uge out auriferous rock, and soon these
common household appurtenances brought as high as twenty-five dollars
each. Candles ere long were the equivalent of dollars, and pans were
cheap at five dollars each.

Still San Francisco waited, though a constant dribble of departures made
at last perceptible inroads on its population. Then, one May afternoon,
the fat was in the fire.

Samuel Brannan, who had been at his store in New Helvetia, rode through
the streets, holding a pint flask of gold-dust in one hand, swinging his
hat with the other, and whooping like a madman:

"Gold! Gold! Gold! From the American River!"

As if he had applied a torch to the hayrick of popular interest, San
Francisco flamed with fortune-seeking ardor. Next morning many stores
remained unopened. There were neither clerks nor proprietors. Soldiers
fled from the garrison, and Lieutenant William T. Sherman was seen
galloping northward with a provost guard to recapture a score of
deserters. Children found no teacher at the new schoolhouse and for
months its doors were barred. Cargoes, half-discharged, lay on the
wharves, unwarehoused. Crews left en masse for the mines, and ships
floated unmanned at anchor. Many of them never went to sea again.

On every road a hegira of the gold-mad swept northward, many afoot, with
heavy burdens, the more fortunate with horses and pack animals. Men,
old, young, richly dressed and ragged--men of all conditions,
races, nations.

The end of May, in 1848, found San Francisco a manless Eden. Stanley,
struggling with a few elderly Indians and squaws to carry on his work,
bemoaned the madcap folly bitterly.

[Illustration: Samuel Brannan rode through the streets, holding a pint
flask of gold-dust in one hand ... and whooping like a madman: "Gold!
Gold! Gold! From the American River!"]

But Benito, with shining eyes, rode on to what seemed Destiny and
Fortune. Ward & Smith's little shop lay far behind him. Even his sister
and her busy husband. Before him beckoned Gold! The lure, adventure,
danger of it, like a smiling woman. And his spirit stretched forth
longing arms.

CHAPTER XVII

THE QUEST OF FORTUNE

By the end of June more than half of San Francisco's population had
departed for the mines. They went by varied routes, mostly on horseback.
Rowboats, which a month ago had sold for $50, were now bringing ten
times that sum, for many took the river route to the gold fields. Others
toiled their way through t