o dollars apiece! "Hello; there's Lieutenant
Sherman." For a spruce military figure was briskly crossing this plaza
of Portsmouth Square.

Lieutenant Sherman saw them, as he approached and smiled.

"Not off to the mines yet?" he greeted.

"Not yet. I was just saying to Charley that farming looked better to
me than mining, in this country, judging by prices of common produce."

"It's all shipped in," stated the lieutenant, in his quick voice.
"Nobody now has any time for farming; and before this excitement
everybody had too much time. The Californians lived on beef,
_tortillas_ and beans, all of which was easy. They wouldn't take the
trouble even to milk a cow. The missions tried to teach agriculture to
the Indians, and now since some Americans have taken up ranches a few
patches have been ploughed, for the home table. But the wheat, barley
and live stock, which grow without attention, are about all you'll find
on tens of thousands of acres. California is dry and barren. I've
ridden over a great deal of it, and I once wrote East that I wouldn't
give two counties in Ohio, Kentucky or Tennessee for the whole
territory. It never will amount to anything except for gold
production. When do you start?"

"To-morrow morning."

"All right. Good luck to you. Our headquarters offices are in the old
custom-house; drop in if you need any information I can give you.
General Persifor Smith and family are lodged in the lower room of the
old Hudson's Bay Company house on Montgomery Street. Every servant but
one, and he is a negro, has deserted us; and the general does the
marketing and sometimes the cooking. The rest of us occupy the second
floor, and hustle for our meals the best we can. You're well out of
this hurly-burly where the commander of all the United States forces on
the Pacific coast must do his own housework! When we move over to the
new post at Benicia perhaps things will be better."

So saying, the busy lieutenant strode on.

By the time that Charley and his father had succeeded in purchasing
what few supplies they could afford, they had pretty nearly seen San
Francisco. It certainly was a queer jumble. Buildings and population
alike were of the hasty, rough-and-ready style; but already a brick
store, for the merchant firm of Howard & Mellus, had gone up and had
cost a dollar a brick! In the stores, no matter how constructed, every
kind of goods was being sold, signs bore high-sounding names su