically the same thing," persisted the Bostonian. "Only a few hours."

"The same thing!" scornfully repeated the miner. "There's as much difference as between Christmas and Fourth of July. A forty-niner's a forty-niner, and a man that came in fifty—well, he might as well have come in sixty or seventy, or even in the twentieth century. It's the forty-niner that counts in this community." He drew himself up proudly. Then plunging his hand deep into his pocket, drew out a nugget.

"Picked that up off my first claim," he explained, "but the dirt didn't pan out so well. I've carried it in my pocket all these years, just for the sentiment of the thing, I suppose. Many a time I was tempted to throw it on a table in the El Dorado, but I hung on to it."

"The El Dorado?" questioned the Easterner.

"Yes, one of the big gambling places here on the Plaza. Everybody took a chance in those days, even some of the preachers. You met all your friends there, and heard the best music and the latest news."

"Did they gamble with nuggets?" my companion led the old man on.

"Well, I guess they did! and gold dust in piles. The few children in town used to pan out the dirt of the Plaza in front of the Temples of Chance every morning after the places were swept out. The Californians put up parts of their ranchos, too, sometimes."

"How high did the stakes run?" Evidently this descendant of the Pilgrims had not lost all the sporting blood of his earlier English ancestors.

"Often as high as five hundred or a thousand dollars. The largest stake I ever saw change hands was forty-five thousand. Many a miner went back to the placers in the spring without a dollar in his pockets. But everybody was doing it and you could almost count the nationalities in the crowd around the table by the kinds of coins in the stacks. There were French francs, English crowns, East Indian rupees, Spanish pesos and United States dollars. The dress was as different as the money. We miners wore red and blue shirts, slouch hats and wide belts to carry our dust. The Californians were gorgeous in coats trimmed in gold lace, short pantaloons and high deer-skin boots, and the Chinese ran a close second in their colored brocaded silks. You knew the professional gamblers by their long black coats and white linen—real gentlemen, many of 'em and the most honest in the country.

"Ever see a picture of the Plaza in forty-nine," he asked abruptly.

"Never."

The miner drew a square on the gravel path with his stick. "The El Dorado was here, the Veranda here and the Bella Union here," he said, punching holes on the three corners of Kearny and Washington. "They were the finest and they had the best locations in town. The El Dorado paid forty thousand dollars a year for a tent and twenty-five thousand a month for a building on the same site later." The end of his stick deepened the hole on the southeast corner.

My eyes wandered from the plan to the real location. "Why, there is the name 'Veranda' over there now," I exclaimed as the black letters on a white awning caught my eye.

"Yes, it is pretty near the old site, but it's a poor substitute for its predecessor," he added scornfully. "There was great style in those days —fine bars, lots of glass and mirrors and pictures worth thousands of dollars. The doors were always open from eleven in the morning 'til daylight the next morning, and a steady stream of people were pouring in and out all the time. Everybody was there. There weren't no special inducement to stay home nights, when your residence was a bunk on the wall of a shanty and the fellers over you and under you and across the room weren't even acquaintances. I got a pretty good room after awhile in the Parker House"—he drew a small oblong south of the El Dorado— "for a hundred dollars a week, but I didn't stay long."

"I should think not—at that price."

"Oh, it wasn't the price. One of my friends paid two hundred and fifty. But you see it got pretty warm at the Parker House, that Christmas eve, and so we all moved. They cleared away the hot ashes of the hotel and built the Jenny Lind Theatre on the spot. That was the first big fire. We had them right along after that, every few weeks. Six big ones in eighteen months, with lots' of little ones in between."

"Then the last fire wasn't a new experience for you," the Bostonian suggested.

"Lord, no! Rebuilding was a habit with us early San Franciscans. We didn't begin to feel sorry for a man 'til he'd lost everything he owned three times. The Jenny Lind Theatre went down six times and the seventh building was sold for the City Hall. It stood right there"—he pointed to the handsome new Hall of Justice—"until it went up in the last fire."

"You are sure it wasn't the earthquake that finished it?" inquired the skeptic.

"Certainly not," I flared. "The Relief Committee met there that morning to lay their plans while the fires were raging south of Market Street."

He acknowledged defeat by changing the subject. "Was the old Spanish Custom House here?" he asked, pointing to the western side of the diagram.

"Yes," assented the miner, and he traced an oblong on the northern end, "and just behind it, on Washington Street, was Sam Brannan's house. He was the Mormon leader, you know, and brought a shipload of his followers to establish a settlement in forty-six. He published our first newspaper, the 'California Star,' in his house."

"Was it where that little green Chinese building with the bracketed columns and turned-up eaves is?" I interposed.

"The telephone exchange, you mean? Exact spot. They used to ring a hand bell in the Plaza on Sunday mornings to call the Mormons to hear Brannan preach in the Casa Grande."

"Richardson's house!" My companion sent me an appreciative glance.

"Sure, but that was before most of 'em, including Sam, went back on their faith. Next to the Custom House on the south," he continued, "was the Public Institute. It wasn't much to look at—just pine boards—but it was considerable useful. They held the Public School there and had preaching on Sundays 'til the teacher, the preacher and all the audience went off to the mines. They tried the Hounds there, too."

"The Hounds?" my friend looked dazed.

"Yes, the Sidney Coves that lived in Sidneyville, along there on Kearny near Pacific." Light had failed to dawn.

"Here on the corner of Kearny," continued the Forty-niner, "was an old adobe building with a red-tiled roof and a veranda around it."

"The City Hotel!" I exclaimed delightedly.

"How did you know?" He eyed me curiously.

"My grandfather was a near-forty-niner," I reminded him.

"Oh yes. Too bad! Too bad!" he added sympathetically. "It was the house and store of a fellow named Leidesdorff," he continued, "who did a lot of trading with the Yankee skippers in Mexican days, and it was turned into a hotel in the gold rush. It was always the swell place for blowouts. They had a big banquet and ball there for Governor Stockton, I'm told, after the procession and speeches in the Plaza, and another the next year for Governor Kearny; the first Relief Committee met here, called by Brannan, Howard and Vallejo, to send rescuers to the Sierras for the survivors of the Donner Party. There wasn't much of any importance in the way of gathering that didn't happen there."

We instinctively looked across at the square, three-story, pressed-brick home of the Chinese Consulate and bank.

"Every big fire took at least one side of the Plaza, and the sixth, in June of fifty-one, wiped out the whole square. That adobe was the last link between the Spanish village of Yerba Buena and its American successor, San Francisco," he regretted, "but it was a good thing for the city, for they began to build with stone and brick after that. Did you see the Parrott Building, as you came along, on California and Montgomery?" he asked.

The Easterner turned to me. "You didn't show me that," he said, reprovingly.

"No, why should I? It wasn't built until fifty-two."

He ignored my insinuation and turned back to his informer. "What about the Parrott Building? It sounds like an aviary."

"Not exactly," he smiled. "It was made of granite blocks, cut and dressed and marked in China and then shipped over and set up by the 'China Boys,' as the Orientals here called themselves."

"It's a curious coincidence," I ventured, "that the Hong Kong Bank now occupies the lower floor. What a freak of the winds it was that swept the big fire around that and the Montgomery block, and left them both for posterity!"

"Your fire seemed to have had a special veneration for historic structures," the Easterner commented. "It respected the Mission in like manner."

"Yes, somewhat," returned the miner, "but it might have had a little more respect and spared the Tehama House and the What Cheer House. I hated to see them go."

"And the Niantic Hotel and Fort Gunnybags," I added.

"Here! Here! I rise for a point of information," cried the alien. "Did the cheer inebriate and what is the technical difference between gunny-sacks and carpet bags?"

"Oh, that was our Vigilance Headquarters of fifty-six, where we hung
Casey and Cora," elucidated the Forty-niner.

"Help," gasped the Bostonian, sinking upon the bench.

"Tell him," I nodded to the miner.

"The Tehama House, on the waterfront at California and Sansome, was the swell hotel for army and navy people and all the Spanish rancheros when they came to town. You couldn't keep even your thoughts to yourself in that house, for it had thin board sidings and cloth and paper partitions, but it had lots of style, and Rafael set a great table. They moved it over to Montgomery and Broadway to make room for the Bank of California, and the fire caught it there. The What Cheer House," the old man's eyes brightened, "was on Sacramento and Leidesdorff, and that's where we miners went, if we could get in. Woodward was a queer chap. Took you in whether you could pay or not. But it was only a man's hotel. There wasn't a woman allowed about the place. He had the only library in town and everybody was welcome to use it. I've often seen Mark Twain and Bret Harte reading at the table."

"And the sacks?" queried the Bostonian.

But the old man had leaned back on the bench and his eyes wandered over the green grass and trees of the square. "It's much prettier than it used to be," he admitted, "but nothing happens here now. The Chinese children fly kites and the unemployed loaf on the benches and the grass, and I'm one of them. I wish you could have seen it in the early days." His eyes kindled with excitement. "It was only a barren hillside, but there was always something doing then. All the town meetings were held here in the open air and all the parades ended here for the speeches. The biggest celebration was in 1850, when the October steamer, flying all her flags, brought the news that California was admitted to the Union. We went wild, for we had waited for that word for more than a year. Every ship in the harbor displayed all her bunting and at night every house was as brilliant as candles and coal oil could make it. Bonfires blazed on all the hills and the islands and we had music and dancing all over the town 'til morning."

He paused in reminiscence. "But it wasn't so gay that moonlight night, the next February, when we hung Jenkins. He was a Sidney Cove and had just stole a safe, but that was the least of his crimes and of the whole gang. When we Vigilantes heard the taps on the firebell here in the Plaza, we gathered in front of the committee rooms. Nobody was excited; we just had to drive out the Sidney Coves and put an end to crime. We marched Jenkins here and hung him over there to the beam on the south end of the Custom House. Forty of us pulled on the rope, while a thousand more stood 'round as solemn as a prayer meeting to give us moral support and shoulder the responsibility. It wasn't no joke hanging a man, but it had to be done, if decent men was to live here."

He shook off his depression. "Everybody was in the Plaza sometime in the day, and once a month when Telegraph Hill signaled a steamer, everybody was here."

"Telegraph Hill? I never heard of it," he cast an accusing glance in my direction.

"It belongs to forty-nine," I retorted.

"All the shops closed immediately," continued the miner, "and Postmaster Geary was the most important man in town. The post-office was a block up the hill at Clay and Pike Streets, but the lines from the windows stretched down into the Plaza, and over among the tents and chaparral on California Street Hill. Men stood for hours, sometimes all night, in the pouring rain, and many a time I sold my place for ten dollars, and even twenty, to some fellow who had less patience or less time than I.

"But you should have been here on election day in fifty-one." The miner threw back his head and laughed aloud. "Colonel Jack Hays was running for sheriff," he resumed, "and his opponent hired a band to play in front of his store here on the Plaza as an advertisement. It worked fine! He was polling all the votes and the Colonel was about out of the running, 'til he got on his horse that he'd used on the Texas ranges and came cavorting into the square. He showed 'em some fancy turns they weren't used to and kept it up 'til the polls closed."

"Did he win?" I asked excitedly.

"Well, I guess he did! Hands down. But a sheriff ain't no use when the laws won't stick. That's why we had to have the Vigilance Committees."

I arose. That was a long story and the afternoon was fast going. My companion took the hint. He extended his hand and grasped the old miner's heartily.

"I thank you," he said, "you have opened up a new epoch to me and I shall not soon forget you. I shall come again and the place will have lost much of its interest if you are not here."

"Oh, I'll be here," laughed the old fellow. "It's home to me."

Telegraph Hill

The Latin Quarter. The signal station of '49 and a view of the city as it was. The Golden Gate.

Telegraph Hill of Unique Fame

"Would you like to go up 'crazy owld, daisy owld Telegraft Hill'," I asked in a softened mood as we moved away. "There is just about time."

"Indeed I should," he answered. "Can we take in some of the other things you archaeologists were mentioning on the way? I don't want to miss anything."

"We must leave the Parrott and Niantic buildings until some other day, but you can see the Montgomery Block if you wish," and we turned down Washington Street. "It was built on piles, by General Halleck's law firm. William Tecumseh Sherman's bank was nearby, but I suppose most of Boston's business men were generals-in-chief of the United States Army."

My irony was ignored and as we reached the corner of Montgomery, I continued: "It was on this spot that James King of William, editor of the 'Bulletin,' was shot down by James P. Casey, the ballot-box stuffer. The newspaper office was at the other end of the block on Merchant Alley, and that evening's editorial accused Casey of electing himself supervisor and stated that he was an ex-convict from Sing Sing. Within an hour after the paper appeared, Mr. King was carried dying to his room in the same building. It was this murder that brought the second Vigilance Committee into existence. While the immense funeral cortège, the largest San Francisco has ever known, escorted the body of Mr. King up this street toward Lone Mountain Cemetery, Casey and Cora, another criminal, were hung in front of the Vigilance, Headquarters on Sacramento near Front."

"You called it Fort Gunnybags ?" he queried.

"Yes, it was so named from the precautionary bulwark of sand-filled sacks piled up in a hollow square in front to protect the entrance. A bronze plate marked the old building before the fire."

We turned into Columbus Avenue. "Your beloved Stevenson used to live at No. 8, there on the gore where the Italian Bank is," I said. "We are coming to the Latin Quarter, a section that has always been given over to foreigners, for in early days 'Sidneyville,' peopled by ticket-of-leave men from the penal colony of Australia, and 'Little Chile' of the Peruvians and Chileans, clustered close around the base of Telegraph Hill."

"The very place Stevenson would choose, where life was flavored with history and the mystery of the foreign. But where are you going?" he exclaimed, stopping short as I began to ascend the steps by which Kearny Street climbs the hill.

"I thought you wished to see the site of the Marine Signal Station." I looked down at him from the fourth stair with feigned surprise.

"I do, indeed, but—can't we go up by a funicular and come down this way?" he compromised. "My Boston calves protest."

"Oh well, we can go by the level a little farther, but I thought you liked the 'flavor of the foreign.' Anyway, we ought to see Earl Cummings' old man," I remembered.

"What is his fatherland and his business?" he asked as his eye traveled over the shop signs "Sanguinetti, Farmacia Italiana," "Molinari & Cariani, Grocers;" "Oliva & Brizzolara, Real Estate."

"His birthplace is the World Universal, and his profession-leading us back to nature," I answered. Then, as we passed the spick and span concrete façade of the Patronal Church of St. Francis, with its rear of burned brick: "This is the direct descendent of the old Mission," I told him, "the first Parish Church of San Francisco. It was gutted by the fire and is being very gradually restored. A notice within administers an implied rebuke: 'The First Erected—the Last Restored.'"

We paused at the iron fence of the small green triangle cut off from Washington Square by the slant of Columbus Avenue, and peered at the fine bronze figure of a sinewy old man stooping to drink from his hand on the edge of the little pool.

"Mr. Cummings' message to his universal brothers," he commented. "None could fail to be refreshed by it. My strength is renewed. Let us ascend," and he turned up Filbert Street.

Dark-eyed women lounged in the doorways of the houses that cling to the perpendicular sides of the hill. "The Italian pervades," I volunteered, "but there are Greek, Sicilians, Spaniards and French." The whole was reminiscent of the South of Europe, but the Neapolitan scene of cleated walks and steep steps lacked the enlivening color notes of the homeland.

"Not even a red shirt on a clothes line," I regretted, but a flood of soft voweled Italian from a woman in a third story window, musically answered by a man in the street below, brought consolation.

"The opera's own tongue," the Bostonian commented.

"Well, you leave it to me," finished the man in the street.

"Sure, Mike, I will," responded the woman.

My companion halted in consternation.

"We make American citizens of them all," I asserted.

"Les petits enfants aussi," I added as a child ran past, shouting a response in irreproachable English to the Parisian command of her mother.

We turned through the rude stone wall into Pioneer Park and along the unkept paths shaded by eucalyptus, cypress and acacia trees and came upon the open height where the mountain-hemmed bay lay in broad expanse before us, dotted with islands and with ferries streaking their way across its blue-gray surface.

"Wonderful," he exclaimed under his breath.

   '"O, Telegraft Hill, she sits proud as a Queen,
   And th' docks lie below in th' glare,'"

I quoted from Wallace Irwin.

He lowered his gaze to the numerous wharves running out into the water, with teams appearing and disappearing at the entrances of the covered docks, like lines of busy ants.

   "'And th' bay runs beyant her, all purple and green
   Wid th' gingerbread island out there,'"

I continued the quotation.

"What are those terraced buildings?" he queried.

"It has been the military prison for years. It is Alcatraz Island."

He looked his inquiry.

"Spanish for Pelican," I answered, seating myself on a rock. "Ayala, the captain of the 'San Carlos,' the first ship to enter the bay, named it from the large number of the birds he found on it, and the big island to the right that looks like a portion of the main land is Angel Island, abbreviated from Ayala's Isla de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles."

"And Goat Island?" he questioned as he threw himself down on the grass.

"Yerba Buena," I corrected. "The other name was colloquially applied when Nathan Spear, being given some goats and kids by a Yankee skipper, put them over there. There were several thousand on the island in forty-nine, but the Americans killed them all off by night in spite of Spear's protests."

"Not all of them," he denied as he shied a stick at a white head reaching from below for a grassy clump.

   "'And th' goats and chicks and brickbats and sticks
   Is joombled all over the face of it,
   Av Telegraft Hill, Telegraft Hill,
   Crazy owld, daisy owld Telegraft Hill,'"

I laughed.

"I suppose the Spaniards must have had a name for this sightly hill," said the Bostonian, his eye tracing the rugged skyline across the bay, along the Tamalpais Range on the north, and the San Antonio Hills on the east.

"Yes, Anza christened it in 1776 when he climbed up here for a view after selecting the sites for the Presidio and the Mission. He called it La Loma Alta, and the High Hill it remained until the Americans put it to commercial use in forty-nine. The little town on the edge of the cove in the hollow of the hills was unconscious of a ship entering the harbor until she rounded Clark's Point, the southeast corner of this hill, and dropped anchor in full view—"

"Any relation to Champ?" he interrupted.

"No, Clark was a Mormon, although he afterward denied it, who had built a wharf in the deep water along the precipitous bluff, where ships could always disembark even when the ebb-tide uncovered mud-flats elsewhere along the shore of the cove.

"The American miners and merchants, eager for the earliest news of the approaching mails and merchandise, erected a signal station on the top of Loma Alta, about where that flag-pole is. When a vessel was seen entering the Golden Gate, the black arms of the semaphore on top of the building were raised in varying positions indicating to the watching town below, where every one knew the signals, whether it was a bark, a brig, a steamer or other kind of craft. This was the first wireless station on the coast.

"There comes a side-wheeler," I exclaimed, raising my arms upward in a slanting position, as a big liner from Yokohama entered the channel. "Now fancy every office and bank closed, every law-court adjourned, every gaming table deserted; the shore black with people and long lines forming from the post-office windows to await the anchoring of the vessel, the landing of friends and freight, and the sorting of the mail by Postmaster Geary."

My companion made a telescope of his two hands and examined the Nippon Maru. "You are discharged for inefficiency," he said. "You are reporting a side-wheeler for a screw-propeller."

"There is no signal in the code for such modern inventions," I retorted. "I suppose the fog of your practical realism is too obscuring for you to see that clipper just coming in," I continued, as a full-rigged ship spread its filled sails against the glowing sky of the late afternoon.

"The lady is a bit sarcastic, Billy," he addressed the goat, "but we'll examine it." Then peering through his telescoped hands again, "It's the clipper ship Eclipse," he announced, "built especially for speed, in the exigencies of the San Francisco trade, with long, narrow hull, and carrying an extra amount of canvas. She has made the trip from New York in three-quarters of the time required by any other kind of craft, and demands, therefore, nearly double the price for freight." He looked at me for approval.

"What a whetstone for the imagination the business sense is!" I commented. "Perhaps if your grandfather owned shares in the Eclipse, you will be able to see the second signal station erected the next year on Point Lobos, just beyond the Fort. From there a vessel could be decried many miles outside the Heads and the signal repeated by the station here on Telegraph Hill, relieved the inhabitants of several more hours of anxiety."

"Anxiety is a mild term if one couldn't hear for a whole month from the girl who had his heart," he commented. "It's bad enough when she won't write, even with a telegraph and railroad between." He was tracing some characters in the ground at my feet, with a stick. "Thirty-four days," I made out.

"If you've sufficiently recovered from the climb, shall we see how the city looks from up here?" I asked.

For answer he sprang up and assisted me to my feet. We walked to the opposite side of the park, where the city lay extended before us.

"Imagine a forest of masts here in the bay, about seven or eight hundred; the water laying Montgomery Street beyond the Merchants' Exchange—that yellow brick building with the little arched cupola; and wharves running out from every street to reach the ships lying in deep water, every one swarming with teams and men hurrying to and fro. Connect them with piled walks over the water on the lines of Sansome and Battery Streets and you have a picture of Yerba Buena Cove in forty-nine. Heap up freight and baggage on the shore, erect thousands of tents on the sand dunes around the edges of a town of shanties and adobes climbing over the hills and you have our miner's metropolis," I sketched for him.

"I see it," he said, shutting his eyes. "Now a wave of the magic wand and the scene is changed." He opened them again.

"The magic wand is a steam-paddy, working day and night leveling off the sand-hills and shoveling them into the bay. The wharves are converted into streets and many good ships, whose crews having deserted for the mines, being pulled up and used as storage ships, are caught by the rising tide of sand and converted into foundations for buildings. Such was the 'Niantic' at Clay and Sansome."

"Oh yes, the 'Niantic!"

"The third building on the site still retains the name."

"What was the case of assault that gave the belligerent name to Battery
Street?"

"It was a precaution against assault," I corrected. "Captain Montgomery erected a fortification of five confiscated Spanish guns on the side of this hill overlooking the harbor after he had taken possession of the Mexican town. It was known as Fort Montgomery, or the Battery. It was on the bluff just where Battery Street joins the Embarcadero down there, for the hill came out to that point."

"Did the earthquake shake it down?" His question was tinged with triumph.

I crushed him with a look. "The ships that came loaded with freight and passengers took it away with them as ballast," I explained, "and of recent years some contractors blasted it off and paved streets with it until it was rescued from further demolition by some appreciative landmark lovers of a women's club."

"What a fortunate interference! But the despoilers got a good slice of it, didn't they? There wouldn't have been much of it left in a few years."

"No more than there is of Rincon Hill, over there at the southern corner of Yerba Buena Cove." I was considerably mollified by his appreciation. "It was the best residence quarter of the fifties, but the 'unkindest cut' of Second Street, which brought no good to anyone, not even its commercial promoters, left it a place of the 'butt ends of streets,' as Stevenson says, and inaccessible, square-edged, perpendicular lots whose only value lies buried underneath them. I fear its scars can never be remedied."

"You have several hills left," he consoled me as his eye traveled along the broken western skyline. "What is their role in this historic drama?"

"The ridge running down the peninsula is the San Miguel Range, crowned by Twin Peaks, with the Mission at its foot. Nob Hill, next, acquired its name in the sixties, when the bonanza and railroad kings erected their residences there. Before the fire"—I felt my color rising, but there was no shade of change in my companion's expression—"the mansions of the 'Big Four' of the Central Pacific—Huntington, Hopkins, Stanford and Crocker—and the Comstock millionaires—Flood, Fair and others—filled with magnificent works of craftsmen and artists, had more than local fame."

"From this distance, with three of the largest buildings in the city, the hill hardly seems to have fallen from its high estate," he observed.

"You are quite right. It still lives up to its name, for the Fairmont
Hotel and the Stanford Apartments, christened for two of its former
magnates, and the brown-stone Flood mansion, remodeled for the
Pacific-Union Club, are no whit less nobby than their predecessors."

"The next hill?" He turned his gaze to the houses perched on the top and clinging part way down its steep sides.

"A little graveyard where the Russian gold-seekers were laid to rest gave its name. It is now the home of the artists and the artistic."

"A city built on the water and the hills, and rebuilt on the ashes of seven fires," he commented. "It is almost incomprehensible." After a moment's pause: "How much of the city was burned by the last fire?"

I glanced sharply at him. There was no shade of irony in his tone and his face showed only sincerity.

"All that you can see, from the fringe of wharves at the waterfront to the top of the hills and down into the valley beyond, except these houses here at our feet, saved by the Italians with wine-soaked blankets, and a few on the heights of Russian Hill."

"It was colossal!" he exclaimed. "Think of it! a whole city wiped out." I lowered my eyes to the goat nibbling beside us. "The courage and energy that rebuilt it is herculean." His enthusiasm was cumulative. "And rebuilt it in practically three years! No wonder you date all things from the fire."

Billy flickered his tail and solemnly winked at me.

"It is getting late," I said, "but the sun is just setting. Shall we watch it before we go?"

Without speaking, he followed me back to our first point of view. The crimson ball was sinking into the sea, with its Midas touch turning the water and sky to molten gold. The last rays gilded the cliffs on either side of the entrance to the bay, and burnished the heads of the nodding poppies at our feet. From the Presidio came the muffled boom of the sunset gun.

"Could Frémont have chosen a better name?" exclaimed the man at my side.
"The Golden Gate it is, indeed!"

"It certainly is well named," I agreed, "for everyone can interpret its meaning according to his mood and character. Some see only what Frémont saw, an open door to commerce; to others it is the entrance to hoards of gold, stowed away in hills and streams; to the poet it speaks of the golden poppies that streak the hillsides, but I like to think of it as did the Indians, who called it 'Yulupa,' the Sunset Strait."

Silently we watched the lights of the city come out, one by one, until it seemed as if the heavens lay beneath us.

"I hoped when I left Boston that you would return with me," he said gently, "but I can't ask you to leave this. I didn't understand then, but now—"

The lights became blurred and the night seemed suddenly to have grown cold.

"Of course, you couldn't be happy—"

The voice did not sound like his. I had been in a dream for two days. I had thought he cared just as I did, but he couldn't, or he would realize that nothing counted but—I bit my lips to keep from crying out.

"Boston is too cold for a girl with the warmth of California in her heart."

Cold! Didn't he know that life with him would make an iceberg paradise? Didn't he realize—? But, of course, he didn't care as I did! This was only a subterfuge. I straightened proudly.

"I can't ask you to go back with me," he was saying, "but I can stay here with you." His hand crept over mine. "Our business needs a manager on this coast. Will you help me make a home in San Francisco, dear?"

Below, the lights of the city danced with happiness and a glad new song rang in my heart.

Here ends 'The Lure of San Francisco. A Romance Amid Old Landmarks." Written by Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray and Illustrated from Sketches in Charcoal by Audley B. Wells. Done into a book by Paul Elder and Company at their Tomoye Press in San Francisco under the supervision and care of H. A. Funke, in July, Nineteen Hundred and Fifteen.