The Gray Dawn

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Gray Dawn

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Throughout all this exciting little incident the woman had not altered her
pose nor the expression of her face. Her head high, her eye ruminative, she
had looked on it all as one quite detached from possible consequences. The
little parasol did not change its angle. Only, quite deliberately, she had
relinquished the ribbon by which she held on her hat, and had placed her
slender hand steadyingly on the side of the vehicle.

The bystanders, already leaping down from their places of refuge and again
crowding the narrow way, directed admiring eyes toward the beautiful,
nervous, docile horses, the calm and dominating man, and the poised, dainty
creature at his side. One drunken individual cheered her personally. At
this a faint shell pink appeared in her cheeks, though she gave no other
sign that she had heard. Sherwood glanced down at her, amused.

But now emerged the Jew slop seller, very voluble. He had darted like a rat
to some mysterious inner recess of his burrow; but now he was out again
filling the air with lamentations, claims, appeals for justice. Sherwood
did not even glance toward him; but in the very act of tooling his horses
into the roadway tossed the man some silver. Immediately, with shouts and
cheers and laughter, the hoodlums nearby began a scramble.

The end of the long wharf widened to a great square, free of all buildings
but a sort of warehouse near one end. Here a rope divided off a landing
space. Close to the rope the multitude crowded, ready for its
entertainment. Here also stood in stately grandeur the three livery hacks
of which San Francisco boasted. They were magnificent affairs, the like of
which has never elsewhere been seen plying for public hire, brightly
painted, highly varnished, lined with silks, trimmed with solid silver. The
harnesses were heavily mounted with the same metal. On their boxes sat
fashionable creatures, dressed, not in livery, but throughout in the very
latest of the late styles, shod with varnished leather, gloved with softest
kid. Sherwood drove skilfully to the very edge of the roped space, pushing
aside the crowd on foot. They growled at him savagely. He paid no attention
to them, and they gave way. The buggy came to a stop. The horses, tossing
their heads, rolling their eyes, stamping their little hoofs, nevertheless
stood without need of further attention.

Now the brass bands blared with a sudden overwhelming blast of sound, the
crowd cheered noisily; the runners for the hotels began to bark like a pack
of dogs. With a vast turmoil of paddle wheels, swirling of white and green
waters, bellowing of speaking trumpets, throwing of handlines and scurrying
of deck hands and dock hands, the _Panama_ came to rest. After considerable
delay the gangplank was placed. The passengers began to disembark, facing
the din much as they would have faced the buffeting of a strong wind. This
was the cream of the entertainment for which the crowd had gathered; for
which, indeed, the Sherwoods had made their excursion. Each individual
received his meed of comment, sometimes audible and by no means always
flattering. Certainly in variety both of character and of circumstance they
offered plenty of material. From wild, half-civilized denizens of
Louisiana's canebrakes, clinging closely to their little bundles and their
long rifles, to the most polished exquisites of fashion they offered all
grades and intermediates. Some of them looked rather bewildered. Some
seemed to know just what to do and where to go. Most dove into the crowd
with the apparent idea of losing their identity as soon as possible. The
three magnificent hacks were filled, and managed, with much plunging and
excitement, to plow a way through the crowd and so depart. Amusing things
happened to which the Sherwoods called each other's attention. Thus a man,
burdened with a single valise, ducked under the ropes near them. A paper
boy happened to be standing near. The passenger offered the boy a fifty-
cent piece.

"Here, boy," said he, "just carry this valise for me."

The paper boy gravely contemplated the fifty cents, dove into his pocket,
and produced another.

"Here, man," said he, handing them both to the traveller, "take this and
carry it yourself."

One by one the omnibuses filled and departed. The stream of passengers down
the gangplank had ceased. The crowd began to thin. Sherwood gathered his
reins to go. Mrs. Sherwood suddenly laid her hand on his forearm.

"Oh, the poor thing!" she cried, her voice thrilling with compassion.

A young man and a steward were supporting a girl down the gangplank.
Evidently she was very weak and ill. Her face was chalky white, with dark
rings under the eyes, her lips were pale, and she leaned heavily on the
men. Although she could not have heard Mrs. Sherwood's exclamation of pity,
she happened to look up at that instant, revealing a pair of large, dark,
and appealing eyes. Her figure, too, dressed in a plain travelling dress,
strikingly simple but bearing the unmistakable mark of distinction, was
appealing; as were her exquisite, smooth baby skin and the downward
drooping, almost childlike, curves of her lips. The inequalities of the
ribbed gangplank were sufficient to cause her to stumble.

"She is very weak," commented Mrs. Sherwood.

"She is--or would be--remarkably pretty," added Sherwood. "I wonder what
ails her."

Arrived at the foot of the gangplank the young man removed his hat with an
air of perplexity, and looked about him. He was of the rather florid,
always boyish type; and the removal of his hat had revealed a mat of close-
curling brown hair, like a cap over his well-shaped head. The normal
expression of his face was probably quizzically humorous, for already the
little lines of habitual half laughter were sketched about his eyes.

"A plunger," said John Sherwood to himself, out of his knowledge of men;
then as the young man glanced directly toward him, disclosing the colour
and expression of his eyes, "a plunger in something," he amended, revising
his first impression.

But now the humorous element was quite in abeyance, and a faint dismay had
taken its place. One arm supporting the drooping girl, he was looking up
and down the wharf. Not a vehicle remained save the heavy drays already
backing up to receive their loads of freight. The dock hands had dropped
and were coiling the line that had separated the crowd from the landing
stage.

With another exclamation the woman in the carriage rose, and before
Sherwood could make a move to assist her, had poised on the rim of the
wheel and leaped lightly to the dock. Like a thistledown she floated to the
little group at the foot of the gangplank. The steward instantly gave way
to her evident intention. She passed her arm around the girl's waist. The
three moved slowly toward the buggy, Mrs. Sherwood, her head bent
charmingly forward, murmuring compassionate, broken, little phrases,
supporting the newcomer's reviving footsteps.

Sherwood, a faint, fond amusement lurking in the depths of his eyes,
quietly cramped the wheels of the buggy.

IV

A half hour later the two men, having deposited the women safely in the
Sherwoods' rooms at the Bella Union, and having been unceremoniously
dismissed by Mrs. Sherwood, strolled together to the veranda. They had not,
until now, had a chance to exchange six words.

The newcomer, who announced himself as Milton Keith from Baltimore, proved
to have a likable and engaging personality. He was bubbling with interest
and enthusiasm; and these qualities, provided they are backed solidly, are
always prepossessing. Sherwood, quietly studying him, concluded that such
was the case. His jaw and mouth were set in firm lines; his eye, while
dancing and mischievous, had depths of capability and reserves of
forcefulness. But Sherwood was, by inclination and by the necessities of
his profession, a close observer of men. Another, less practised, might
have seen here merely an eager, rather talkative, apparently volatile, very
friendly, quite unreserved young man of twenty-five. Any one, analytical or
otherwise, could not have avoided feeling the attractive force of the
youth's personality, the friendly quality that is nine tenths individual
magnetism and one tenth the cast of mind that initially takes for granted
the other man's friendliness.

At the moment Keith was boyishly avid for the sights of the new city. In
these modern days of long journeys, a place so remote as San Francisco, in
the most commonplace of circumstances, gathers to its reputation something
of the fabulous. How much more true then of a city built from sand dunes in
four years; five times swept by fire, yet rising again and better before
its ashes were extinct; the resort of all the picturesque, unknown races of
the earth--the Chinese, the Chileno, the Mexican, the Spanish, the
Islander, the Moor, the Turk--not to speak of ordinary foreigners from
Russia, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the out-of-the-way
corners of Europe; the haunt of the wild and striking individuals of all
these races. "Sydney ducks" from the criminal colonies; "shoulder strikers"
direct from the tough wards of New York; long, lean, fever-haunted crackers
from the Georgia mountains or the Louisiana canebrakes; Pike County
desperadoes; long-haired men from the trapping countries; hard-fisted,
sardonic state of Maine men fresh from their rivers; and Indian fighters
from the Western Reserve; grasping, shrewd commercial Yankees; fire-eating
Southern politicians; lawyers, doctors, merchants, chiefs, and thiefs, the
well-educated and the ignorant, the high-minded and the scalawags, all
dumped down together on a sand hill to work out their destinies; a city
whose precedents, whose morals, whose laws, were made or adapted on the
spot; where might in some form or another--revolver, money, influence--made
its only right; whose history ranged in three years the gamut of human
passion, strife, and development; whose background was the fabled El Dorado
whence the gold in unending floods poured through its sluices. To the
outside world tales of these things had come. They did not lose in the
journey. The vast loom of actual occurrences rose above the horizon like
mirages. Names and events borrowed a half-legendary quality from distances,
as elsewhere from time. Keith had heard of Coleman, of Terry, of Broderick,
Brannan, Gwin, Geary, as he had heard of the worthies of ancient history;
he had visualized the fabled splendours of San Francisco's great gambling
houses, of the excitements of her fervid, fevered life, as he might have
visualized the magnificences of pagan Rome; he had listened to tales of her
street brawls, her vast projects, the buccaneering raids of her big men,
her Vigilance Committee of the year before, as he would have listened to
the stories of one of Napoleon's veterans. Now, by the simple process of a
voyage that had seemed literally interminable but now was past, he had
landed in the very midst of fable. It was like dying, he told Sherwood
eagerly, like going irretrievably to a new planet. All his old world now
seemed as remote, as insubstantial, as phantomlike, as this had seemed.

"Even yet I can't believe it's all so," he cried, walking excitedly back
and forth, and waving an extinct cigar. "I've got to see it, touch it! Why,
I know it all in advance. That must be where the Jenny Lind Theatre stood--
before the fire--just opposite? I thought so! And the bay used to come up
to Montgomery Street, only a block down! You see, I know it all! And when
we came in, and I saw all those idle ships lying at anchor, just as they
have lain since their crews deserted them in '49 to go to the mines--and I
know why they haven't been used since, why they will continue to lie there
at anchor until they rot or sink--"

"Do you?" said Sherwood, who was vastly amused and greatly taken by this
fresh enthusiasm.

"Yes, the clipper ships!" Keith swept on. "The first cargoes in this new
market make the money--the fastest clippers--poor old hulks--but you
brought in the argonauts!"

So he ran on, venting his impatience, so plainly divided between his sense
of duty in staying near his wife and his great desire to slip the leash,
that Sherwood smiled to himself. Once again he mentioned Coleman and the
Vigilantes of '51.

"I suppose he's around here? I may see him?"

"Oh, yes," said Sherwood, "you'll see him. But if you would accept a bit of
advice, go slow. You must remember that such a movement makes enemies,
arouses opposition. A great many excellent people--whom you will know--are
a little doubtful about all that."

Keith mentioned other names.

"I know them all. They are among the most influential members of the bar."
He glanced at a large watch. "Just at this hour we might find them at the
Monumental engine house. What do you say?"

"I should like nothing better!" cried Keith.

"Your wife's illness is not likely to require immediate attendance?"
suggested Sherwood inquiringly.

"She's only seasick--horrible voyage--she's always under the weather on
shipboard--three weeks of it from Panama--Nan's as strong as a horse,"
replied Keith, with obvious impatience.

They walked across the Plaza to the Monumental fire engine house, a square
brick structure of two stories, with wide folding doors, and a bell cupola
apart. Keith paused to admire the engine. It was of the type usual in those
days, consisting of a waterbox with inlet and outlet connections, a pump
atop, and parallel pump rails on either side, by the hand manipulation of
which the water was thrown with force from the box. The vehicle was drawn
by means of a long rope, carried on a drum. This could be slacked off at
need to accommodate as high as a hundred men or as few as would suffice to
move her. So far this engine differed in no manner from those Keith had
seen in the East. But this machine belonged to a volunteer company, one of
many and all rivals. It was gayly coloured. On the sides of its waterbox
were scenic paintings of some little merit. The woodwork was all mahogany.
Its brass ornamentation was heavy and brought to a high state of polish.
From a light rack along its centre dangled two beautifully chased speaking
trumpets, and a row of heavy red-leather helmets. Axes nestled in sockets.
A screaming gilt eagle, with wings outspread, hovered atop. Alongside the
engine stood the hook and ladder truck and the hose cart. These smaller and
less important vehicles were painted in the same scheme of colour, were
equally glittering and polished. Keith commented on all this admiringly.

"Yes," said Sherwood, "you see, since the big fires, it has become a good
deal a matter of pride. There are eleven volunteer companies, and they are
great rivals in everything, political and social, as well as in the line of
regular business, so to speak. Mighty efficient. You'll have to join a
company, of course; and you better look around a little before deciding.
Each represents something different--some different element. They are
really as much clubs as fire companies."

They mounted to the upper story, where Keith found himself in a long room,
comfortably fitted with chairs, tables, books, and papers. A double door
showed a billiard table in action. Sherwood indicated a closed door across
the hall.

"Card rooms," said he briefly.

The air was blue with smoke and noisy with rather vociferative conversation
and laughter. Several groups of men were gathered in little knots. A negro
in white duck moved here and there carrying a tray.

Sherwood promptly introduced Keith to many of these men, and he was as
promptly asked to name his drink. Keith caught few of the names, but he
liked the hearty, instant cordiality. Remarking on the beauty and order of
the machines, loud cries arose for "Taylor! Bert Taylor!" After a moment's
delay a short, stocky, very red-faced man, with rather a fussy manner, came
forward.

"Mr. Keith," said a tall, dark youth, with a pronounced Southern accent,
"I want foh to make you acquainted with Mr. Tayloh. Mr. Tayloh is at once
the patron saint of the Monumentals, but to a large extent its 'angel' as
well --I hope you understand the theatrical significance of that term,
suh. He is motheh, fatheh, guardeen, and dry nurse to every stick, stone,
and brick, every piece of wood, brass, or rubbah, every inch of hose, and
every man _and_ Irishman on these premises." Taylor had turned an
embarrassed brick red. "Mr. Keith," went on the dark youth, explanatorily,
"was just sayin' that though he had inspected carefully many fire
equipments, per'fessional and amateur, he had nevah feasted his eyes
on so complete an outfit as that of our Monumentals."

Keith had not said all this, but possibly he had meant it. The brick-red,
stocky little man was so plainly embarrassed and anxious to depart that
Keith racked his brains for something to say. All he could remember was the
manufacturer's nameplate on the machine downstairs.

"I see you have selected the Hunaman engine, sir," said he. The little
man's eye brightened.

"It may be, sir, that you favour the piano-box type--of the sort made by
Smith or Van Ness?" he inquired politely.

"It is a point on which my opinion is still-suspended," replied Keith with
great gravity.

The little man moved nearer, and his shyness fell from him.

"Oh, but really there is no choice, none whatever!" he cried. "I'm sure,
sir, I can convince you in five minutes. I assure you we have gone into the
subject thoroughly--this Hunaman cost us over five thousand dollars; and
you may be certain we went very thoroughly into the matter before making
the investment----"

He went on talking in his self-effacing, deprecatory, but very earnest
fashion. The other men in the group, Keith felt, were watching with covert
amusement. Occasionally, he thought to catch half-concealed grins at his
predicament. In less than the five minutes the claims of the piano box were
utterly demolished. Followed a dissertation on methods of fighting fire;
and then a history of the Monumental Company--its members, its officers,
and its proud record. "And our bell--did you know that?--is the bell used
by the Vigilantes--" He broke off suddenly in confusion, his embarrassment
descending on him again. A moment later he sidled away.

"But I found him very interesting!" protested Keith, in answer to implied
apologies.

"Bert is invaluable here; but he's a lunatic on fire apparatus. We couldn't
get along without him, but it's sometimes mighty difficult to get on _with_
him," said some one.

Keith was making a good impression without consciously trying to do so. His
high spirits of youth and enthusiasm were in his favour; and as yet he had
no interests to come into conflict with those of any one present. More
drinks were ordered and fresh cigars lighted. From Sherwood they now
learned that Keith had but just landed, and intended to settle as a
permanent resident. As one man they uprose.

"And yo' wastin' of yo' time indoors!" mourned the dark Southerner. "And so
much to see!"

Enthusiastically they surrounded him and led him forth. Only a very old,
very small, very decadent village is devoid of what is modernly called the
"booster" spirit. In those early days of slow transportation and isolated
communities, local patriotism was much stronger than it is now. And
something about the air's wine of the Pacific slope has always, and
probably will always, make of every man an earnest proselyte for whatever
patch of soil he calls home. But add to these general considerations the
indubitable facts of harbour, hill, health, opportunity, activity, and a
genuine history, if of only three years, one can no longer marvel that
every man, each in his own way, saw visions.

In the course of the next few hours Keith got confused and mixed
impressions of many things. The fortresslike warehouses; the plank roads;
the new Jenny Lind Theatre; the steam paddies eating steadily into the sand
hills at the edge of town; the Dramatic Museum; houses perched on the
crumbling edges of hills; houses sunk far below the level of new streets,
with tin cans and ducks floating around them; new office buildings; places
where new office buildings were going to be or merely ought to be; land
that in five years was going to be worth fabulous sums; unlikely looking
spots where historic things had stood or had happened--all these were
pointed out to him. He was called upon to exercise the eye of faith; to
reconstruct; to eliminate the unfinished, the mean, the sordid; to overlook
the inadequate; to build the city as it was sure to be; and to concern
himself with that and that only. He admired Mount Tamalpais over the way.
He was taken up a high hill--a laborious journey--to gaze on the spot where
he would have been able to see Mount Diabolo, if only Mount Diabolo had
been visible. And every few blocks he was halted and made to shake hands
with some one who was always immediately characterized to him impressively,
under the breath--"Colonel Baker, sir, one of the most divinely endowed men
with the gift of eloquence, sir"; "Mr. Rowlee, sir, editor of one of our
leading journals"; "Judge Caldwell, sir at present one of the ornaments of
our bench"; "Mr. Ben Sansome, sir, a leadin' young man in our young but
vigorous social life"; and so on.

These introductions safely and ceremoniously accomplished, each newcomer
insisted on leading the way to the nearest bar.

"I insist, sir. It is just the hour for my afternoon toddy."

After some murmuring of expostulation, the invitation was invariably
accepted.

There was always a barroom immediately adjacent. Keith was struck by the
number and splendour of these places. Although San Francisco was only three
years removed from the tent stage, and although the freightage from the
centres of civilization was appalling, there was no lack of luxury.
Mahogany bars with brass rails, huge mirrors with gilt frames, pyramids of
delicate crystal, rich hangings, oil paintings of doubtful merit but
indisputable interest, heavy chandeliers of prism glasses, most elaborate
free lunches, and white-clad barkeepers--such matters were common to all.
In addition, certain of the more pretentious boasted special attractions.
Thus, one place supported its ceiling on crystal pillars; another--and this
was crowded--had dashing young women to serve the drinks, though the mixing
was done by men; a third offered one of the new large musical boxes capable
of playing several very noisy tunes; a fourth had imported a marvellous
piece of mechanism: a piece of machinery run by clockwork, exhibiting the
sea in motion, a ship tossing on its bosom; on shore, a water mill in
action, a train of cars passing over a bridge, a deer chase with hounds,
huntsmen, and game, all in pursuit or flight, and the like. The barkeepers
were marvels of dexterity and of especial knowledge. At command they would
deftly and skilfully mix a great variety of drinks--cocktails, sangarees,
juleps, bounces, swizzles, and many others. In mixing these drinks it was
their especial pride to pass them at arm's length from one tall glass to
another, the fluid describing a long curve through the air, but spilling
never a drop.

In these places Keith pledged in turn each of his new acquaintances, and
was pledged by them. Never, he thought, had he met so jolly, so
interesting, so experienced a lot of men. They had not only lived history,
they had made it. They were so full of high spirits and the spirit of play.
His heart warmed to them mightily; and over and over he told himself that
he had made no mistake in his long voyage to new fields of endeavour. On
the other hand, he, too, made a good impression. Naturally the numerous
drinks had something to do with this mutual esteem; but also it was a fact
that his boyish, laughing, half-reckless spirit had much in common with the
spirit of the times. Quite accidentally he discovered that the tall, dark
Southern youth was Calhoun Bennett. This then seemed to him a remarkable
coincidence.

"Why, I have a letter of introduction to you!" he said.

Again and again he recurred to this point, insisting on telling everybody
how extraordinary the situation was.

"Here I've been talking to him for three hours," he exclaimed, "and never
knew who he was, and all the time I had a letter of introduction to him!"

This and a warm irresponsible glow of comradeship were the sole indications
of the drinks he had had. Keith possessed a strong head. Some of the others
were not so fortunate. Little Rowlee was frankly verging on drunkenness.

The afternoon wind was beginning to die, and the wisps of high fog that
had, since two o'clock, been flying before it, now paused and forgathered
to veil the sky. Dusk was falling.

"Look here," suggested Rowlee suddenly; "let's go to Allen's Branch and
have a good dinner, and then drift around to Belle's place and see if
there's any excitement to be had thereabouts."

"Belle--our local Aspasia, sah," breathed a very elaborate, pompous,
elderly Southerner, who had been introduced as Major Marmaduke Miles.

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