"If you're looking for Colonel Frémont, you'll likely find him at the United States Hotel," hailed the hotel clerk, as Charley and Mr. Grigsby passed the counter. "He's there with General Vallejo, I understand."
"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Grigsby. "You know who Frémont is," he said, to Charley; and Charley nodded. Of course he knew. Frémont was the great explorer—Frémont the Pathfinder, they called him. He it was who, arrived in California on his third exploring expedition for the Government, early in 1846, had been on hand to lead in the taking of California from Mexico. His stories of his travels made fine reading. "Well, this General Vallejo is Don Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. He was the military governor of Upper California before the war, but he's been a great friend of the Americans, although he was the first man they captured in the uprising of Forty-six. Nobody has a word to say against General Vallejo. He wanted California to belong to the United States, and said so, when other Californians were favoring England and France instead of Mexico, after it was seen that Mexico couldn't hold it. Fact is, General Vallejo it was who started San Francisco. Not this San Francisco, but Benicia, at the other end of the bay. He donated the land, and only asked that the city be named Francisca, after his wife, Francisca Benicia. He gave a an mile wide by five miles long. It's a better site for a big city than this is, they say, because it's not so steep and is only across a narrow strait from the mainland, and has deep-water anchorage. Most of the steamers go there now, to anchor, and it has the and military headquarters, at Island and at the new post going up. This place was only Yerba Buena—Good Herb Cove—a landing-place for the San Francisco mission. But the settlers already here got ahead of the Vallejo plan, and renamed their town San Francisco, because of San Francisco Bay; and the name has made it grow. The general and Thomas O. Larkin (who was the Government and agent) and Doc Robert Semple, who's an old-time trapper from Kentucky and is about seven feet high, went ahead and started the other town, and having lost out on Francisca called it by Mrs. Vallejo's other name, Benicia. But it never has amounted to much as a town. I thought I'd tell you about General Vallejo. He and Frémont are a good pair—Americans both, though one is French, born in Georgia, the other is Mexican, born in California."
The same boys whom Charley had seen in the morning were scratching for gold in front of the United States Hotel, and quarreling over their finds, which stuck to the moistened heads of the pins they were using.
"There he is, now—and the General with him," Mr. Grigsby, quickening pace as he and Charley approached across the street.
Two men were just leaving the hotel porch. One was of medium height, and slender, in a broad silvered Californian hat and a short jacket with . The other was taller and heavier and darker, in ordinary citizen's clothes. Charley guessed that the first was Colonel Frémont.
That was so, for going directly to him, Mr. Grigsby extended his brown, hand, saying:
"Colonel, do you remember me?"
Colonel Frémont gave him one flashing glance out of a pair of deep-set, very keen, dark blue eyes. A handsome man was the Pathfinder, with such eyes, a clean-cut, imperious nose, and a crisp full brown beard.
"Hello, Grigsby," he said, grasping the hand . "Do you think I could forget one of my own men? The General remembers you, too, I'll ."
"With pleasure," said General Vallejo; and he, also, shook hands. He was older than Colonel Frémont, was General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, and even more commanding in his appearance. His face was large and , in its black beard, his forehead was high and broad, and his dark eyes piercing.
Mr. Grigsby introduced Charley, and they both shook hands with him.
"We're off to the mines in the morning, and I wanted to pay my respects and introduce this boy, here, before we left," explained Mr. Grigsby. "Are your family here, Colonel? And yours, General?"
"The General's are north at Sonoma, I believe," answered the Pathfinder. "Mine are on their way back to Monterey. What trail do you take, Grigsby? The northern mines, or the southern?"
"We'll try the northern, up the American; by boat as far as Sacramento."
"Our old stamping-ground of the American fork, eh?" remarked the Colonel. "I well recall our first trip in, across the mountains, in that winter of early Forty-four, when Sutter's Fort was the only habitation. Who'd have thought that in five years there'd be towns all along the old trail, and thousands of white men pushing in from mountains and ocean both, to scratch and like gophers! You won't know the place, Grigsby! When were you there last?"
"A year ago."
"You won't know it, just the same."
"No," agreed General Vallejo, earnestly.
"There's still plenty of gold, is there?" Mr. Grigsby. This was an important question, to Charley.
The Colonel his shoulders and laughed. The General gravely smiled. Answered the Colonel:
"Gold? Lots of it, and people finding it. The diggings along the American and the Yuba and the Feather are in full blast; and then there are the southern mines, up the San Joaquin Valley, in the Mokelumne and Calaveras districts. I'm going over there myself to-morrow or next day. If you see Captain Sutter up north, tell him that any help he can give you will be appreciated by me."
"Your rancho is prosperous, Colonel?"
"Fairly so. You know we've named it Mariposa, or Lily . I had intended to stock it to cattle, but the mining excitement has changed my plans and all my ranch is stored here in town. The land has so much mineral on it, we've discovered, that I'll work that first if the Government doesn't object. Unfortunately mineral claims are not supposed to go with Mexican land grants. While my family are here we make our quarters in the Happy Valley section. I have a saw-mill started back of San José, too. Should you come that way, be sure and stop off with me."
"And should you come to Sonoma, do me the honor of making my house your home," said the General. "And pray do not forget that in September we of California hold a statehood convention at Monterey, to frame a State constitution. All good citizens are requested to be present."
"The State of California, already! Think of that!" exclaimed Mr. Grigsby.
"And a free State, too, if we can make it so," added Colonel Frémont, his blue eyes . "California's free now, to everybody. One man is as good as another. I was born in the South, but I'm against slavery. California has started gloriously free, and she ought to remain so."
"I'm with you, there, gentlemen," quoth Mr. Grigsby. "Certainly this is the one population, away out here like a big family, where slavery has no place or reason. Anybody who will work ought to be allowed to make a living. This gold and land weren't put here for the benefit of a few."
They all shook hands again. The Colonel and the General paced away, on their business. Mr. Grigsby and Charley went ahead on theirs. And Charley never forgot his first meeting with the Pathfinder and the stately ex-governor.
He was tired enough when he and Mr. Grigsby had completed their errands. But he found his father rested and up, and waiting with the home letter just finished. Charley added four pages; but he had so much to tell that he didn't say half of it. 'Twas a wonderful country, let alone the marvelous journey behind it. He only regretted that he didn't pick up a little gold, in the streets, so as to enclose that in the letter, too.
His father had made arrangements to store their trunk, and what clothes they would not need while at the mines.
"Now all that is to get our washing early—and, by the way, the Frenchman promises to have it ready by six o'clock—and a pack animal at Sacramento," he pronounced. "That is, if we can find one."
"If Captain Sutter is there, we'll find our pack animal," asserted Mr. Grigsby.
"And if we don't, we can carry our own packs," declared Mr. Adams. "That's the way the majority of the people are going in. By the way, several persons have told me we ought to try the southern mines, up the San Joaquin, beyond the new town called Stockton. But of course we have our reasons."
"It's all luck, to the greenhorn," replied the Fremonter. "But I think the American or the Feather country fits that map better."
After supper they took a stroll, before they turned in early to get a good night's sleep. Surely there never was a gayer, busier place than San Francisco at night. The wind, which had been blowing most of the day, dropped, at evening, and a fog floated in. In the fog the lights of lamps, lanterns and candles shone from doors and windows and through canvas walls. Now about every other store appeared to be a saloon or room, all crowded. There were other places of amusement, also, even to a sort of a theatre, where miners were dancing with one another, on the floor, to the sound of a and cracked , while on a stage a thin woman with painted red cheeks was singing and . An auctioneer was selling real estate, from a dry-goods box in the . Stores were open, the streets were , hammering and music and shouting were just as in the night before; and after the Adams party had gone to bed they found it hard work to sleep.
The hotel itself was noisy, for voices carried right through the floors and the thin partitions. Charley tried not to listen, and was just off at last, when a new conversation, somewhere along the hall, made him up his ears. There evidently were two men.
"You've never heard of Tom, have you?" asked one voice.
"Not a word, since he started back to the States to find his relatives," answered a gruffer voice.
"Hadn't many, had he?"
"Nephew by marriage, is all he ever mentioned."
"He did well while he was here, and it's a pity he threw up and left. Somebody's jumped his claims by this time, sure. Fact is, you can't leave a claim over night, without having somebody jump into it and . People are getting crazy, running 'round wild-like and grabbing ............