et 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 dense fog floated in. In the fog the
lights of lamps, lanterns and candles shone weirdly from doors and
windows and through canvas walls. Now about every other store appeared
to be a saloon or gambling 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 fiddle and
cracked accordion, while on a stage a thin woman with painted red
cheeks was singing and prancing. An auctioneer was selling real
estate, from a dry-goods box in the plaza. Stores were open, the
streets were thronged, hammering and music and shouting were mingled
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
dozing off at last, when a new conversation, somewhere along the hall,
made him prick 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
squat. People are getting crazy, running 'round wild-like and grabbing
any land they fancy. The Government will have to step in and make
laws."

"That's right; but Tom had one claim that he banked on and said nobody
could find."

"You mean the Golden West?"

"Yes. Somewhere up north."

"In the American or the Feather country, I always imagined. He was
saving it till he could get that nephew, I reckon, to work it with him.
A quartz claim. I saw specimens from it. Well, let's go to sleep. So
long."

"So long."

Charley's heart beat rapidly. "The Golden West!" That was the very
name of the mine they were seeking--the mine that had been given to
them by the mysterious Californian back in St. Louis! In the American
River or Feather River country, the two men had said; and "Tom"; but
beyon